by Rhea Watson
“Really, I’m good.” I shrugged my packmate off with a quick grin and smoothed my hair back down to cover the bruising as best I could. The blow continued to ring between my ears, but there was no getting around that. “Stings a bit. Head’s ringing. But I’m fine. I’m ready to go.”
Knox’s human form appeared in the corner of my eye, and he ruffled my hair briefly, then clapped me hard on the shoulder. Even though he wasn’t smiling, his eyes flinty and his scared brow furrowed, I knew he was proud of me. I felt it in our bond—and in the way his hand lingered on my shoulder in a hard squeeze.
“Well, so much for Alexander,” Gunnar muttered as he sat back on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees. Knox let out something between a scoff and a snarl.
“He didn’t give a fuck from the second I told him… I think he just wanted Hazel’s scythe.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks, our collective rage in the bond making me see red. Needing the distraction, I stood and stepped over her scythe, back to my sentry’s post behind it as the others rose alongside me.
“Bastard,” I growled, Alexander’s scent still lingering along the celestial plane. Fresh and clean, his suit must have been recently laundered, the smell suddenly tainted with burnt flesh. Good. Hope it hurt, fucker.
“What now?” Gunnar’s uncertainty was palpable. Of the three of us, he was the least likely to ask that question.
Which meant we were on the verge of screwed. I scratched at the back of my neck, searching, searching, searching for something. But then the headache started up again, the one I swore linked with Hazel. Someone was hurting her; the pain played through our bond and across Gunnar and Knox’s faces too—but Knox most of all. He grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched shut.
“Now,” he said hoarsely, “we get out of here.”
My heart pitched into my gut. Leave? But… this was where we had last seen Hazel. Her scent—
“Her scythe will be fine where it is,” Knox carried on. Gunnar’s and my confusion in the bond must have said more than words could. Our alpha folded his arms and motioned to our surroundings with a nod. “No one can touch it—not even that uptight fuck. But he’ll be back, probably with his whole pack, and potentially an angel.”
“That could be beneficial,” Gunnar said softly, and I agreed. If anyone had the power to take down whoever stole Hazel, it was an angel. Knox seemed less convinced, his expression hardening, and I instantly understood why.
“Unless they all share his… attitude,” I offered. If the angel saw us as lesser beings, as animals, then they wouldn’t care what we had to say. They would just take us out for standing up to a reaper—and then it would all come crashing down.
“We find safe ground,” Knox told us with one last backward glance at Hazel’s scythe. He fell silent for a moment, his gaze roving the blade like he was memorizing it.
Like this might be the last time he ever saw it. Something cold gripped my heart at the thought.
But the moment passed. Knox rolled his shoulders back and tossed his head side to side, cracking his neck, gearing up for a real fight.
“After that, we find that fucking coward who took her,” he growled, “and we bleed him until he talks…”
30
Hazel
“I won’t reap souls for you, Charon,” I said, unable to keep the trembling fury out of my voice. What he was asking me to do… It was blasphemous. I had come back to this world with a sacred duty: to guide, protect, and escort wayward souls to their destiny. There was nothing this sick shit could offer me that would entice me to reap souls for him to eat.
The screams of that poor girl still echoed through this awful place, faint but present, reverberating in the darkest corners, in Charon’s predatory smile.
“Come now,” he crooned. “What does Death give you in exchange for your service? Nothing. I can pay you—in anything you desire.”
“I don’t reap for a reward.” I let my head thump back against the chair, my answer final. “Find another warlock to do your dirty work.”
The old god stared at me for a few beats, his smile slowly fading. Beside him, Richard shifted his weight from one leg to the other, nervously glancing between the two of us. Apparently, I had said the wrong thing. The stretched flesh across Charon’s barbed chin quivered, and he launched out of his seat onto the table. Kicking candles aside, he stalked to the middle of the stone surface, glowering at me.
