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

by Rhea Watson

  While I still wasn’t completely certain, I’d suspected for weeks now that the connection between us three and Hazel went deeper than that of a reaper and hellhound pack. We hadn’t discussed it, but there could very well be an element of fate at play here; the urge to comfort someone outside of my pack had never struck me so fiercely before.

  I didn’t know what to make of that.

  And there was nothing I despised more than to be out of control—physically, mentally, and, now, for the first time, emotionally.

  Knox pushed his bowl away, elbows on the island as he said, “Did she stay at the school?”

  “No, once the children went inside, she walked for a little while through the city,” I told him, still feeling like I was collapsing in on myself like a dying star, Hazel’s teary face refusing to leave my mind’s eye. “She ended up at a food court inside a, er, mall, where she sat and watched the humans.” Her focus on them had been almost unnerving, studying them with the same intensity that I and the others did when we watched humans on television. “And then…” Fuck. “And then she cried again, then she came back here.”

  “Huh.” Knox tapped his finger on the island’s smooth top, then absently traced it between splotches of varying grey tones in the stone.

  “I think…” My words died in my throat. I had a great many thoughts swirling around my head, always did, but for once, I was unable to voice them. All my life, I had relished sharing my brilliance, telling others precisely what I thought of any situation. Here, I couldn’t, not even when Knox’s eyes narrowed, pressing me for my conclusion.

  “She’s lonely,” Declan snapped, his words rising over the sound of water boiling viciously inside the kettle. Steam coiled from the coffee maker’s black spout, as if fueled by my packmate’s frustration. “Maybe Hazel is struggling to accept that, technically, she’s dead. I think she goes out there every day to feel close to humanity.” He looked between us, his stormy gaze pleading for Knox and me to see the reaper as he did. Little did he realize I was almost right there with him. Declan threw his hands up, churlish exasperation skittering through our bond. “And she’s kind, and sweet, and she genuinely cares about them.”

  I rolled my eyes, more out of habit than anything. “Yes, yes, you’ve gone into great detail about her embracing that sick girl’s soul during the reaping—”

  “Well, apparently I need to,” Declan growled, “because you’d have to be blind not to see her for who she is.”

  Outbursts from a hound so low in the pack hierarchy never went over well with other alphas, but Knox was the most diplomatic one I’d ever met. He usually entertained all opinions, but Declan had never been so outspoken before either—not until he met her. Another alpha would have put him in place, violently at that, yet Knox merely continued his distracted study of the island’s countertop, dragging his finger back and forth, unfazed by Declan’s words or the anger radiating from him toward us in our bond.

  My lips twitched, threatening to rise into a snarl. I loved Declan, but he could take that anger and fucking shove it up his ass. I hadn’t made Hazel cry. I hadn’t condemned her to a lonely life of reaping. I hadn’t killed her. And I certainly didn’t relish her distress, nor the situation that caused it.

  So. You know. Check yourself, as the humans said.

  Knox had always been too soft on him.

  “This has value,” our alpha mused, a compliment that would have made me preen yesterday morning that fell flat today. Declan marched up to the island as the coffee maker dinged.

  “Her suffering is not value,” he snapped, his tone dangerously close to a challenge.

  “No,” I muttered, “but it’s an angle.”

  “I don’t like this.” Declan crossed his arms, seething. “I don’t like it at all—”

  Knox held up his hand. “Declan, enough.”

  Without raising his voice, he asserted his dominance. Declan backed away, subdued as he checked on the bubbling water, and I bit my tongue, not liking it all that much either. After all, the desperation I’d experienced yesterday, the need to comfort Hazel, told me that I was already fucked. All that I had felt before seeing her weep paled in comparison to the storm churning inside me now—but I could hardly pitch a fit about it, nor did I dare go against Knox’s orders.

  “We don’t have to hurt her to use this to our advantage,” the alpha remarked, scratching at his beard, the gears whirring behind those unreadable black eyes. “If she’s lonely, we can fix that, and in turn, get what we’ve always wanted.”

