Page 2 of Reaper's Pack

“Right!” Fenix clapped his hands together, positively giddy as his black gaze slid between me and Alexander. “You’ll be selecting your first pack today… Congratulations.”

That brought a nervous smile to my face and sparked a flurry of butterflies in my belly. Acquiring my very own hellhound pack was a promotion in a job I loved, a job that garnered me respect—where I wasn’t called love, sweetheart, or poppet; where I wasn’t spoken down to because of my gender. Before I’d died in an air strike, Alexander and I wouldn’t have been treated the same. The world just wasn’t there yet. Now, we were equals, even more so after the angels in the reaping department informed me of my relocation to Lunadell.

Whether Alexander shared my perceived equality was a murkier subject. While he hadn’t expressed much, he also hadn’t exactly done backflips when we’d first met and he learned I had only reaped for ten years before this. The reaper next to me had harvested souls on the celestial plane for nearly seventy before he had been granted his hellhound pack.

“Thank you,” I managed. Fenix sounded proud of my accomplishment, sure, but he was also about to make a killing in gold from my higher-ups. His packs were the most expensive in Hell, and he all but floated around the table, guiding us deeper into the stark, unfurnished marble foyer. I trailed after the two tall creatures before me, arms crossed, and cast one last glance back to my scythe. It was where I’d left it, and while I didn’t bring it everywhere with me when I was off duty, being without always left me feeling hollower inside than I already did.

But as we strolled into an elevator, the doors and inside panels made of pure gold, I knew my scythe would be waiting there for me when I returned. No one else could touch it—literally. These gifts, forged of ancient trees and stardust by Death himself, were nuclear weapons, capable of killing any being in this realm and the next. At no point could we risk them falling into the wrong hands.

“We have some excellent contenders this year,” Fenix remarked as the elevator started its gentle descent. “Wonderful lines, perfect sires, competent bitches… Many of the older packs are well-oiled machines at this point. They’ll need little training.”

“Mine hardly needed the allotted three months,” Alexander noted, chin lifted, a touch arrogant. “A testament to your stock, Fenix.”

My mentor had a pack of eight hellhounds, all monstrous black beasts, all devoted—mind, body, and soul—to their reaper master. I couldn’t even fathom that sort of loyalty, but it would come, in time. I had three months to get mine into shape before they faced their final trials administered by an archangel, or it was back to square one.

And I had no intention of going through this process again. The pack I chose today would be mine, period.

The gold box around us stopped suddenly, jerking into place in a way that made my stomach loop. As soon as the doors whizzed open, my companions shouldered through, briefly barring my view, and for a few precious moments I could pretend all of Hell was gold and white marble. That was dashed once the doorway cleared, and I shuffled into the dark corridor with a scowl.

This was the Hell we all expected: black rock and ash, volcanic runoff hardened with sorrow. Barking erupted as soon as I set foot on the gravelly earth, the wide corridor ahead arched and lined with barred gates. As part of my reaper training, I had seen the deepest circles of Hell, the torturous pits full of demons and damned souls. All reapers needed to know the light and the dark; we had been plucked from Heaven, worthy souls destined to reap, to serve Death honorably, but we had no experience with Hell. And it was just that—a horrible, brutal, awful experience. The souls I marched to Purgatory, the cruel and the violent and the heartless, had no clue what awaited them.

But I did.

And it made my job so much easier knowing they were headed here, that as desperately as I wanted to unleash vengeance on them for their earthly crimes, torment awaited.

Fenix’s hellhound kennels reminded me of the deepest circles of Hell, only the howls of hounds replaced the screams of human souls. In theory, none of the shifters here were tortured for eternity, but as I approached the first gate, the same emotions I’d felt in the pits clung to me like a second skin.

Maybe I was too sensitive. Alexander continued to joke and chat with Fenix like they were old friends, neither flinching when a yelp or a screech punctured the barking chorus. Maybe I just needed tougher skin.

Maybe…

No. I might have walked each step on unsteady footing today, unsure and out of my depth with the changes this promotion brought, but my gut was certain: this was a foul place.

“Just go with your gut,” Alexander remarked suddenly, as if he’d read my mind, his melodic baritone cutting through the tensely chaotic air around me. He stepped aside and gestured to the nearest gate. “The right pack will call to you… just like the right house.”

Shit. I still hadn’t found a place to hold my pack once I got them topside. Another monumental task to do today. After all, who needed a forever home when you spent every single second alone, loitering out of sight on the celestial plane, waiting for humans to die?

Squaring my shoulders, I approached the gate with as confident a stride as I could muster; hellhounds responded to strength, and there was no way I would land a pack without it. Alexander stepped aside to give me an unfettered view of the creatures inside, and my first look at an unclaimed pack threatened to cut me off at the knees.

Twelve hellhounds sat waiting, silent and red-eyed. Huge. Muscular. Alexander had recommended studying topside dog breeds before coming here today; hellhounds traced their ancestors back to the native hounds of Hell and Earth’s canine shifter population. Rumors swirled that to this day demons like Fenix still kidnapped female shifters to breed them with Hell’s wild dogs—whenever they could catch a male, mind you. The hounds of Hell were savage, enormous creatures, untamable and vicious. Breeding would have been done by force; I deeply pitied the shifters involved, always had.

The pack before me looked as though they had been crossbred with a pit bull terrier. Same large head, stocky build, smooth coat. Red eyes. Twelve pairs of them trained squarely on me. They sat in formation, the largest at the helm, the rest fanning out behind him. Around their necks were gold collars, spiked—on the inside.

“Keeps them from shifting,” Fenix remarked, materializing at my side, his croon making me flinch. Damn it. I glanced up at him wordlessly, and he took that as a question, to which he smirked and offered what others might consider a charming one-shouldered shrug. “The human forms have opposable thumbs… Tricky little devils, those. Can get them into all sorts of trouble. I always recommend keeping them like this, but to each their own.”

“What do you think?” Alexander eased into my personal space on the other side, the pair boxing me in. “Contenders?”

“No.” I didn’t need to think about it. This pack made me feel… cold. And small. “No, not these.”

“Moving on,” Fenix said with another thunderous clap of his hands. “Many more to see…”

And my God, there were. Four levels of hellhound kennels awaited me, and it took the better part of an hour to work through the first two floors. None of them called to me. None of them made me feel anything. A few alphas had even charged the gate the moment I stopped in front of it, forcing Fenix to step in, his demonic voice echoing harshly through the corridor. That cowed some, but the last unruly pack was still on the receiving end of their master’s admonishments while Alexander and I loitered by the elevator doors, waiting to head down to the third level.

“It takes as long as it needs to,” he insisted when I let out an exasperated huff. “Your pack is for life, Hazel, and we have very long ones.”

“I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s just… a lot.”

“I understand. You’ll find them soon.”

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