Reaper's Pack (All the Queen's Men Book 1)

by Rhea Watson

  She accepted my savagery and responded in kind, raking her nails across my neck, up my sides. My hair became her new obsession, a prop for tugging and twisting, her grip its harshest the louder she moaned.

  As her lovely body tightened, her pale pink nipples pearled and her full lips parted, her eyes slowly drifted closed. I memorized every quiver, every quake, sensing her nearing her breaking point, the cliff’s edge in sight as her cunt choked my cock each time it slammed into her.

  I fisted my hand firmer into her messy mane, dragging her back so that my mouth found her ear, my pace never slowing. No mercy. Not for an alpha’s mate.

  “I do want you, Hazel,” I snarled softly, pumping harder as her hands scrambled across my body for something to cling onto. “Don’t you understand? I fucking want you. I can’t. I shouldn’t, and it’s killing me.”

  “Have me,” she sang sweetly, glancing over her shoulder as much as my rough hold on her hair would allow. “Knox, I’m yours—oh!”

  Her face screwed with pleasure, and I nearly lost myself in the way her body rippled around me. Heat flashed in her cheeks, then skittered down her beautiful figure in a telling flush. Bent over the fallen tree trunk, she shivered and shook in my arms—and still I offered her no mercy. Not when my own release was a breath away. The beast within surged, taking control as I slammed into her once, twice, three times more.

  And as I spilled myself inside her, pleasure surging and threatening to cut me off at the knees, I yanked her head to the side. Bared her throat to me. Instinct guided my mouth to the crook of her neck and shoulder—and I bit down hard, a sound reverberating in my chest that even I hadn’t heard before. Something primal and raw. Guttural. Possessive.

  Whether it frightened her or not, Hazel took every last brutal moment of it, her breath falling in stuttering gasps, her body warped for my purposes.

  For my mark.

  That was what I was doing, what I had never done before: marking a mate.

  Mine.

  Ours.

  Tentative fingers walked up my cheek, buried into my hair. Softly this time, she held me to her, even after my teeth left her flesh. We stayed like that, some tragic statue in the forest, my harsh breath gusting over her neck, our hands in each other’s hair. Stinking of one another, scents entwined. Sex and sweat mingled with the storm. As the beast retreated and the man seized control, I knew I needed to move, but I couldn’t.

  I wanted to stay like this forever, buried in her, my mark on her skin, her hand in my hair and her supple body tucked neatly to mine.

  If only hellhounds were permitted such luxuries.

  Slowly, as my self-control came trickling in, I eased out of Hazel and stumbled back a few paces. Lost in her, I hadn’t noticed the changes around us: the rain had downgraded from a battering to a misting, and the sky stayed a dreary dark grey, not a hint of flickering light to be found. As I scrubbed a hand over my face, thunder grumbled very, very, very distantly, heard only to those with heightened senses. Water squished soundly underfoot, and I made a halfhearted attempt to do up my trousers, my movements as sluggish as my mind.

  Hazel, meanwhile, straightened in front of the fallen tree trunk, her back to me, body glistening from the dripping rain. She picked through her torn clothes, leaving the tattered dress where it was but reattaching the black lace around her breasts. A hint of modesty, our roles reversed—her mostly naked, me fully clothed. I scowled down at myself, then ripped clean through the shirt buttons, wrenching off the soaked fabric and tossing it aside. Next came my boots and socks so that I could feel the mud between my toes—feel more myself.

  In a matter of moments, I too stood naked, skin coated in the cool watery mist. Hazel’s gaze swept up and down my figure almost appreciatively, and her lips lifted in a gorgeous little smile.

  Only I couldn’t bring myself to smile back.

  All of this had been… a loss of control, fueled by scotch and whatever the fuck she had gulped down for the last six hours.

  I’m yours, Knox. It was just heat-of-the-moment talk. And that pissed me off.

  I held up a hand when she drew a breath, looking like she had something to say.

  “Tell me you’re mine in the morning,” I growled, knowing full well she would run from this just as fast as I would in the harsh light of day. “When you’re sober, tell me.”

  Her mouth opened and closed a few times before her arms crossed and her expression pinched.

  “I am sober,” Hazel snapped back, “and it is morning, you stubborn twat.”

  No longer in the mood to fight, physically or verbally, I started a shaky climb up the nearby hill, in need of a cold shower—and then to brood in front of the hearth in my bedroom.

  I made it halfway up the slope before a certain someone, who had been soundless in her approach, kicked my left leg out from under me. Embarrassment flared hot in my chest when I lost my footing again and skidded through the mud, not stopping until I grabbed at a sapling. Hazel loomed over me, arms still crossed, but much to my surprise, her glare was gone.

  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 mad
e 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.

  Yet giving in to whatever we had, this connection between the four of us, made me weak-kneed and uncertain. Happy too. Thrilled, actually, to consider the bond solidifying between myself and the boys.

  But…

  “Oh, just go, Hazel,” I muttered. I couldn’t put it off any longer. Ignoring the whispering ripple that shuddered along the celestial plane, I teleported away from the park in the blink of an eye. Made a pit stop at the ward. Crossed through that and sealed it up. Just the sight of the forest brought a rush of fire to my whole body, memories of Knox, so masterful and domineering and good, knocking the wind out of me. Clinging to my scythe, my one consistency, I materialized in the alpha’s bedroom.

