by Rhea Watson
“You don’t have to hurt him—”
“No, he doesn’t,” an unwelcome voice crooned, slithering into the cave and up my spine. I whipped around and found Charon floating in from another dark tunnel, casual and cruel in the way he carried himself. The god drifted by my cage, barely shooting me a sidelong glance in passing. “But I’m afraid you made that choice for us, Hazel.”
Before I hurled the curse seething at the tip of my tongue, Gunnar charged out of the corridor to my far left. Teeth bared, eyes blazing, he blitzed straight for Richard—but a lazy flick of Charon’s hand threw him off course, sent him flying into the wall with a yelp. He hit hard, his back bowing backward to the curve of the rocks waiting there to catch him. I pressed a trembling hand to my mouth again as he crashed to the ground, whining, dazed.
It killed me to watch this, my heart broken, my mind frantic with so many scattered thoughts that it was impossible to think straight.
The one thing I could do from in here was look for Knox. My warrior in black. The unfaltering pillar of this pack. My eyes darted around the cave, jumping from dark opening to dark opening, searching for his familiar silhouette—either as a man or as a hound.
And I came up short.
Gunnar pushed shakily to his feet and sprinted for Richard, but a blinding bolt of staticky white light hurled him into the wall again, his back taking the brunt of it again. Hit it just right and his spine would snap—I was sure of it. Trembling, I searched for Knox a little longer.
But he wasn’t here.
He… hadn’t come.
I didn’t have the energy to be furious with him too, but how could he let Declan and Gunnar go after me alone? We needed the strength of the whole pack to take down Richard and Charon, to combat their dark magic when I had my personal supply cut off.
And… What Knox and I had shared… what we had all experienced over the last week, I thought he…
Hovering at the leftmost corner of my orange cell, I shook my head. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t here, and that was that. Stay present.
“So, what do you have to say now?” Charon peered over his shoulder at me. “Will you reap?”
I bit the insides of my cheeks, relishing the way the pain centered me, then forced myself to match his smile. “Fuck you, Charon.”
With a gentle flourish of his hand, he created a long, thick black whip out of thin air. A sharp silver tip capped it off, and he yielded it with expert precision, cracking it at his side.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?”
I screamed when he lashed out at Declan, striking him three horrible times across the back.
“Stop!” I sank to my knees, hands in my hair, powerless. Charon whipped Declan once more, eliciting a harrowing screech from the hellhound, blood spattering stone like some fucking abstract painting. “Stop! Please, don’t hurt him!”
Gunnar shot up again with a snarl, and Richard hit him with another blast of magical electricity.
“I think it’s your turn to beg for mercy, dog,” the warlock sneered as Gunnar pushed onto his side, then snorted and blinked hard. His brilliant red eyes found me, piercing as ever, and he shook his head ever so slightly.
Don’t give in.
I swore I heard him, clear as day, inside my head. Maybe I was delusional at this point, but the strength in his gaze emboldened me, gave me courage.
For how much longer, I wasn’t sure, not when I watched him get up only to be knocked back down—over and over and over again. Declan crawled around, dragging that awful chain behind him, screeching when the whip made contact, the lashes ripping his skin. Their intensity seemed to sharpen, hitting harder with every strike, and I tried so damn hard to be strong.
But I couldn’t endure this.
Couldn’t let the hellhounds I loved suffer for my stubbornness.
And yet I couldn’t condemn innocent souls to him, to be torn apart and eaten by a sick god while his disgusting little sidekick watched.
Dragging in a ragged breath, I turned away from the violence, frantically searching once more for something I could use to help—maybe even to harm. A rock. A fallen candle or its silver stand. Anything.
My knees gave out when I realized there was nothing. Nothing I could reach. Nothing I could summon. I crawled to the far right of my cage, hands scrambling over the ground, desperate for the smallest token—
Two orbs glittered in the darkness dead ahead of me. I stilled, Declan’s shrill cries louder than ever, the singe of Gunnar’s fur making me gag. Leaning to the left, then right, then back again, I stared hard at the dark mouth of a rocky opening that would have only been waist-high on me, narrow and unassuming, sequestered off to the side. Ignored, most likely, by a certain god and warlock.
