by Rhea Watson
Twelve hellhounds sat waiting, silent and red-eyed. Huge. Muscular. Alexander had recommended studying topside dog breeds before coming here today; hellhounds traced their ancestors back to the native hounds of Hell and Earth’s canine shifter population. Rumors swirled that to this day demons like Fenix still kidnapped female shifters to breed them with Hell’s wild dogs—whenever they could catch a male, mind you. The hounds of Hell were savage, enormous creatures, untamable and vicious. Breeding would have been done by force; I deeply pitied the shifters involved, always had.
The pack before me looked as though they had been crossbred with a pit bull terrier. Same large head, stocky build, smooth coat. Red eyes. Twelve pairs of them trained squarely on me. They sat in formation, the largest at the helm, the rest fanning out behind him. Around their necks were gold collars, spiked—on the inside.
“Keeps them from shifting,” Fenix remarked, materializing at my side, his croon making me flinch. Damn it. I glanced up at him wordlessly, and he took that as a question, to which he smirked and offered what others might consider a charming one-shouldered shrug. “The human forms have opposable thumbs… Tricky little devils, those. Can get them into all sorts of trouble. I always recommend keeping them like this, but to each their own.”
“What do you think?” Alexander eased into my personal space on the other side, the pair boxing me in. “Contenders?”
“No.” I didn’t need to think about it. This pack made me feel… cold. And small. “No, not these.”
“Moving on,” Fenix said with another thunderous clap of his hands. “Many more to see…”
And my God, there were. Four levels of hellhound kennels awaited me, and it took the better part of an hour to work through the first two floors. None of them called to me. None of them made me feel anything. A few alphas had even charged the gate the moment I stopped in front of it, forcing Fenix to step in, his demonic voice echoing harshly through the corridor. That cowed some, but the last unruly pack was still on the receiving end of their master’s admonishments while Alexander and I loitered by the elevator doors, waiting to head down to the third level.
“It takes as long as it needs to,” he insisted when I let out an exasperated huff. “Your pack is for life, Hazel, and we have very long ones.”
“I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s just… a lot.”
“I understand. You’ll find them soon.”
A part of me wondered if he enjoyed my struggle to connect; my reaper mentor had an exceptional poker face, handsome and smooth like a cherub, but the smug lift of his lips gave him away. He had never said it, but he probably thought I’d been fast-tracked into this position—and I deserved to suffer a little along the way.
I rolled my shoulders back, then stood a little taller. Let him think what he wanted. I was a damn good reaper. I loved my afterlife job and took it very seriously. And more than that, I was ready for this next step.
So, you know…
Suck it, Alexander.
That was what the humans said these days, right?
The elevator doors opened, swallowing Fenix’s rage into the golden compartment. Alexander swept in and planted a hand on the door, shooting the breeder an irritated look, his mouth tight. Just as I started to follow him, however, something caught my eye.
A gate.
Smaller than all the rest, to the right of the elevator and off the beaten path. Shrouded in shadow, cobwebs collected on the bars and silence greeted me from inside. Logic insisted I ignore it, that I push forward and keep searching, but my feet had a mind of their own, carrying me straight to it.
Like every other kennel, the interior was domed and dusty, crafted of rock and ash. A water trough hung from the wall, while a little shed at the back suggested a den or a toilet facility of some kind. Bones littered the foot of the gate. A lone flickering light hung from the ceiling.
And in the middle of it all, a giant pile of black fur. My eyes narrowed as I wrapped a hand around one of the metal bars, moving in for a closer look. Either that was one enormous hound, larger than any I had seen thus far, or—
A head popped up from the mass, and my heart skipped a beat.
It wasn’t one hellhound, but—three?
Red eyes blazed back at me, the gold collar catching the dingy overhead light. We locked gazes for a moment, and warmth rushed over me. Pleasant, nostalgic, beautiful heat. I swallowed hard as the hellhound slowly rose from the pile of his companions, and as he stood, I sank to my knees, unable to tear my eyes away.
He was… stunning.
