Page 105 of Reaper's Pack

“We’ve been watching, stupid girl. Richard’s told me how they look at you,” the god sneered as his lackey retreated into the darkness and disappeared. “They haven’t gone anywhere, but they should have… Those mongrels are going to wish they ran when they had the chance.”

31

Gunnar

“Please don’t hurt me—”

“Fucking move.”

The sniveling little shit had better be grateful that holding a knife to his throat and shoving him along the celestial plane was all I had done to him. But the day wasn’t over yet. The night was young—and I could still easily slit his throat with his own blade.

Ever since getting my hands on the villain who had stolen our mate right out from under us, it was obvious he wasn’t a demon. He bled red. He cowered and whimpered. He hadn’t sensed me sneaking up on him in the hallowed halls of the children’s hospital where I’d found him skulking about—perhaps searching for another soul, maybe another reaper, to add to his filthy collection.

In hound form, I had crept low, channeling all my fear and fury into stillness and precision. I’d been on top of him before he knew what hit him, knocked him down, pinned him to the floor. Shifted and stolen the blade strapped to his ankle, held it to his throat, threatened to hang tight if he dared teleport away.

But he couldn’t teleport.

He needed a portal.

Because the fucker was a magic-user—distinctly from the human realm. The carvings on his flesh allowed him to walk the celestial roads, but beyond that, he was an ordinary fuck well versed in magic and mischief.

And ugly crying, apparently.

“Please, please don’t—”

“If I have to listen to another pathetic word from you, I’ll gut you right here and be done with it,” I growled, holding him in front of me at an arm’s length. From the size and curve of the dagger I’d nicked off him, it was used for skinning.

Skinning what, precisely, was another question altogether.

Late in the afternoon on a weekday, Lunadell Mall had been hit by the early dinner-rush crowd. Teens free from school and adults scurrying away from work flocked to the food court, to the shops bursting with Halloween decorations. The holiday was but a week away, and already I was sick of the explosion of orange and skulls and pumpkins and pointy witch hats on every fucking corner.

Still, the kitsch had been a pleasant distraction from Hazel’s kidnapping, albeit a temporary and brief diversion. If I let myself think, really sink into my thoughts and feelings about what had happened this morning, I’d collapse. Fold in on myself. Fail. Again. So at Knox’s directive, I had given myself over to the hunt. For hours, we two had combed through Lunadell, sniffing out the rat bastard in my grasp while Declan maintained our safe haven in the middle of the mall food court, guarding the elevated dining platform so that we had a territory to return to for status reports.

“Why are we here?” the fucker asked over his shoulder, bloodshot eyes nervously darting about, his hands up helplessly at his sides. Hands capable of such impressive magic, even if he required a portal.

Strange, that he had allowed himself to be taken by a creature like myself who possessed limited magic, who had only brute strength and a dagger at his disposal.

“Shut up,” I muttered, giving him another shove for good measure, preferring that he stumbled here and there. The blade in my hand edged into his throat, and he let out a strangled sob, moving forward without a word.

A mall food court was an odd place for a base of operations. All of us had been mindful of Alexander’s warning, and should he return with his pack and an angel by his side, we were fucked. It wouldn’t matter that he had tried to steal Hazel’s most sacred possession; all the higher authorities would know is that we had snapped at a reaper, disobeyed a direct order—perhaps the bastard would even spin it to imply that our pack had something to do with Hazel’s grisly disappearance.

We couldn’t have that.

Unable to breach the wards around our current territory, Declan had suggested a public place as a safe haven, and Knox had agreed; if the cavalry did show up, all we needed to do was cross from the celestial plane into the human realm and risk exposure for everyone. All these unassuming humans going about their day, fetching dinner, shopping with their friends, were the perfect shields.

I had brought up the mall. With Hazel on the brain, the memory of her sitting on the very same raised platform in the middle of the food court, watching the humans and weeping, so painfully lonely, was all too fresh in my mind.

Perhaps that was why this place bothered me; it wasn’t the Halloween decorations in every storefront window, but the reminder that I had once tailed my mate here, spied on her, did nothing as she sobbed into her hands—as she begged for companionship.

The huge tiles slated together on the floor, grey and faintly glittery. The fountain in the middle of the mall, in which human children threw coins. The fake greenery around pillars. The silent moving staircases between floors. The multilevel food court, some clumps of booths sunken into the ground, others propped up on podiums, surrounded by producers of fried, greasy nonsense. Humans flocked to them, to the fat and the salt and the false coloring.

I much preferred Hazel’s cooking.

Everything about this place brought me back to that day when I’d followed her, and now here we were again, searching for her scent, trying desperately to find the trail that would lead us back to our mate.

Shoving my prisoner along, we followed the corridor’s curve into the food court, the sudden burst of chattering humans and smelly food vendors an assault. But the man in my grasp didn’t flinch; perhaps he lacked heightened senses. Yet another clue into his origins.

Knox had already returned to base camp, the alpha standing with Declan in the center of all the chaos. Humans occupied a few of the tables on our platform, but the teens seemed to prefer the booths to the smattering of two- and four-seater tables. My packmates muttered to one another, close in proximity, their expressions tense. Had they discovered something in my absence? Nothing of note rang through our bond, but those looks suggested my capture wasn’t the most promising news of the day.

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