Page 31 of Reaper's Pack

“Huh.” Knox tapped his finger on the island’s smooth top, then absently traced it between splotches of varying grey tones in the stone.

“I think…” My words died in my throat. I had a great many thoughts swirling around my head, always did, but for once, I was unable to voice them. All my life, I had relished sharing my brilliance, telling others precisely what I thought of any situation. Here, I couldn’t, not even when Knox’s eyes narrowed, pressing me for my conclusion.

“She’s lonely,” Declan snapped, his words rising over the sound of water boiling viciously inside the kettle. Steam coiled from the coffee maker’s black spout, as if fueled by my packmate’s frustration. “Maybe Hazel is struggling to accept that, technically, she’s dead. I think she goes out there every day to feel close to humanity.” He looked between us, his stormy gaze pleading for Knox and me to see the reaper as he did. Little did he realize I was almost right there with him. Declan threw his hands up, churlish exasperation skittering through our bond. “And she’s kind, and sweet, and she genuinely cares about them.”

I rolled my eyes, more out of habit than anything. “Yes, yes, you’ve gone into great detail about her embracing that sick girl’s soul during the reaping—”

“Well, apparently I need to,” Declan growled, “because you’d have to be blind not to see her for who she is.”

Outbursts from a hound so low in the pack hierarchy never went over well with other alphas, but Knox was the most diplomatic one I’d ever met. He usually entertained all opinions, but Declan had never been so outspoken before either—not until he met her. Another alpha would have put him in place, violently at that, yet Knox merely continued his distracted study of the island’s countertop, dragging his finger back and forth, unfazed by Declan’s words or the anger radiating from him toward us in our bond.

My lips twitched, threatening to rise into a snarl. I loved Declan, but he could take that anger and fucking shove it up his ass. I hadn’t made Hazel cry. I hadn’t condemned her to a lonely life of reaping. I hadn’t killed her. And I certainly didn’t relish her distress, nor the situation that caused it.

So. You know. Check yourself, as the humans said.

Knox had always been too soft on him.

“This has value,” our alpha mused, a compliment that would have made me preen yesterday morning that fell flat today. Declan marched up to the island as the coffee maker dinged.

“Her suffering is not value,” he snapped, his tone dangerously close to a challenge.

“No,” I muttered, “but it’s an angle.”

“I don’t like this.” Declan crossed his arms, seething. “I don’t like it at all—”

Knox held up his hand. “Declan, enough.”

Without raising his voice, he asserted his dominance. Declan backed away, subdued as he checked on the bubbling water, and I bit my tongue, not liking it all that much either. After all, the desperation I’d experienced yesterday, the need to comfort Hazel, told me that I was already fucked. All that I had felt before seeing her weep paled in comparison to the storm churning inside me now—but I could hardly pitch a fit about it, nor did I dare go against Knox’s orders.

“We don’t have to hurt her to use this to our advantage,” the alpha remarked, scratching at his beard, the gears whirring behind those unreadable black eyes. “If she’s lonely, we can fix that, and in turn, get what we’ve always wanted.”

Freedom. That was our endgame. The ability to exist in this world without bondage, to make our own decisions, to go where we wanted, when we wanted, untethered, uncollared, unleashed.

Only now, the thought of using Hazel to obtain it made my stomach turn. I glanced at Declan briefly, and my packmate simply glared back, like this was all my fault. And in a way, it was. Whatever Knox decided, my observations had been the precipitating factor.

Sighing, I shoved my plate away, appetite long gone. Knox, meanwhile, attempted another spoonful of gloopy, cold oats, then dropped his spoon into the full bowl with a scowl.

“Horrid stuff, oatmeal,” he muttered. Much to my surprise, he certainly didn’t sound victorious, not like he did when we had found ways to fuck with Fenix or any of the other trainers. Instead, he wore quite the glare himself, one that topped Declan’s and then some, as he snatched up the remaining stack of bacon from the plate in the middle of the island and shoved a slice into his mouth.

The terse way he chewed suggested that the cooked flesh, seasoned with salt and pepper, watched like a hawk by Hazel as it sizzled in the pan only a half hour ago, tasted the same as the oatmeal.

Horrid.

Absolutely fucking horrid.

11

Knox

“I can’t believe you’ve done this…”

“Hazel, why don’t you sit down?” I gestured to the opposite end of the grand dining table where we had set a place for her—a plate, a wineglass, a set of utensils. Clutching her scythe harder than she had in days, the pacing reaper whirled around and stuck me with a glare that screamed, Oh, now you’re speaking to me?

She needn’t say it; it was strange, yes, for us to have an actual conversation. I’d done my best to avoid that this past month, given the last time we spoke privately had ended in disaster. Inconsequential. She wasn’t, of course, inconsequential, not when she made all of us feel so fucking deeply, but making her despise me was just… easier.

“No, no, I think I’ll stand,” she ground out, swinging her scythe as she stalked back and forth. Declan shifted in place; seated to my left, his chair creaked beneath his awkward shuffling movements, his discomfort with this evening’s conversation panging through our pack bond to the point of distraction. Thankfully, my beta had better control of his emotions. Even if Gunnar’s opinion of Hazel had altered somewhat thanks to yesterday’s outing, he had an exceptional poker face. Like me, he could keep his baser instincts in check.

Declan, meanwhile, made no effort tonight to hide his innate responses. He’d said nothing, not when Hazel set out our supper on the dining table twenty minutes ago, a feast of roast pheasant and sweet potato mash and buttery, garlicky green beans. Round little loaves of homemade bread piled high in the middle of the table. Three candles flickered around the basket courtesy of Declan’s attempts to impress her with his homemaking skills.

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