"Come!? Really? Am I a dog!?" I asked Klane once we had driven out of the parking lot.

He smiled mischievously. "Not at all, Estella."

I groaned and waved my hand around the very nice SUV. "And where the hell did you find this?"

He shrugged. "Just because you like to keep yourself separate from the living doesn't mean we all do." He glanced at me then looked back to the road. "I have my connections."

"Of course you do." I propped my elbow on the windowsill, looking out over the lake and into the forest beyond it. "I met the Klaren you're assigned to."

"Edam? What's he like?"

"You are going to have your hands full." I snickered, I had a feeling Edam was the type to walk into danger.

"Great, and here I thought this was going to be easy."

"Easy? What part of soul tearing, life-ending, mad man sounds easy?"

"Fighting is easy. Keeping other people alive, not so easy." He said, gesturing with his hand.

"Ah." I continued to look outside, but huffed and turned back to him when he kept glancing at me. "What is it?"

He cleared his throat. "How's Agnar." He paused. "Or I guess Derik."

I straightened in my seat and shrugged. "He seemed fine, a little different, a little more closed off."

"He was always closed off," Klane said, and I looked at him questioningly. "The only person he wasn't closed off with was you. He kept his distance from everyone."

"But you're his closest friend," I said.

He nodded. "But he still would never open up to me, or even Vasser as he did with you." He reached over and patted my head. "Don't worry. It will all work out in the end."

I sighed. "As long as we can keep him safe."

"We will." He smiled then shook his head. "I still remember when I first met Agnar. He was so angry, so dark. he would lose control of his powers in a second." He chuckled. "That only changed when he brought you back that day."

I smiled, thinking back. It was a bittersweet memory—the end of my old life and the start of my new one.

"Come." Agnar had said in a commanding voice, neither soft nor harsh.

"Where to this time?" I asked, and he paused, looking back at me with crystalline blue eyes that never wavered. He turned to look into the distance as a symbol of three interlocking triangles shone to life a few yards ahead of us.

"Or you can reincarnate again." He said, turning to study me again, gauging my reaction as he spoke.

"I have lived many lives already, but I am not ready to let them go yet. But, I do not wish to reincarnate either."

His brow wrinkled in curiosity, and the edges of his lips curled up. "Then what is it that you wish Nydelig?"

In the end, I had gone with him to become a reaper. I had caught on quickly and gained new friends and a new family.

Klane turned the vehicle, pulling me away from my thoughts. He drove into a small opening in the tree line and tucked the SUV behind some large rocks. He turned the key, and we hopped out of the vehicle. "We have a lot of scouting to get done. let's go." He said, and I watched as golden smoke wrapped around him until a large hazel-eyed wolf stood in front of me.

I gestured to the forest. "Lead the way."