  Freedom. That was our endgame. The ability to exist in this world without bondage, to make our own decisions, to go where we wanted, when we wanted, untethered, uncollared, unleashed.

  Only now, the thought of using Hazel to obtain it made my stomach turn. I glanced at Declan briefly, and my packmate simply glared back, like this was all my fault. And in a way, it was. Whatever Knox decided, my observations had been the precipitating factor.

  Sighing, I shoved my plate away, appetite long gone. Knox, meanwhile, attempted another spoonful of gloopy, cold oats, then dropped his spoon into the full bowl with a scowl.

  “Horrid stuff, oatmeal,” he muttered. Much to my surprise, he certainly didn’t sound victorious, not like he did when we had found ways to fuck with Fenix or any of the other trainers. Instead, he wore quite the glare himself, one that topped Declan’s and then some, as he snatched up the remaining stack of bacon from the plate in the middle of the island and shoved a slice into his mouth.

  The terse way he chewed suggested that the cooked flesh, seasoned with salt and pepper, watched like a hawk by Hazel as it sizzled in the pan only a half hour ago, tasted the same as the oatmeal.

  Horrid.

  Absolutely fucking horrid.

  11

  Knox

  “I can’t believe you’ve done this…”

  “Hazel, why don’t you sit down?” I gestured to the opposite end of the grand dining table where we had set a place for her—a plate, a wineglass, a set of utensils. Clutching her scythe harder than she had in days, the pacing reaper whirled around and stuck me with a glare that screamed, Oh, now you’re speaking to me?

  She needn’t say it; it was strange, yes, for us to have an actual conversation. I’d done my best to avoid that this past month, given the last time we spoke privately had ended in disaster. Inconsequential. She wasn’t, of course, inconsequential, not when she made all of us feel so fucking deeply, but making her despise me was just… easier.

  “No, no, I think I’ll stand,” she ground out, swinging her scythe as she stalked back and forth. Declan shifted in place; seated to my left, his chair creaked beneath his awkward shuffling movements, his discomfort with this evening’s conversation panging through our pack bond to the point of distraction. Thankfully, my beta had better control of his emotions. Even if Gunnar’s opinion of Hazel had altered somewhat thanks to yesterday’s outing, he had an exceptional poker face. Like me, he could keep his baser instincts in check.

  Declan, meanwhile, made no effort tonight to hide his innate responses. He’d said nothing, not when Hazel set out our supper on the dining table twenty minutes ago, a feast of roast pheasant and sweet potato mash and buttery, garlicky green beans. Round little loaves of homemade bread piled high in the middle of the table. Three candles flickered around the basket courtesy of Declan’s attempts to impress her with his homemaking skills.

  But the pup had held his tongue, uncharacteristically so when it came to her, throughout all this—the arrival of our food, followed swiftly by Gunnar explaining that he had followed her into the real world yesterday morning. My second-in-command let it all out in agonizing detail, from her weepy visit to the children’s school to her depressing sit-in at the mall food court.

  Hazel hadn’t said a word either until this moment, but her cheeks had grown darker and darker, and as soon as Gunnar concluded his tale, she’d shot up from her seat at the other head of the table, no longer squaring off with me. Now, she co
uldn’t seem to stop moving.

  “I think we should talk about this,” I insisted, working hard to keep my voice even and calm, like I was soothing Declan after an incident with—well, fuck, anyone in Hell. Her flushed cheeks and accusatory glares threatened to throw me, riling me up from the inside out. With all the windows closed in the otherwise empty dining hall, her scent hit hard, raging like the sea.

  Breathing through my mouth helped a bit, thank fuck.

  “Oh, you think we should talk about this?” Hazel bristled as she rounded in place and marched back to the table. “Yes, let’s talk about the incredible invasion of privacy and the ridiculous breach of trust. Let’s.”

  Declan wilted at my side; if he could, he probably would have hidden under the table for this conversation, but for the plan to move forward, we all had a part to play. Gunnar, meanwhile, showed no outward signs that her indignation affected him, his skin smooth and pale as always, lips in a thin line as he filled our glasses with a pungent red wine.

