Page 112 of Reaper's Pack

She would protect them when I was gone.

She would protect herself.

And that brought me peace.

Hand up, Hazel summoned her scythe back to her, then saw to the metal mouth snapped around Declan’s leg. With a single swift strike, she shattered it. Gunnar stumbled to her side in his human form, blood leaking from his nostrils, hair askew, eyes bloodshot, and helped free his packmate of the last chains Declan would ever wear.

Good. That brought me peace too.

My eyes closed slowly, and when a whoosh of air rushed over me, it took everything I had left to open them again. Darkness crowded in from all sides, but I could still make out her beauty. Frantically, Hazel checked me over, stopping at my hands with a sob.

I smiled weakly, touching a bony finger to the center of her chest.

“I have never loved you more, reaper, than this very moment,” I rasped. Tears cut down her cheeks, and she shook her head fiercely.

“No, Knox, don’t go. I can’t follow you if you—”

“Tell them…” My hand fell, but she caught it, bone and all. The creeping shadows narrowed my view to just her eyes, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “Tell them…”

That I loved them too.

That I could die in peace knowing my family was safe.

Tell them.

And finally, it all went black.

34

Hazel

Lightning cut across a foreboding sky.

Thunder cracked, rattling down to the deepest roots of the oldest cedar.

Rain pummeled Lunadell, threatening a flood of biblical proportions.

A frightful Halloween night: great for the ambiance, miserable for the little ghosties and ghoulies trudging door to door with pillowcases in hand. In years gone by, I had watched them, chosen the best and busiest suburb in whatever city I found myself in so that I could stand amongst all the children on one of their favorite nights of the year—a night where strangers were obligated to give them candy. I could hardly fathom such a thing. If we had shown up on our neighbor’s doorstep in masks when I was a child, someone would have pelted us with an apple or a potato, maybe even shooed us off with a broom to the side of the head.

No. The years had become kinder for children. I so loved to be among them, even if it made me weep. But tonight, there was no place I would have rather been than right here.

Well, perhaps not right here. Standing beneath the boughs of a few cedars clustered together at the tree line, I squinted against the rain. It hadn’t been pouring when I’d left Alexander’s estate, yet now, a maelstrom, seemingly out of nowhere. His pack had moved into the main house in his absence, so at least they had more protection than the ramshackle barracks situated at the cusp of his sprawling seaside property.

I had no idea where he went or what had become of him, but no one upstairs would even utter his name—always that one, they said in reference to him, rolling their eyes. In the few days since the business with Charon and Richard, the truth had come out, my story backed by the individual retellings of my pack.

Alexander had tried to take another reaper’s scythe. Rather than help, he had indulged in a few of the deadly sins—and now he was gone. His pack had been temporarily transferred to me, and on Halloween, of all nights, I had gone to speak with them for the first time. Militant bunch, that lot. Focused. Highly trained. Obedient to their alpha. Nothing like my pack, except for the fact that they listened to me. As our higher-ups searched for Alexander’s replacement, a suitable reaper to formally take over his hellhound pack, they were under my charge.

And from my succinct conversation with the alpha, for once as a man and not as a hound, that seemed to be a blessing in disguise.

Another streak of lightning skittered across its stormy backdrop, illuminating my house atop its slight hill. Thunder rumbled, unfurling over the landscape like waves crashing on the shore, and I stepped out of the forest, head down, scythe at my side, and made my way home. Mud squished underfoot, the air warm but cooling with every hour, threatening to turn the rain freezing. By morning, the first breath of November would leave the ground hard.

Smoke plumed out of our now working chimney. The patched roof would keep out the wet, the damp, the frost, and soft yellow flickered from the second-floor windows in the pack’s wing. Despite the rain seeping into my bones, I hurried along with a soft smile, up the steps, and through the front doors.

A puddle gathered instantly at my feet, lightning illuminating the foyer before I had even closed the doors behind me. Thunder vibrated in the wood as I bolted the entryway, locking us all in for the night. It had been three long days since Charon—since Knox had picked up this very scythe and put his life at risk for all of us.

We should have been preparing for the trials tomorrow morning; instead, we had another week to recover.

Squeezing the rainwater from my hair, I planted my scythe at the front door and peeled off my drenched black robes. My muddy flats came next, every article of clothing shed by the time I reached the landing between the twin staircases. My wing to the right, the pack’s to the left.

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