Page 109 of Reaper's Pack

A shrill, shrieking Declan in his hound form, being yanked along by his back leg, around which was an enormous bear trap. The teeth ripped into his flesh and stained his shaggy fur red, leaving a trail of it in his wake. He struggled hard against the restraint, twisting and clawing at the ground, trying desperately to stand and toppling back down with every hard jerk of the chain attached to the trap.

“Declan!”

Charon had lit dozens of candles when I last saw him, a crowd of enormous white, flame-tipped columns littered around the cave—I now realized it was so I could witness every gruesome detail. The metal trap caught the light here and there, highlighting the runes carved into it, and I clapped a hand over my mouth to muffle my sob.

Those markings probably prevented Declan from shifting.

I’d heard of shifter traps before, inked in magical sigils to keep the captured in their animal forms. Maybe they were easier to control when they couldn’t access opposable thumbs.

“You bastard!” I screeched, wishing I could slam my hands against the bars of my cage, make my fury known with more than just my voice. “Please, let him go! He doesn’t deserve this—”

“Please, please,” Richard parroted back to me, mocking me in a singsong tone. Fresh blood dribbled down his face, and not just from the sigils carved into it. My pack had roughed him up a bit. Good. From the horrible twist of his mouth, that cruel smile he wore as he yanked Declan into the cave, hopefully whatever they had done to him hurt.

Declan reared up suddenly, lunging for the warlock with a mouth of razor-sharp teeth that could strip flesh from bone, but Richard snapped the chain hard, wrenching Declan’s wounded leg sharply to the right. He stumbled with a whine, more blood splattering the stone floor, filling the air with a metallic tang that I tasted with every breath. That bear trap had such vicious teeth, so sharp and jagged, intended to score into the bone.

I knew that feeling, knew precisely what Declan was going through, my wrists painted with dried gold blood, my previous wounds healing slowly and tenderly. Aching with every slight movement. Limiting me. Maybe even scarring me.

Panic made my throat tight. This time, when Declan lurched forward, Richard clocked him across the face with the bulky end of the chain, and I stifled another sob when my sweetest hellhound tumbled down and didn’t get up.

“You don’t have to hurt him—”

“No, he doesn’t,” an unwelcome voice crooned, slithering into the cave and up my spine. I whipped around and found Charon floating in from another dark tunnel, casual and cruel in the way he carried himself. The god drifted by my cage, barely shooting me a sidelong glance in passing. “But I’m afraid you made that choice for us, Hazel.”

Before I hurled the curse seething at the tip of my tongue, Gunnar charged out of the corridor to my far left. Teeth bared, eyes blazing, he blitzed straight for Richard—but a lazy flick of Charon’s hand threw him off course, sent him flying into the wall with a yelp. He hit hard, his back bowing backward to the curve of the rocks waiting there to catch him. I pressed a trembling hand to my mouth again as he crashed to the ground, whining, dazed.

It killed me to watch this, my heart broken, my mind frantic with so many scattered thoughts that it was impossible to think straight.

The one thing I could do from in here was look for Knox. My warrior in black. The unfaltering pillar of this pack. My eyes darted around the cave, jumping from dark opening to dark opening, searching for his familiar silhouette—either as a man or as a hound.

And I came up short.

Gunnar pushed shakily to his feet and sprinted for Richard, but a blinding bolt of staticky white light hurled him into the wall again, his back taking the brunt of it again. Hit it just right and his spine would snap—I was sure of it. Trembling, I searched for Knox a little longer.

But he wasn’t here.

He… hadn’t come.

I didn’t have the energy to be furious with him too, but how could he let Declan and Gunnar go after me alone? We needed the strength of the whole pack to take down Richard and Charon, to combat their dark magic when I had my personal supply cut off.

And… What Knox and I had shared… what we had all experienced over the last week, I thought he…

Hovering at the leftmost corner of my orange cell, I shook my head. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t here, and that was that. Stay present.

“So, what do you have to say now?” Charon peered over his shoulder at me. “Will you reap?”

I bit the insides of my cheeks, relishing the way the pain centered me, then forced myself to match his smile. “Fuck you, Charon.”

With a gentle flourish of his hand, he created a long, thick black whip out of thin air. A sharp silver tip capped it off, and he yielded it with expert precision, cracking it at his side.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?”

I screamed when he lashed out at Declan, striking him three horrible times across the back.

“Stop!” I sank to my knees, hands in my hair, powerless. Charon whipped Declan once more, eliciting a harrowing screech from the hellhound, blood spattering stone like some fucking abstract painting. “Stop! Please, don’t hurt him!”

Gunnar shot up again with a snarl, and Richard hit him with another blast of magical electricity.

“I think it’s your turn to beg for mercy, dog,” the warlock sneered as Gunnar pushed onto his side, then snorted and blinked hard. His brilliant red eyes found me, piercing as ever, and he shook his head ever so slightly.

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