  “Hazel, you must understand our position…” Reclined back in my seat, I threaded my hands together and let them rest on my chest. Above all, I intended to look relaxed throughout this conversation, refusing to get dragged into some ridiculous push and pull with Hazel’s anger.

  Hazel. Her name always left a strange taste in my mouth, as though I had craved it all my long life, even if it made me sick—like it was too good for me. But I’d watched a documentary recently wherein the human interrogators used a criminal’s name repeatedly throughout the questioning to build trust between them. That was big for her—trust. If I could create it subconsciously, then we were doing better than expected. “After all, we were born and bred in bondage. Raised for servitude. In our cases, all three of us have suffered greatly at the hand that barely fed us. Gunnar simply wanted to know you.”

  “That’s crap,” she fired back, pointing her scythe at us so abruptly that Gunnar stiffened to my right, eyes on the blade. Hazel huffed a lock of that white mane out of her face, her free hand twisting in the shapeless black gown hiding her curves. “I know you’re trying to find a way around the ward, and now you did, and now I’m going to have to—”

  “What?” I tipped my head to the side, brows up in another silent challenge. “Punish us?”

  Her cheeks ripened to scarlet. “Well, I mean, no, but—”

  “Hazel, I think—”

  “Stop saying my fucking name. I know what you’re doing.”

  I bit back a smile. Her fire was exquisite.

  She was right to smell like the sea, this ghostly reaper garbed in shadow, calm one moment, a tempest the next. Exhilarating, really, to find such a quality in a female.

  “Fine,” I said gently, hands up in mock surrender. “I simply think this is an opportunity for growth.”

  She shook her head with a scoff, the angles of her face catching the light of the overhead chandelier—a gaudy gold piece lit by three dozen candles, not electricity, the massive room cast in an eerie orange glow.

  “This sets us backward,” Hazel argued. “It’s not growth.”

  “You wish to build trust? All right. Let’s build trust together.” Fingers twined together again, I directed both pointers toward the stained glass window behind her, the focal point of the room, the feature wall—fuck all those house renovation television programs. “And let’s build it out there.”

  Her mirthless laugh made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “Fuck no.”

  Declan exhaled sharply, fiddling with his fork and refusing to meet anyone’s eye.

  “Seeing you weep for the humans changed my perception of you, Hazel,” Gunnar admitted, his honesty catching her—and me—by surprise. Hazel. He’d also watched that documentary.

  The reaper stared him down for a moment, full lips parted, distracting, and then rolled her eyes and stalked away from the table.

  “I see you now,” Gunnar pressed as he rearranged his cutlery, his plate, his glass, positioning each piece at perfect angles, all straight and aligned with the table’s edge. “Not just the reaper who paid for me, who I am contractually obligated to serve…”

  More raw honesty. I glanced at Gunnar’s sharp profile; if there was one hound better at masking their emotions than me, it was my beta. But perhaps a touch of earnestness was what we needed.

  Because the goal was to earn her trust—truly. Then, when she felt for us, connected with us, cared for our well-being beyond her duty as a reaper, we would start to pull away.

  And Hazel would let us. Because of all the trust, connection, and care. This moment right here was the start. No part of me wished to spend more alone time with her than necessary, not when she affected me like she did, but it was the best plan we had under the circumstances. Bullying our way out wasn’t an option, nor could we breach the ward without her help. While we three had slowly expanded our horizons and learned more about our own brand of magic, magic that had been beaten out of us for years, we were nowhere close to outriding a ward.

  Warding magic was complicated and highly specialized—not something any of us were about to master anytime soon, if ever.

  Recently, a human proverb had struck a chord with me: you catch more flies with honey.

  While I wasn’t the honey type, I’d be a fool not to recognize the power in that sentiment.

  And the honey route would shut Declan up, which, at this point, was an added bonus.

  “I should have known something was wrong when you set a place for me,” Hazel muttered as she scratched at her forehead with a frown.

