The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love (38 page)

He was still on earth. Still in the human world.

At last he opened his eyes and saw the woman he loved sobbing beside him. He tried to speak, but no words would come out. He managed to lift his hand and settle it on her thigh. Roxanne gasped and turned her wet, tearstained face to him.

She threw her arms around him, and her hot tears splashed against his throat. She kissed him, crying all
the while. Santo didn’t care. He didn’t understand what had happened. He only knew that he was here. With her.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, carefully easing up to sit. The floor beneath him was wet and filled with blood and ash. His chest ached and he had a fuzzy, painful memory of being shot, of feeling the life drain out of him.

“I’m not hurt,” Roxanne said. “Well, a little but . . . I’ll live.”

She laughed and cried at the same time. Santo felt his lips curl into a smile. “Yeah. Me, too, I guess.”

He looked around at the carnage of the dining room. The bodies that had been used and abused by the scavengers lay in pools of blood throughout the room. Dead, already stiffening. He looked closer. But human. The rash that had marred their faces had gone with the wretched occupants.

Yet he was still here. It made no sense.

“Roxanne, how am I alive? What did you do?”

“I held on. We’ve waited for each other forever. I wasn’t about to let you go now. I promised you I wouldn’t leave you. Remember?”

Tears burned his eyes as he pressed his mouth to her palm. “I remember,” he said.

“I saw the Beyond, Santo. I felt it calling me. But I chose you. My
soul
chose you.”

The beauty of her words settled deep inside what
could only be
his
soul. A soul he shouldn’t have. A soul he could no longer deny. Humbled by what he saw in Roxanne’s eyes when she looked at him, Santo knew that he was no longer
other
 . . . reaper . . . imposter. He’d become one with his human form. One with the heart that drove this human race.

And he was glad of it.

Proud of it.

In
love
with it, as he was in love with this woman who’d believed in him and fought to save him.

He looked at the charred bodies of Roxanne’s brother and the scavenger who’d started it all. April sat beside Reece, weeping silently.

Santo still didn’t understand. The punishing wind had taken all the demons with it. It should have taken him, too, when it swept up everything else that didn’t belong.

But it had left both Santo and April. Why?

As if hearing his question, April turned her tearstained face his way. “It found us human,” she said.

She pulled back her hair, showing him her face where the rash had blistered her skin just hours before. Now the rash was gone, the skin clear and unblemished. “The winds tested us and judged us to be human.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Can you believe it?”

Amazed, Santo looked at Roxanne and she threw her arms around him. “We were meant to be together, Santo. And now nothing can ever drive us apart.”

From the first time he’d touched her soul, he’d fallen in love. He’d thought she’d cheated him, when all along he’d been praying she would save him. And now she had. She’d given him more than a second chance. She’d given him life.

He cupped her face in his hands. “I love you, Roxanne.”

She smiled at him, her eyes so beautiful he would gladly stare into them every day of his gifted life.

As he took her in his arms, he murmured, “I never thought I’d want to grow old. But Roxanne, with you anything is possible.”

She laughed and cried as she declared her love and each word from her soft lips made that nebulous part of him stronger. His
soul.

“I feel the same way, Santo. But let’s see if we can take things a little slower in the future. Less running and bleeding this time.”

He smiled. “And more making love.”

She wiped her tears and kissed him. “Yes. A lifetime of making love.”

Read on for a sneak peek of Erin Quinn’s next novel of the Beyond

T
HE
T
HREE
F
ATES OF
R
YAN
L
OVE

Coming from Pocket Books in 2014!

R
yan Love stared at the wide-open door to his apartment with something that felt a lot like dread. He’d locked it before going on his nightly run, no doubt about it. He lived too close to Arizona State University to be careless. So why did it stand gaping now?

He scowled, wincing as it pulled the tender skin around his black eye, and took a step closer. At his feet, his German shepherd cocked her head, watchful but not whining or agitated. A small reassurance. She’d know before he did if someone was inside, attempting to rob him or lying in wait.

