Status Updates From Sin's Daughter (The Sins, #...

"Kai," she whispered, her hands flat against his chest. Permission or protest, for a second he couldn't be sure.
Then she pushed at his shirt, the sodden material stubborn against her efforts, and he had his answer. In the end, he struggled out of his clothes as she worked her wet jeans down the length of her legs, both of them huffing and laughing.
"Well worth the effort," he said, when at last they were both naked.

"Run for it-"
"No." She slid from her seat, her body contacting his all the way down.
The rain streamed over them both, leaving her shirt molded to her body & her hair hanging in wet trails.
That fast, emotion swamped him. That fast, lust roared.
Slamming the door shut, he backed her against it, his hands coming up to cup her cheeks, to hold her still. He pinned her with his weight & lowered his mouth to hers.

She was still holding the tether of pure energy that held the darksoul Kai had harvested earlier. He wouldn't have believed that if he weren't seeing it with his own eyes, b/c as far as he knew, only soul reapers & Underworld lords could grab hold of that kind of power.
All soul reapers were male[...].
And Underworld gods couldn't leave the Underworld; hence she wasn't one of them.
So what the f*cking hell was she?

She wanted to ask about a million questions. He could see it in her eyes. Instead, she just shook her head & said, "Let's go."
Decisive. Make her choice, follow through. He'd always liked that about her. It bothered him to realize he still did. What the hell was wrong w/ him? He'd played w/ this particular pack of matches before & been damn near incinerated. He ought to know better than to like anything about her.

"You're a grim reaper?" she asked. "Like an angel of death?"
He blinked. He'd thought she'd know what he was talking about. After all, she'd been the one to put the events in motion.
"A soul reaper," he said, watching her carefully.
The words didn't appear to mean a damned thing to her.

"I'm not here for you," he said, his voice a low rasp that scraped her nerve endings raw.
She took a step to the side, then froze as a greasy black thing oozed from the gaping hole in the hunter's chest and curled around his killer's wrist, inching up his arm like a slug made of thick, oily smoke.
"Go," he ordered, and turned his face back toward his prey.

The man in the black jacket tightened his hold on the hunter's throat. Then he formed a claw w/ the fingers of his left hand & rammed them thru the hunter's chest.
Amber pressed the back of her fist against her mouth as the sound of ribs snapping filled the silence.
The hunter's mouth opened in a soundless scream as though the breath had been stolen from his lungs. The fist-sized hole in his chest might explain that.

Fear writhed and twisted inside her, a beast on a short chain. She wasn't afraid of death. She was afraid of capture. Do anything to escape them. Anything. Her mother's warnings, uttered thousands of times over the years, coalesced into an icy ball in her gut.

Shoot only if you mean it & if there's no other choice.
The memory hurtled at her, stinging like a stone churned up against a windshield. She remembered Kai's voice as he'd said that, the look in his eyes. All business. It was one of the things that had convinced her he'd meant it when he said he loved her, the fact that he insisted she learn how to defend herself.
But he hadn't loved her. He'd betrayed her...