Free Reaper's Dark Kiss by Ryssa Edwards

dawn.”
    “As you well know, brother, Kraeyl could argue the sun from the skies at midday. He will find a way to prevail in moving the contract through the council.”
    “She’s mortal,” Julian said, venting the frustration he always kept hidden from Sky. “I can’t just tell her, ‘Hey, Sky, I’m a Shade, and you’re my Forever Mate. Let’s go bond and make babies.’”
    “There are ways to lure her, brother, and lure her you must.”
    “I won’t dishonor the one I’ve chosen for my mate by tricking her into being with me.” Julian’s voice was nearly a snarl.
    “There is no dishonor in bringing the female who will bear your offspring to safety at your side,” Marek said. He avoided Julian’s eyes, presenting no threat to his beast. “The haeze clings to you, brother. All your instincts scream to protect her.” He paused. “Even as I speak, your beast claws at you to attack me, does it not?”
    “Was it like this for you?” Julian asked.
    Marek took a towel from the stack Harli had abandoned and wiped Julian’s face. “Yes,” he said. “She was mine. Not to be spoken of. After I told her of what I am, my beast was relentless. The only way to protect her was to mark her, make her mine.” He retreated, giving Julian the space his haeze demanded. “Much the same way your beast will drive at you when SkyLynne finds out.”
    Marek’s long-ago chosen mate had refused to join the Shadow World. Honor demanded that he obey her wish. Time had swept the mortal into oblivion, but Marek had never forgotten her.
    “I can’t fight it,” Julian said. “She’s all I think about, even when I’m not thinking about her.”
    “And that is as it should be. She will soon be yours.” Marek slid his hands behind his back, clasped them together. Whatever came next, it would be the Lord of the Creed speaking. “Hear me well, brother. End this playacting. Give SkyLynne knowledge of the Shadow World. Offer her a bonding. Or I will be forced to sign the contract and let Vandar have her.”
    Before Julian could answer, his phone jittered in his hand. It was a text from Harli. He was outside in the car, waiting.
    “I’m a reaper, Sky,” Julian said, going for the door. “Let’s fuck and bond, or you’ll end up blood slave to a vampire.” He cleaned his face one last time and threw down the stained towel. “I’ll let you know how that goes.”
    * * * *
    The Jeep soared, then crashed to the road as Harli raced to the airport. Sandy ground ran out to skeletal trees, black against the night sky on either side of the road. The bleak landscape whipped by at better than fifty miles an hour.
    Julian didn’t know how long they’d been driving when Harli asked, “You okay?”
    “Where’s Sky?” Julian asked.
    Harli glanced at a dashboard GPS display. He pressed a button on the dash, and the display shifted to a map of Manhattan with a glowing red dot in the upper left-hand corner. “In her apartment,” Harli said, “unless she didn’t take her phone.”
    “She wouldn’t do that,” Julian said.
    It was nearly Mid-Year for Shades, the traditional time when commoners brought petitions to the king. The shafts and caverns under certain ghost towns across Montana, all of them Shadow World property, were filling up with civilians, the ordinary people of the Creed.
    Julian had been forced to come back and coordinate security, make sure mortals didn’t see things they shouldn’t. He’d called Sky once a day and never asked her the kinds of questions that might make her feel he was checking up on her. Julian had tried to let that be enough. But not knowing where she was, especially after sundown, made Julian’s bonding instinct itch deep in his brain. He couldn’t fight it any more than a mortal could fight a fever.
    Julian didn’t know that Harli, who would have done anything for him, had noticed. About three days after he’d been home, Harli came to him with a square that looked like a phone. It had a