“If you won’t take a reward, then perhaps you’ll take punishment.”
I tipped my head to the side, refusing to give him anything that he could use against me. “Are you… threatening a reaper? You know we’re basically indestructible—”
“Is that what you think, girl?” he sneered. Charon vanished with a delicate little pop, then reappeared in front of me so suddenly that I squeaked, heart in my throat. He shoved my chair back, and I hit the ground hard, pain dancing through my skull. Slowly, the god dragged his hands up my body, from my bound ankles to my knees, down my thighs—just as he had the soul. The same hungry look glimmered in his yellow gaze, and I squirmed, nauseous at the sight, at the feel of his spidery hands roving my body unchecked. They went wherever they pleased: one up my belly, over my breasts, the other coiling around my neck and squeezing.
He might not be able to kill me—hopefully—but he could absolutely hurt me.
“You reapers are nothing more than souls in titanium wrapping,” Charon hissed, his hand locking tighter and tighter around my throat. My lips parted, my eyes widened, and I shuddered in disgust when he delved under my robes—when his papery cold touch found my skin, pinched at it, plucked at it.
“F-fuck y-you,” I forced out. He could do what he wanted to me; I would never collect souls for him.
“If you don’t reap for me, then I’m going to peel your wrapping away, one strip at a time, and make you my fucking Christmas ham!” he bellowed, spittle raining down on my face, the edges of my vision tinged black. I struggled against my restraints, the ropes slicing deeper, cutting grooves into my bones.
The pressure eased just enough for me to draw a full breath, and I hurriedly filled my lungs, unsure when I would get the chance again. Charon cupped my chin, the rage melting from his bony features, giving way what he must have thought was a sympathetic expression—forced concern.
“What do you have to say to that, Hazel?”
His whisper smelled like rotted flesh. I twisted my head to the side with a grimace and scanned the darkness, the rocky walls, Richard’s blank stare. If my choice came down to me or them, my soul or the souls of countless innocents, I knew where I stood.
Looking Charon square in the eye, I lifted a challenging brow. “You want to eat me… Do it, then.”
I braced for rage, for fury, for more screaming and spitting and groping and splitting headaches. What I hadn’t expected was disappointment. Apparently, my refusal to fight was just so pitiful. Charon clambered off me, scowling, and with a snap of his fingers my chair whooshed upright at whiplash speed.
My captor strolled to the other side of the table, kicking scattered candles and their silver stands out of the way as he went, taking his sweet time to settle into his chair. He appeared to be mulling over my response, reassessing, changing tactics. I swallowed thickly, unsure what else I could sacrifice that was bigger and more meaningful than my own soul.
“You don’t care about yourself? Fine.” Charon leaned back in his seat and wove his hands together again, resting them on what I suspected was a very bony, hollowed-out chest. “I should have expected that… Pious, pretentious bunch, you reapers.” The corners of his mouth crept up. “But what about your hellhounds?”
My heart skipped a beat, and Charon’s whole being seemed to blossom when the color drained from my face, leaving me cold and numb. I schooled my features as best I could, but that vile smile told me he had found the perfect button to press.
And he was going to stab it with everything he had.
; “Ah, yes, your pack,” he sneered with a few breathy chuckles. “You know, your pack was the reason Richard chose you and not that other reaper… The blond with the penchant for designer suits.”
“Alexander,” the warlock loitering in the shadows muttered, and Charon waved him off, annoyance flickering through the god’s smugness.
“Yes, yes, that one. He had eight hellhounds, and you only chose three.”
“I went for quality, not quantity,” I gritted out, to which Charon snorted.
“Well, all that quality sealed your fate. Imagine my delight to discover two viable reapers in the city where I chose to settle… Richard selected the weaker of the two, the one with the smaller pack, the inexperience. He’s been monitoring you all for quite some time now… Set up traps all over that industrial park today, didn’t you? Look at him…” Charon flicked his gaze in Richard’s direction, mock pity in his voice as he said, “Can’t you see how exhausted he is? All that hard work—”
“And how did Richard know we would be training there?” I demanded. Today’s test had been decided on a whim, something that had always been on the agenda, but had only come to me last night as the first practice test to run.
