Page 75 of Reaper's Pack

I wanted to rip him apart.

Because how likely was it that there were two such creatures afoot?

A shock of inky-black hair sat neatly styled atop his head. A strong jaw. Pale skin—probably from blood loss. Anemic, lean, slim, his body reminiscent of human fashion models. Half the bloody runes on his angular face appeared to be scarred over, carved into him long before tonight. One just below his left eye seeped red, fresh and angry.

Was this the thing Hazel and Knox had seen?

The wretch Hazel had fretted over for days, fearing for the soul he’d stolen away while we had all worked so diligently to save them?

I cocked my head to the side, the obnoxious music muffled on the celestial plane, the tangled scents of humanity dulled.

“Tell me, creature,” I crooned, my thin smile making him gulp. “How fast can you run?”

Because I can run much, much faster.

The threat hit home, forcing a few choked stammers out of him. Every inch of exposed skin bore the brunt of his blood magic, yet he appeared well-dressed and modern in a fitted blue suit. The tip of a neatly folded checkered kerchief stuck out his breast pocket.

A beast of this world, then.

I lunged. He staggered back into the wall—and clear through it. An enormous red symbol illuminated the moment he made contact, painted onto the brick, a cluster of distinct sigils encased in a massive circle. It swallowed him whole, the brick suddenly fluid and flexible, but then firm to my tentative touch. Bloody. Red stained my fingertip when I pulled it back to inspect, the scent metallic enough to make my mouth water, to compound the battle-lust inside.

The air sizzled with a strange buzz, unfamiliar even with my extensive experience on the celestial plane. Unsettling, this new sensation.

Highly unwelcome.

Fury suddenly raged through our pack bond.

“Was it him?”

Only Knox could produce something so profound through our connection, something that could cut me off at the knees and divvy me up into little pieces. I shrank instinctively as he approached, striding through the celestial plane as the nightlife carried on without us. Distantly, I spotted Declan and Hazel; my packmate’s anxiety hitched, intermingling with Knox’s wrath, and an uneasy look flashed across his face. Hazel, meanwhile, appeared totally oblivious, her expression jubilant, joyful, dancing her little heart out.

“Not knowing precisely what he looked like to you, I believe so,” I remarked with a nod to the bloody symbols on the wall. Knox took it all in hurriedly, a lone, fat ice cube jostling around his glass tumbler of scotch.

“Demon?”

“Hard to tell.” Having stared into the eyes of many a demon, I should have known in an instant. Instead, indecision percolated around my skull. That angular face reappeared in my mind’s eye, clear as day, the bloody carvings slightly muddled, and I plucked at minute details, highlighting them, emphasizing them. I did it frequently with memory work—usually it made things clearer. Not this time. “He… He had no scent.”

“Yes.” Knox sniffed at the artwork, scowling. “What I thought as well. No ash. No hellfire. No blood—save what was leaking out of him. Not black either.”

“Agreed.”

A confident swipe of his fingers through the exterior circle broke the barrier, any lingering magic rendered useless. “Human blood again.”

“I don’t think he was human.”

“No. They’ve no access to the plane.”

“Not many do.”

“Gods do—”

“And they bleed gold like angels.”

Knox grunted in agreement, then stepped back to stand alongside me, the pair of us examining the symbology in silence. Frustration gnawed at me; I so despised not having an immediate answer for any and every problem we faced. Most of all, I loathed not being able to steer my alpha in the right direction. He looked to me for guidance, for confirmation that his decisions were the right ones—the best ones available. Here, we were equally at a loss.

And, frankly, that pissed me the fuck off.

“It’s a portal,” I mused. Given our lengthy stint in Hell, I suspected Knox knew that as well as I, but sometimes working through problems aloud had its benefits. “Personalized to him, most likely. Even with the circle unbroken, it did nothing when I touched it.”

---