Page 37 of Reaper's Pack

He shrugged again, a little smile teasing his lips when a gaggle of human children erupted in shrieking laughter halfway up the beach. “It’s done. It haunted me for a long time, until I…” His breath caught, and he cleared his throat with a shake of his head. “Anyway. If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have found Knox and Gunnar.” He went quiet again, smile dying, brows knitting. “And they… They’re my family.”

His sidelong glance punctuated the undertones of that statement, the words unsaid. Gunnar and Knox were his family—and he would always choose them. I couldn’t change that, no matter how desperately it hurt to be on the outside of that sort of bond, so I forced a smile and squeezed his arm.

Just to touch him again, under the guise of comfort, to feel the electricity spark between us.

“I understand,” I insisted. “Really. I do.”

His eyes dipped down to my hand, where my thumb had unconsciously started stroking him in slow, deliberate back-and-forth swipes. When I realized what I was doing, how it might read to him, I hastily pulled away and focused on the humans enjoying the beach, my cheeks burning.

September brought moderate temperatures, and from the look of them, I’d dressed myself and Declan in the proper clothes to blend in. Sporting a pair of dark jeans, a black tee, and his off-white runners, the hellhound at my side looked very much the city dweller trying his hand at nature for the first time. I, meanwhile, could get away with my beachy black dress—loose, down to the knee, with short sleeves and a scooped neckline, it was as bohemian as I dared these days. With my feet wrapped in a pair of black flats, Declan and I made quite the gothic pair.

“Come on,” I urged, working hard to ignore the fact that his warmth still lingered on my palm. “Let’s go mingle with mortals.”

I started off down the beach at a gingerly pace, stopping with a healthy distance between myself and the nearest humans to plant my scythe in the sand. There was no way I could bring it into the human realm without arousing a ton of questions, so here it would stay, on the celestial plane, until we returned.

I did it all the time, frankly. It wasn’t like anyone else could swipe it without burning to a crisp.

Two steps away from my beloved scythe, however, I felt it again.

A faint ripple in the plane.

I stilled, listening, willing every sense to root it out. While not as strong as the shudder I’d experienced at the hospital with Declan, it was still something. Something I had never faced before. Something off-putting. Like the fabric of our surroundings quaked. A shiver sliced down my spine, and I crossed my arms, searching the beach, the forest, the towering hills for some clue as to what could possibly…

It had to be nothing. Because there was nothing—nothing to suggest anything on the celestial plane was off, nothing to give credence to my discomfort. All was as it usually was; maybe the ripple was just what happened when you traveled with another celestial being. After all, I had only walked the roads between worlds with reapers and souls before. Maybe it was my pack—maybe I just felt it when they crossed over.

I made a note to consult Alexander the next time we spoke, then pushed it out of my mind. No sense in putting a dampener on what was supposed to be a positive outing.

Eyes on the scattered humans, I timed my exit from the celestial plane just right—when they all had their backs to me. It was a quick, easy slip, stepping from one dimension to the next, but the heightened hum of the mortal realm hit me hard as it always did. The human world was louder, brighter, the smells stronger and the ground at my feet grittier.

For Declan and the others, it must have been overwhelming—but going out here, walking amongst humans, was what they had asked for, and damn it, I intended to deliver.

“So, I was thinking we could just…” I trailed off when I turned around and found nothing—no Declan, no shaggy hellhound. Just the rustling forest, the overgrown path, the beaming sunshine. Fear bolted through me: this was exactly what I’d thought might happen. Bring the pack into the world, then watch them escape, one by one, until I was alone.

Again.

“Declan?”

Nothingness answered, the mortal realm sighing all around me. I stumbled forward a few steps, sand invading my flats, until Declan trotted out of the forest in his shaggy hellhound form. Relief made my knees weak, and I exhaled a sharp huff, swiping my hands through my hair.

Thank goodness.

He crossed the sand slowly, cautiously, sniffing at it with his tail low and his pointed ears extra perked. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he felt more comfortable like this around strangers, but one of my personal goals for these outings, with Declan in particular, was to chip away at some of the past trauma—replace horrible memories with good ones.

“You just let me know when you’re ready to shift back,” I said as he approached, that great head of his taller than me when I crouched down. While his eyes were still their usual red, in this light they had a brownish tinge to them that would hopefully allow him to blend in with any humans who didn’t look too close.

But with a beast of this size, how could they not? Declan was a beauty, looking like a show dog with his silky black fur, fluffy tail, and sleek snout. If anyone asked, he was a mixed breed—perhaps a cross between a shepherd and a wolfhound, something to account for his size.

“No one here will hurt you,” I insisted when he nosed along my feet, huffing at the sand that had spilled over their tops. When he straightened, I caught the end of his tail swishing back and forth on either side of him, and his mouth opened into a canine smile that I’d come to appreciate. Of the three, Declan was always the most expressive in his hound form.

Nodding, I straightened up and beckoned him to follow me toward the water. While there was no set plan for the day—I just wanted us to enjoy ourselves, let Declan taste the Pacific, bond a little—I figured it was safest to head toward the hilly area to the north. Most of the humans clustered down by the shore, with a trio of kids no older than ten running about, tossing a ball between them, and it would probably be best for everyone if we just watched for a while.

Kept our distance, this weirdo pair in black.

Declan padded along behind me, his shadow engulfing mine, bouncing with every step. A cooler wind billowed off the water in the human realm than on the celestial plane, making the hairs on the back of my neck rise—but maybe that was also because people were staring.

Should I have brought a leash for Declan? Was it beach law that he wear one? I hadn’t even considered that beforehand. If I just kept him close—

“Puppy!”

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