Something caught the light depending on how I leaned, reflected it back at me.
I had seen that reflection before: Knox sitting in the corner of his room, next to his hearth, keeping watch while his pack slept in his bed that first night.
My heart soared, and I pressed up as close as I dared to the shimmering orange bars, squinting as a massive humanoid shape came into focus, filled the entire opening, black mane and all.
“Knox?”
33
Knox
This pain was going to kill me.
Stop my heart—bam.
But not until I let it. Not until I had done what I came here to do.
“Knox?” Hazel’s choked whisper grated my frayed nerves. I hated to even guess what she’d thought of my absence—where her mind had gone, thinking I had abandoned her, the pack, everything. The look in Gunnar’s eyes had been torturous enough, but the thought of my mate’s heart breaking because I wasn’t there…
That was the pain that would finish me off, not her scythe chipping away at my flesh.
Over the course of the day, I’d had a theory. A theory that could have either panned out or wound up a miserable failure. No matter the cost, I’d needed to try. Needed to throw that damn warlock off the scent. Needed Declan to play along, to make my beta, my second-in-command, a piece of me, believe I had betrayed everything we now cherished.
As it stood, the theory had worked.
To a degree.
Hot blood coursed down my arms in rivers. Dripped on the floor. If that fucking god wasn’t so busy getting his rocks off with the whip, he would have smelled me. Rage rooted me in place; Declan’s cries were so familiar, and for once I couldn’t rush to his side and bully back his abusers. He had to take it, and so did I.
I readjusted my grip, the slightest movement wrenching further agony from everywhere. My flesh—on fire. My heart—clamped and choked and twisted. The pain was in my bones, my teeth, driving into my skull with a ferocity I had never experienced. It would kill me; that much I knew.
A scythe imprinted on its reaper.
With such power, it could never fall into the hands of a stranger.
It fought back. Scorched flesh. Turned bones to dust.
So too would be my fate. But not yet.
Hazel was my mate. We were one, two sides of the same coin. My alpha bloodline gave me strength unparalleled by other hellhounds. I could endure. The scythe knew me the moment I clamped my hands around it. It knew me—but still it resisted.
Yet it had the decency to bring me to her, to cut through wards like a hot knife through butter, and for that I would be grateful until my last breath.
Keeping to the shadows, I crawled out of the tunnel I’d followed for miles, deeper and deeper into the mountain range. Hazel’s scent had guided me most of the way, but Gunnar’s suffering and Declan’s cries had hastened me along even when I could barely move myself.
The god was laughing now, no longer baiting Hazel with her pack’s misery. Declan’s back had been shredded to ribbons, and Gunnar took far longer to rise after each burst of the warlock’s magic. And my reaper watched me, still as stone, crouched at the base of those angry orange bars—waiting.
The edges of my vision blackened. Ch
arred flesh hung off my fingers, whittled down to bone. Blood splattered the floor, leaving me light-headed but determined. I used the ridges of the stony wall for guidance, leaning against them as I shuffled along, inch by inch to my final destination.
Up close, the magical cage burned my eyes, too bright, too violent in the way its magic sizzled. But I held firm, steadfast, until the pain won out and I collapsed a few feet away. Hazel slipped a delicate arm through the bars, her pain reverberating through me when the orange wisps snapped at her skin.
Her wrist…
Covered in gold.
Metallic and salty—reaper’s blood.
A snarl lifted my lip, baring a pathetic flash of teeth, and I roused whatever remaining strength I had to pass the scythe to her outstretched hand.
