Fangtastic Books: Reap and Repent by Lisa Medley

Reap and Repent

The Reaper Series

Book 1

Lisa Medley

Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance

Reapers, Demons, Angels, Sex

Words 84K

326 pages

Book Description:

They see death. Can they share a life?

Ruth Scott can read the energy of every person she meets. Then she meets Deacon Walker. She can see his ice-blue eyes, his black hair, and his gorgeous face. But this beautiful stranger has no aura.

Deacon is just as unsettled by Ruth—and, having spent more than two hundred years ushering souls to Purgatory, Deacon is seldom shocked by anything. As he helps Ruth to understand her true nature, she awakens desires that he decided long ago a Reaper can’t afford.

A demon invasion forces Deacon to confront the darkness in his own past even as he fights to save the human souls he’s charged to protect. When he’s taken captive, his first concern is for Ruth. But Ruth just might be able to save herself—and the Reaper she can’t live without—if she can learn to wield her newfound powers.

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Excerpt: from Chapter Five

Ruth opened her eyes to complete and utter chaos. There were creatures everywhere. She would have been hard-pressed to prove most of them were now or ever had been human. It was like the cantina scene in Star Wars without the fun band. Ruth’s mouth gaped open. It was dark, foggy and damp in the long underground chamber where they’d landed, like some kind of subterranean cave. She’d never seen anything like it.

It was a depot of sorts, it seemed, and there were long tunnels crisscrossing every which way, disappearing into the stone walls. Her mouth still agape, Ruth followed Deacon into what appeared to be the main hall, where the floors and ceilings were also rough stone, and light from an unseen source flowed down through strategically positioned skylights along the ceiling. Reapers were everywhere: men and women but also a disturbing number of…well, monsters was the word that came to mind.

There was so much to take in that it was overwhelming. Chiseled placards demarked the top of each tunnel in a language she didn’t understand. And at each end of the main channel, huge platforms rose above the fray. Sitting on stone thrones upon the platforms were two very similar-looking men who looked like angels, complete with flowing purple robes and wings.

Deacon took her hand and dragged her along behind him. “Keep up.”

“Don’t worry.”

She did not want to be down here alone, wherever here was. They rushed through the throng of creatures, large and small, human and otherwise, toward the opposite end of the channel and the angel who was sitting there. They were almost there when someone called out behind them.

“Walker? What the hell? I thought you would have cashed in by now,” the man said. Deacon spun around, pushing Ruth behind him. “Kylen,” Deacon said, grimacing and barely containing his obvious disgust. He clearly wasn’t happy to see the guy. “I’ve been…occupied.”

“I can see that,” he said, leaning over to give Ruth a slimy once-over look. “Who is she?”

“We’re bringing in a sleeper,” Deacon said, changing the subject.

“A sleeper? Wonder how I missed that one?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Deacon said, forging ahead.

“Put up a good fight at least?” Kylen asked with inappropriate enthusiasm.

“What are you doing down here? Have you grown tired of your ride?”

“Oh, no. I just like to keep a finger on the pulse of things. Network. Mingle.” He winked, then directed a disturbing smile Ruth’s way.

“Right.” Deacon pulled Ruth away from Kylen, leading her the last few paces to the platform.

A line of mixed creatures wound in front of them. Ruth had no idea what some of them were. Of the ten or so in front of them, two looked passably human. The rest were all variety of sizes and degrees of grotesqueness. One great slobbering gelatinous mass in front of them, who was Deacon’s height, but twice his girth, turned to assess her. His wet reptilian skin shimmered and glistened as his Ping-Pong-sized lizard eyes looked her up and down, then locked on to hers. She looked away and snugged up closer to Deacon.

“Eyes on the prize, asshole,” Deacon said to the thing through gritted teeth. Mr. Lovely turned back around with a grunt.

Otherwise, there was no chitchat in the line. She wondered if all these things even spoke the same language.

Deacon leaned over and whispered, “Try not to freak out—this will get easier. This is Purgatory—a way station. It’s a neutral zone. A no-man’s-land of sorts. All reapers can meet here and interact, but there can be no conflict. It’s a forced détente essentially. Pray you don’t see most of these creatures on the topside.”

She couldn’t imagine any situation where she would.

“The guy in the purple robe is the angel Rashnu. The guy on the other end of the station? Also Rashnu. He’s split himself into two because he doesn’t trust anyone else to do the job right. He’s the sorter. The gates of Hell and Heaven are locked up tight. No soul gets through Purgatory except with his blessing. He’s rarely wrong, but once in a while a soul gets kicked back and…well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen today.”

The line inched forward. She watched as the reapers approached the angel Rashnu and wished she could hear the exchange between them. From where she was standing, she was close enough to get the gist of it. The reaper approached and spewed forth its cargo, which floated down and assumed its original shape. The deposits held their ghostly form for a few moments, and then Rashnu waved his open palm in front of them, and they were sucked away down one of the various tunnels carved into either side of the station’s stone walls. The contrasting colors of the walls clearly indicated which tunnels led to which eternal resting place. Left was lovely, and lightly colored markings and symbols adorned the wall. The right side? Not so much. It looked like street gangs had tagged the entire wall from stem to stern. The souls streamed away in a smoky mist ranging in color from black to white and everything in between.

“Are all of them reapers?”

“Yes, there are a lot of different races represented down here. I can give you a crash course later. But stay quiet for now—Rashnu hates disrespect.”

Ruth zipped her lip, and they shuffled forward again. Deacon was up to bat. Ruth tried to look small and insignificant behind him, which was not much of a stretch. Rashnu bored a hole through Deacon, and then she felt his gaze settle on her.

“Forward!” the angel bellowed.

She was frozen in place. Deacon hesitated for a second then swung her around in front of him.

Lamb to the slaughter. Thanks.

About the Author:

Lisa has always enjoyed reading about monsters in love and now she writes about them, because monsters need love too.

She adores beasties of all sorts, fictional as well as real, and has a farm full of them in her Southwest Missouri home, including: one child, one husband, two dogs, two cats, a dozen hens, thousands of Italian bees, and a guinea pig.

She may or may not keep a complete zombie apocalypse bug-out bag in her trunk at all times, including a machete. Just. In. Case.