Page 97 of Reaper's Pack

But even without looking, the rest of my senses confirmed at least a few things.

I was sitting upright, my head drooped to my chest, the strain in my neck and back suggesting it had been hanging for some time.

My wrists and feet were bound to the chair with something cold and cutting—barbed wire, maybe?

And I was… groggy?

Yep.

For the first time in my afterlife, I was groggy. Disoriented.

As a reaper, I’d felt invincible for the last ten years, but as I threw my head back, wincing at the thud when it smacked into the chair’s solid wooden back, I made another frustrating realization.

My invincibility was a product of the weapon I wielded, gifted to me by Death—and the fact that I spent all my time with human souls. Frightened human souls at that. Sure, the odd demon crossed my path, but for the most part they were bound to Lucifer’s laws. Angels bound to Heaven’s decrees.

Reapers were neutral territory. We were fucking Switzerland in the war between Heaven and Hell.

The rest of the supernatural world had stayed off my radar…

Until a carved-up psycho trapped me in a cage, dragged me through a portal, and stabbed me in the back with something that hurt worse than death. I shifted in place, my butt asleep, and grimaced at the flash of pain in the middle of my back, just off to the right.

He must have drugged me.

I sucked in a deep breath, damp earth flooding up my nostrils, accented by a cold metallic bite reminiscent of wet rocks. Finally—finally—I forced my eyelids up. They slid back down on their own accord, and I spent an embarrassing amount of time battling with them.

My eventual victory came with a depressing view.

Bound, like I’d suspected, to a high-backed chair at the head of a long stone table, I found myself in a cave of sorts—or, at the very least, deep underground. Slate grey surrounded me from every side: floor, walls, ceiling. Shadows collected in the corners, the surrounding cavernous space black enough that I’d have been screwed if I couldn’t see in the dark. Candles flickered across the table, and an eerie glow cast everything nearby in a nauseating orange. With some difficulty, I tipped my head up—and found a skull-encrusted chandelier hanging over the table.

Great.

Just perfect.

Psychotic and disgustingly dramatic, my captor.

As I tried to lubricate my too-dry mouth, my sandpapery throat, I saw to my wrists. Simple twine coiled around each, binding me to the chair’s armrests, but any movement felt like razor blades slicing through my flesh. I bit back a whimper as a thin stream of gold erupted from beneath the tawny thread, and I stilled with a stuttering breath, not in the mood to test if this rope could carve through a reaper’s bones too.

Refusing to just sit here and wait for whatever rubbish that bastard had up his sleeve, I resorted to magic. However, like in the cage, nothing happened. A pulse of energy had the skull chandelier above rustling a little, and as I glowered up at it, I realized why I couldn’t get a foothold, magically speaking: sigils. Dozens of them carved into the ceiling, all sorts of ancient warding and protection symbols etched deep into the stone. A few I recognized, but most were foreign to me. Based on my inability to perform, I assumed there was at least one to muffle my magic—or any magic outside of the carver’s brand.

Fantastic.

This day just kept getting better.

Footsteps clicked primly behind me, and I straightened, each soft tip-tap like thunder. They moved slowly, purposefully, in no hurry to greet me at this twisted banquet table. Heavy too, the gravitas palpable. The air around me thickened with power, and it didn’t surprise me one bit to find it wasn’t the fucker in his meticulous, albeit frayed, grey suit, his slicked black hair—but a much larger figure in reaper’s robes, the hood drawn, its back to me as it strode leisurely down the length of the table. I swallowed hard, ignoring the weight of its presence…

And the scent of violent death suddenly permeating the room.

It sat gracefully at the other end of the luxurious stone table, the dancing candlelight stilling to perfectly straight peaks of light in its presence. Slowly, the figure lifted skeletally thin hands to its hood and peeled it back.

My hands clutched at the armrests as I battled with my lingering brain fog. This being may have donned a reaper’s garb, but he wasn’t one of Death’s servants—not from the look of him. Cheeks so sunken they peeled open to bone and sinew. Blazing yellow eyes that stared unflinchingly back at me. No eyebrows, no eyelashes. Thin lips. Thin skin too, translucent and stretched over his skull.

Like a corpse—only he radiated power, control.

Magic, even.

No doubt the artist behind all those symbols.

“Hello, Hazel.” A rough, grating voice skittered across the table, and suddenly the fiery tips of the candles moved again—frantically, like even fire wanted to get away from him.

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