It doesn't take Blair long to guide me to the 'training hall' - a room that would be a ballerina's wet dream. One part of the long room houses what seems to be lockers, the rest of the three walls are floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The ground is done dojo-style in thick black mats that are firm under my bare feet, but also have the right amount of give to cushion a fall. I can't help but feel completely out of place in this new world I've stepped into, even if everything is simple, it's all so clean and radiating a sort of...perfection that makes me wonder if I'm still dying on Earth and this is an elaborate dream of some kind.
There's one guy in the training hall. He's doing some kind of intense exercise where he's smoothly transitioning into what looks like a very painful and over-the-top push-up while also doing a handstand. His black tank is sneaking up his toned back - well down, technically - since he's upside down. I try not to stare at the intense and thick pattern of ancient tattoos scrawled along his spine, but my eyes seem magically glued as they follow the shapely curve into his black pants- And then I find myself staring at the solid tightness that's his ass under the dark fabric, wondering vaguely if those tatts go all the way down the length of his spine. And where else they may be hidden on his tanned, olive skin.
It's not like I mean to stare. Really, I've see much nicer-toned asses in my time on Earth. Ones of unattainable men passing through the grocery store I worked at or on the street. But if I'm being honest...it's the allure of the tattoos that have me licking my lips as he slowly dips out of the handstand and arches his body like a stretching cat. But by the time my eyes have traveled along the length of his torso and up his corded neck to his slightly flushed face, the reddish-brown eyes that find mine are more akin to that of a bird of prey than a feline. Sharp, cunning, empty.
The this guy's body may look like he should be tanning on a beach somewhere in California, but there's something oddly familiar about his eyes that makes my earlier appraisal of him go from Sun God to Devil in the span of a second. An emptiness that belonged to the dead-eyes of a creature from my nightmares.
Without letting his torso touch the ground, the guy continues to stretch up, like a slowly rising serpent, on his fingertips until he tucks his legs under him in a sitting position. Then in another moment, he's on his feet, walking over to us with his chilling eye still trained on me. His too-graceful limbs making him look even more like a mythological creature than a person. My stomach plummets, the look of utter disinterest and disgust in those eyes of his is like a physical noose around my neck.
He's got the looks of a male model, but the attitude of a gangster. Sharp, high cheekbones, angled jaw, clean-shaven face, and rosy, full lips...but marked up skin. Not only by tattoos, like those on his back, that are splashed across his tan skin - but scars as well. Burn marks - similar to those I now sport on my hands, and more that look like bite marks - some chunks of muscle missing here and there along his muscled arms - healed, but the mottled tissue around or over them are almost always followed by tattoos. If there was ever an embodiment of the God of War, this man would be it.
He stops in front of a us, a few feet of space separating us as he continues to eye me. I have the terrifying desire to run from the room screaming and beg for another instructor - but I seem to be frozen in place by his icy gaze. Blair gives him a few silent seconds to look me over before making introductions. The uncomfortable silence has my nervous stomach churning emptily and twisting itself into funky and downright painful contortions.
"Asher, this is Nia, your-" Blair gestures between me and the guy and that sinking in my gut falls even further. My conclusion that this guy is my instructor was right.
"Punishment." The guy rasps, still looking like a petulant child by the annoyed hunch of his shoulder and lemon-pucker of his full lips. I have the urge to punch that grimace off his face as he eyes me, my fear no longer holding me in a silent death-grip. His voice sends shivers down my spine, sounding like sand being poured over metal, worn and raspy...but also like sex personified. It's giving me emotional whiplash.
"Way to live up to your nickname, Ash." Blair's face is frozen in a fake smile as she grits this out at the guy. Asher promptly looses the grimace and boldly scowls at Blair with a rather scathing look in his brownish-red eyes. A look much sharper than the one he gave me, I realize. Blair doesn't so much as flinch under it, but looks back with the same fake-smile on her mouth.
"So this is Ash-hole," I speak up, controlling my tone so my own disappointment in this situation doesn't show and mushing his nickname out in such a way it sounds like a cough. For some reason, my customer-service voice of false neutrality fails me. Almost immediately, Asher's head whips to pin me with that eat-shit look. I give him a smug smirk, pretending I didn't just say what he thinks I said.
Blair nods to me behind his back and throws me a little thumbs up for my efforts. But my courage begins to wane the longer my mentor glares at me. His eyes boring deep into my soul and scouring the already tormented and taped up parts of me with both pleasant and very unpleasant heat. God, he's one hot and creepy sonofabitch.
"And you're Puppy-Chow." Asher retorts in a much colder tone. I try not to get annoyed as the less-than-desirable nickname floats from his mouth. But yet again, the way he says it and the things his voice is doing to me are sending two very different kinds of tingles through me. My body stiffens, my mouth going dry, but my fists ball up at my sides - and I very suddenly wish I had a bat to beat this guy with.
"Alright, you two. That's enough." Blair saves me from having to come up with something better than the childish 'I know you are, but what am I?' quip on the tip of my tongue. I know more colorful swear words than that! C'mon, Nia! I mentally chastise myself before Blair comes to stand between us, her body angled so she can see the two of us at once. "You have your orders, Asher." She tells my new instructor, as if that settles everything.
"Orders, right." Asher scoffs, but there's less bite in his tone, like he actually gives a fuck about his 'orders'. His hawkish reddish-brown eyes sweep over me in my black jumpsuit, his gaze finding and locking on the scared tissues of my hands and forearms. His lips twist into a frown. "We've got lots of work to do, it seems." He finally says, his tone more subdued than before. I can't help but feel a little self-conscious about the current state of my hands, but I try not to let it show. I should be proud of my battle scars, wearing them with pride because - hey - I took out one of those demonic dogs with my bare-fucking-hands thank you very much!
"I'll leave you two to it, then." Blair tells us with a satisfied nod. I look to the woman who brought me into this new world, feeling like a floundering fish out of water now that she's about to abandon me to this guy. "You're in good hands, Nia." Blair meets my eyes, her icy-blue eyes just as calm as when we first met. The slight panic in me fades a bit at her words, but I'm not entirely reassured as my 'instructor' gives a derisive snort.
"We'll see what's left of this one after what I've got planned." Asher growls under his breath, so quiet it's clear Blair doesn't catch it. Now my panic has gone past the spot it had risen to before and is now creating icy rocks in my stomach. Blair turns on her heels and walks out of the room before I can beg for her to take me with her. Soon I'm left alone with my too-intense instructor who's now eyeing me like I'm a new toy for him to play with. And not the fun kind. "Why don't we go test that new nickname of yours?" Ash-hole asks me with a too-sexy wicked grin that both heats and cools my blood as my heart's pace picks up. I'm not liking the malicious glint in his reddish-brown eyes that promises a world of either serious pleasure or devastating pain... but I have a feeling it's gonna be the latter rather than the former. Is it weird that I'm kind of hoping for both?
YOU ARE READING
Reaper Society
FantasyYou've probably heard of Grim Reapers before, but even I never thought there was more to the typical 'harvesters of souls' until a week ago...
