Page 100 of Reaper's Pack

At least he had the decency to appear somewhat ashamed of all this.

“You see, with the bounty still active, I can’t go out there and hunt for myself, and no demon would fetch souls for me,” Charon remarked, sounding bored again as he picked at his nails. “None of them want to get on Lucy’s bad side, so Richard acquires all my meals. He too is a wanted man, and my wards grant him immeasurable protection. Symbiotic parasites, we two.”

“Warlocks can’t go on the celestial plane…” I pressed my lips together, realization hitting like a freight train. “But all the runes on him, the blood magic, gives him access—”

Charon met my deduction with a round of sarcastic slow claps.

“Yes, yes, well done.” His pale forked tongue flicked out, a serpent tasting the air, and he fixed that yellow gaze squarely on me. “I’m afraid despite his prolonged life, bolstered by magic, the work takes a lot out of him. My warlock has an expiry date…” Charon’s mouth warped into a cruel smile. “But reapers don’t.”

29

Declan

What was a reaper without her scythe?

Crouched over the universe’s most powerful weapon, I studied every detail, all of it reminding me of Hazel. From the slight curvature in the yew staff up to the beautiful bow of the blade, the symbols etched into the star-forged metal mysterious and ancient, elusive and lovely.

But without a reaper to use the most dangerous weapon around, what was it? Just a stick with a hook on top?

And what was Hazel without it? Could she defend herself? Before Knox had disappeared to find Alexander, we had all felt it—a pulse of pain in our backs, a sign that our mate was suffering. Through marking her, we had cemented the bond, played right into fate’s hands, and now we were paying for our failure to protect her. Every flicker of agony that we suffered here would have been amplified tenfold for Hazel, and that fucking killed me.

Most recently, a sharpness jolted between my eyes, up the center of my skull. Gunnar had felt it too, prowling around the bloody portal, grimacing through it while I gritted my teeth so hard, I swore they were on the verge of cracking.

Frustration rippled through the pack bond. It had taken us—them—so long to realize that Hazel was perfect. Witty, kind, intelligent—breathtaking beyond measure. My alpha and beta had shared an intense physical attraction to her from that very first moment, same as me, and yet they fought it to the bitter end. Then we had one blissful week together, all of us fucking and eating and laughing and talking, and then…

And then that thing took her away.

My frustration turned ragged, harsh, stabbing through the pack’s shared bond so suddenly that Gunnar stopped his frantic circling of the portal. His eyes settled on me, curious yet understanding, but I continued to stare down at the scythe, jaw clenched, all the muscles involved positively aching. Because Knox had left me in charge of the scythe, arguably the most important thing in Hazel’s world—outside of us, hopefully—and I wasn’t going to let it out of my sight.

Wasn’t going to let some demonic cut-up fuck materialize in front of me and whisk it away somehow or summon it with his own brand of warped magic.

A teeny, tiny part of me also thought that if I stared hard enough, picturing her beauty, those soulful brown eyes, her full mouth, the sharp angles of her cheeks—maybe she would reappear. Maybe the scythe’s power would sense our bond and, I don’t know, fly her back here.

Nothing yet, but I’d keep trying until someone said otherwise.

Because, really, we had nothing else going for us. The portal was dead. Our territory was still warded up, and the only way inside was with a weapon none of us could touch if we wanted to keep our hands. Hazel’s pain shuddered through me, through all of us, like a fading echo—and that was a fucking tease. We could feel her.

But we couldn’t touch her.

Couldn’t help her.

Can’t save her.

I glared up at my forehead like I was glowering at the little voice who dared utter such a depressing thought. We would save her.

Somehow.

Alexander, maybe, would know a way to—

Knox reappeared in the middle of the unlined road suddenly, a reaper at his heels. In the human realm, the day had started, trucks ambling up the street, a few garage doors open. Sunshine warmed the otherwise chilled landscape, golden beams trickling through the celestial plane to stop my breath from fogging in front of me.

Life carried on as it always did—like our world as we knew it hadn’t crumbled to pieces in a second.

Gunnar ceased his stalking as soon as our alpha appeared, still in his human form, his mouth set and his black eyes furious. Seconds later, two other hellhounds arrived as hounds, the larger one radiating alpha energy, both looking to their master for guidance.

“Fan out,” Alexander ordered, waving halfheartedly around the industrial park. “See if you can find a scent.”

I glanced toward Gunnar, who folded his lean arms and scowled. Surely, they could smell that fuck already—like a rotted corpse, the ground stained with human blood. But the hellhounds did as they were told, burly and muscular, every step powerful.

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