Reid

I rolled my big Jeep into the three-bay garage, punching the small button on the visor to close the automatic door behind me. The glare of my headlights was enough to confirm that everything was still in the same pristine condition in which I’d left it six long months earlier.

For a few brief moments, I considered leaving the vehicle running and ending it. All I had to do was lay my head back and close my eyes, let the smooth classic rock carry me back to a time when I was young and idealistic. It would be so simple. I would fall asleep and that would be it. Carbon monoxide poisoning was supposed to be relatively painless, and God knew I’d already had more than my fair share of pain.

As if to punctuate that happy thought, a stabbing pang shot from my right calf to my hip, a timely reminder of the bullets that had almost taken my leg and my life. Would have, if it weren’t for the accelerated healing capabilities of my shifter nature. It was one of the things that made my kind such good soldiers in the fight for humanity—we were hard to kill.

We were highly skilled, too. Faster, stronger, equipped with superior instincts and senses. Yet sometimes, despite the best-laid plans, shit went sideways. Call it fate, call it bad luck or Murphy’s Law, whatever. In the end, it didn’t matter. That op was just one of a hundred memories I wished I didn’t have. Short of a well-placed bullet to the brain, I couldn’t unsee the shit I’d seen. Couldn’t unhear the screams that echoed long after they had faded away.

That was my life, though. Me and my team, we dealt with the worst of the worst. Evil didn’t just exist in the world, it thrived, and we’d been born with gifts that made us more able to deal with it than most. But hell, having special abilities didn’t make it easy.

At almost thirty-three, I was still considered young enough for most things, but the last ten had been hard. Mentally and physically, I was in a bad place.

Nothing new, my wolf contributed.

Sadly, he was right.

If there was one good thing about my situation, it was that I was on my own. No commitments. No family, friends, or people who gave a shit beyond what I could do for them.

That’s what my team was—the rogues, the loners, the ones who took the assignments guys with attachments wouldn’t touch.

Hey, somebody had to do it. Might as well be me. No one would be crying over my casket when I finally bit it, and that was exactly how I wanted it.

I lived hard, I would die hard, and I would do it alone.

Maybe I’d get that tattooed on my ribs while I was on forced medical leave.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror, hardly recognizing the face that stared back. My dark hair had grown too long, now skimming below my collar. My green eyes were cold and hard, just like the emeralds they had been compared to by those with far more romantic notions than me. The angles of my face were sharp and unyielding, with no hint of mercy to be found.

Was that what I had become? A cold, hard harbinger of death?

I looked away quickly, already knowing the harsh truth. Just because I worked for the “good guys”, it didn’t change what I was.

Reaper. That was my code name. I was a killer, and a damn good one at that.

Despite the allure of happily never after, I turned off the engine and heard ... nothing. Here, in the far reaches of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, things were quiet. That was one of the reasons I bought the place. It was a quiet retreat where I could go to unwind between missions and not have to worry about getting shot in my sleep. A place where I could free my wolf and run across miles of state game lands without fear of being seen. Where I could collect the pieces that had been ripped apart and try to put myself back together before heading out again.

A few more pieces went missing each time, and one of these days, there just wouldn’t be enough left to bother.

Just to be clear, the town wasn’t really called Nowhere. It was Nowaskannock, which amounted to pretty much the same thing as far as I was concerned. Named centuries ago after some Native American who did something noteworthy enough to have his name etched forever into present day Google maps, it sat in a pristine valley, surrounded on all sides by forested mountains. The town was set apart from and, for all intents and purposes, forgotten by the rest of the world. Nowhere wasn’t quite off-grid, but it was damn close.

Of course, the fact that it was three a.m. on a Wednesday in the middle of January might have had something to do with the lack of local activity. Any man with half a brain was tucked in his bed, under layers of down comforters, catching a few Zs. If he was really lucky, he had someone warm and soft to burrow into, as well.

I shook my head at the wayward thought. It had been a long time since I’d felt genuine pleasure in a woman’s arms. Physical needs were something entirely different, and that was what sex had become for me. I put it right up there with eating and occasional sleep. It was about as easy to satisfy, too.

At the risk of sounding full of myself, women found me attractive. You could call it animal magnetism if you wanted, but the bottom line was that my shifter DNA made me bigger, stronger, and better than human males. Some primal female instinct recognized me as a superior choice as a mate.

Those instincts were way, way off.

