Page 51 of Reaper's Pack

Smitten. Hopelessly besotted.

“Wait.” She barred my path suddenly, stepping between me and the door. “Here…”

I stiffened when she tucked her gold clutch under one arm, then closed the distance between us in two long steps and stood up on her tiptoes to reach my bow tie. The looping fabric brushed across my neck here and there, but I couldn’t tear myself away from her. Those eyes, those cheekbones—deliciously sharp enough to give my own a run for their money.

All these new phrases we had learned since settling here certainly made describing her easier.

And vastly more engrossing. An expanded vocabulary sent my mind racing in Hazel’s presence, her sweet alyssum scent positively intoxicating, lulling me into a stupor if I let it. Her smell, her featherlight touch as she expertly crafted the perfect bow tie—it all made my knees weak.

No.

It made me weak.

Declan’s chuckle had me steeling myself, and I darted around her as soon as she arranged the bow tie in place.

“Have fun, you two,” my packmate called as I strode out of the room, the poignant click, click, click of Hazel as she followed me down the corridor setting my nerves on fire.

How I was going to survive tonight, I’d no idea.

Hopefully a human died wherever we went and we’d be forced to reap them together—because, honestly, that was the only way we were going to see it through to the end.

* * *

All the raw emotion simmering to a boil inside me died when Hazel and I materialized at the foot of the Lunadell Opera House. Still hidden away on the celestial plane, yet also surrounded by humans in fine suits and silvery furs and shimmering silk gowns, we stood before a great black building akin to some of the old cathedrals I had seen online and in the news—gothic architecture, they called it. Reminiscent, in some ways, of the stone towers in Hell, yet no part of me recoiled from the sight.

For this was a house of worship, and the goddess inside was music.

Hazel needn’t explain an opera house to me. Ever since she had deposited that aging phonograph in the piano room, I had studied—in secret, mind you—the ways of music in the human realm. Genius creatures, these humans, who created such magnificent works. I had fallen in love with not only Beethoven and Mozart, but Debussy and Brahms, Shubert and Wagner, Vivaldi and Rossini.

Hell, John Williams made the list.

Even modern music with its synthetic beats had merit—because it was something new, something that elevated my heart and set my mind wandering.

Knox and Declan weren’t privy to my fascination with humanity’s rhythms, but Hazel knew.

And she had brought me here, to the steps of the Lunadell Opera House…

Guilt reared its ugly head as we ascended the wide-set stone stairs in silence, guilt for the way I had spoken to her back at the house, for the hurt I’d left on her with every snide remark. As I stared at her little feet, dress hitched just enough to reveal a pair of much higher heels than she had ever worn before, I acknowledged that the goal had always been to leave her…

But I needn’t be so cruel in the process.

I needn’t beat her down as so many had done to me, only with words instead of fists and whips.

She had chosen this place for me, for my love of human music, and it made me feel…

Too much.

Much too much.

Squaring my shoulders, I caught up to her, climbing two steps at a time while her dress only permitted her to scale the one.

“What show will we be enjoying this evening?”

She fidgeted with her hair, a shy smile on her lips, and nodded to the enormous posters stretching the full length of the main doors.

“It’s a new one,” she told me, “about the sacking of Rome.”

“Excellent.”

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