Page 67 of Reaper's Pack

Seventy-six was far too many even for Alexander’s pack of eight to contain, and after a building collapse, the influx of souls, it would be utter madness on the celestial plane. He couldn’t do it without us.

Apprehension prickled in my belly when I spotted Gunnar and Knox making their way down the stairs, both stone-faced and solemn.

“Knox stays,” I announced—not because I wanted to, but because after last night, I felt it had to be said. Gunnar and Declan could work just fine without him for now. The alpha stopped halfway down the stairs, every inch of him hardening, and our eyes met for the first time all morning. My eyebrow twitched up, daring him to try me after what he had put me through last night, after the sheer panic I’d suffered at the thought of using my scythe to subdue him.

Sure, Christopher had deserved to die—painfully, brutally—for what he’d done to his wife. But that wasn’t our place. Lucifer doled out penance for sinners; we were just bounty hunters, really. Glorified handlers. To kill that bastard would have been stepping way out of bounds, far above Knox’s pay grade.

Someone else would have killed him if he’d ripped that human apart.

So, he had forced me to—

“No, we need everyone,” Alexander insisted as he checked his wristwatch. I rubbed between my eyebrows, willing myself to stay in the moment, to stop getting lost in Knox. The reaper to my left then shouldered his scythe and flashed a smarmy smile. “Don’t worry, Hazel. My alpha can keep them in line.”

My three hellhounds bristled at the comment, Gunnar’s eyes narrowing, fur rising off Declan’s back; Knox clenched the bannister so harshly that the wood splintered. Right. Like hell that was going to happen. No one would “keep them in line” but me.

And Knox.

If he could fucking behave himself.

“No time to waste,” Alexander muttered, shooting me a knowing look before peeling back toward the door. “Let’s move out.”

I understood his urgency, but this was my pack’s first real experience. With this death toll, I couldn’t hold their hands—paws—nor could I be on top of them at all times.

Trust. Did we have it yet?

Declan, I trusted implicitly.

Gunnar—to some extent.

Knox…

Knox was forever my wild card, and as he and his beta descended the stairs and stalked across the foyer to join Declan and me, I hoped, prayed, that he could keep it together today.

That he could redeem himself and last night’s incident might just become a distant, awful memory.

“This is a big deal,” I said as Gunnar and Knox stripped down. Gunnar’s nudity had my cheeks flaming, and I looked at Knox’s forehead, like I always did, to not get lost in the peaks and valleys of his muscular frame. Frustrating as it was, embarrassing as it was, their quick shift from gorgeous naked men to enormous black hounds made it easier to give succinct instructions. “With me, you three. Am I clear? Do not leave my side.”

Beyond all the tension between us, all that had happened, this my first outing with the entire pack—past the ward, into the real world. If they had been waiting for a chance to bolt, this was it.

Declan licked at my hand in acknowledgement. Gunnar trotted out the front door with a determined, focused air about him. Knox held his ground for a beat, and when I looked into those red eyes, I found a glimmer of understanding. Acceptance.

But maybe I was just reading into it, seeing what I wanted—needed—to see.

Maybe my personal feelings clouded everything, and in the end, when they scattered immediately after we touched down in Lunadell proper, everyone would see I wasn’t cut out for a pack.

And I’d be alone.

Again.

My throat tightened at the thought, and I hurried out, Declan and Knox at my sides, Gunnar leading the way across the soggy grass to the forest.

Whatever was about to happen would happen.

There was nothing I could do to stop it. So, with a deep breath, I centered myself, studied the new faces of dead humans crystalizing in my mind’s eye, and threw caution to the wind.

* * *

This would inevitably go down as the worst accident in Lunadell—possibly even the whole province—to date. Chaos assaulted us the second we materialized on the cusp of the cordoned-off downtown strip, located at the edge of the financial district, straddling the line between that and a lower-income section of the city. Half a skyscraper remained, like someone had taken a block of cheese and cut jaggedly down its middle. While not the tallest building in the city, the explosion took a substantial hit to it and the buildings nearby. Shattered windows. Debris everywhere.

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