No matter what their ovaries told them, I would not be a good mate. Most women figured that out quickly enough. Everything about me set their other instincts—the ones more suited to survival—on alert. I was a predator, and they sensed that.

There were some thrill-seekers out there who were looking for a quick adventure into the dark and taboo. When I was younger, I took advantage of that, but now they did nothing for me. As far as I was concerned, they could find their thrills elsewhere.

A vision of golden eyes—no, liquid amber was more like it—flashed in my head. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing them away. Those eyes had been haunting my dreams and, more recently, my waking moments. Liquid gold, with currents of dark brown and deep red coursing through them. They were beautiful, living eyes. Eyes that saw deep into my soul, damning and redeeming at the same time. I had never seen anything like them, human nor shifter.

I had no idea what they were supposed to mean, if anything. Maybe I really was losing it. A few weeks off the grid would do me good, allow me to get my shit together before I got myself or someone else killed.

Having had enough introspection for one night, I grabbed my duffel from the back seat and eased out of the Jeep to begin the rather lengthy task of disabling the alarm system so I could get some much-needed sleep. I might have gone a little overboard on the whole security thing. After all, the last “crime” committed around here was when Mr. X borrowed Mr. Y’s hedge trimmers and conveniently forgot to return them. Regardless, I didn’t do anything by halves, and that was the kind of thing that happened when I had too much free time on my hands. I wasn’t exactly the type to sit around and do nothing.

Several minutes later, the last of the codes had been entered and the access panel flashed green.

Just as I was about to enter the house, a strange noise broke the silence. It was a low, soft hum that grew increasingly louder. I recognized the sound. I just couldn’t believe I was hearing it at—I looked at my watch—0320 hours.

I moved to the far side of the garage where two windows looked out onto the adjoining property, the home of a sweet older lady who liked to bake me cookies and pay me with fresh-squeezed lemonade in the summer when I did some small task for her.

Mrs. Grace Quirke was one of the few people who didn’t turn away from me, who could face me head-on with a warm smile and a kind word. The funny thing was, she was barely five-foot-tall with snow white hair, sparkling blue Irish eyes, and a sharp mind. I knew grown men twice her size and three times her weight who didn’t have the balls that little old woman had.

There was no way that sound should be coming from her place. Unless ...

It had been several months since I’d last been here. Maybe she didn’t even live there anymore. Last time I’d talked to her, she had mentioned how one of her grandsons had been bugging her to move down to Florida with him. At that point, she had been adamantly against it. Nowhere was her home, she had said, and she would stay for as long as she possibly could, cold weather and arthritis be damned. I could respect that.

Out of habit, I’d kept the lights in the garage off. I had excellent night vision, so I was able to observe without fear of being seen.

Outside, it was a cold, clear night. The nearly full moon reflected off the thick blanket of snow covering everything, making it easy to see. The source of the noise—a small, black moving shadow—pulled up to Mrs. Quirke’s driveway, and then the sound suddenly ceased.

Whoever it was, they were ballsy; I’d give them that. Last time I’d checked, the temp was running somewhere around five degrees Fahrenheit.

Given the generous curves and smooth, graceful movements, the rider was definitely female. My eyes followed as she swung off the bike gracefully then coasted the sleek, black crotch rocket up the driveway toward the large outbuilding at the back of the property, keeping to the shadows as the motion-detector spotlights I had installed for my neighbor last summer kicked in.

She knew how to stay out of sight. If not for my preternatural vision, I wouldn’t have been able to glimpse her amidst the shadows as she walked the now-silent bike down the driveway.

With a stealth crafted from years of covert ops, I slipped quietly out of the back of the garage, skimming along the boundary line that separated the properties, barely feeling the cold. I followed the figure’s movement toward the old barn in the back that Jack Quirke, Mrs. Quirke’s now-deceased husband, had converted to a mechanic’s shop many years ago.

An unnatural tingle skittered up and down my spine as I lifted my nose and sniffed. Young. Female. And, as far as I could tell, human.

She moved in near silence, producing a key and rolling the bike inside the old shop. A few minutes later, the lights went on in the apartment that sat on the second floor.

Had Mrs. Quirke taken on a boarder? Was she having financial difficulties? Or maybe she had offered the apartment to someone who could help her around the property? At that point, I was too damn tired to put much thought into it.

Satisfied there was no immediate danger, I returned to my place. Tomorrow, I would pay a friendly visit to my elderly neighbor and get some answers.