Page 72 of Reaper's Pack

“A demon collecting souls from Earth—directly?” Gunnar’s eyebrows shot up as he settled on the bay window ledge, arms crossed. Seconds later, his foot—wrapped in fine Italian leather, a gift from Hazel for his successful first field test—started to tap, a tell that his mind had begun to race. “Is that usual?”

“I’ve never seen it,” Hazel told us. She inched away from me when I sat beside her, and I swallowed the pinch of hurt, instead easing back on my elbow and stretching the other arm out behind her on the bed. Her gorgeous mane unfurled down her back in an explosion of white, and she fidgeted with it absently, bringing it over her shoulder, then fluffing it back. “Demons can collect souls directly after death, but only if they’ve made deals… Humans can sell their souls for something in life. I always thought it was rare, but apparently not.”

“That thing wasn’t a demon.” Fire poker in hand, Knox crouched in front of the hearth and stabbed at the dying embers inside. One harsh breath sparked a flame, and he fed it with the kindling from the nearby basket. “I know demons… He wasn’t one.”

Well, that settled it. If Knox said it wasn’t a demon, it wasn’t a demon. I certainly needed no further proof, though Gunnar appeared lost in thought—like he hadn’t even heard our alpha’s declaration.

“I didn’t think he was a demon either,” Hazel admitted softly. “He didn’t feel like a demon. Maybe kind of looked like one, but—”

“Did you tell them about the carvings?” Firelight danced across Knox’s scarred face, sparks exploding in the hearth as the flames gobbled up the little twigs and bits of crumpled paper. A blazing dot of orange settled in his beard, and he extinguished it with a flick. “The symbols on his body? The blood sigil on the ground?”

“Yeah, yeah, all of it.” She shuffled back deeper into the crook of my arm as she readjusted her position, seated on one bent leg, the other hanging over the bed’s edge—not touching the floor, probably, the short little thing. Affection squeezed my heart at the thought, danced along our pack bond, my feelings eliciting something similar from Gunnar. Our alpha exhaled sharply—did he think we were both struck by puppy love now?—but remained focused on Hazel as she said, “I had to fill out a ton of paperwork. Heaven is so ridiculously bureaucratic. But, yeah, I wrote everything down. I even drew whatever I could remember…”

She tucked her hair behind her ears, shoulders slumping, folding in on herself. I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to just grab her and yank her against me—because I could hold her up. Last night with Knox had taken a lot out of her already, and now this? Let me shoulder the burden, sweet.

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I did what I could. They said they’ll take it from here, so…”

“But you have doubts?” Gunnar asked, to which Hazel sighed again, as if at a loss.

“I just don’t know how to feel right now. This is something I’ve never seen before, and I’ve been reaping for ten years. I don’t think it was a demon. His blood was red.” She shook her head, frowning. “But I have no clue what else it could be. All I know is that he stole a soul, and he could be… hurting her, and I just… I want…”

Justice. Her heart was too big to carry this darkness alone. I finally sat up and pressed a firm hand between her shoulders, then slowly stroked up and down, massaging her.

“I’m sure the angels will find her,” I insisted, wishing I could drain away all the fear and stress with my touch alone. “They’ll make it right.”

Knox scoffed, sliding the iron poker back into its cannister noisily as the fire snapped and hissed. A warm orange hue filled the room, paired with the white lamplight from either side of the alpha’s bed, and shadows danced across all our faces—mine the only hopeful expression present.

“Agreed,” Hazel said, her gaze tangling with Knox’s, the pair locked in a private, wordless conversation while Gunnar and I smirked at each other. Good. It was nice to see them bonding, slow and laborious as the process might be.

A monstrous gurgle suddenly echoed through the room.

Three sets of eyes whipped to me, and Gunnar rolled his.

“For fuck’s sake, Declan, just go eat something already.”

My face ripened with embarrassment. We had worked through our usual lunchtime today at the tower, and after we’d returned, the whole pack had been too anxious about Hazel to do much more than pace and speculate. Apparently, mine was the only belly to complain about it.

“Oh, sorry…” Hazel stood in a hurry. “I should have realized that you—”

“We are more than capable of feeding ourselves,” Knox interjected before I could. Female hounds in Hell usually minded the young and patrolled the internal territory; males were solely responsible for providing food. Hazel’s concoctions tasted way better than anything I’d ever eaten, but she wasn’t expected to wait on us anymore. We knew the layout of the house, where to find everything. We could feed ourselves. She just… She made everything taste so fucking good.

“We wanted to wait for your return,” Gunnar added. “Food has been the last thing on our minds today.”

Hazel nibbled her plump lower lip for a moment, slowly looking between the three of us as color blossomed in her cheeks. Fuck, did I ever love her blushes. For a deathly pale reaper, she was so wonderfully prone to them. That lone left dimple suggested she was fighting a smile, and interest throbbed through our pack bond. All three of us delighted in making her happy.

No denying it anymore.

“Okay, well, I should probably get started on something anyway—”

“I was thinking…” Shuffling to the end of the bed, I ignored the sudden rush of saliva at the thought. “Pizza.”

“And what, pray tell, is pizza?” Gunnar asked, nose crinkling.

“It’s that round bread with the cheese and tomatoes,” Knox said absently, nudging at the fire with his foot, pushing a log an inch to the right—like that would make a difference. Grinning, I scrambled across my alpha’s bed and grabbed his tablet off the little side table. A few swipes of my finger and I had the most appetizing pizza imaginable on the screen: Meat Lover’s Extravaganza.

“We can order it online from one of the shops in Lunadell,” I said as Gunnar crept closer. As soon as the tablet’s screen light illuminated his features, I could almost sense him drooling. “Then we go and pick it up.”

After all the shit we had been through in the last twenty-four hours, I figured we could do with a treat—something out of the ordinary, something new and exciting. When I looked to Hazel, I found her mirroring my grin, her gaze warm.

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