Page 4 of Reaper's Pack

“I want them,” I said without missing a beat, finding my voice at last, finding that confidence that I’d struggled with all day. Gone was the unsteady quiver, the weak knees, the indecisive internal monologue that had followed me around since I’d been told I needed to choose a pack.

The cane corso hellhound—he was alpha. That much was clear. But as I faced Alexander and Fenix, stared down my nose at them despite the sprawling height difference, alpha pulsed through every fiber of my being.

“Hazel, there are more packs to look through below—”

“This is it,” I insisted, silencing a scowling Alexander with a raised hand. “This is the one.”

“A pack of three?” My reaper mentor scoffed. “That isn’t enough. You need a few more—”

“Technically, we would be a pack of four.” Working as one, reaping together, guiding souls to Purgatory for judgment. For the first time in days, my head, heart, and gut were on the same page. In life, I had endured warfare—the worst humanity had ever witnessed. Small units of soldiers had overtaken whole Nazi battalions on the front. This was absolutely doable. “It’s quality over quantity. I want them.”

“I’d hardly call them quality,” Fenix sneered as he picked at his nails, like I wasn’t worth his time now that I disagreed with his opinion. Indignation blazed in my chest, and when he met my narrowed gaze, he shrugged again. “Look, see the rest of the packs before you make a stupid decision like this.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks, glaring up at the two men so hell-bent on changing my mind. When I was alive, women had no voice. Our fathers, brothers, and husbands made the decisions. But that wasn’t the way of the world anymore, and it most definitely wouldn’t be my afterlife.

“No,” I said firmly. I turned my back on a sputtering Alexander, a glowering Fenix, and locked eyes with the hellhound alpha. He was mine. They were all mine. “This is my pack. Where do I sign for them?”

2

Hazel

“Yep, yep, just bring them straight on through…” I propped open the double doors that led into the foyer, locking them in place as a trio of Fenix’s underlings heaved in the giant wood crates on dollies that contained my pack. A gust of hot August air followed them, whipping through the empty entryway and rattling the rest of the abandoned manor.

Three days just wasn’t enough time to make a house a home, but I had done my best.

Located six miles south of Lunadell and well off the beaten path, nestled in the outskirts of Selene’s Forest, sat a structure long forgotten by the local humans. Three stories tall, crawling with ivy and weeds, most of the shutters hanging by a single nail, the roof in need of reshingling and several of the windows broken—our new house. For ten long years, I had wandered, so focused on doing my job, on reminding myself I wasn’t human and didn’t belong in their world anymore, that I had never needed to put down roots. But my hellhounds required stability. They deserved a place to call home, a territory to claim and protect. So, I had given it to them.

Sort of.

The territory, at least. Some furniture. A ward around the whole property, well into the trees so that they had wilderness to patrol without a human happening upon them. A basement larder full of raw meat…

But still it seemed inadequate.

Perhaps that was just the way Fenix had made me feel. Unable to pass through my ward, he and his demons had been forced to wait for me today at the property line, surrounded by old red cedars and enormous deerflies. My scythe had sliced through the shimmering protective barrier that hid my new homestead from the world, a magical shield that operated on the mortal and celestial plane, temporarily allowing them to pass through with my new pack. Dressed in another fine suit, gold around his neck and glittering on his fingers, Fenix wasn’t exactly accustomed to Earth’s rural backwoods; mud stained his viper-skin boots by the time we’d crossed the forest, and he was still out there now, stomping about and aggressively wiping the soles on the cracked front steps, snarling through his teeth.

While he hadn’t said another word about my choice in pack, his disdain for them and my best attempt at a home was obvious when he finally joined us, strutting into the manor like he owned it. Hands in his pockets. Lip curled. Eyes wandering and judging.

“Could do with a coat of paint,” Fenix mused with a dismissive sniff, twisting his enormous thumb ring. I hummed in agreement, too nervous about my pack’s arrival to give a damn anymore that the place wasn’t up to his snobbish standards. Adrenaline pounded through me, so much sharper on the mortal plane than the celestial, like fireworks pinwheeling in my marrow.

Once the demon’s apprentices had the wood crates off the dollies, they slipped outside, metal wheels clanging all the way down the front stairs, and I quickly saw to the doors, closing and bolting them with shaky hands. My back pressed against the aged wood, finding it sturdy despite the creaking hinges. It propped me up when I wanted to sink to the floor, and I wrapped my arms around myself in a solo hug, both for comfort and support. The next few moments would change the rest of my afterlife, honestly. A few nerves were expected, whether Alexander agreed or not.

The wood crates seemed to dominate the front foyer, the space unfurnished and a little too stark for my liking. Across the room, twin stairwells wound up to the second floor, recently swept by my own hands, not magic, and crowned with black wrought iron railings. An enormous, dusty floor-to-ceiling window overlooked everything from the landing, the panes filthy from the outside. While I had cleared out most of the dead leaves and spider nests and debris, the house still desperately needed a top-to-bottom scrub, the third floor the worst of them. Wainscoting stamped the walls, a throwback to an era gone by, and as Fenix approached the smallest wood crate, I found myself wishing I had taken some time in the last three days to properly decorate.

A snap of the demon’s fingers produced a cattle prod, the end shaped like Poseidon’s trident, whitish blue bolts dancing between the prongs. I stilled, the air crackling with dark magic, a magic so similar to the one I had been blessed with once Death made me a reaper. While I couldn’t craft hurricanes or wipe out a city with a thought, I had some of the most basic magic at my disposal: summoning, healing, cleaning, teleportation, and protection—like the ward I had cast around my new territory. Nothing fancy. The scythe amplified my powers to unlimited, but I’d never taken advantage of that; reapers weren’t chosen because we were power-hungry.

Unlike the creature before me, with his cruel smile and dark beauty. Once a human soul himself, Fenix must have had the ideal temperament for a demon; he exemplified it now, the brutality, how he relished it. A well-aimed kick at the wood crate knocked open one side, the plank crashing thunderously to the tile floor. My heart launched into my throat, and I pushed off the door, eager to get a look at my hellhounds in the raw light of day.

Only nobody came out.

“Move,” Fenix barked, kicking at the crate again. A heartbeat later, he thrust his cattle prod into the opening, and a horrible screech sounded from its depths, paired with the distinct jolt of electricity and the scent of singed fur. Fury snapped inside me; I raised my hand, no longer trembling, and summoned my scythe. It whipped through the first floor, zipping around walls and slamming home into my palm.

How dare he hurt my pack.

My fingers coiled around the yew staff just as the demon reared back, as if to strike again, and the snarl boiling in my chest dimmed to a simmer when a black mass of shaggy fur scampered out of the crate. The Belgian sheepdog. My first true connection.

Terrified.

Belly to the ground, the hellhound slunk this way and that, turning on a dime, so obviously searching for a new safe place to hide that it ripped me apart inside. My grip tightened around my scythe when Fenix scowled down at him.

---