It was quiet in Yorkshire. Empty. Vast. You could look out for miles and see nothing but hills and crags and rolling greens, trees and fields and heather far, far out until you could no longer see. Not a sign of life. Not a sign of humanity. Just the wind whistling through the stones and bushes, just the great clouds rushing across the sky. Just the sun and the rain and the stars and life—another kind of life. The life of the earth, of the creatures who were one with instead of fighting against it. So many different shades of green… It was a wilderness that Emily Bronte had captured beautifully in her novel, it seemed to Grelle. She almost couldn't believe she got to live here.

Felixkirk was just close enough to York to make her commute a simple one, just far enough to be really and truly rural. They lived just on the edge of the Moors, and Grelle spent much of her time up on Sutton Bank looking out over the valley as she was now, wondering how exactly it was that her life had become what it had become.

She'd been promoted, and though the Yorkshire Branch was small and didn't require all that much management, she was proud nonetheless. It was a big step. And one in the right direction. Director Sutcliff. A big fancy title that came with its own office, a whole slew of responsibilities. Part of her was certain the higher ups had only given her the job to get her out of their hair in London.

Her thoughts came full circle then to the matter she'd gone up to the Bank to puzzle over in the first place: the missing souls. Eight so far. Perhaps the number was not quite so large, but even one missing soul was cause for concern for any Shinigami, particularly one who was supposed to call herself Director. They'd disappeared over the past few months, a day before their appointed death at the correct time. At first they'd thought it was some mistake in recording, but now Grelle was not so certain.

"I thought I might find you here."

She started at the sound of his voice. Five years had passed, but she still wasn't used to him, to the way he would appear almost out of thin air. Five years of living together—sharing a house, sharing a bed, sharing a life—and Sebastian still made her nervous. They hadn't quite learned to trust each other yet.

Grelle didn't know how to respond, so she just smiled. Sebastian approached to join her on the edge of the bank.

"You're very contemplative," he said, looking over as he sat down. Grelle just blinked at him, coming out of a stupor that involved both thoughts of worry about the missing souls and astonishment at the fact that a demon still sought her company out the way Sebastian did.

When Grelle had been offered the position as head of the Yorkshire Branch, and she'd decided to take it, she had never expected that he would choose to go with her. London was better for demons, better for picking up stray souls when the overworked and understaffed Shinigami weren't looking. Here it was different. Smaller population, less collection to be done, and yet souls were still going missing. Somehow. It seemed that Grelle just couldn't catch a break when it came to bungling things up.

"I have to make my official report soon," she said. She and a small team of her colleagues had been investigating to no avail. Even Sebastian didn't have any leads. He drew a single finger across her forehead to catch the hair that had fallen into her eyes and tuck it behind her ear. She shivered at his touch.

"What will you write?" he asked.

Grelle shrugged. "I haven't the slightest."

"The Shinigami will want something." He brushed his fingers through the length of her hair, watching the motion of his hand attentively.

Sitting back, Grelle sighed. "I wish you wouldn't do that."

"What?"

Make my heart turn over at your touch, she wanted to say, but that was more an afterthought, and what she'd meant was what she said, which was, "Talk about the Shinigami as if I'm not one. Like you despise them."

"Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"A Shinigami?"

She rolled her eyes his direction and gave him a look. "You know very well that I am."

He smiled—that strange smile where his lips curled up but did not expose his teeth. It was such a wicked little devious expression that it had always made Grelle wonder what he was thinking that made him smile like that. Like he was amused.

"You do not seem very like a Shinigami to me," he said.

Quite suddenly, he was very near to her and touching his lips to hers in a kiss. She was startled at first, jumping back, but he just smiled like that again when she leaned away to look at him, and though the expression vexed her she also found it rather charming. It was a magnet, one that drew her to him and brought their lips together again. And again. And again.

Conversations with Sebastian almost always ended this way. She wasn't certain she'd had a real discussion with him in the whole of their five years. He was always distracting her, always running his fingertips across her neck and arms, looking at her with so much desire in his eyes. She'd never been desired like that. Hardly anyone had ever seemed to want her around, really. So when this being came along and treated her as though she was the only one who could meet his needs and that being was Sebastian Michaelis on top of it all, she couldn't help but buckle under that gaze. Then he turned his fingers to the buttons on her collar.

"Not here," she said, taking his hand and lowering it.

"There is no one, Grelle," he replied.

She shook her head. That wasn't the point. The point was that she'd let him lead her off track again and it had already been a thousand times too many. She had a report to put together.

