by Rhea Watson
The clothing few trainers allowed in Hell’s pits was always coarse, rough—something to toughen your skin and your mind. This was… soft. Thick. Wooly on the inside, smooth and supple on the outside. Frowning, I slipped the trousers on, then winced; the crotch area climbed right up my ass, compressing everything. Even when I tugged it down, a stretchy waistband accommodating my body no matter where it sat, the legs stopped halfway up my calves. Far too small.
Behind me, Declan had already slipped into pants and a shirt—black, like mine, and also a touch too small. I bit back a smirk. Always eager to please, that one. Eager to prove himself more than the runt his mother had immediately abandoned, who his siblings had tried to kill within the first month. Apparently, Hazel was worthy of his efforts. Unsurprising, given her scent, her voice—young ones like Declan were easily swayed by attractive females.
I exhaled sharply when she brushed by me again, scythe over her shoulder, sweet alyssum tickling my nose and stirring my cock.
Fuck. Another quick pants adjustment took care of that; no need for her to see the effect she had on me, because it wouldn’t last for long. Even if her scent snared me, we’d be long gone before it made me do something stupid.
Knox, meanwhile, stood there like a fucking mountain, holding a single black garment at his side and staring down our new reaper mistress. When she rounded on the spot, Hazel’s expression faltered when she saw him, and her throat dipped delicately with a gulp. Arms crossed, I waited, grinning and glancing between the pair, eager for a predictable outcome from their standoff.
My alpha had an effect on people. He intimidated them with his size, unnerved them with his dark, hooded, scarred stare. He challenged them with his calm patience, his willingness to wait them out. Knox seldom snapped, seldom exploded in a fit of rage we hellhounds were known for—and if he did, you were fucked.
He’d made a reaper cry once through the bars of our kennel with his stare alone, even more menacing on four legs than he was on two. As Hazel locked eyes with him, I counted down the seconds until she cracked—I estimated twenty.
Twenty-one seconds later, Knox tugged on his own pair of pants. The smallest of the bunch, they came up to his knees and hung low on his hips, the generous fabric stretched taut over his muscular thighs. Declan’s eyebrows shot up, his surprise mirroring my own. Shock skittered through the pack bond, but Knox gave no indication that he felt it. Instead, he crossed those burly arms, rose up to his full height, and waited.
Well then.
That was… interesting.
As the strain leeched out of the air between us and her, Hazel’s scent seemed to sharpen, becoming even more apparent under the temporary truce and affecting the others just as it did me. Lust trembled through the cords tethering Declan, Knox, and myself together, the invisible strands that bound us as a pack. They could be severed, strengthened, and expanded to accommodate fluctuating pack dynamics, but their purpose remained: to bind us, to wordlessly express our feelings and avoid misunderstandings and in-pack fighting.
And right now, desire slaked the pack bond, hot and heavy, our heightened sense of smell our undoing with this reaper.
I rolled my shoulders back again and faced off with our new mistress alongside my alpha, my scowl pathetic next to his—but, you know, unified front and all. Because at the end of the day, it didn’t matter what her scent did to us, or that she was undoubtedly the most striking female I’d ever laid eyes on. None of the physical mattered in the slightest.
As soon as she signed her name on our contract, Hazel had become the enemy.
And no amount of beauty, no potency of sweet alyssum, would ever make us forget that.
4
Knox
Well.
This was better than Hell, at least.
Just how much better remained to be seen.
Because while the reaper before me was attractive, dressed in fitted black trousers and a loose black shirt, her curves an irritable distraction and her dainty feet bare, even the most vicious demons in Hell were beautiful. All of them. Even if they had been about as appealing as a boil on a warlock’s testicle in life, demons were reborn exquisite, seductive, alluring. I had endured their cruelty all my life, suffered beneath their whips in the fighting arena, tortured and ripped apart before laughing, beautiful creatures.
