Page 78 of Reaper's Pack

“Every last one,” I admitted, hoping none of them heard my slight fumble over the pounding bass.

But my pack heard everything. Everything. Everything that I didn’t want them to, especially the subtext. Their hurried glances told me they were discussing my depressing omission between themselves, through that mystical pack bond that connected them forever. A part of me wished I could tune in to their frequency.

Be one of the pack.

Without it, I would always be an outsider.

Always.

Declan hopped up on the barstool beside me, setting my empty drink aside and stretching an arm along the counter so that it almost wrapped around me. His proximity was such a comfort, even if we weren’t touching, and I found myself gravitating toward him, our knees nudging together, my body settling into the crook of his arm.

“Well, come on, then,” Gunnar interjected, his smooth lilt rising over the roar of the nightclub. He stepped back, which opened our little huddle up, then offered me his hand. “Teach me one of your favorite routines.”

I cocked my head to the side, shoving down the memories of a life gone by—a life that would never be, so there was no point in dwelling on it. “I don’t know. This music doesn’t exactly lend itself to the Lindy Hop.”

“Indulge him,” Knox insisted. He handed his empty tumbler to Declan, who set the glass next to mine on the bar top, sixteen scotches deep and steady as steel. “I need something more interesting to look at than them.”

He gestured to the crowd of selfie-snapping, uncoordinated-dancing, sloppy-face-sucking humans on the other side of the squared off bar with a thrust of his chin. Disdain riddled his features, and had we not reaped together yesterday—had I not watched that decrepit but sweet old soul smoosh Knox’s huge hellhound face in her hands—I would have worried about his opinion of humanity.

But Knox just had standards.

And no one here met them.

My eyes dropped to Gunnar’s awaiting hand, to the sheer size of it compared to mine, smooth and pale, long, lean fingers outstretched. Like Declan’s, they were exceptionally talented in their own right. The thought of them stroking my slick folds, pumping in and out of me as the third act of the opera raged on, elicited a painfully hot blush, one that I did my best to hide behind my hair.

“Well, the Lindy is a tough one to learn if you don’t know, you know, your side of things.” Slowly, I slipped my hand into his, and he escorted me off the barstool and into the scarce bit of space between the bar and the brick wall. “I can teach you the foxtrot… That’s a pretty easy one.”

Gunnar arched a dark eyebrow. “You think I want easy?”

“I think you need easy,” I fired back, relishing the pleasant burn of his hand around mine, the safety I felt inside it. “Prove me wrong and I’ll step it up a notch.”

As always, Gunnar was up to the challenge, exceeding my expectations and then some. He picked up the footwork after a single demonstration, moving slowly through our first attempt, then faster on the next, finally steering me around like he had been born to foxtrot. What we really needed for a dance as smooth as silk was a ballroom. All his lean lines, his effortless control of those long limbs—Gunnar was built to move, to follow a routine and execute it flawlessly.

Declan, on the other hand, struggled to find his footing when his turn came, but we all blamed it on the booze. Apparently, reapers had a stronger tolerance than hellhounds, because he and I had downed the same amount, but he just couldn’t make it work. His feet were all over the place, the pair of us tripping over each other, laughing while Knox and Gunnar chuckled from the sidelines.

It was a blast.

And when the sweetest hellhound of my pack finally toddled off to get us all another round of drinks, my lone credit card in his pocket, I had a suspicion about him…

That he was better than he let on.

That he fumbled around to make me smile, to make me double over in a fit of giggles at his clownery, my cheeks sore from laughter.

No one had ever done that for me before: embarrassed themselves on purpose.

I mean, if that was his game, anyway.

Maybe he was just hapless and sweet and naïve and innocent—and made love like none of those things, masterful when the time called for it, in control and dominant when I needed that.

Multifaceted. I huffed a few strands of hair out of my face, hands on my hips as I watched him disappear into the swarm of humans at the bar. Yeah. Gunnar was precise and meticulous. Knox consistent and resilient. And Declan—never one-dimensional.

I could work with that.

I could love that.

Them.

I… I could love them one day—no question.

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