I had studied dog breeds intensely for the last few days, learning looks and characteristics, selecting those I thought I could best work with and keeping them at the back of my mind. But as the leggy, shaggy hellhound extricated himself from the heap, he challenged my knowledge and threw me for a loop.
Elegant. Graceful. Long black fur and a pronounced but narrow snout.
Small. Smaller than any of the hellhounds I’d seen today. One of his ears had a notch taken out of it.
Belgian sheepdog. That was the look.
Groenendael, specifically.
Rare on Earth. The first I had seen down here.
Beautiful. Just. So beautiful.
I hadn’t the strength to rise when he padded toward me, but I managed to smile. In return, he paused—and slowly wagged his tail. Tears pricked my eyes, and I blinked them back with a shaky laugh. His tail pumped harder, and he trotted forward, ears down, head low. Decidedly not the alpha, but I didn’t care about that.
My hand trembled when I threaded it through the bars of the gate, reaching out for him, for that twitching nose. The hellhound whined, low and long, and the heat rippling across my skin did a deep dive, scorching through my veins now, burning me from head to toe, on a direct path to my heart. So close. We were but a foot apart when—
“Hazel, don’t put your hand in the fucking kennel,” Alexander growled, hauling me back by the shoulder. The hellhound dropped to his belly, that fluffy wagging tail tucked squarely between his back legs, his red eyes wide and frightened. The flames inside me burned with rage now, and I shoved the reaper’s huge hand away, glowering up at him and fumbling to my feet.
“Alexander, stop—”
“It’s dangerous,” he told me, wearing a look that screamed you goddamn idiot like a neon sign. Hands in fists, I whirled back around to find the other two in the kennel rousing at the commotion. The first that caught my eye was far easier to identify: Doberman pinscher. Long head, sleek frame, muscular and intimidating, the black fur broken up by tawny patches along his snout and front legs. Red eyes stared up at me unflinchingly, and while he gave off none of the warmth of the sheepdog-esque hellhound, the inferno continued to blaze inside of me. Looking at them, standing in their presence, was like home.
And it had been a very, very, very long time since I had felt the siren song of belonging.
The third hellhound shot to his feet in a burst of sudden movement, the largest creature I had seen in any kennel. Cane corso in appearance—that was an easy one too. Robust and overwhelming, with a square jaw and a thick, short coat of black fur, he soared above his companions, those mammoth paws almost the size of my head. Raw intelligence sparked in his gaze when it darted from me to the cowering shaggy hellhound a few feet away, and one gruff, deep bark had the smallest of the lot scurrying back to the pack. I bit my lower lip, hating to see the first hellhound I’d connected with shiver and slink. Alexander continued to talk at me, but I’d tuned him out completely, so focused on the three hellhounds watching me, assessing me, studying me with brilliant red gazes and terse postures.
With a deep breath, I brushed the cobwebs from their gate, then coiled a hand around one of the bars again. This was it. This was that feeling—I just knew it.
“Sorry about that,” Fenix said, stalking into the scene completely unaware of what had happened. “Sometimes you really just need to bark them down, you know? Can we… Oh.” I looked back
at him when he paused, his dark brows furrowed. The demon shook his head, waving off the trio before us. “I wouldn’t… This pack requires someone with more experience. They aren’t a good fit for you. Not for anyone, really. No one wants them—”
“I want them,” I said without missing a beat, finding my voice at last, finding that confidence that I’d struggled with all day. Gone was the unsteady quiver, the weak knees, the indecisive internal monologue that had followed me around since I’d been told I needed to choose a pack.
The cane corso hellhound—he was alpha. That much was clear. But as I faced Alexander and Fenix, stared down my nose at them despite the sprawling height difference, alpha pulsed through every fiber of my being.
“Hazel, there are more packs to look through below—”
“This is it,” I insisted, silencing a scowling Alexander with a raised hand. “This is the one.”
