Page 108 of Reaper's Pack

“No, Gunnar,” Knox rumbled as I grabbed hold of Richard. My alpha offered a slight shake of his head, then a weak and resigned smile. “Not this time.”

My nails gritted into the warlock’s sleeve, and Declan grabbed hold of my free wrist so that we wouldn’t lose each other in transport. Just the two of us now.

Hot tears streaked down my cheeks, but when I cast Knox one final look, he had already turned away, his back to me as he padded down the stairs. The food court blurred around us, and I jabbed the tip of the warlock’s dagger into the nape of his neck.

“Take us to her,” I demanded. “Now.”

32

Hazel

I had traded the chair for a cage.

Knees hugged to my chest, butt numb from sitting on stone for hours on end, I stared at the angry orange shimmer of my cell, the bars staticky and sizzling. As soon as Richard had left, Charon dropped the dramatics—like he missed having an audience. With a wave of his bony hand, he reconstructed the cage I’d arrived in, then dragged me inside by the back of my chair. Once all the orange bars slanted into place, effectively trapping me, muffling my magic more than it already was, my bindings had disappeared. As had the chair. As had Charon.

And soon enough, it was just me in this awful cavernous pit. Charon’s threats had hit home, and the wait to see if Richard found my boys was agony. There was nothing else to do but worry—sit there and ruminate in silence. Sure, I’d attempted to teleport, to attack the bars with whatever magic I had inside this reaper body. Nothing. The plethora of runes, the fierce sting of the magical enclosure, was enough to beat me.

It would be enough to beat them too.

A part of me wished the pack had run off as soon as I was taken. Maybe if this had happened a few weeks ago, they could have saved themselves. But I knew without question that the three hellhounds I’d fallen for were still in Lunadell, looking for me, searching frantically. Every so often, I felt—something. A shiver of panic skittering down my spine, a whisper of fear on the back of my neck. Before they had left their marks on my skin, I could have chalked it up to my own panic, my own fear.

But mine roiled in my gut. The feelings that danced down my spine, tingled on the back of my neck… I was starting to suspect they belonged to them. By shifter lore, we were bonded.

So, maybe, just maybe, I could feel them in a way I couldn’t before.

Maybe inch by inch, I was being let into the pack bond they all shared.

What a time for it to happen—when I wished they were far away from this nightmare.

Somewhere in this godforsaken cave, water dripped, dripped, dripped. A kind of consistent, delicate torture that would drive me mad one day. For now, it reminded me that there was a world out there, that it went on without me… and that my boys could too.

Unlikely, but—

A brilliant blast of light flashed down one of the nearby corridors, its rounded mouth briefly illuminated bright white. Magic hummed through the air, thickening it, and I shot to my feet when a pained yowl reverberated against the stone. I knew that cry, that deep, angry, pained cry.

My heart sank.

My boys had come for me.

And they’d tasted Richard’s magic.

I rushed toward the bars on the left of my cage, hissing and whimpering when I accidently brushed one, the burn as intense as ever. Footsteps thundered down the narrow offshoot from this great room, followed by the sound of claws on stone, barks and snarls that were so obviously Declan—

A violent snap of metal.

A high-pitched yelp that cut straight to my marrow.

“No!” I cried, burning my hands again as I tried to get closer, to see what that bastard was doing to them. Not that I wanted to see—but I had to. I had to know. They were here because of me, and whatever happened to them deserved to haunt me for the rest of my miserable days.

Silence blanketed the cave for one, two, three painfully long beats—and then the most agonizing wails I’d ever heard shattered the quiet. Declan. I knew the sounds they all made, could detect the minute subtleties between each bark and howl. And that was my Declan.

A figure appeared in the corridor’s opening, moving along haltingly, his back to me.

Richard.

I’d thought him a victim of Charon, same as me, until I realized he was hauling something by a chain into this main cave.

At the end of which—Declan.

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