The Reapers (The Hunted Series Book 1) Read online

  “You are still as direct as ever.” She nodded and leaned in closer and whispered, “That is why you were always my favorite.” Yeva winked before leaning away.

  Kain didn’t respond. If he had to wait all night for an answer, he would, but he was through with the useless small talk everyone wanted to have.

  “All right then, I will get to the point. You were the first Watcher. During The Dissension, you saw how the reapers went mad with power and slaughtered your brethren. Within hours, most of my hunters had died. You made the ultimate sacrifice and gave your life to save them.”

  Kain looked skeptical. “It sounds like it didn’t even last a day.”

  “It was not great because of the length, Kain. It was great because of the destruction it caused.”

  “That doesn’t explain how I’m alive now.”

  “Silas took our powers, stealing the eternal life I’d gifted upon my watchers. You gave your powers as you fell, granting all of my hunters a long mortal life. It was only through your sacrifice that any of them were able to survive and wait for this moment. I could not bear to lose you. I transferred some of my powers to you, bestowing the gift of rebirth onto your life force. My weakened state allowed Silas to place me in a deep sleep, but it was worth it to have you to live once more. He intended for me never to be found. However, he did not know about you.” Tilting her head, she placed a hand on his cheek.

  “So you waited for me because you, what? Missed me?” This feud between hunters and reapers was getting weirder by the minute.

  “We have all been waiting for you,” she said, dropping her hand from his face. “When you were reborn, so was your power. It needed time to strengthen and grow. The others could feel it the day you were reborn. Your power was the catalyst in breaking the spell Silas held over me. They felt the pull to where I had been held captive. The surviving hunters found each other and started on their journey to find and wake me. A few of them even took turns watching over you. Any time the reapers got close to finding you, they would divert their attention elsewhere, drawing them far away from you. Many lost their life in the process.” Her voice took on a sharp edge with her last sentence.

  A boot scraped against the rocks behind him. He turned to see his father. “Holter,” he said, “what are you doing here?”

  “Kain.” Holter nodded in greeting and stood against the wall near him.

  “I have called all my hunters to me,” Yeva said proudly.

  Several people filed into the entrance and lined up against the walls. Yeva looked around. “There are so few of you.” Her eyes dropped. “There had once been thousands, and now only eighteen are left. I have gathered them here for you, Kain. Your powers are too weak for you to use them against the reapers and win. You have not had the lifetime you need to strengthen them; we will enhance them now.” Yeva held out her hand to Kain, motioning him to step closer. “Give me your hand.”

  Kain did as she instructed, sending a questioning glance to Holter, who gave him a slight nod. Kain turned back to Yeva. She drew symbols on his palm. Her hand hovered over his as she whispered in an ancient language. Kain couldn’t make out the words. They were musical and nothing like he’d ever heard before.

  Soft chanting filled the cove from the hunters. A heat rose from the markings. The symbols glowed—dim at first, then growing brighter and brighter until he was forced to avert his eyes from the blinding light. He could feel the intensity of the heat, but it didn’t burn. Yeva pulled her hand away. The effects cleared until all that remained were the red lines of the drawings.

  The heat drew to the center of his hand. He could feel it gathering until it spread out and flowed through his veins. His whole body felt engulfed in flames. He waited for the pain to come, but it never did.

  The intense heat radiated through his body, comforting him. He relaxed and let it course its way through him. Slowly, it withdrew, recoiling where it began, and faded out. The absence of power left him lightheaded.

  “Holter will see to your training.” Yeva gave a catlike grin of satisfaction over her work.

  “What am I supposed to do with this power?” Kain asked. The marks on his hand faded.

  “You are to stop the reapers, bring down their numbers,” Yeva clenched her fist, “and destroy Silas.” She jerked her head, dismissing the others, leaving Kain and Holter alone with her.

  “There have been hunters working around the clock to fix the imbalance the reapers have caused while I’ve been asleep. But it is not enough. Only you can stop Silas and his little pet.” She pleaded, her eyes misty from unshed tears.

  Kain furrowed his brows. “His pet?” His stomach dropped. He didn’t want to hear the answer to this question, but his gut told him he already knew the answer.

  “Nivian. She is dangerous. You would not know it to look at her, but she is the strongest reaper ever to exist.” Yeva’s mouth turned up into a sneer. “The Reapers are careless. Their arrogance has grown too great—they are a threat to us, and all who live in the mortal dimension. If we let them continue as they have been, the imbalance will grow to be more than it can handle. The dimensions will collide and destroy everything.”

  “How am I supposed to stop them?” he asked, as he raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “You will not be able to get rid of them as readily as the others you have before. You must use your power to slow them down, take their powers and use it against them. You must destroy their strongest first. Then the others will fall before you with ease.”

  “I don’t think Nivian is a—” Kain started, stopping short when Yeva’s face twisted with anger.

  “You do not think she is a what? A threat?” Yeva scoffed. “She is the biggest threat there is to you and this world!”

