A Reaper Made Read Free Page A

that’s all I know.” After a long moment, I glanced up to see Tessa’s lips twitch with amusement.  
    “Tully tried to reap my soul.”  
    My jaw dropped. “What?”  
    She laughed at my expression. “Here’s your brief history lesson of the day. I wasn’t around when Salem and their Puritans went after so-called witches, but you know they got their ideas from the Europeans, right?”
    “Makes sense, we all migrated from that direction.”  
    Tessa nodded. “And so did their ideas of how to kill those who were different from them. Man, those guys loved a good stoning.”  
    My brow furrowed. “I thought tons of witches died in Salem by fire.”  
    She shook her head. “No fire and not as many as you think. Only twenty, one of them crushed to death by stones and the others hanged. Others died in prison. Europe, however, was a little bitchier about the whole witch thing. They burned people at the stake. I was minding my own business, living in Northern Europe in, I dunno, 1740-something? This guy - claimed he was some traveler, but I suspect he was a witch-hunter - caught me performing magic and turned me into the witch police, aka the Christians.”  
    I couldn’t help but be enthralled by her history lesson, having never heard it. As a kid of the modern era, it was hard to believe that sort of persecution had existed. I leaned forward as she spoke.  
    “After those stupid pilgrims thought they burned me alive, I had to wait it out so they’d leave. Pain in the ass, really - the fire destroyed my clothes, so hanging around on that post naked wasn’t exactly comfortable.” Tessa rolled her eyes and I smothered a grin.  
    “Where does Tully come in?” I asked.  
    A smile played on the corners of her mouth. “Well, it’d been a while since I’d slept, so I dozed off while biding my time. I woke up to find that damned Irish ginger in front of me, surprised as hell. I tried to keep my cool because I thought he’d come to cut my throat, but he assured me murder wasn’t his style.”
    “But we sort of get that pull when souls are ready to leave this plane, how did he not realize you weren’t dead?”  
    Tessa shrugged. “He said he’d been walking through the area and saw the fire dying out around me, thought there was no way I could’ve survived. He’d only been around for like five years at that point, so I guess he didn’t realize witches don’t have that little dying problem.”  
    “Or that witches even existed,” I surmised.  
    She paused long enough to smirk. “He tried to disappear on me; when I could still see him, he revealed his Reaper status and I told him the truth. He had the gall to suggest witches had no souls.”  
    “He’s pretty old-school,” I said, almost apologetically. It didn’t surprise me that Tully would say such a thing. He was a great Reaper, sensitive to passing souls, but his blunt personality could sometimes, at least the way I saw it, be taken as rude.  
    “In any case, I gave him a hard time about it. He was the first Reaper I’d met and after he cut me down, we became pals. Or at least the closest thing to pals Reapers can have.”  
    I snorted. Tully didn’t have “pals.” He barely had acquaintances. I mean, I barely knew a thing about him and I’d been his mentee for the last three years.  
    Tully was one of the most serious people I’d ever met, even after I kicked the bucket. He’d died in 1740 from an Irish famine; I’d never prodded, but got the feeling his family had died around the same time as well. Once, when I asked about his own mentor, he’d pursed his lips beneath that bushy beard and said he’d rather not discuss it. I’d kept the personal questions to myself after that.  
    “You wanna watch a movie or something?” Tessa asked.  
    Before Tessa and I could decide on romance or comedy, a knock sounded at her front door. She went to open it and found Tully patiently waiting.  
    “We were just talking about you,”