"We ought to get home," she said. "I need to work."

He caught her hand when she tried to stand up, drew her back down and looked into her eyes for a moment. She could only stand that expression for so long before she had to look away, drawing in a breath, part of her wishing he didn't make her heart stutter the way he did.

"Just a moment longer," he said.

She nodded.

Sebastian gathered her into his arms, pressed a kiss to her neck, then turned his eyes out over the valley, running the fingers of one of his hands up and down her arm. Grelle couldn't help leaning against him, shutting her eyes and enjoying the warmth his body radiated. Five years. Five years she'd been with him now. It almost felt like a week.

"How long will you require to write your report?" Sebastian asked.

"I don't know," Grelle replied. "I don't know what I'm going to say."

"Is saying that the investigation is still ongoing not sufficient?"

"It's been months without a lead, Sebastian. Management will want to know why."

"Hm."

His fingers had stopped their motion up and down her arm. Thinking, he narrowed his eyes at the valley, maybe squinting against the sun which had just begun to set, pulling in black on the far side of the sky and coloring the rest of it orange and pink. A breeze picked up, rustling through the heather. Grelle titled her head to look back at him.

"You really don't have any leads?"

Those red eyes flicked her direction, smiling. Rather than answer, he took her face into his hands and kissed her. Gods, he was so good at that. She leaned into him, kissing back, and this time, when his fingers moved to undo the buttons on her collar, Grelle did not stop him.

Sebastian often wondered if Grelle knew that he did not sleep, or if she knew that he did not need it. After she would shut her eyes and her breathing would deepen, he would arise and walk the Moors or the empty lanes in town, or glance over all the paperwork she left out in her study, over the soul registers, To Die lists, assignments of reapers to positions in the county. Such sensitive information to leave in the presence of a demon.

Their house in Felixkirk was small, ancestral. A brown brick detached far out of town with a low stone wall and a yard filled with flowers and a garden and a chicken coop. It all seemed quite silly to him, to live as humans did, but then again Grelle had been a human once and old habits were hard to break, though he supposed it wasn't so much a habit as her nature. She always kept fresh cut flowers on the kitchen table.

That night, Grelle did not go to sleep. She stayed up, a candle burning beside three others on her desk in the study, writing her report. Sebastian had to pretend like he was going to bed, lie there for an hour or so, then he went down to check on her, feign like he was worried when she was going to get some rest. The stairs squealed on every step, so did the floorboards under his feet. The house was old, and in disrepair to his eye, but Grelle would not let him change it.

"It's cozy," she'd said.

He came into the doorway to the study, folded his arms and leaned against the frame.

"Grelle," he said.

She looked over at him from her desk, tired-eyed, her hands a mess and black with ink and smiled a sleepy smile.

"I'm sorry, love. I'll be up soon."

He stepped into the room, his arms still folded across his chest, and took his time walking over to stand beside her chair. His eyes flicked over her report, over the haphazard and almost illegible scrawl. Even her position as director had not improved her handwriting.

"I'm not sure they'll be able to read it at all," he chuckled.

"I'm hoping to buy a little more time that way," Grelle replied. She set her pen down in the inkwell and cracked her knuckles, stretching the joints in her hand, then massaging her elbow. "It'll take a few days for them to receive it, and another few for them to send it back and ask me to refile."

"I see."

Sebastian did not think a few days, or even a month, would do much good. She was so trusting, so unsuspicious, that he was certain he could go on picking souls off her registers, consuming them a day early, and returning home to bed her every night for the next several years. Who would have thought that such a relationship with a Shinigami would have more benefits than one? Grelle was none the wiser.

He placed his hands on her shoulders, massaged the stiff muscles, and she let out a sigh, closing her eyes for a moment before looking up at him.

"I may be a while yet," she said.

Sebastian just looked at her.

"You go ahead." A smile crossed her mouth, one that was merciful and pitying. "There's no reason for us both to stay up."

Sebastian did not want to sit in their room by himself. He had no interest in pretending to sleep or to be some kind of domesticated house demon. He was hungry. He wanted a soul.

Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to Grelle's forehead.

"Come soon," he said.

He could look at her registers as soon as she left in the morning, or perhaps before she left and after she had gone to sleep tonight. Grelle smiled at him.

"I will. I promise," she replied.

He returned the smile, and tried to catch a glimpse of the register she had on the desk as he turned to go, but Grelle leaned forward to go back to work and blocked his view. Sebastian pursed his lips. He supposed he would have to wait until tomorrow.