She hadn’t snapped a collar around my neck yet or beaten my pack. She wasn’t brandishing a lash and barking orders, but she clung to a scythe, a weapon that could end our lives permanently in a second. No healing from that. No coming back. That blade would render us no more than blood and rotting flesh, shit for the insects of this world to devour until there was nothing left.
Her beauty was nothing to me. Nothing.
Fuck the lust racing through the pack bond. Fuck the ache in my chest, the tightness of my throat, the dry, starchy feel in my mouth. All she—Hazel—was to me was an obstacle, a barrier to the freedom I was determined to give my pack. I would either go around her, or through her, but one way or another, I would get what I came for.
I would free Gunnar and Declan.
And never again would we serve.
As far as I was concerned, we had been sold from one master to another. Nothing more. Nothing less.
And by first light tomorrow, she would be a thing of the past.
Something pleasant to dream about, maybe.
“So, I just thought I’d let you guys know,” she started, her voice like the mournful song of a nightingale. “I’ve warded up the entire property.”
Gunnar stiffened beside me, and I ground my teeth together. So much for a simple escape come nightfall.
“It’s a trust thing,” the reaper carried on with a one-shouldered shrug. “Nothing will get in to bother you, but I also can’t have a hellhound pack running loose unsupervised. I just can’t, and I hope you understand that.”
Declan shuffled about behind me, recovered from the cruelty of Fenix’s hand, his interest in her like a boulder catching on a thin, taut piece of twine, weighing down the pack bond and driving me up the fucking wall. He was young, inexperienced with females, with kindness, but if this carried on, we would need to have a serious talk.
“I also know that you’ve all had training in Hell.” Hazel lifted her scythe to her other shoulder, the blade catching the muted sunlight streaming in from the window—the very same light that highlighted all the dust and loose fluff floating in the air. How would it feel to be on the receiving end of that blade’s bite—better or worse than what I’d already suffered? Would it be quick, or would the pain twist and twist and twist until you begged for death?
The reaper shifted her weight from foot to foot, her stare burning into my forehead as she spoke.
“As a refresher, we will do all our reaping on the celestial plane. As Hell-born shifters, you can access the plane just like me and angels and demons—and human souls. You’ll be invisible to everyone not on the celestial plane, and the roads within are what we travel to take souls down to Purgatory for judgment.
“We have three months to get on the same page. In that time, my goal is to familiarize you with modern humans and their technology. I always think it’s better to understand who we reap—what motivates them, what scares them, what they want in an afterlife. After that, it’s crucial to come together as a unit. At the end of the three months, we face trials administered by an angelic representative of Death. If we fail… we… well, you risk going back to Fenix, and I don’t want that, because, you know, he seems like a dick.”
Gunnar snorted, and a smile threatened to play across my lips when I glanced over at him. He schooled his features quickly, our opinions no doubt aligned regarding the delicious female talking at us.
Still, she had a touch of fire. That was admirable.
Admirable, but ultimately inconsequential.
“For now, I think we should just get you guys settled in.” She thrust her chin toward the nearby staircase. “Your bedrooms are upstairs… I’m sorry it’
s a little, er, dusty. I haven’t had to live anywhere since I started reaping, so this was the best I could do on short notice. I’ll get it sorted as quick as I can.”
“We can help,” Declan offered, poking his head around my right bicep with an impish grin—a look that made the reaper flush. “With the tidying. I can… I enjoy tidying.”
“Oh.” She tucked a few loose strands of white hair behind her ear, her whole aura seeming to brighten. “That’s great. I’d like that.”
For fuck’s sake. Gunnar rolled his eyes, the sentiment carrying through our bond, and Declan wilted behind me.
“I have a bedroom for each of you upstairs…” Hazel cast us one final look, wary, as though unsure if she could turn her back on her newly acquired pack. I had no intention of charging the second she turned away; only a coward attacked his enemy from behind.