  “You should eat with us,” I told her. She seldom ever dined with us, and while I had seen her nibble on food while she cooked, I’d yet to catch her take a whole plate just for herself. Hellhounds, on the other hand, thrived on sustenance. Feeding shaped pack dynamics, something that Fenix and other breeders actively sought to suppress. When Hazel’s gaze snapped to mine, I flashed a patronizing grin. “Packs bond over meals.”

  Her eyes narrowed. From my tone, my posture, my quirked mouth, she probably sensed that I was goading her. Sometimes I just couldn’t help it: that fire of hers was addictive.

  But she held it in this time, swallowing the flames so that they boiled in her belly instead. My gaze tracked the would-be path, dropping from her lips to her throat, then slowly creeping down her supple figure to her hips.

  Of course, she had nothing to say to that. The fetching creature had been trying to make us bond for a month now… How could she refuse such an offer?

  I looked to Declan, for he had a part to play in this too—and now was that moment. When he did nothing, said nothing, his hickory-brown eyes fixed on his plate, my influence reverberated through our bond. Alphas were born, not made. I needn’t say a word to spur my pack into action, but that internal pressure worked best when they actually respected me.

  Old memories swirled across my mind’s eye at the thought—of former packs with established alphas, packs who had turned on me because they chose him, packs dragged into violence and chaos as two alpha hellhounds fought for control. Fenix always did struggle to find a place for me; eventually, that place had been a tiny kennel where I was a pack of one for too many painful years to count.

  “Hazel,” Declan said softly, defeatedly, still staring at his plate, “please sit. Just hear us out.”

  Gunnar ceased arranging his cutlery, shooting his packmate an incredulous look from across the table before rolling his eyes in true Gunnar fashion. Honestly, you’d think I had ripped out Declan’s claws to force him to participate in this.

  But my true focus settled on Hazel, who was also staring at Declan, wearing a strange expression. Affronted. Surprised. Possibly even a little hurt, though not nearly as shell-shocked as when she’d learned Gunnar had followed her into Lunadell.

  None of it surprised me; the pair had connected during their first reaping, and now Declan was tidying the house in the evenings, without being asked, sweeping here and there, organizing what limited furniture we had und
er Hazel’s watchful—affectionate, sometimes—eye. I had let it slide for the sake of our greater goal, but if I wasn’t careful, he would grow even more unruly.

  Nothing ever came between a hellhound pack and their mate—fated or not—except blood and death.

  And the way Declan responded to her, the way Gunnar now felt about her, the way she plucked at our pack bond with nothing more than a smile, we were certainly headed down a dangerous path.

  Slowly, dragging her feet the entire way, Hazel drifted back to her seat and settled into it. Scythe across her lap, she sat primly, her expression pinched and unreadable.

  “This is an opportunity,” I said. While I had no qualms looking her right in the eye, she seemed to prefer glaring at a spot on my forehead. So be it. “You want us to learn about the creatures we reap, then take us out there.”

  She scoffed again, this time with less venom. Disappointing.

  “Why? So you can run away?”

  “No. This is about building trust—”

  “Trust you shattered by following me!” Ah, there it was—just a flicker, but enough to make the windows rattle and the candles shudder, orange light dancing around the room. Gunnar and Declan looked up, foreheads crinkled, apprehension trembling in our bond. I held my ground, her outburst eliciting a pulse of desire inside me.

  Desire that died when some of the dancing candlelight glinted in her eyes—her watery eyes.

  This had hurt her.

  She felt it more than I’d appreciated before.

  Desire morphed to distress, a vice snapping around my heart, twisting, twisting, twisting as my hands curled to white-knuckled fists. My pack’s attention snapped from the chandelier to me, sensing the abrupt shift through our bond, but I ignored them just as I ignored the empathetic ache in my chest for her.

  “Let us rebuild it together,” I proposed, no longer as smooth and casual as I would have liked, my words rough, my throat thick with fucking feeling. Perhaps the wine would wash it away, drag it back to the depths as the tide drowned all. My fingers twitched toward the glass, but I held firm. “Our history is a dark one, Hazel, full of violence and torture and teeth ripping into us.”