Deathless

Chapter 29: Jackson

So everything was ready. Everything was in place. There was however one small, tiny problem with my plan... Millie's birthday.

Millie was due to die in the early hours of the morning after her twenty-first birthday. To replace her death with an alternative, I had to work that shift. There was no way around it. And the perfect birthday I'd wanted to give Millie, that she'd been thinking about, dreaming about for weeks... well, that meant me missing it, or at least part of it.

I'm pacing my apartment. I've been lost in thought for hours. The sun has set, the shadows of the city, cutting through my apartment like razors. I'm not just breaking rules by saving Millie, I'm going against everything I've followed for the last hundred years since I became a reaper. When I think about that, when I think about the fact I'm going to take the life of someone not due to be reaped, I feel weak. It leaves a prickling wrongness travelling up and down my spine, knotting my stomach, thickening my throat.

The person I'm reaping instead of Millie isn't a good person. In fact, monstrous could be an accurate description. Simply put, the world would be a better place without them in it. But that's not how Death's Plan works.

My buzzer goes and I press the button, letting Millie into the building. Maybe cancelling altogether would have been better. Millie would never forgive me, but at least I'd have one less thing to worry about tonight. Instead, I'm trying to work a twelve-hour shift, break the most fundamental rule of being a reaper, and return quickly enough not to ruin my girlfriend's birthday.

I am definitely going to be sick.

When she knocks, I open the door. Millie smiles lovingly at me, swaying into the room, not like a gentle summer breeze, but the first gusts of a storm, forcing herself into the dusty, dark catacombs that used to be my life. She's changed everything, and she doesn't even know it. She has this look in her eyes—happy, excited, just a little nervous. Why is she nervous? She stands in front of me and for a moment, everything stops. I just stare at her. She laughs lightly, before turning away, her fingers in her hair.

"What?"

"You look beautiful."

Millie chuckles, her eyebrows raise playfully, and she moves towards me, splaying her fingers on my chest. And then it hits me. She doesn't just look different, she's a little nervous, and her cheeks are flushed. Tonight isn't just about her birthday. Tonight is about something else, too.

Now I really didn't want to miss tonight.

"Am I getting an extra helping of charm because it's my birthday?" she beams up at me.

"No charm. Just truth."

"Thank you," she whispers, leaning up to put a gentle kiss on my lips. But it doesn't stay that way. The moment her lips touch mine, electricity passes between us, and I pull her into my chest. She makes this adorable little noise in surprise, but she pulls herself on her tiptoes to meet my kisses with more of her own. I don't know how long we're entwined, how long we stand there, her hands exploring my chest over my shirt, mine moving lower to grip the curves of her ass, pulling her into me.

I pull away, breathless and growing hard. She's panting but smiling up at me, her lips swollen. I reach forward, brush my thumb over that tempting mouth. The look in her eyes as she peers up at me makes me want to drop to my knees.

"We have all night..." she whispers. Taking my hand from her face and guiding me into the room. I'm glad she can't see the pained expression on my face, the frustration.

I want more, so much more, but I can't start something I don't have time to finish. And I need time, lots of it, to give Millie what she deserves. I try to focus, but now all I can think about are the soft moans she makes, the way her fingers rake through my hair, tugging hard when she loses herself, how it felt to have her shattering in my arms.