  “I trust her.” Kain clenched his fist. Yeva might be powerful, and they might owe their lives to her, but she was wrong about Nivian. Nivian had proven herself to him several times. She gave him a chance to fight back. She gave him time, and that was something she risked on her own despite Silas.

  “This is just a game she is playing. You are nothing more than an insignificant speck of dirt to her. Reapers care only for themselves—they are incapable of feeling.” Yeva’s green eyes seemed to spark with flecks of red. The effect vanished before he could process it.

  “She could have ended my life several times now, and she chose not to!” Kain shouted back. His voice echoed in the small cove. Holter’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Gritting his teeth, Kain continued in a quieter, calmer voice, “She risked her life to give me time to train. I. Trust. Her.”

  Yeva regarded him for a moment before nodding. “She saved you? This is good news. It seems as though not all of her heart lies with them. That will make it easier to take her out of the equation.”

  “I will go after Silas, but I won’t destroy her.”

  Yeva glared, rage flashing in her eyes for a brief moment. “Do you have no one you care about? No one you would save or risk your life for?” Her voice was soft and full of concern.

  “Of course I do,” he said, thinking of his mom, the one person he was closest to. Judging from the look on Holter’s face, he was also thinking of her. How could he save his mother and all the other people he cared about and also save Nivian? He hadn’t known her for more than a few days, but he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

  “If you do not take care of Nivian as well as Silas, it will all be for nothing. Everything will end. The people you love will cease to exist. We must all make sacrifices for the greater good.” Yeva narrowed her eyes, driving her point home. “You knew that once.”

  Kain didn’t know if he could trust Yeva, or if he could trust any of the information he'd learned lately. However, he did know without a doubt he could trust Nivian, even with her being his enemy. She had more than a few chances to reap him, and she still waited.

  They would end up fighting each other no matter how hard they tried to avoid it. Their hands were being forced. It felt as though an im
portant piece of the puzzle was missing, Kain just didn’t know if he or if Nivian was missing the information. Whatever it was, he knew it was something big.

  Twenty-Two

  Nivian

  Nivian propped a hip up on the edge of Caspian’s desk while she waited for him. Her fingertips lightly traced the filigree carved into the side. She’d arrived for their meeting early, eager to know what Caspian wanted to talk with her about that required him to request her presence between marks. She chewed on her bottom lip, already swollen from her nervous habit. Whatever he wanted, she knew it wasn’t good.

  She’d been trying to follow Kain, but had lost him halfway through his flight. At first it was curiosity. She just wanted to see where he would go, but an opportunity came when the blonde approached him in the park and mentioned she would be taking him to Yeva. As far as Nivian knew, no reaper had been able to track this Yeva down yet. This was her chance to do a little reconnaissance for Silas.

  The annoyingly long car ride to the airport wasn’t too terrible. Nivian had enjoyed sitting on the roof of the car, letting the wind whip through her hair. When they had boarded the plane, she sat on the back of the jet, leaning against the tail as they flew. Closing her eyes, she had let the warmth of the sun wash over her as the rushing wind lulled her—only to wake with a start when she fell. The plane was nowhere in sight. Quickly throwing her hood over her head, she appeared back in the city on the top of her apartment building. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Large metal objects don’t just vanish into thin air. Where had Kain gone, and was he even still alive?

  She walked through the roof access and down to her tiny studio. When she walked in, she found the note he'd slipped under the door. Caspian wanted to see her in his office. A glance at the clock told her she still had a few hours until he wanted to meet. She wandered about her apartment and shifted things around, trying to keep busy, but soon gave up and went to his office an hour early to wait. She stared at the clock on his desk, watching the pendulum swing. He would be here soon. She was crawling out of her skin in anticipation. Pushing away from the desk, she paced the room.

  It seemed like she had been in there forever when the door opened and Caspian walked though. She froze in place.

  “Have you been waiting long?” he asked.

  “Not too long.” She looked down. “I found the note and waited a while before coming here.”

  Caspian chuckled. “I asked you here to update you on the situation at hand.”

  “With the hunters,” she stated.

  He nodded and she let him lead her to the chair in front of the desk.

  “The balance of the realms is shifting faster than ever. There are small pockets where there is no longer a barrier forming throughout this world. They are not big enough to cause irreparable damage yet, but if it continues at this rate, then it won’t be much longer until it starts affecting the humans. The veil will crumble if we do not take action quickly. As of yet, it is only affecting us, drawing the power of this realm out and making our abilities grow weaker.”

  Nivian glanced at him, her lips parting in alarm. “How is this happening? Why is it speeding up?”

  “Reapers are disappearing. The hunters are actively hunting us down. We do not know how they are able to anticipate where we will be. It had always been by luck in the past, but now it seems they have gained a way to locate us.”

  Nivian shook her head. Panic sucked the air out of her lungs. This was bad. Time was running out. She’d have to seek out Kain whether or not he was ready—whether or not she was ready.

  “You know what this means, Nivi,” Caspian said, placing a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “I don’t know what to do, Caspian.” She took a slow, shaky breath and looked up at him. “Reapers aren’t fighters. We end life for humans once it is their time. I don’t know how Silas expects me to win when I don’t know how to fight.”

