Page 141 of Reaper's Quest

He took a step back, stretching our held hands between us. His gaze lingered on me for too-long moments.

“I’ll see you soon.” Releasing my hands, Winter turned and strode off, glancing over his shoulder at me twice before disappearing down an adjacent hallway.

I clenched my jaw. I should have expected his advance…after the way he’d flirted with me since our team’s arrival. Still… I heaved a breath. I’d need to tread delicately with him.

Once Winter vanished from sight, the messenger turned to me. “You are to come with me.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, falling into step behind him and turning my thoughts from Winter.

The servant’s steps took us quickly across the outer hallway and away from the room I’d used earlier.

I rushed to keep up. “Where are you taking me?”

“The queen has requested a private meeting with you in the blue drawing room.”

A private meeting with the queen?

But…didn’t she just request Winter’s presence, taking him in a different direction?

Unease flowed through me as I followed the man down hallways, upstairs, and through corridor after corridor until we arrived at an ornate set of double doors?a couple of reaping tasks biting my arm along the way.

He escorted me into a spacious and bright room draped in a palette of soothing blues. No sooner had I stepped inside than the doors closed at my back. Alone, I stood across the room from the queen.

“Come in, reaper.” The queen motioned to another sofa situated opposite the one she currently occupied, a low-lying table set between them. “Please join me.”

“If you know what I am, are you not afraid to be alone with me?”

“Not in the slightest,” she deadpanned.

All right, then.

My leaden legs made the walk to cross the space exceedingly arduous.

I lowered myself into a stiff, seated position, never allowing my gaze to stray from the queen. “So, the secret’s out. You know what I am.”

Not a question but a statement, to which the queen smiled.

I narrowed my gaze. “And Chace Badden, what did you do to him?”

Because he’s gone missing, supposedly locked up in a dungeon somewhere, and now I can’t help but suspect you.

The queen weaved her fingers together and rested her hands in her lap. “I strongly suggested Mr. Badden leave my citadel, and I gave him a deadline that has since passed. My guards have brought me no reports on him, so I am inclined to believe he left as requested. Should I suspect otherwise?”

I fought to keep a frown from my face.

Chace had assigned tasks…as did I. No order by the queen trumped a reap. A duty from the God of Death.

Chace wouldn’t have left, would he? Not without me or Aldine. Not without at least saying something to one of us. And never without completing the assigned reap.

He’s an arrogant, pig-headed Badden hellbent on glorious reaper success. Leaving doesn’t fit his M.O.

“I wouldn’t know,” I replied as I leaned into my thighs, my gut twisting into a nasty knot. “But is that why you askedmehere? To invitemeto exit the citadel?”

“I might have, had I met you a day or two earlier. But after what I learned today…” The queen’s smile morphed into a devious grin, and her gaze dropped to my fingers. “I do not intend to send you away.”

The edges of my lips tugged into an upward curve. This was it. This was my in. And probably the reason Chace had come to see the queen. Aldine suspected we’d find the source behind the unreapable souls within the palace walls.

Now I stood inside the castle, talking with the queen herself. I fully planned to use this opportunity to my advantage and get some reaping answers.