“A pack of three?” My reaper mentor scoffed. “That isn’t enough. You need a few more—”
“Technically, we would be a pack of four.” Working as one, reaping together, guiding souls to Purgatory for judgment. For the first time in days, my head, heart, and gut were on the same page. In life, I had endured warfare—the worst humanity had ever witnessed. Small units of soldiers had overtaken whole Nazi battalions on the front. This was absolutely doable. “It’s quality over quantity. I want them.”
“I’d hardly call them quality,” Fenix sneered as he picked at his nails, like I wasn’t worth his time now that I disagreed with his opinion. Indignation blazed in my chest, and when he met my narrowed gaze, he shrugged again. “Look, see the rest of the packs before you make a stupid decision like this.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks, glaring up at the two men so hell-bent on changing my mind. When I was alive, women had no voice. Our fathers, brothers, and husbands made the decisions. But that wasn’t the way of the world anymore, and it most definitely wouldn’t be my afterlife.
“No,” I said firmly. I turned my back on a sputtering Alexander, a glowering Fenix, and locked eyes with the hellhound alpha. He was mine. They were all mine. “This is my pack. Where do I sign for them?”
2
Hazel
“Yep, yep, just bring them straight on through…” I propped open the double doors that led into the foyer, locking them in place as a trio of Fenix’s underlings heaved in the giant wood crates on dollies that contained my pack. A gust of hot August air followed them, whipping through the empty entryway and rattling the rest of the abandoned manor.
Three days just wasn’t enough time to make a house a home, but I had done my best.
Located six miles south of Lunadell and well off the beaten path, nestled in the outskirts of Selene’s Forest, sat a structure long forgotten by the local humans. Three stories tall, crawling with ivy and weeds, most of the shutters hanging by a single nail, the roof in need of reshingling and several of the windows broken—our new house. For ten long years, I had wandered, so focused on doing my job, on reminding myself I wasn’t human and didn’t belong in their world anymore, that I had never needed to put down roots. But my hellhounds required stability. They deserved a place to call home, a territory to claim and protect. So, I had given it to them.
Sort of.
The territory, at least. Some furniture. A ward around the whole property, well into the trees so that they had wilderness to patrol without a human happening upon them. A basement larder full of raw meat…
But still it seemed inadequate.
Perhaps that was just the way Fenix had made me feel. Unable to pass through my ward, he and his demons had been forced to wait for me today at the property line, surrounded by old red cedars and enormous deerflies. My scythe had sliced through the shimmering protective barrier that hid my new homestead from the world, a magical shield that operated on the mortal and celestial plane, temporarily allowing them to pass through with my new pack. Dressed in another fine suit, gold around his neck and glittering on his fingers, Fenix wasn’t exactly accustomed to Earth’s rural backwoods; mud stained his viper-skin boots by the time we’d crossed the forest, and he was still out there now, stomping about and aggressively wiping the soles on the cracked front steps, snarling through his teeth.
While he hadn’t said another word about my choice in pack, his disdain for them and my best attempt at a home was obvious when he finally joined us, strutting into the manor like he owned it. Hands in his pockets. Lip curled. Eyes wandering and judging.
“Could do with a coat of paint,” Fenix mused with a dismissive sniff, twisting his enormous thumb ring. I hummed in agreement, too nervous about my pack’s arrival to give a damn anymore that the place wasn’t up to his snobbish standards. Adrenaline pounded through me, so much sharper on the mortal plane than the celestial, like fireworks pinwheeling in my marrow.
Once the demon’s apprentices had the wood crates off the dollies, they slipped outside, metal wheels clanging all the way down the front stairs, and I quickly saw to the doors, closing and bolting them with shaky hands. My back pressed against the aged wood, finding it sturdy despite the creaking hinges. It propped me up when I wanted to sink to the floor, and I wrapped my arms around myself in a solo hug, both for comfort and support. The next few moments would change the rest of my afterlife, honestly. A few nerves were expected, whether Alexander agreed or not.
