Page 47 of Reaper's Pack

Frustrated, I patrolled the vast stretch of land inside the ward regularly now, headed out just after sunrise and returning once the pack had eaten breakfast. I needed time to think—and space to do it in without her scent and her eyes and her fucking smile muddling it all up.

The quiet had me tenser than usual as I padded into the green depths, taking the same route as always, a hint of a path worn into the forest floor by my enormous paws. Even on the celestial plane, I had grown accustomed to forest critters skittering away as I approached, but this morning there was no scrabbling of claws along branches or up bark, no warning chirps of little birds, no chaotic flutter of a dozen wings taking off into the sky.

Eventually, I reached the ward. Nosing along its base, I followed it, careful not to get too close lest it singe a whisker. Nothing smelled out of place, but I felt it in my bones, the stillness in the cool, humid air, like every living thing around me held its breath, waiting for it to be over.

Whatever it might be.

I’d just scaled a fallen tree trunk, half inside the ward, its feathery top outside, when something finally caught my eye. A figure beyond the ward, small but distinctly humanoid. I glanced to the side, curious, then flinched back with a startled snarl, every part of me stiffening for a fight.

There, on the other side of the shimmering ward, was a woman—or, at the very least, a creature who had once been a woman. She hovered just above the ground in tattered clothes, a gnarled mess of tangled black hair snaking down her figure. But it was that face that startled me: deathly white flesh hung off to her bones, her cheeks sunken and worn away to the point that I could see her rotten teeth. Black beady eyes stared back at me, unblinking, and slowly she rotated her head to the side, studying me.

Possessiveness spiked in my chest, a need to protect my territory against outsiders forcing me right up to the ward, so close its burning magic heated my twitching nose. We stood toe to toe for a few slow beats—until she started screaming.

Her jaw elongated well beyond a human’s natural reach, her tongue forked, her mouth dark—stinking, probably, like death and decay. A familiar callback to my time in Hell. She bellowed a high-pitched challenge, and not a thing around me moved, sensing her just as they sensed me.

She pounded her skeletal hands against the ward, each collision of her fist making the barrier shudder—but it held firm, even when she raked her broken nails across it. My hackles rose at the assault. Dead. A dead thing wanted in, unhurt by the ward’s sting. I snarled back, not an ounce of fear in me, just anger, rage that this thing sought to take what was mine.

“She’s a vengeful spirit.”

Snuck up upon again; my hackles inched even higher. Now that I was aware of her, Hazel’s presence bellowed just as thunderously as the spirit did, only it was a pleasant assault, one I could easily get lost in.

I steeled myself and cast the shrieking woman one last menacing look, a silent statement that her fury was nothing to me, then padded around to face the reaper.

Scythe in hand, Hazel wore her usual dour black attire, only she lacked the excessive material today, moving without her own personal wind billowing through the garment. Black trousers clung to her legs, leaving nothing to the imagination as they wrapped snug to her shapely figure. A loose black shirt hid the rest of her curves, the sleeves long enough to cover half her palms. Hazel supplied us with human clothing that suited our personas—mine muted greys and blacks and whites, finally large enough to fit me. Yet for herself, she always wore such drab pieces, like she wanted to retreat even further from humanity.

Without a breeze to carry her scent away, it hit hard with every step she took, salty and tumultuous as the sea, power churning below her calm surface. So heady. Enthralling.

I huffed her from my nostrils, holding my ground as she approached the ward, those keen brown eyes fixed on the squalling spirit.

“She’ll be a poltergeist soon, something to torment and terrorize,” the reaper mused, sorrow in her gaze and a rigidity along her jaw that suggested some internal conflict. “Give her time… She’s almost there.”

The spirit slammed her body against the ward now, screaming in a foreign tongue, desperate to gain access. When Hazel stopped in front of her, I turned as well, almost taller than the reaper when I rose to my full height. Deranged black eyes soon found mine again, and she fixated on me, hurling herself into the magical barrier, snarling, baiting me for a fight.

My heartbeat quickened. Try me, spirit. I was more than ready for her, almost craving a fight after weeks of domestic docility.

“Spirits can get stuck on one person,” Hazel went on. Did she think I was hanging on her every word? Did she care anymore whether I paid attention or not? Quite against my will, my gaze slid over to her, to the delicate lines of her profile, down to her full lips as she sighed. “They can follow them to the ends of the earth, really. I’ve felt something strange out there lately… Like there’s this, I don’t know, disturbance in the plane. I’ve never felt it before, as if something’s watching me.” She planted her scythe in the forest floor, eyes narrowing at the spirit. “But I think I’ve finally found the source.”

Another surge of possessiveness reared within me, anger burning in my chest, scorching up my throat, forcing my lips to peel back in a snarl—all at the thought of someone tracking Hazel, hunting her through the celestial plane. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her studying me with a frown, as if she sensed my response, possibly even saw it.

No. With a deep breath, I settled. No, that feeling wasn’t really about her. Protectiveness was in my nature as an alpha—Hazel was just caught in the crossfire now that she lived within my new territory. Nothing more.

“There are angel squadrons responsible for her kind,” Hazel remarked with a dismissive flick of her hand. “All they do is hunt and eliminate rogue spirits, the ones who vanish before we can reap them. But, I mean, since we’re here…” She gripped her scythe and lifted it into a defensive position, her stance shifting ever so slightly as she held it at her side—like she was brandishing a broadsword. “We’ll just dispense with her ourselves.”

Together, then, we would roost the dead thing from my—our—territory. I exhaled a harsh breath, then licked at my jowls, the thought of battle making my mouth water. Despite my body’s response, I could have walked away. Left her to deal with the spirit by herself: surely she was capable.

Indestructible, especially with her scythe.

But I wanted to see that thing wither with my own two eyes. Confirm its demise. Because if it got through the ward and Hazel failed to kill it, the tormented soul would latch onto the house—onto Declan, even with his newfound confidence. She would find the weakest among us and torture him because she could.

So, I retreated a few paces, allowing Hazel the space to align her scythe’s curved blade right in front of the wailing spirit, a sliver away from the shimmering ward.

“Are you ready?” she asked with a quick glance my way. Had I been able to make more nuanced expressions in my hellhound form, she might have seen the just fucking do it already twist of my features. Instead, I offered a low, sardonic ruff, body tensed for a fight. With a nod, the reaper sliced through the ward, clean and quick.

And in rushed the screaming spirit—straight for me.

I braced for impact, but she hit so much harder than I’d expected, knocking me off all four paws onto the unforgiving forest floor. As soon as my side collided with mossy earth, I rolled and reared, snapping and snarling at her, my vision tunneled on the screeching banshee on top of me. Her gnarled black hair hung like curtains around my face, her flesh paper-thin, her clothing shredded beneath my claws. High-pitched cries filled the forest, finally sent the birds scattering. Deranged sounds poured from her dry lips, pained and twisted, like some unseen hand forced the air from her lungs.

Even still, as her talons sliced across my sides, I possessed no sympathy. If she could, she’d kill me. Already she watered the ground with my blood; fighting on one’s back was a poor position for a hellhound. We were far better matched in face-to-face combat.

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