He paused on the threshold of his own home, unsure. It wasn’t like him, this hesitancy. At six-two and two-twenty, Ryan didn’t scare easily. But in the last few weeks, he’d had his beliefs scrambled in too many ways not to be rattled now.

Add to that, yesterday had started with the lights going on and off relentlessly for fifteen minutes. No loose bulbs, no blown fuses. Just flickering lights that followed him
from bedroom to kitchen to bathroom and back. Then last night he’d been downstairs closing up Love’s—the pub he owned with his brother and sisters—when he’d heard footsteps racing overhead. He’d charged up to his apartment only to find his dog, Adrian, sitting all alone inside with her ears pinned and her tail tucked. No sign of a break-in. Nothing missing.

This morning, his cell phone started ringing—not his ringtone—and when he answered, no one was there. Empty text messages sent by no one came next. They continued even after he’d taken out the battery.

And tonight his front door stood open.

Quietly, Ryan pushed the door back all the way, dropping Adrian’s leash as he fisted his hands, ready.

The door swung open soundlessly, revealing the spacious apartment that sat above Love’s. He hadn’t closed the shutters before his run and now the floor-to-ceiling windows gave an unequaled view of sleeping Mill Avenue and a spangled sky. Beside him, Adrian paused and sniffed the air.

Ryan’s gaze moved over the room, taking in the hulking couch and the sixty-inch HD TV in front of it. Off to the side sat a leather chair and his guitar, propped upright on a stand. A seven-foot Japanese screen divided his bedroom from the rest of the room.

With the big windows, there always seemed to be movement in the loft. Shadows shifting, light dancing on the walls, dust particles floating in bright sun- or moonlight. But tonight, everything seemed . . . rigid. Frozen.
Off.

He couldn’t explain it. And he didn’t like it. As he scanned the stillness, Adrian’s ears swiveled vigilantly. She felt it, too.

A loud creak turned his head. In the corner his
punching bag began to sway. Too thick and too heavy to be manipulated by the breeze from the open door, it rocked back and forth for no obvious reason. Ryan searched for the cause while he slowly bent down and unhooked Adrian’s dragging leash. The dog gave him a perplexed look and stayed by his side.

“Chicken,” he breathed.

Adrian whined, unamused.

The stillness began to grate on his nerves as his awareness of that swinging bag in the corner grew. He strode across the room and caught the bag in midrotation, fighting its momentum until it stopped. For one disturbing moment there was calm, and then a woman’s scream shattered the quiet.

Without stopping to think, Ryan charged out the door, taking the stairs two at a time. Adrian raced ahead of him, her bark sharp and fierce, and Ryan nearly tripped over the excited dog as he jumped to the landing, burst through the door to a small parking lot out back, and paused, searching for the source of that terrified shriek.

Overhead lights illuminated the blacktop and the few cars still parked there. Not even a wind whispered across the asphalt or shivered through the hushed night. Wary, Ryan stepped out, checking to make sure he had his keys before he let the door slam behind him.

He found the woman huddled in the corner between the cinder-block barrier that housed the dumpsters and the south wall of Love’s. She had her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them, head down. Long, dark hair gleamed under the bright streetlights, spilling over her shoulders and hiding her face. He frowned. Her skin had an alabaster sheen—and there was a lot of it. She was naked.

Signaling for Adrian to sit, Ryan approached the woman cautiously.

“Hey,” he said in a soft voice, hunkering down beside her. “Are you okay?”

She looked up and his labored breath skittered to a halt. She had wide, clear eyes as blue as a desert sky. Even in the dark the color was vivid and they shimmered with something he couldn’t begin to define. Long lashes the same rich sable as her hair framed them and accented their luminescent glow. They tilted at the corners, catlike. The dark wings of her brows drew the focus to the delicate shape of her face, the smooth line of her nose, the dusting of freckles that covered it. Her lips were full, her mouth wide. He didn’t see any bruises or blood, but her scream still echoed in his mind and her nudity set off alarms he didn’t even want to think about.