  Where I found an empty space and a dying fire. Downstairs, cutlery clinked, and the tap water ran; swallowing hard, I teleported down to the kitchen, appearing suddenly enough to make Declan drop the plates in his hands.

  “Hazel!” Midway between the island and the sink, the stack of ceramic hit the tile with earth-shattering force, disintegrating into a hundred little pieces at Declan’s feet. Knox and Gunnar were at the island, the alpha in his usual spot lording over everything, Gunnar at the opposite end picking through whatever was left in the breadbasket after the meal. Such a little breadcrumb vulture, that one. Both stared up at me with the same startled expression as Declan, only Knox was the first to bounce back.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” he demanded, rounding the island and stalking over to me. If we were perfect strangers, the sheer size of him would have sent me running. But I knew him. I knew him better now than I did twenty-four hours ago, so I held my ground, scythe at my side, refusing to be bullied.

  Gunnar rose to his feet at the island, his regal features twisted into something unreadable.

  “I… needed time to think,” I said slowly. While I didn’t scuttle to the other side of the kitchen or hide behind Declan, I still leaned away from Knox’s towering figure, especially when his eyes narrowed.

  Hard to believe that just this morning those black orbs had been soft as liquid gold when I’d kissed his cheek at my bedroom door.

  “Have you any idea how worried we were about you?” the alpha pressed, the depth of his snarl making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I finally planted my scythe between us, just for a little added security, and shook my head.

  “What?”

  I’d left the property dozens of times in the last two and a half months—my absence wasn’t a cause for alarm. Peeking around the mountain of a man in front of me, I looked from Gunnar to Declan for an explanation and found the latter silently picking up the largest pieces of broken plate. He too wore an expression that I couldn’t quite read, his dark brown eyebrows furrowed, his beestung lips pursed in a concerned frown. Huffing, I snapped my fingers, and in an instant the plates materialized next to the sink, whole and intact, the floor around him spotless.

  “That thing followed us to the club last night,” Gunnar told me, and my belly bottomed out at the news. “I pursued him, but he disappeared through another portal.”

  “Oh” was the best I could manage, my already too-full brain sluggishly working through the news under Knox’s accusatory glare. “Well. No one told me that—”

  “We would have had you been here this morning,” the alpha remarked tightly. When our eyes met, I couldn’t help wondering if he was just annoyed that I’d, what, disappeared on him after last night? He eased to the side, finally allowing the others access to me without a wall of alpha muscle in the way. “Instead, we found an empty bed and nothing.”

  Yeah. Maybe a little bitter, but worried overall. I practically felt it, the concern tainting the air around us. Sure, anger mixed in there too, but every one of his features suggested his harsh tone came from a genuine place.

  And that made me feel things.

  A lot of things, actually. My eyes prickled with tears at the mere thought that Knox was so worked up about my safety…

  “Okay, well, I’m fine,” I insisted, hating that Gunnar didn’t look like he believed me, that he shared his alpha’s infuriated concern over my well-being. And Declan… He looked torn between hurt and relief, his feelings out in the open as he leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed. At no point did he glance my way or meet my gaze, and that stung. “I didn’t know about the demon, or whatever he is, but I only felt a weird little ripple toward the end of the day, before I left the park, and—”

  “What were you doing at the park?” Knox tipped his head to the side, making up for Declan’s lack of eye contact by never once taking his eyes off me. It was a welcome change of pace, all this concern rather than blatant disdain, but I had survived for ten long years on my own as a reaper; I didn’t need to be monitored.

  “This third-degree inquiry is a bit ridiculous,” I said tightly. “It’s none of your business.”

  Knox scoffed. “You are our business, reaper.”

  The notion carried between all three of them, in the slight lift of Gunnar’s brows to the little nod from Declan.

  “Right.” I’d be the biggest asshole on the planet if I threw that back in their faces—especially when I no longer questioned it for a second. “Look, I’m sorry. Really. I get it. I just needed some time to think. The trials are coming up in a couple weeks, then this guy is clearly following us around, and… and… us…”

  Mouth set in a thin line, Knox brushed my hair away from my neck, exposing the bright red mark he had left there. I flinched out of reach and dragged my hair back over my shoulder, hiding it away, and crossed to the island.

  “What about us?” Declan asked, his words soft and uncertain. Planting my scythe beside me, I licked my lips and scann
ed the measly supper leftovers—procrastinating, again.

  “Yes, do go on, Hazel…” Gunnar settled on his stool and threaded his fingers together, then steepled them in front of his smirking mouth. “What about us?”

  Three expectant gazes settled on me like a ton of bricks, the pressure slowly but surely crushing me into the floor. Confusion churned in my belly, made my mouth dry, and I picked at the little bits of leftover—grossly overcooked—steak strips on the serving platter in the middle of the island.

  “I… I don’t know, okay?” The weight refused to lift, resting squarely on my shoulders as all three hellhounds waited for something better than indecision. Heck, I needed something more than indecision, but clarity had evaded me all fucking day. “I’ve never been in this situation before.”

  “And what situation is that?” Knox asked gruffly, lingering right where I’d left him between the island and the door. I popped the bit of steak in my mouth and chewed for a thousand years—yep, definitely overcooked. Had Gunnar shouldered Declan out of the way at the stove again?

  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.