“Hold on, Knox,” Hazel murmured as she wrapped her fingers around the staff—relieved me of my last burden. “Hold on…”
As soon as the scythe left my possession, my body gave out. My head cracked hard on the ground when I slumped, arms outstretched before me, the full damage on display. Both hands were but tattered flesh that hung like strips of charred fabric off too-white bones. Blood pooled in front of me, all around me. I blinked slowly, breathed slowly, the darkness around my vision sharpening and taking root. Here to stay, the shadows.
Difficult as it was, I forced my gaze up so that I could watch her in action. She looked complete with her scythe, and she got to work without a backward glance at our enemies. Mouth set in a determined line, Hazel cut herself free from her cell, slicing through the jittery orange bars, carving a door where there was none. No flash. No dramatics. She did precisely what she needed to slip out without causing a commotion, and once she did, she dropped to her knees beside me, my blood seeping into her reaper’s garb.
Scythe forgotten at her side, Hazel cupped my face with both hands, just holding me. Time slowed around us. Her eyes shimmered with tears, and for the first time all day, her relief throbbed through me instead of her pain. Gently stroking my coarse scruff with her thumbs, she lingered, her outline getting fuzzier.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered. “Stay with me, Knox. Stay with us.”
I swallowed hard, my eyes blinking in uneven beats, and watched her snatch up her scythe. She rose elegantly, practically gliding with every step, and wielded her weapon like an expert assassin, like she had been raised with a broadsword in her hand.
The cave fell silent. The god’s laughter died.
Difficult as it was, I needed to see—needed my last living memory to be of her. Pain lanced through me as I dragged my useless body along what was left of her cell, hauling myself around so I could witness a reaper’s justice.
Gunnar lay on his side, panting hard. His red gaze slid from her to me, and desperation vibrated through our bond. I did my best to nod, to let him know I felt it—that I understood. He had chosen her in the end, but it had killed him.
It killed me too.
Chest rising and falling slowly, Declan had stopped squealing, left in a heap of blood and fur behind the towering god, this creature of stretched flesh and gaunt cheeks and bony hands. His black robes mirrored Hazel’s, only he wore them like fraud.
Neither said a word as they faced off, but that blasphemous yellow gaze acknowledged her scythe with a slight widening. Hazel rolled her shoulders back, and one step forward forced the god into action. His hand shot up—but so did hers. The air sharpened, hummed with magic, invisible to all but its users. Hazel’s crashed with his, both their arms jerking at the collision.
Yet she was the one to advance. The reaper closed in on the god with slow, precise steps. Footfalls echoed suddenly; Richard had taken it upon himself to engage in the battle, to uneven the odds.
Gunnar caught him by the heel, clamping down viciously and rolling the fucker off his feet.
Silent, a predator in her own right, Hazel stopped within an arm’s length of the god. All the ancient runes on the ceiling, the sigils carved into stones throughout the mountain—no match for that scythe.
It ended in an instant.
Hazel threw her hand to the left, the thrust of tangled magic forcing her opponent to veer left as well. The god stumbled, his eyes rounded, nostrils flared.
In that split second of imbalance, she struck, swift as a viper. Hazel slashed her scythe up and diagonal, cutting clean through him from his hip to his shoulder, then across that narrow neck to rid him of his head. Three pieces of an old god tumbled to the ground, falling like thunder, his golden blood sprinkling like rain.
Face ashen, Richard booted Gunnar in the head, then took off running. Hazel gave him a five second head start, then flung her scythe. The blade whirled, round and round, slicing through the air—and decapitated our final foe before he escaped into the tunnels.
I slumped onto my side, a soft smile teasing my lips.
My warrior goddess.
She would protect them when I was gone.
She would protect herself.
And that brought me peace.
Hand up, Hazel summoned her scythe back to her, then saw to the metal mouth snapped around Declan’s leg. With a single swift strike, she shattered it. Gunnar stumbled to her side in his human form, blood leaking from his nostrils, hair askew, eyes bloodshot, and helped free his packmate of the last chains Declan would ever wear.
Good. That brought me peace too.
