Page 5 of Reaper's Pack

“Pathetic, this one,” he sneered, catching the hellhound’s hind leg with the cattle prod. Another yelp echoed through the foyer, and Fenix snorted. “Good luck getting anything out of him.”

“Don’t touch him with that—”

A deep, chilling snarl rumbled from the largest wood crate, drowning out my own growl with something far more effective. I jumped when the crate shook—when a sound like a shotgun resonated throughout the house. The wood groaned, the whole box shifting a foot forward like the hellhound inside was throwing himself up against the panels. That had to be the alpha—no mistaking that guttural voice. Fenix approached quickly, though some of his smug confidence faltered when he kicked open this crate, retreating fast with the cattle prod raised defensively.

As I’d guessed, out came the cane corso hellhound, immense in size, teeth bared and red eyes narrowed. He charged into the foyer like a bull, and the skittering smaller hellhound beelined straight for him, hiding behind his huge frame with a whine. The alpha faced off with his demon overlord, hackles up, saliva dripping from his jowls. One wrong move from Fenix and he’d attack—I felt it in the air, the warning, the tension, the history between them. I raised my scythe’s blade to roughly hellhound height, glancing warily between the pair; while Fenix probably deserved a good thrashing, I had no intention of allowing this momentous day to turn into a bloodbath.

Muted sunlight slanted in through the window over the second-floor landing, catching on my blade and drawing the alpha’s gaze my way. Even without the third hound added to the mix, I felt it again—that sensation in my gut, humming over my skin and scalding through my veins, the fire and nostalgia and home. The comfort, the sanctuary of their presence. These three were my pack, no doubts there, but all my emotions still crashed together like a maelstrom. Focus evaded me. There was all this good surging about inside, filling me, warming me, recharging me after ten long years alone, and yet the violent chaos of their arrival, of Fenix’s handling of my pack, collided hard with all that good, making it difficult to think.

Overwhelming me.

Making me weak when they needed me to be strong.

The demon opened the third and final crate without any great fanfare, stepping aside with the buzzing prod in hand as the Doberman hellhound sauntered out. Casual. Calm. Collected. Calculated. He crossed to his companions without so much as a snarl or a raised lip, but those red eyes oozed intelligence, drinking in every little detail of the room—every little detail of me.

Heat bloomed in my chest, and still I struggled for control. This had gotten away from me; already I was failing.

“Come here, you shits,” Fenix grumbled, vanishing from sight one moment, then materializing next to my pack the next. The alpha hellhound snapped his enormous jaws at him, but Fenix had speed and finesse on his side. Deft fingers found the golden collars around their necks, and he tore them off without bothering to undo them, the inverted spikes ripping into throats and painting my dusty floors red.

“Stop!” I shouted, rushing forward, scythe at the ready as cold fear washed over me. “Don’t do that to them—”

“They’ll heal,” Fenix told me as he backpedaled from a snarling alpha, a deathly quiet beta, a cowering runt. He hoisted the cattle prod, creating a five-foot barrier between them, the sparks at the end sizzling out a warning. Black demonic eyes slid my way, paired with a smirking mouth that would probably melt an unsuspecting human. “That’s sort of the point of breeding them with shifters… They’re virtually indestructible.”

Bright red splattered the off-white tile, jarring in its vibrancy. Reapers were there when a human died, and oftentimes death was bloody. But I bled gold. Demons bled black. It had been a very, very long time since red had any sway over me, but my God, it did now. Unshed tears stung my eyes as I looked to my pack, searching for injuries and finding nothing but black fur tinged with blood, the flesh underneath healed over, something so superficial unlikely to scar.

Yet how many scars were on the inside? Born and bred in Hell, housed in dank kennels, reared by a hand like Fenix’s—would these three ever be whole?

Probably not.

And the realization made me ache.

“Shift,” Fenix barked. When nothing happened, the air still and hot and brimming with years of hate, the demon stalked forward and thrust the prod hard into the alpha’s side. My chest tightened, and a charged energy coursed through every inch of me at the electric shock blistering against the hellhound’s flesh; the alpha endured it without a sound, like he had done so a thousand times before. Still as a mountain, he stood over his cowering packmate and stared Fenix down, as if daring him to do it again.

And he did.

Only this time, the demon caught the smallest hellhound on the shoulder, stabbing hard and true, the scent of burnt fur fused inside my nostrils. I hurried forward when the alpha lunged, those huge jaws only just missing Fenix’s arm as the demon scrambled back. In all the commotion, the smallest hellhound did as he was ordered: shifted from beast to man. A beat later, the other two followed, and by the time I situated myself between them and their tormentor, scythe at the ready, three men stared me down.

Three very naked, very tall, very gorgeous men.

Steam rose off their sculpted bodies in waves, the heat of the shift washing over me even at a distance. The alpha still stood out as the largest; at my best estimate, he neared seven feet, though he hunched now, still protecting his companion. That body—he was a wall of muscle, olive-skinned and brooding. Tattoos snaked around his forearms, lines of solid black that seemed to have no beginning and no end. Scars crisscrossed over his chest, his defined abdominals. I forced my gaze up, fire flaring in my cheeks.

So naked.

Don’t stare at their cocks, Hazel. I’d never seen men so, so very naked before in a setting like this, where I wasn’t reaping or nursing, and it…

Oh. It flustered me.

Another failure.

His eyes. The alpha’s eyes flustered me too, dark and hooded—angry. Another scar cut through his right brow and halfway down his cheek. A black mane trundled over his broad shoulders in frizzy waves. His full mouth set in a tense line as he glared down at me, his rough beard in need of sheering.

The other two lacked facial hair, though they were certainly no less handsome. The beta had transformed into a tall, lean man with brilliant blue eyes, a head of chestnut curls, and cheekbones that could cut glass. Flawless porcelain skin shone with sweat, the shift between beast and man noticeably taxing. While he lacked his alpha’s hulking muscular definition, he appeared wiry and strong, his hands crowned with long, graceful fingers and surprisingly clean, short nails.

And those eyes. Royal blue and mesmerizing; I could lose myself, easily, in those eyes.

The last of the bunch, my first connection, had short cropped black hair, brown skin, a heart-shaped face, and beautiful, big hazel eyes. He stood perhaps an inch shorter than the beta when he finally climbed to his feet, and it pained me to see he was just as scarred as his alpha. The marks on his perfectly carved torso reminded me of… bite marks. Like another hellhound had sunk his teeth in and refused to let go.

While they might be indestructible to some degree, my boys could scar. With enough force, an enemy could leave a memory on their flesh—and that infuriated me.

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