Page 63 of Reaper's Pack

Fate gave you a gift.

“Look what you made me do,” the male grumbled from the armchair, kicking at her sprawled legs, her slipperless foot. “Fucking cunt, I told you not to push. All you do is push. And look what happens. Look what fucking happens.”

With Hazel softly murmuring to the soul, cooing and coaxing her to lower her hands, I stood guard. Fury pounded through me when the male stood, his next kick landing on the corpse’s side.

“I told you to mind your fucking business!” he bellowed, crouched over, screaming at the lifeless body as her soul wailed. Beer dribbled out the bottle, splattering over her bloody face, and he hurled it clear across the room. The shatter of glass had Amy’s soul collapsing further in on herself; she dropped to the floor and rolled into a ball, rocking back and forth, sobbing.

I turned away from her, fixated on this male, this pathetic creature.

“Look at what you did!” He kicked her again, then stomped on her ribs. “Look at what you did, Amy!”

Snarling, I took a step toward him. Rage replaced the sorrow in my heart. I’d swallowed it for years, beat it back down; no matter how furious I became with the circumstances, with our surroundings, with the treatment of Gunnar and Declan, I rarely responded unless directly attacked. I protected. I stood between an abuser and the abused. Always.

But he wouldn’t stop kicking her.

She was already dead, and still he pummeled her.

“Knox, let’s just go,” Hazel said distractedly. “We’ll deal with everything in Purgatory…”

He broke her nose with his heel, crushing bone and cartilage, flattening it like a fucking cardboard box.

Centuries of subdued rage finally came to a boil—and I snapped.

With a roar, I charged from one plane to the next, leaving the celestial behind and hurdling headlong into the mortal realm. The bastard staggered back, off-balance and blinking hard at me like I was some drunken hallucination.

He should know what I was: vengeance, penance, instant justice for the brutal act of butchering his mate.

Time seemed to slow when all four paws left the ground, my body flying toward him, teeth bared and snarl rattling the windows. Distantly, Hazel’s voice screamed through the planes, but with my heart drumming a battle cry, I barely heard it—didn’t even acknowledge it.

We collided seconds later like an avalanche blasting over a lone pine tree, ripping it from the earth, root and stem. The fucker collapsed, slamming his head to the floor, cracking bone, and I went for his face, snapping, snarling, painting him with saliva as a wildfire blazed through my veins. Red eyes glared down at him, yet all I saw was red too, the hazy tinge of pure rage clouding my vision, focusing it on the screeching human beneath me. My claws raked up his chest, splitting him open, shredding him like a knife through butter. Hot blood spurted up my legs, but I pressed on, refusing to yield until there was nothing left of him, until he was just bits of flesh and bone and teeth on the fucking floor.

He deserved no less.

“Knox!” Hazel’s cry came sharper this time, slicing through the fog. Footfalls clicked hurriedly across the hardwood to my left, even as I sank my teeth into the shrieking human’s shoulder. “Knox, stop!”

No. Never. Never would I—

I stilled when the cool touch of a reaper’s scythe settled against my throat. Human blood dripping down my jowls, I straightened and followed the staff all the way to her. She stood, paler than I’d ever seen her, eyes fixed on me, unnervingly still.

How dare she stop me?

How dare she rob me of this one justice?

I reared around the scythe, stabbing my front paw into the fucker’s open chest until a rib cracked.

Hazel pressed in harder, the blade cutting through fur, its power extinguishing the fire within me as easily as one blows out a candle. This thing could kill me. Shaking, rage still pounding with every beat of my heart, I looked to her and wondered: would she thrust deep? Slit my throat with a hook made of stars?

Yes.

No matter her feelings, no matter our connection—Hazel would kill me to protect this human.

It was her duty.

And I had—infringed on it.

“Step back,” she ordered firmly, and when I hesitated, she offered one last taste of her scythe’s bite. Although it physically pained me, I slowly complied, taking a few stiff, furious steps away from the human.

The murderer who lay in a puddle of his own blood and piss.

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