As soon as she started up the stairs, hips swaying hypnotically with each step, her pale, delicate fingers ghosting over the railing, Declan followed like a good little puppy. A slight raise of my hand stilled him at my side, and he grimaced when our eyes met, his darting to the floor in submission.
Declan had a pure soul—a rarity amongst our kind and seldom ever appreciated for its value. He could be impulsive at times, but he was a good pup. Smart. Funny. Intelligent. Honest—with the ability to shut his fucking mouth when necessary. I liked him, and in my many years, I liked very few creatures, hellhound or not, but I was also still his alpha. Not Hazel.
The reaper had climbed halfway up the large, winding staircase when she finally paused. To her credit, she didn’t look back; she just waited, knowing that we had no choice but to eventually follow. Gunnar cracked his knuckles noisily at my side, his gaze fixed on her white hair, his interest in her palpable. I cast him a warning look—keep your fucking head in the game—before strolling up and after her. My pack trailed behind me, Declan bringing up the rear, and Hazel only moved again when I was a step below her.
As promised, she had an individual room for each of us. Packs ordinarily lived together, slept together, ate together, hunted together. The concept of personal space fell on deaf ears with my kind, and yet Declan’s impulsivity had him barreling into his new quarters without my permission. I let it slide, allowing him a few precious moments of pleasant curiosity; he’d never had anything for himself before. It seemed cruel to deny him that.
Nearest to the stairs, his small room had two windows, cracked but sunlit, its furnishings sparse but clean—new, judging by their scent, or lack thereof. A bed. A dresser. A stool in the corner. No breeder allowed furniture in the kennels, but I’d seen it all before in the trainers’ barracks.
Seen it.
Envied it.
Gunnar’s room connected to Declan’s through a shared toilet, and while his furnishings were similar, he also had a trio of bookshelves overladen with tomes. The wiry hellhound went straight for them, long fingers perusing the spines, his interest finally off Hazel. I lingered in the doorway, watching, fighting another smile; he would love those books. All his vast knowledge had been acquired either secondhand or courtesy of his own ingenuity. My beta was a brilliant creature, but this would expand his mind to the point of unbearable; a glutton for facts and information and history, Gunnar loved to lord his knowledge over others.
And, like Declan, I let him have that for a beat—let them enjoy themselves, bask in what was probably the bare minimum to Hazel but a lavish indulgence to us. The thought made my jaw clench tighter, my hands in fists as I trailed after the reaper down the shadowy corridor. It lacked decoration, our new and fleeting dwelling, with holes punched in the walls as if art had once hung there, back when this abandoned manor actually served a purpose.
Mine was the room at the end of the hall, with no door and a frame that required me to duck down and turn to the side to pass through. Larger than the other two, it offered a bed big enough for three hounds, an arched window that projected out from the exterior wall with a cozy bench at its base, along with a dusty, soot-filled brick fireplace, and a lone, albeit grand, armchair situated in front of it. Given its opulence, I assumed this room would have belonged to the master of the house, and while I refused to so much as glance back at the reaper hovering just out of sight, I appreciated that she recognized our hierarchy.
Going into this, I had assumed we would be given cages—one for each, chain-link and narrow, most likely outdoors, where we would spend all our time until the reaper needed us.
This was unexpected.
My toilet area possessed both a standing shower stall and a clawfoot tub; Fenix had always boasted about the women he had in his golden bathtub, the fae he tricked down there, the witches he lured in with promises of riches and prestige, perhaps even marriage. How strange that when I looked upon one now, a very naked Hazel flashed across my mind, stretched out inside, her feet hanging over the edge, her rosebud mouth smiling up at me.
A low growl caught in my throat, and I pushed away from the attached room’s doorway with a scowl. Heat raged in my chest, burning up my throat and treading the thin line between lust and loathing.
“I hope this is okay,” Hazel said as I crossed to the enormous window and ripped open the curtains—literally. The frayed material came apart in my hands, and I tossed the slip of useless fabric aside; it fluttered to the ground, pooled at my feet. Hazel said nothing to that, only sighed when I positioned myself in front of the window to glare at the grounds.
