Page 77 of Reaper's Pack

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d danced.

It had to have been during the war—on a bit of downtime, someone with a radio, me and the other nurses in my unit whipping out a jitterbug, maybe even a jive. But since I’d come back, there had been no dancing for me. Rarely any laughter. Music came in passing, or when I had the odd moment to sink into my old records.

Tonight was brand-new for me, just like it was for them.

And as I hopped onto a barstool in the far corner of the underground club, perspiration on my brow and my thirteenth drink in hand, I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t done this sooner.

Maybe because I hadn’t wanted to do it alone.

We never used to dance alone. Never. Always with a partner, something that had been painfully absent since my soul returned to reap.

At Sampson’s Corner, I had three.

Well, two willing partners and a hulking reluctant one.

My lips wrapped around the little red straw bobbing in my cocktail, and I slurped back a drink that tasted almost identical to apple pie. Sweet yet tart, with a dash of cinnamon and a hint of spice. Delicious. Thirteen deep and only now, after midnight had come and gone, was I starting to feel the tingly effects of alcohol. Tipsy. That was what one of the girls in the bathroom had said, how she described her level of inebriation.

I hadn’t been drunk since the war either. In fact, none of us were even sure a reaper could get drunk. Shortly after we had arrived at the nightclub, Declan suggested we give it a whirl—test my limits. Had tonight taken place two months ago, I would have staunchly refused, possibly even seen it as a ploy: get me drunk, toss me aside in a moment of weakness, then make a break for it.

But Declan matched my every drink with one of his, and slowly, as the hours sped by, his cheeks had become rosier, his gorgeous woodsy browns less and less focused, his moves on the dance floor less precise.

Not that said moves required much precision. It was an awful lot of bouncing around these days, screeching to mash-ups of popular songs. Those humans who did snag a partner danced far closer than we would have back in my time; some even looked like they were fornicating, grinding hips and writhing together, sweaty clothes the only thing keeping them from actual sex.

Gunnar had given these modern moves the odd try, but never with a straight face. His snark had suggested he couldn’t take any of it seriously, a notion I echoed even with all the booze circulating my system. He had five drinks to go before he caught up with me and Declan, and Knox…

Well, Knox was two ahead, favoring the club’s scotch selection, and yet somehow seemed the most sober. As the four of us settled into a corner, the hellhounds loitered around me and the humans gave us a wide berth on this side of the bar. Hardly surprising. While we dressed the part of clubgoers, Knox’s size alone was deterrent enough. Drunk men navigated the crowd of scantily clad women all night, but only two had had the courage to approach me.

Not that they ever got a word out, mind you.

One look from Knox had sent them scampering.

But none of that mattered. Knox had been scowling at them tonight, not me. Declan had no qualms in looking like an absolute loon on the dance floor, shamelessly copying the humans around us. And Gunnar had been pleasant, quippy, always there to catch me should I teeter off-balance in shoes I usually shunned.

Tonight, in this basement, surrounded by so many humans it should have felt stifling, it was easy to forget. Forget the stress of training and the impending trials. Forget the shifting dynamics between me and the pack. Forget the bloody beast who had stolen a soul. Forget the fact that I hadn’t danced in ten long years, that I hadn’t smiled this much in just as long.

For the first time in a painfully long time, I could be present. I could enjoy the moment.

And if all the other drinks on the menu were this delicious, I could—maybe—get drunk. Then I might just forget everything—for a night, at least.

“Tequila time!” Declan announced in a singsong voice, wriggling between Gunnar and Knox and plopping four dangerously full shot glasses on the bar top. When his packmates offered him near-identical raised eyebrows, he shrugged and flashed us all an adorable smile. “I heard the humans say it on that show… The one where they travel and party—”

“Every reality show on that network, then?” Gunnar said with a slight roll of his eyes. I leaned in for an experimental sniff, confirming that the crystal-clear liquid in the glasses was, in fact, a very strong tequila.

“Where are the salt and lemon wedges?” I asked, certain that the bartender would have offered them. Halfway down the crowded bar, I caught one of the servers in all black sweeping quartered lemon wedges off the counter with a scowl. Declan, meanwhile, scratched at the back of his neck, briefly just a lost, tipsy little puppy.

“Do we need those?”

“Next time,” I insisted brightly. As if that was the go-ahead he needed, the hellhound distributed the shot glasses amongst us, and after a somewhat sloppy cheers, we threw them back together. Fruity richness tangled with the almost painful bite of pure, paint-stripping alcohol, and while I hastily sucked down some of my apple pie cocktail to dull it, Knox chased his shot with a gulp of scotch. Gunnar made a face as he set his empty glass on the counter, nudging it away like he was officially done with tequila for life.

The ringleader of tequila time shuddered, his face puckered; Declan danced from one foot to the other, coughing, chasing the aftertaste away with nothing at all. Poor darling.

“So, tell us, Hazel,” Gunnar said, the three of them boxing me in on the barstool, barricading off this dark corner with their impressive, sculpted bodies. No amount of clothing could mask such perfect Adonis figures. “Is this reminiscent of your human days?”

I snorted. “Not even a little. We had dance halls, but the dancing now is so different. Most of the time, for us, we had live bands, and we… You didn’t dance alone.” Royce had been a good dancer—quick on his feet, his narrow hips catching the beat as he led me through the steps. Something twisted in my gut at the memory, and I went for my cocktail. “And there were always dances we did, steps to follow. You weren’t really making it up as you went along.”

Still noticeably reeling from the tequila shot, Declan accepted what was left of my cocktail with a grateful smile. “Do you remember any of them?”

The ache in my core sharpened like the twist of a knife. I stumbled a little over the answer, staring at my drink in Declan’s skilled hands, the liquid level falling, falling, falling—gone.

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