My eyes closed slowly, and when a whoosh of air rushed over me, it took everything I had left to open them again. Darkness crowded in from all sides, but I could still make out her beauty. Frantically, Hazel checked me over, stopping at my hands with a sob.
I smiled weakly, touching a bony finger to the center of her chest.
“I have never loved you more, reaper, than this very moment,” I rasped. Tears cut down her cheeks, and she shook her head fiercely.
“No, Knox, don’t go. I can’t follow you if you—”
“Tell them…” My hand fell, but she caught it, bone and all. The creeping shadows narrowed my view to just her eyes, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “Tell them…”
That I loved them too.
That I could die in peace knowing my family was safe.
Tell them.
And finally, it all went black.
34
Hazel
Lightning cut across a foreboding sky.
Thunder cracked, rattling down to the deepest roots of the oldest cedar.
Rain pummeled Lunadell, threatening a flood of biblical proportions.
A frightful Halloween night: great for the ambiance, miserable for the little ghosties and ghoulies trudging door to door with pillowcases in hand. In years gone by, I had watched them, chosen the best and busiest suburb in whatever city I found myself in so that I could stand amongst all the children on one of their favorite nights of the year—a night where strangers were obligated to give them candy. I could hardly fathom such a thing. If we had shown up on our neighbor’s doorstep in masks when I was a child, someone would have pelted us with an apple or a potato, maybe even shooed us off with a broom to the side of the head.
No. The years had become kinder for children. I so loved to be among them, even if it made me weep. But tonight, there was no place I would have rather been than right here.
Well, perhaps not right here. Standing beneath the boughs of a few cedars clustered together at the tree line, I squinted against the rain. It hadn’t been pouring when I’d left Alexander’s estate, yet now, a maelstrom, seemingly out of nowhere. His pack had moved into the main house in his absence, so at least they had more protection than the ramshackle barracks situated at the cusp of his sprawling seaside property.
I had no idea where he went or what had become of him, but no one upstairs would even utter his name—always that one, they said in reference to him, rolling their eyes. In the few days since the business with Charon and Richard, the truth had come out, my story backed by the individual retellings of my pack.
Alexander had tried
to take another reaper’s scythe. Rather than help, he had indulged in a few of the deadly sins—and now he was gone. His pack had been temporarily transferred to me, and on Halloween, of all nights, I had gone to speak with them for the first time. Militant bunch, that lot. Focused. Highly trained. Obedient to their alpha. Nothing like my pack, except for the fact that they listened to me. As our higher-ups searched for Alexander’s replacement, a suitable reaper to formally take over his hellhound pack, they were under my charge.
And from my succinct conversation with the alpha, for once as a man and not as a hound, that seemed to be a blessing in disguise.
Another streak of lightning skittered across its stormy backdrop, illuminating my house atop its slight hill. Thunder rumbled, unfurling over the landscape like waves crashing on the shore, and I stepped out of the forest, head down, scythe at my side, and made my way home. Mud squished underfoot, the air warm but cooling with every hour, threatening to turn the rain freezing. By morning, the first breath of November would leave the ground hard.
Smoke plumed out of our now working chimney. The patched roof would keep out the wet, the damp, the frost, and soft yellow flickered from the second-floor windows in the pack’s wing. Despite the rain seeping into my bones, I hurried along with a soft smile, up the steps, and through the front doors.
A puddle gathered instantly at my feet, lightning illuminating the foyer before I had even closed the doors behind me. Thunder vibrated in the wood as I bolted the entryway, locking us all in for the night. It had been three long days since Charon—since Knox had picked up this very scythe and put his life at risk for all of us.
We should have been preparing for the trials tomorrow morning; instead, we had another week to recover.
Squeezing the rainwater from my hair, I planted my scythe at the front door and peeled off my drenched black robes. My muddy flats came next, every article of clothing shed by the time I reached the landing between the twin staircases. My wing to the right, the pack’s to the left.