The Reaper's Heart. Michele Hauf

That allows me the freedom to stay with you.”

      He didn’t say “and wait for your death.” Wisely, he thought.

      “You’re not invited.”

      “Difficult for you to convince me to hand over my heart if I’m not around to listen to your coaxing, eh?”

      She huffed and marched onward toward a pink cottage that stood out on the white-on-white landscape. Her tight little fists beat the air furiously.

      Vashon chuckled. Just because he did not know love didn’t mean he wasn’t familiar with a range of emotions. He’d gotten under the witch’s skin with his challenge. The next few days would prove intriguing.

      She entered the cottage and slammed the door behind her. Vashon stared at the wooden door and the dried herbs and twined branches she’d hung about a heart-shaped window of red glass. He smirked. “Not going to get rid of me that easily!”

      With a nod, his innate magic forced the door inward.

      Vashon stepped through in a flurry of snowflakes. He brushed off his armor and bare chest and then stomped over to the hearth fire to take on the heat.

      “Make yourself at home,” Ananda said with an edged tone that could have cut his skin. Though he knew white witches utilized the elements, so he figured he was safe from surprise attacks by blades.

      “Don’t mind if I do.” He plopped onto the only chair before the hearth, hooking an ankle across his knee. Snow had clumped on his heavy boots, and now the compacted white stuff dropped to the pristine wood floor. “I need food. I’m starving.”

      “Are you always so demanding?”

      “I’ve a right, when the woman I’m making demands of is herself demanding my very heart.”

      She harrumphed and glided over to the stove, banging around with pots and utensils. Vashon settled into the chair and closed his eyes. Then he opened an eyelid and caught the spill of her lush, curly brown hair down her back. He bet it was soft.

      When not reaping, he liked to indulge in female flesh. To take a woman in his embrace, kiss her and reduce her to moaning bits of passion and desire. Then he walked away, never to see them again. Because, what else was there?

      He shook his head. Love, that was what else. Like his mother had given. And the path to that required he stay close to the witch for the next three days.