Page 87 of Reaper's Pack

Once I swallowed, difficult as it was, I couldn’t just go on picking at their scraps.

“A situation where—” I shrugged, struggling under their scrutiny. “—I’ve, you know, been with… had feelings for, uh… more than one man, and I—”

It was then I noticed my hellhounds were each grinning to some degree and exchanging quick looks between themselves. I scowled, a hand on my hip. Sure, I preferred a grin to a frown, but my suffering wasn’t for pack entertainment.

“It is not amusing, I assure you,” I said, bristling. Gunnar’s smirk sharpened.

“It’s a little amusing.”

“No,” I gritted out, snatching up a lone honey-glazed carrot and popping it in my mouth. “It’s not. It’s stressful. And confusing. And… I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Why is it stressful?” Declan asked, his palm to his cheek, smile dampened for the time being—like he was really trying to connect with my predicament. Classic Declan. In that moment, all I wanted from him was a hug.

“Yes,” Knox drawled, cutting through that tender feeling with a huge, unnecessary dose of snark, “don’t you want us?”

Shoulders tensed, I shot him a withering look. Don’t you want me? Nice. Throwing my words from this morning in my face. The alpha merely smirked back, a challenging flicker of his scarred eyebrow daring me to call him out.

But that wouldn’t help anything—or change the direction of this conversation. Getting into a sniping match with Knox was just another way to put off a resolution to this. To us.

“I mean…” I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat like a rock. “Obviously I do—want you, all of you—and that’s the problem.”

Knox’s smug expression faltered.

“I see no problem,” Gunnar insisted, straightening in place and clapping his hands together—like my omission meant it was all done and dusted, problem sorted. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t that simple. I flashed him a weak smile.

“No, of course you don’t, but I—”

“Hazel, there’s no problem for us.” Declan strolled from the sink to the quartz island, arms crossed, those beautiful eyes so warm and comforting—begging me to believe him. “No jealousy, no competition. We aren’t fighting for you… Well, I suppose we’ll fight for you, if you get my drift, but you aren’t a prize. It isn’t every hellhound for himself. We all care very deeply for you. I’ve thought you were our fated mate from the beginning, and now these other pigheaded fucks are finally realizing it too…”

Gunnar shot his packmate an eyeroll, while Knox’s low warning growl suggested he didn’t enjoy his stubborn streak being called out by anyone. I, meanwhile, fidgeted with my shirtsleeve as a rush of heat hit me, made my head spin. Fated mates. It was a term that carried a lot of weight in the shifter community, and while hellhounds were different than shifters, a class of their own, apparently the mythos was transferable.

This pack of three believed Fate had created me for them—and them for me.

In their eyes, we were destined to find each other.

And from the way we met, after all they had been through, my ten long years of miserable loneliness… Maybe Declan had a point.

But…

I shook my head and pushed away from the island, leaving my scythe where it was as I strode across the kitchen. “I’m sorry. I-I still need to think.”

Blitzing by Knox, I made a beeline for the door—only to find it instantly blocked by Gunnar. He’d teleported in a flash, tall and imposing, that lean figure managing to fill the entire doorway, his elbows pressed to either side of the frame.

“We want you, Hazel,” he rumbled, tipping his head to the side as I stuttered to a halt. The look in his eye had morphed from confidence to hunger, those royal blues darker than I had ever seen them. Even the smirk that lifted his thin lips was a different shade, no longer smug but primal. I stumbled back a few paces at his first prowling step forward, and he motioned to me, then the others with such certainty it made my head spin. “And you want us. What, exactly, is there to think about?”

“I… I…” A low whine stretched between my ears, my head full of staticky nothing. “I, uh…”

His smirk turned deadly. “Hmm. Yes. That’s what I thought.”

“You all want to leave,” I insisted, blurting out the suspicions that had been on my mind since the very first day. Some might call it grasping at straws—I saw it as the final tethers that needed to be cut before I could truly give in. My eyes danced wildly between the three, heart thudding hard. “You want to go, be free, get out of this life—”

“Is that what we said?” Declan’s voice whispered in my ear, lightly accented but deep, seductive, so unlike his usual self. I jumped when his arm snaked around my waist; all of them were getting so good at teleporting—or had he just closed the distance between us without me noticing?

Either way, he was here, hard and firm at my back, refusing to budge when I retreated into him. His free hand found my hair, and my skin prickled when he swept it back, baring Knox’s mark to the world. He nuzzled it, his breath soft, the fleeting caress of his nose, his lips, so warm, so soothing, like the Arabian Gulf on a summer’s day.

I blinked hurriedly, trying to shake off the lull crafted by his caress—because Gunnar still prowled toward me, slow and surefooted, while Knox watched on, the weight of his gaze crushing.

“Yes,” I whispered, looking to Knox, “that’s what you said. You want to leave—”

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