Page 99 of Reaper's Pack

Charon then stood swiftly, towering over the seated soul with what he probably thought was a serene smile, but any stretch of that mouth read as predatory—he could never look sweet, never lull anyone with his handsomeness. His yellow gaze flicked to me as his hands started to explore her, meticulously mapping the curve of her shoulders, the lines of her waist, right down to her knees, her calves, her feet.

There was something so overtly sexual about it that I felt bile clawing up my throat.

“Stop,” I growled. The soul trembled with fear, whereas I shook with rage. “Stop this, Charon.”

“Oh, simmer down, reaper,” the god murmured, sweeping the soul’s hair so that it all gathered over one shoulder, exposing her thin neck, her bony shoulders. He walked his fingertips slowly along the curve there with a reverent sigh. “She’s here for me… just like you.”

And before I could get another word in, he tore into her. Literally. His mouth slammed to her neck; his spindly fingers pierced her gut. Screams filled the cavernous space, bouncing off rock and slate, a choral verse from me and the soul.

“Stop!” I screeched, fighting my restraints with every bit of strength I had left. Tears may have blurred my vision, but not enough to skew what he did to her. Charon tore flesh from bone, ripped chunks of hair from her scalp. He consumed her viciously, like he alone was a pack of lions feasting on a fallen gazelle.

Only this gazelle endured every brutal second of it, wailing, begging, screaming for mercy—until he plucked out her tongue, ripped out her throat. When she fell silent, I screamed louder, my throat shredded, my wrists sliced down to bone as I fought my shackles.

It could have lasted a matter of minutes or hours—I had no idea.

But he ate her.

Every last part of that soul passed through his laughing mouth, crunched between his gnarled teeth. When he licked the remnants of her essence from the stone table, I slumped in my chair, exhausted, horrified, weighed down by immeasurable grief.

Because there would be no afterlife for that poor girl. No Heaven. No Hell. Just—nothingness, rotting away inside this monster’s belly until he too met a gruesome end.

And as he flopped back into his seat, his smile beyond wicked, I vowed that there would most certainly be a gruesome end.

One way or another, he would feel her pain.

What I wouldn’t do for my scythe—

“Did you know gods can retire?”

Somehow it didn’t surprise me that he sounded like nothing horrific had just happened. “W-what?”

“I didn’t,” Charon mused, picking at something—soul?—between his teeth, “but Hades did. Went off with his little wife when Lucifer offered to buy him out—take over his domain. Too many souls going to Hell these days, apparently, and he needed the real estate.”

I blinked back at him, still numb with anger, with shock.

“At first, that fallen angel let me stay on, the spoiled prick,” he continued with a sigh. The god wove his hands together and set them on his slightly rounded belly. “I maintained my post—escorted souls and all that. But then he realized I was, well, skimming from our supply.”

“You were eating them,” I clarified tersely. No sense in mincing words anymore, not after what I’d just witnessed. Charon shrugged, unfazed by my tone.

“Yes, and ol’ Satan doesn’t like to share his toys. He banished me from his realm, put a price on my head… I had to go. Had to ward up, as it were.” Charon lurched forward, on his feet so suddenly that I jumped, and his palms slammed onto the table where that poor soul had met her end. “But I’m hungry, Hazel, fucking ravenous. And once you’ve had soul, you can’t just go back to burgers and fries, you know?”

“No, I don’t know,” I sneered, fighting the quiver behind my words. “You’re despicable. Those people deserve an afterlife—”

“Humans are nothing but sheep,” he bellowed, the landscape around us shuddering, the chandelier swinging. A few of its candles extinguished, and one of the skulls fell and shattered as soon as it hit the table. “They are but livestock for the rest of us!”

A barbed and sudden pain stabbed between my eyes, and I folded over, gritting through the agony as the world around us quaked. It dissipated, but not until everything stopped shaking. Flashes of light danced behind my lids, and with a heavy heart I straightened, forced back into this absurd conversation, and found Charon leering at me.

He enjoyed my suffering.

Got off on it, just like he did with the souls.

Ugh.

“What’s he got to do with it?” I demanded, nodding toward the silent bystander at Charon’s side, to the man riddled with carvings who had haunted me and the pack for weeks. Those terrible yellow eyes narrowed, and Charon floated back down into his chair in a flourish of black robes. His chuckles hissed across my skin and made the candles tremble.

“Who—Richard?” The god shook his head and snorted. “Richard is a warlock. He killed a member of his coven… The gravest sin, eh, boy?”

Through the blood, I caught the clench of Richard’s jaw, and he turned away without a word.

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