The wood crates seemed to dominate the front foyer, the space unfurnished and a little too stark for my liking. Across the room, twin stairwells wound up to the second floor, recently swept by my own hands, not magic, and crowned with black wrought iron railings. An enormous, dusty floor-to-ceiling window overlooked everything from the landing, the panes filthy from the outside. While I had cleared out most of the dead leaves and spider nests and debris, the house still desperately needed a top-to-bottom scrub, the third floor the worst of them. Wainscoting stamped the walls, a throwback to an era gone by, and as Fenix approached the smallest wood crate, I found myself wishing I had taken some time in the last three days to properly decorate.
A snap of the demon’s fingers produced a cattle prod, the end shaped like Poseidon’s trident, whitish blue bolts dancing between the prongs. I stilled, the air crackling with dark magic, a magic so similar to the one I had been blessed with once Death made me a reaper. While I couldn’t craft hurricanes or wipe out a city with a thought, I had some of the most basic magic at my disposal: summoning, healing, cleaning, teleportation, and protection—like the ward I had cast around my new territory. Nothing fancy. The scythe amplified my powers to unlimited, but I’d never taken advantage of that; reapers weren’t chosen because we were power-hungry.
Unlike the creature before me, with his cruel smile and dark beauty. Once a human soul himself, Fenix must have had the ideal temperament for a demon; he exemplified it now, the brutality, how he relished it. A well-aimed kick at the wood crate knocked open one side, the plank crashing thunderously to the tile floor. My heart launched into my throat, and I pushed off the door, eager to get a look at my hellhounds in the raw light of day.
Only nobody came out.
“Move,” Fenix barked, kicking at the crate again. A heartbeat later, he thrust his cattle prod into the opening, and a horrible screech sounded from its depths, paired with the distinct jolt of electricity and the scent of singed fur. Fury snapped inside me; I raised my hand, no longer trembling, and summoned my scythe. It whipped through the first floor, zipping around walls and slamming home into my palm.
How dare he hurt my pack.
My fingers coiled around the yew staff just as the demon reared back, as if to strike again, and the snarl boiling in my chest dimmed to a simmer when a black mass of shaggy fur scampered out of the crate. The Belgian sheepdog. My first true connection.
Terrified.
Belly to the ground, the hellhound slunk this way and that, turning on a dime, so obviously searching for a new safe place to hide that it ripped me apart inside. My grip tightened around my scythe when Fenix scowl
ed down at him.
“Pathetic, this one,” he sneered, catching the hellhound’s hind leg with the cattle prod. Another yelp echoed through the foyer, and Fenix snorted. “Good luck getting anything out of him.”
“Don’t touch him with that—”
A deep, chilling snarl rumbled from the largest wood crate, drowning out my own growl with something far more effective. I jumped when the crate shook—when a sound like a shotgun resonated throughout the house. The wood groaned, the whole box shifting a foot forward like the hellhound inside was throwing himself up against the panels. That had to be the alpha—no mistaking that guttural voice. Fenix approached quickly, though some of his smug confidence faltered when he kicked open this crate, retreating fast with the cattle prod raised defensively.
As I’d guessed, out came the cane corso hellhound, immense in size, teeth bared and red eyes narrowed. He charged into the foyer like a bull, and the skittering smaller hellhound beelined straight for him, hiding behind his huge frame with a whine. The alpha faced off with his demon overlord, hackles up, saliva dripping from his jowls. One wrong move from Fenix and he’d attack—I felt it in the air, the warning, the tension, the history between them. I raised my scythe’s blade to roughly hellhound height, glancing warily between the pair; while Fenix probably deserved a good thrashing, I had no intention of allowing this momentous day to turn into a bloodbath.
Muted sunlight slanted in through the window over the second-floor landing, catching on my blade and drawing the alpha’s gaze my way. Even without the third hound added to the mix, I felt it again—that sensation in my gut, humming over my skin and scalding through my veins, the fire and nostalgia and home. The comfort, the sanctuary of their presence. These three were my pack, no doubts there, but all my emotions still crashed together like a maelstrom. Focus evaded me. There was all this good surging about inside, filling me, warming me, recharging me after ten long years alone, and yet the violent chaos of their arrival, of Fenix’s handling of my pack, collided hard with all that good, making it difficult to think.
