Page 6 of Reaper's Pack

As we sized each other up, I felt them. Even with the space between us, my skin hummed as though I had just traced every peak and valley of their magnificent figures with my fingers. The bond was immediate and unnervingly visceral, their heat fueling me, bringing me back to life after ten lonely years of death. My reaper skin was cold to the touch, my kiss rumored to bring destruction. But in that moment, somehow touching but not, I was hot-blooded—I was home.

And the alpha and beta glowered down at me with the same disdain Fenix had for the mud he’d scraped off his boot.

The demon inserted himself into the moment—our moment—by tossing the spiked golden collars onto the ground between me and my pack, into the blood, and wrapping an unwelcome arm around my shoulders.

“Boys,” Fenix started, his words laced with cold, cruel mirth, “meet your new alpha.”

The full weight of their stares, their judgment, their scrutiny, suddenly made me feel very small. I swallowed hard and gave a little wave with my scythe.

“Uh… Hi.”

3

Gunnar

New alpha.

Ha.

In all my life, I had only yielded to one alpha, and he stood next to me, his fury hammering through our pack bond. Uh… Hi. I tipped my head to the side, my lips itching to spread into a patronizing smile to counteract the reaper’s awkward greeting, something to cut her off at the knees, put her in her place.

But my usual venom had taken a back seat—because that fucker Fenix was still touching her. My gaze lingered on the demon’s arm around her shoulders, thoughts of their intimacy overtaking my rapid assessment of this place, of our new circumstances. Just how familiar was she with our former master? Did she welcome his hands on her? From her tense posture, I could assume the answer—no, no, a thousand times no—but I knew nothing about her beyond her appearance.

Hardly the look of an alpha, and I had seen my fair share over the years. Most were brutish, big; Knox certainly fit the stereotype, but he possessed an innate strength I found lacking in every other alpha who had tried and failed to rule me.

He exemplified it now with his protective stance in front of Declan, walling off the weakest among us—caring for his own, a perceived weakness among demons and most other hellhounds. In my opinion, there was immense strength in softness, in recognizing the varying abilities of every individual. Declan had always been small. His former packs abused him mercilessly, and he carried that with him to this day. But he was bright, eager, and diligent—should he be given the chance.

Would this reaper allow him the opportunity to shine, just as Knox had, or would she dismiss him like all the rest?

I scrutinized her silently as she shrugged Fenix off. Her fingers danced over her scythe’s wood staff, as though adjusting her grip. The most powerful weapon in all the worlds stood before us, clutched in the hand of a petite, albeit curvaceous, female. Clearly she had been found worthy of handling such profound majesty, but I struggled to picture her on the battlefield, caked in blood and cutting down foes with a blade forged in the cosmos.

Yes, we all knew a reaper’s scythe—what it could do to us should we be foolish enough to caress it. The stories passed from pack to pack, from demonic trainer to trainer, right up to the top of the hierarchy, who stood sneering back at us now, his own weapon still humming dangerously. The pain of its touch was amplified in human form; my body tensed instinctively, preparing for the shock I’d endured countless times before.

But it would be nothing compared to the scythe in her hand.

That was why none of us had attacked yet.

She might have signed her name in blood for our pack, paid for us with Heaven’s gold—but she would never own us. By sundown tonight, I’d have an escape mapped out. By sunrise tomorrow, we would be gone, lost in the wilderness I had scented upon our arrival.

Simple.

Almost too simple, perhaps, but I always welcomed a challenge—the rare time one presented itself.

“Have a blast, sweetheart,” Fenix crooned, clapping her hard on the back as he sauntered toward the front doors. Wealth glittered on his fingers, around his neck. Arrogance dripped from every pore. I gritted my teeth as I watched him go, loathing that he had taken one last opportunity to touch her before making his grand exit. Showy fucker. Once we were free, I’d find a way to kill him—if Knox didn’t get to him first.

The demon didn’t even have the courtesy to shut the doors properly behind him; he let them fall closed, but the breeze kept them from locking in place. They bumped with each gust, the lone bit of sound in an otherwise hushed, tense atmosphere. The four of us continued to stare, sizing each other up, the room crackling with a strange energy, like the air before a fight. The hairs on my arms rose. My nipples pebbled. My muscles tensed. Yet I remained still, watching, waiting, wondering who would break first.

Of course it was Knox. Predictable. My alpha turned on the spot, murmuring to Declan, and ducked low to meet my packmate’s gaze, no doubt asking after him, his mental state. Declan’s anxiety rippled frantically through our pack bond, a grating sensation that I felt in my teeth. Two years after taking him on, however, I’d gotten used to his moods—to his fear, his stress, his lingering trauma. Knox, meanwhile, radiated a powerful calm, though today his aura had a fiery undercurrent to it, pumping us up, preparing for battle.

I rolled my shoulders back, blocking out my pack’s internal strife. A rarity among our kind: the gift of focus. And in that moment, mine was pinned squarely on this new reaper, a reaper who seemed to have no fucking idea what to do with herself.

Although…

She was rather beautiful when the light hit her.

No other reaper had ever coaxed such a compliment from me.

Short in stature, she bore a rounded face, but none of her features were lost to the shape, her cheekbones as sharp as her chin. Wide-set eyes stared back at me, light coppery brown and unreadable. I’d expected blue with that shock of stark white hair, hair that she wore in a loose braid over her shoulder. She shared the same smooth, hauntingly pale skin as other reapers I’d seen, but hers flushed suddenly, a startling pinkish-brown that flashed all the way down her neck when her gaze flicked down and then shot back up.

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