“It’s where the trials take place in Lunadell,” Richard said dully, only after Charon prompted him with a dramatic roll of his hand. I sighed; this god was such a fucking diva.
“And you know that—how?”
“Tortured the information out of one of Alexander’s hellhounds,” the warlock told me, “then we killed him.”
I slumped in my chair, wrists on fire, ankles aching—heart breaking. Some poor hellhound had had to die for all this to come to fruition. But given Charon’s peculiar appetite, his obvious insanity, I shouldn’t have expected any less.
“So, new deal…” Charon leaned forward, the table clear between us, our staring contests no longer buffeted by twitching candlelight. “You reap for me, or I kill your pack. One at a time, starting with the little one. You’ll watch me pick them apart until they’re no more than scraps of fur between my teeth—”
“My boys will rip you to pieces,” I snarled, knowing I needed to say something, to stand up for my pack—even if I didn’t totally believe it. Charon and Richard had magic on their side. Wards and spells and sigils. My pack had… themselves. Brute strength and coordinated hunting strategies. Their silent bond. And that was it. Without my scythe, we were at an obvious disadvantage.
Hopefully they realized that.
Hopefully…
Hopefully they were long gone by now, despite everything, despite the trio of permanent marks across my body. This was their opportunity to get the hell out of Lunadell.
But I knew in my heart that they wouldn’t go.
Because they loved me.
And I loved them.
And that love would be their undoing.
The room swam, and if I blinked, I’d give myself away—I’d damn them all. So, I looked up, focused on the skull chandelier. Had he killed humans to make that? To acquire souls? It wouldn’t surprise me if Charon farmed them and ran his own slaughterhouse—
“You cherish them, don’t you?” the god asked softly. “I can smell them on you… With your hair back, I can just about see the mated marks on your—”
“You’re pathetic.” Disgusting. Vile. And as soon as I got out of this chair, I’d rip him apart—feed him to something ancient and terrible. My insult didn’t land; Charon merely gazed back at me like the cat who’d caught the canary.
“You love them,” he whispered. “Not like that other reaper… He didn’t bat an eye when one of his pack went missing, did he, Richard?”
“No, Lord Charon… I chose the smallest. The reaper was unfazed.”
My opinion of Alexander had faltered since this whole hellhound business started, from the way he spoke about them at the kennel to the methods he’d suggested I use to discipline Knox, Gunnar, and Declan in the beginning. But now? Now, my respect for him had reached rock bottom.
“How will you feel, Hazel, when I make the wolves howl?” Charon tapped one long, sharp white fingernail on the table, grinning. “When I pull out their fur, pluck out their eyes, carve out their hearts—will you mourn?”
I pressed my trembling lips together, struggling to not react, to pretend just the thought of my pack in pain didn’t gut me.
Charon clapped his hands together, positively giddy. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to see, won’t we? Run a little experiment… See if my working hypothesis has merit. Richard!”
The warlock dragged himself from the shadows, walking like he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders, his eyes circled in blood and exhaustion.
“Bring the pack here,” Charon ordered, never once looking away from me, “and let’s test this little bitch’s mettle.”
“You won’t find them,” I said, hating when the tears finally spilled down my cheeks, the floodwaters too high, the levies broken. “They’re gone. Without me and my scythe, without my wards, they would have left. Taking me means they can escape this life for good.”
Charon let out a hauntingly callous sound that made even his warlock cower.
“We’ve been watching, stupid girl. Richard’s told me how they look at you,” the god sneered as his lackey retreated into the darkness and disappeared. “They haven’t gone anywhere, but they should have… Those mongrels are going to wish they ran when they had the chance.”