Greenery glared back, first the scraggly, overgrown gardens at the base of the house, then the muddy grass that stretched outward to the forest. For miles and miles, tall trees reigned, proud and thick and ancient. Thorny green leaves splayed out on thin branches. Hardly the most welcoming sight, but it was a far cry from the arid nothingness of Hell, of black rock as far as the eye could see, of jagged earth and angry plants hell-bent on eating you if you got too close.
We might have been in the middle of nowhere, the land in need of a caring hand, the property made up of a vast, endless forest—but it was safe. Child’s play compared to the harsh landscape I knew better than I knew myself.
“I’m going to make something for you to eat,” Hazel told me. Now that we were alone, I really felt each of her words, my body responding as it never had before—willing me to concede, to approach her, to touch her. A rush of interest prickled down my frame and settled in my core, but I ignored it, keeping my back to her. The floorboards creaked when she stepped into the room; did she even realize how she smelled, how her scent made her a ripe temptation for a hellhound twice her size?
“I don’t… I don’t have to eat,” she continued, babbling hurriedly as I glowered at nothing and everything. “I mean, I can eat, and drink and sleep and, you know, have… Anyway. I can do it all, I just haven’t for a long time, so if I forget to feed you guys, let me know.”
Because it had to do with the well-being of my pack, I offered a curt grunt of acknowledgement. Her reflection snagged in the window, dwarfed by mine, those full lips demanding my attention.
“So… I’ll just go do that,” she said after a long beat of silence. I forced my gaze to the forest, searching for an out and only finding the very faint rainbow shimmer of the ward caging us in. Against my will, my traitorous stare dropped down to her reflection again when she huffed, her glare somehow both lovely and terrifying—the best kind. “Okay. Cool. Well, great talk.”
This time, I allowed my grin to surface, tracking her in the windowpane as she stalked out of the room in a snit. There it was: the whisper of fire I’d sensed earlier when she disparaged Fenix. While I could appreciate a passionate female, a creature with a spine, bark, and bite, it didn’t matter. None of us would be here long enough to enjoy her spirit.
If anything, that fire would make our situation more difficult.
Because already her absence affected me—and that was a fucking problem.
Hazel took her scent with her, but it still lingered, still toyed with my heightened senses—my memories. She smel
led like coastal air, like a bright morning and stormy seas. In my youth, I’d been assigned to a pack along the ridges of Hell’s Sea of Lost Souls. My time there had been fleeting, as I’d refused to yield to any alpha at the facility, but sometimes the demons in charge took us outside to the rocky shores, worked us beside the sweeping tide, our paws swallowed by wet sand, our bodies battered by gale-force winds. In the savagery, there was beauty. The sea was wild but free, strong, resilient, and constant.
Staring out at the whitecaps, at water so deep and dark it was nearly black, had been a happy moment for me—a time when I’d realized there were more powerful forces in my world than the bastards who cracked the whip.
Now here was this reaper who smelled like that memory, who could very well be as wild and free and resilient as the sea.
And I had to leave her.
Tonight.
Or I would never be free. My pack would never be free.
Declan’s presence hovered at my doorway, and I finally abandoned the window, drifting over to the brick hearth, beckoning him inside with a casual toss of my head. He strode in slowly, hungrily drinking in the room, eyes darting about, memorizing every detail. Gunnar followed soon after, though he offered nothing more than a cursory sweep of the place before joining me at the fireplace, perching on the rounded armrest of the nearby chair with a shake of his head.
“Well? Do we have a plan?”
“I was about to ask you that very question,” I mused, tracking Declan as the pup wandered over to the window, taking in the outdoors with the same vibrant curiosity as he had with everything else. “Do you know how to break a ward?”
The muscles along Gunnar’s jaw rippled, as though clenching his back teeth. “No. We’d need a specialist. From what I understand, only the caster can dismantle their ward.”