  “I will show you how to use your powers in order to fight the hunters.” Caspian’s face clouded over.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Caspian?”

  “I am sorry I have not taken the time to train you before now. It was an oversight I regret deeply. Please forgive me.” He closed his eyes tightly.

  “There is nothing to forgive.”

  “Thank you. Your forgiveness means a lot to me. I just hope I have not doomed you to fail.”

  “It will be okay. It has to be.” If this is as serious as Silas claims, then why had he taken the risk of not being ready and leaving me unprepared?

  “We will meet at the edge of the forests of Ari in one hour to begin your training. I have one last thing I must take care of first.”

  Nivian nodded before standing and walking out the door.

  Caspian

  Caspian waited for the door to close behind her. His fists clenched tightly at his sides. He stalked out of his office and down to Silas’s throne room. Pausing outside the doors, he took a deep calming breath before throwing the doors wide.

  “Silas!” he yelled.

  Silas stepped out from behind the shadows. “Caspian, to what do I owe the pleasure of this outburst?” The look on his face made it clear he knew.

  “You are taking unnecessary chances with Nivian.”

  “Is that so?” Silas snapped, his eyes narrowed.

  “You didn’t prepare her for the powers you gave her. If you had been wrong about her strength, it would have destroyed her!”

  Silas nodded once. “Yes, it would have.” He said matter-of-factly.

  “You have not shown her how to use her new powers yet. Why bother giving them to her? They are worthless if she does not know how to use them.”

  “It is up to her to sink or swim.” He smirked. “And we both know how well she can swim.”

  Caspian stopped in his tracks, his mouth dropped open. “You are sending her on a suicide mission. Are you trying to destroy her?” he demanded, his anger coming back in full force. “You would risk the end of everything to have her slain by the hunter?”

  “I believe I will be able to stop it from happening. She now has the power to stay alive long enough for me to carry out my plan.”

  Caspian clenched his fists, furious at the nonchalance of the reaper before him. “I will not let her die.” He ground out. Turning abruptly, he stalked out of the room and headed to the forest where Nivian waited.

  They stood at the edge of the forest. Nivian nervously shuffled her feet. She had no idea what to expect of her new strengths. She had assumed it was the same as her ability to cut the life threads of humans, only strong enough to cut a hunter’s life force off early. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be a need to train. This new, unknown power made her anxious.

  “First,” Caspian started with none of the usual affection present in his voice. He held himself with a fierce determination. “You must focus. Close your eyes and concentrate. Feel the power as it flows through you.”

  Nivian shuddered. She would learn to use her power efficiently. She took a deep breath and did as he instructed.

  Tingles rushed over her skin, turning into a chill that ran through her veins, growing in intensity. Focusing on the feeling, she called it to her. The sensation threatened to cut off her air supply. With a sharp gasp, she opened her eyes, doubling over.

  “It’s too much, Caspian,” she choked out, gasping for air.

  “Do not let it control you. You must control it.” He demanded. “Again!”

  “I—I’m not sure I can.” She gasped for air.

  “Time is short. We must ensure you know what to do before it is too late. Call it again, keep control over it.”

  Nivian nodded. Closing her eyes, she concentrated. She called the power to her, the chill of it once again traveling through her body. It threatened to take over again. Panic filled her as it continued to grow. She managed to hold onto it until it stopped in its path. She pushed it back down. It was unrelenting, fighting her and on the verge of taking over.

  S
he played with the back and forth pull of power. Her confidence in her ability to dominate grew. She managed to keep it just on the edge of taking over. Holding it, she opened her eyes and nodded to Caspian.

  I’m doing it!

  A twig snapped, breaking her concentration. She gasped as the power took over her body, stealing her breath, and bringing her to her knees.

  “This time, when you call it, you must direct its path.”

  “Direct its path? Path to where? There are no life forces to cut here, Caspian.”

  “Your ability to cut the thread of a life force is not what you need to worry about. That will come as naturally as anything to you. This is the power of reapers.”

  “I don’t understand. Our power is to cut the life force. What other power is there?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “You know the hunters altered their powers. In turn, the reapers also had to modify their powers to survive. We have not used them in such a way for a long time.”

  “I—” She paused, as the realization hit her full force. Of course, they had to alter their powers to defend themselves. “What do I do with it?”

  “The same thing you do every time you go after a mark. Your powers are stronger, allowing you the ability to gain the upper hand. You will not call the power of a mark’s life thread to you, but instead you will send power out. Your goal is to weaken them before you can cut their life thread. Use them to create ideal situations, but also as a weapon. Instead of directing it to end a life force, use it to hit a target.”

  Nivian nodded and called to her powers once more. When she opened her eyes, she held it with less effort. This was harder than she ever imagined it could be, but it would work.

  “Keep holding it,” he instructed. “Now lead it through your hands. It will be easier to control it that way. Aim for the tree.” He pointed to a tree ten meters ahead of her.

  Nivian pushed her powers, willing it to flow to her fingertips. A dark ball of energy formed between her hands.