Before he could repeat his question, she whispered, “Ryan?”

The sound of her voice stood the hairs on his neck on end as a chill that had nothing to do with the cool night crept disquieting fingertips down his spine. He’d never seen this woman before, or at least he didn’t think so. So how did she know his name?

He nodded and she sighed, a tiny smile catching the corners of her mouth. As he watched, a shiver went through her body and goose bumps rose on her arms. Quickly, he reached over his head, wincing as strained muscles protested, and pulled off his shirt.

“Here, put this on,” he said, handing it to her.

She fingered the soft fabric and pressed it to her face, smelling it. The action was so surprising that at first all he could think to do was mumble, “Sorry, it’s all I have,” while hot embarrassment flooded his face.

“It has your scent,” she said, that mystifying smile still on her lips.

There was something so intimate in the comment that it made him swallow hard and look away as she tugged the shirt on. The shoulders dropped to her elbows and the long sleeves hid her hands.

Her gaze never left his face, lingering on the cut over his nose, the puffy skin of his black eye, and his swollen jaw. He could almost feel the quicksilver stare on his bare chest and battered ribs. He must look like a big ugly thug to her.

He realized, suddenly, that there
was
something familiar about her, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. He didn’t think they’d ever met—he knew himself enough to know he’d have remembered her. Still . . .

He shook his head. It didn’t matter. Something had happened to this woman and helping her was his first priority.

“Are you hurt?” he asked as he scanned the deserted parking lot for signs of trouble. Adrian’s watchful silence told him that there was no one else here, but he was too shaken by the woman’s appearance, her vulnerable position, to take chances. He hadn’t seen any wounds, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t injured.

She hadn’t answered him yet. He returned his attention to her face and gently asked again, “Are you hurt?”

She blinked at him, seeming to ponder the question. He could almost see her taking inventory. Her toes wiggled, her knees contracted slightly, then her spine stiffened and her hands flexed around her legs.

“Not permanently,” she told him in a calm voice.

Not sure exactly what that meant, what
un
permanent things might ail her, he tried again.

“Did someone attack you?’

“No,” she said with a definitive shake of her head.

“Why did you scream?”

“I didn’t expect it to be painful.”

Frustrated by her cryptic response, he said, “You didn’t expect
what
to be painful?”

She shrugged. “Coming here.”

Thoroughly confused, he opened his mouth to ask what had happened to her that would cause her to be in this parking lot, naked, but Adrian interrupted with a small questioning sound and the woman peered around Ryan’s shoulders to look at the dog. Her eyes widened with a flash of what he’d swear was wonder and delight before she masked it.

Uneasy, he said, “Who are you?”

“Sibelle,” she replied matter-of-factly, still watching Adrian.

He glanced back to see his dog down on her belly, inching closer in the most unthreatening manner a ninety-five pound German shepherd could manage.

Eyes narrowed, he turned back to the woman. “Where are your clothes, Sybil?” he asked.

She shook her head, pulling her gaze from Adrian to look him in the eye. “S’
belle,
” she corrected. “Not Sybil.”

“S’belle,” he pronounced carefully. “Why are you naked?”

A hot flush turned her skin pink a second before she lied. “I don’t remember.”

She shifted with agitation and Adrian made a sound low in her throat. Not aggressive. Consoling. The dog had managed to army-crawl close enough to put her nose on the woman’s foot. Sibelle’s lips parted as she settled
her fingers on Adrian’s silky black ear. Adrian squirmed closer and laid her big fluffy head on Sibelle’s lap.

“Okay,” Ryan murmured, way out of his depth. “I need to call the police.”

“No,” she said, her voice suddenly urgent. “No police. What time is it?”

“I don’t know. One? Two in the morning?”

Her eyes rounded and she scrambled to get her feet under her. “So late already? We need to leave here. Now, Ryan.”

She stood, long legs protruding from his big shirt. Her hair brushed her shoulders and impatiently she swiped it back as she eyed the shadows anxiously.