31
Gunnar
“Please don’t hurt me—”
“Fucking move.”
The sniveling little shit had better be grateful that holding a knife to his throat and shoving him along the celestial plane was all I had done to him. But the day wasn’t over yet. The night was young—and I could still easily slit his throat with his own blade.
Ever since getting my hands on the villain who had stolen our mate right out from under us, it was obvious he wasn’t a demon. He bled red. He cowered and whimpered. He hadn’t sensed me sneaking up on him in the hallowed halls of the children’s hospital where I’d found him skulking about—perhaps searching for another soul, maybe another reaper, to add to his filthy collection.
In hound form, I had crept low, channeling all my fear and fury into stillness and precision. I’d been on top of him before he knew what hit him, knocked him down, pinned him to the floor. Shifted and stolen the blade strapped to his ankle, held it to his throat, threatened to hang tight if he dared teleport away.
But he couldn’t teleport.
He needed a portal.
Because the fucker was a magic-user—distinctly from the human realm. The carvings on his flesh allowed him to walk the celestial roads, but beyond that, he was an ordinary fuck well versed in magic and mischief.
And ugly crying, apparently.
“Please, please don’t—”
“If I have to listen to another pathetic word from you, I’ll gut you right here and be done with it,” I growled, holding him in front of me at an arm’s length. From the size and curve of the dagger I’d nicked off him, it was used for skinning.
Skinning what, precisely, was another question altogether.
Late in the afternoon on a weekday, Lunadell Mall had been hit by the early dinner-rush crowd. Teens free from school and adults scurrying away from work flocked to the food court, to the shops bursting with Halloween decorations. The holiday was but a week away, and already I was sick of the explosion of orange and skulls and pumpkins and pointy witch hats on every fucking corner.
Still, the kitsch had been a pleasant distraction from Hazel’s kidnapping, albeit a temporary and brief diversion. If I let myself think, really sink into my thoughts and feelings about what had happened this morning, I’d collapse. Fold in on myself. Fail. Again. So at Knox’s directive, I had given myself over to the hunt. For hours, we two had combed through Lunadell, sniffing out the rat bastard in my grasp while Declan maintained our safe haven in the middle of the mall food court, guarding the elevated dining pl
atform so that we had a territory to return to for status reports.
“Why are we here?” the fucker asked over his shoulder, bloodshot eyes nervously darting about, his hands up helplessly at his sides. Hands capable of such impressive magic, even if he required a portal.
Strange, that he had allowed himself to be taken by a creature like myself who possessed limited magic, who had only brute strength and a dagger at his disposal.
“Shut up,” I muttered, giving him another shove for good measure, preferring that he stumbled here and there. The blade in my hand edged into his throat, and he let out a strangled sob, moving forward without a word.
A mall food court was an odd place for a base of operations. All of us had been mindful of Alexander’s warning, and should he return with his pack and an angel by his side, we were fucked. It wouldn’t matter that he had tried to steal Hazel’s most sacred possession; all the higher authorities would know is that we had snapped at a reaper, disobeyed a direct order—perhaps the bastard would even spin it to imply that our pack had something to do with Hazel’s grisly disappearance.
We couldn’t have that.
Unable to breach the wards around our current territory, Declan had suggested a public place as a safe haven, and Knox had agreed; if the cavalry did show up, all we needed to do was cross from the celestial plane into the human realm and risk exposure for everyone. All these unassuming humans going about their day, fetching dinner, shopping with their friends, were the perfect shields.
I had brought up the mall. With Hazel on the brain, the memory of her sitting on the very same raised platform in the middle of the food court, watching the humans and weeping, so painfully lonely, was all too fresh in my mind.
Perhaps that was why this place bothered me; it wasn’t the Halloween decorations in every storefront window, but the reminder that I had once tailed my mate here, spied on her, did nothing as she sobbed into her hands—as she begged for companionship.