Page 85 of Reaper's Pack

She wore the same expression that she had when she’d listened to my stories, to my pathetic, depressing history at the bar all those weeks ago. Compassion. Understanding. Awareness.

But not pity.

I gritted my teeth all the same, a snarl rumbling low inside me as she sauntered down the hill.

A snarl that quieted when she held out her hand and arched an expectant brow.

Take it, you fuck, her eyes ordered.

And I did. Without hesitation, I clapped onto her hand, and she helped me to my feet. All it took was a touch, the return of skin-to-skin contact, and the anger faded, the urge to brood and berate myself for giving in… gone.

The beast resurfaced, shoving aside the logical man in favor of seeing to my marked mate’s comfort. Wordlessly, I scooped her up and threw her over my shoulder—to spare her pretty feet from the mud and the grime and the wet.

To hold her.

All the way back to the house I carried her. Up to her bedroom door where I set her down, where she kissed me on the cheek and said a soft, sweet good-night.

Where we went our separate ways and settled on opposite ends of the house.

And seated before my fireplace, I knew: we might be separated by physical distance, by wood and concrete, by brick and tile, but in a very real sense, with that mark on her neck, her scent tattooed across my skin—Hazel and I would never be apart again.

25

Hazel

At about seven o’clock, the nighttime lamplights around Lunadell Park switched on, adding a soft yellow to what had been a rosy sunset. Seated on the same bench under the same old oak that Knox and I had maybe, sort of, kind of came to an understanding a few weeks back, I watched evening descend on the city that in less than three weeks, I would be responsible for reaping. Alongside Alexander and his pack, we would be responsible for the two million souls who called the metropolis home.

It was a lot of pressure.

Having a hellhound pack of my own, breaking boundaries with every single one of them, developing feelings that I had never had before—not even for Royce, who I’d promised to marry after the war…

It was just a lot. In general. Overall. The desire to perform to the highest standards at one’s job followed you into the afterlife apparently, but so did feelings, emotions, physical needs. And when I’d snapped awake out of a brisk two-hour nap this morning, Knox’s bite still achingly present on my skin, it all hit in one big, jumbled nuclear strike. I’d needed space, needed to get out. Needed time to think and reassess. A reaper shouldn’t sleep with their entire pack, right? It was a working relationship, like that of an army platoon or a naval crew. We were supposed to be professionals, doing the most important job imaginable.

And I’d crossed a line with all of them.

Or had I?

As I stood, the park quiet, the crinkly, crackly autumn leaves rustling all around, I still didn’t know the answer to that. Alexander made his hellhounds sleep in barracks outside of the main house, but I had come across other reapers on my few exhausting stints to the heavenly cities in the last few months. Most of the old-timers had insisted their hellhounds were family, that they would die for them—figuratively, I suppose. None of us were clear on whether we reapers could, in fact, die. But the sentiment stood: not every reaper saw their hellhound packs as property, as just another tool for reaping, a ladder rung in their climb to bigger and better things.

So why did I feel so—off? Still. After sitting and thinking and obsessing on this damn bench for the last twelve hours.

Casting one final look around the park, at the empty dog runs, the quiet bike paths, I slipped into the shadows of the oak and left the human realm behind. My scythe stood waiting right where I’d left it, planted in place at the foot of the tree, its staff cool and familiar when I wrapped my fingers around it. With a sigh, I brushed a bit of nonexistent fluff from the blade, polishing it with my slouchy long-sleeved shirt—procrastinating, not wanting to return and face the three hellhounds I had…

Well, exchanged intimacies with.

That was one way to put it.

None of them had made me feel guilty about it, and Gunnar had once told me that packs usually shared a mate.

But still.

The whole situation was strange, even for me—a woman who had died in 1943, then come back in the early days of the twenty-first century to collect souls for Death. I should be used to strange by now.

Only this strange was personal, intimate, my heart taking all the risk.

Because last night—this morning, whatever—I had told Knox I was his, when in reality, I could say the same to Declan and Gunnar. I felt for each one differently, cared for each hellhound for their individuality, all the while adoring them as a whole, a unit, a pack.

“Ugh.” I speared a hand through my hair, gnawing at the inside of my cheek. All these thoughts—I’d been through them before. Repeatedly. Round and round my mind went, all day, on that bench. Each time I considered handing the pack over to another reaper, perhaps after they had passed the trials, every cell in my body fought tooth and nail against it. My mouth dried up. My chest tightened, some unseen hand taking my heart and squeezing. Light-headed, flustered, uneasy—I couldn’t let them go.

---