by Rhea Watson
I just couldn’t give in.
Finally, my skin stitched itself back together, shifter genes kicking into high gear. I’d never been attacked by a soul before; would her broken talons scar me too? Or would the marks fade in this form and the other, left only to harden to scars in my mind?
The reaper’s lovely features twisted with hurt at my rebuff, her cheeks flushed. And that hurt me too—pained me like it did to see Declan suffer under the hands of a demon, to witness Gunnar beaten and whipped for disobedience.
But she schooled her expression just as the wind returned to the trees, and I did the same, quieting my heart’s longing and burying all those fucking feelings deep, deep inside.
“I’ll be back for lunch,” Hazel said stiffly, dressed for one of her morning excursions into Lunadell. Off to cry in a sea of human children, to weep in a half-full food court. We both knew where she was headed, which made the color in her cheeks brighter before she turned away and marched through the opening in the ward. Moments later, she sealed it behind her, and then she was gone.
In her absence, I rubbed myself against brambles and trees, rocks and underbrush, smearing the red on my fur across the forest.
Marked up my territory with blood and piss.
Made it my own.
Because after defending it for the first time, it truly belonged to me, and while we were here, no one and nothing would try to take it from me again.
Thanks to a vengeful spirit and a reaper’s scythe, the land within the ward had begrudgingly become my home.
Our home. Me, Declan, Gunnar…
And Hazel.
For now.
16
Gunnar
“What the fuck are you wearing?”
Something ridiculously uncomfortable. I held out my arms and rotated in a slow circle for the benefit of my pack.
“I believe it’s called a… suit.”
Seated in his usual enormous chair next to the hearth, Knox cocked his head to the side, then went back to the historical tome in his lap with a snort. Declan, meanwhile, continued his appraisal of my absurd outfit from Knox’s bed, dressed in the most comfortable of all our attire—sweatpants and a loose T-shirt.
All of us had become more and more covered the longer we lived in these four walls, making use of the clothing that just appeared in closets and drawers courtesy of the reaper who seldom haunted this side of the house. In fact, the only time we were naked these days was before and after a shift, and even then, it was a quick hop into a cold shower to soothe the burn of the transition away, then into something soft that smelled distinctly of our individual scents.
This monstrosity was new.
It had materialized on a hook on the back of my bedroom door this morning, and I’d have to be a simpleton not to assume it was for my outing with Hazel this evening. Well. Evening had come, and I’d been a dutiful hellhound by putting on this thing with some direction from the internet.
And it was… constricting.
“Looks like a nightmare,” Knox mused from across the room before licking his finger and slowly turning one of the thick, yellowing pages. I huffed, spearing both hands through my rogue curls, my hair in need of a shearing.
“Couldn’t agree more.”
“I think it looks nice,” Declan insisted. He crawled off the bed and padded over to me, holding the lapels of my jacket with a frown. Then, without warning, he buttoned my crisp white shirt all the way up to my neck. “Pretty sure all the buttons are supposed to be closed.”
I smacked his hand away. “Well, now I can barely breathe.”
“You look dapper, as the humans say,” the youngest among us told me, his ease a contrast to my irritation thrumming along our bond. And it was me and me alone tonight that made the bond tense; Knox had been oddly settled since his bout with a vengeful spirit in the forest, and then Declan… Well, a good fuck would bolster anyone’s confidence.
Bit annoying, really, this new Declan. I so despised being out of my element, and tonight, I was the only one struggling to find my footing in this place. Hazel had yet to tell me where we were headed for our first—and possibly only—non-training venture into Lunadell, and the rest of my pack seemed to delight in my ignorance.
“I think this is supposed to be in some sort of bow—”
“I am aware,” I snarled, swatting Declan’s hand away again when it reached for the loose black silk around my neck. A flash of teeth and a warning along our bond had the hellhound retreating somewhat, but the display did nothing to frighten away his smug smirk. Rolling my eyes, I went for the tie, looping it as I’d seen done on the online tutorials—and failing miserably to construct anything remotely like a bow. “It’s meant to… do something…”
Declan’s eyes twinkled with an unfamiliar mirth. “Yes, most things are.”
“Oh, fuck off.” I turned and stalked to the window, tussling with the bow tie. “You know, you’ve become quite insufferable since you rutted with her.”
Knox’s black gaze flicked up, catching the low flames in the hearth. We had yet to discuss Declan’s new bond with Hazel—which astounded me, because for a hellhound pack, that connection was monumental. He had done what we’d all yearned to do from the moment we first saw her. And that changed things. It shifted the dynamic. Pushed Declan up the hierarchy. Gave him a different standing in our pack. Should a new member somehow find their way into our ranks, Declan was no longer the bottom hound.
Beyond all that, it implied a progression in Knox’s and my relationship with Hazel as well, and the fact that we hadn’t broached the subject in the twelve days since it happened told me we were on the same page: best just ignore it.
Hopefully, as we all bonded just a little more outside of reaping and training, she would find it in her heart to free us sooner rather than later.
Not that Declan would be all that keen to leave her behind.
And I…
Well, I rather liked the hunt. I craved that almost as much as I craved…
But never mind. There were greater issues at hand right now, namely this fucking bow tie that refused to loop like it was fucking supposed to—
“This is impossible,” I announced curtly, two seconds away from tossing the damn thing in the fire. “Humans must purchase these things ready-made or something, because it simply cannot be done.”
“Let me try,” Declan offered, crossing the room with an irritating little bounce in his step. My eyes narrowed.
“Get away from me.”
The bastard didn’t even slow. “Gunnar, stop being stubborn.”
“You can’t be the best at everything,” Knox added distractedly, squinting down at his book in the dim light, barely paying either of us any mind. I ground my teeth together; nothing screamed the change in our dynamic louder than this, right here. In the past, I’d seldom found myself ganged up on by Knox and Declan—Declan was rarely ever involved in any playful taunting, actually. But here, in my moment of weakness, they came together to poke and tease.
“Declan,” I growled, pointing a stiff warning finger at him, “fuck off.”
“You said that already,” the hellhound muttered without missing a beat. “Just put your pride aside and let me try—”
“Why?” I caught him dead center in the chest and shoved, forcing him back a few feet—though that did nothing to wipe his smile away. “Are you somehow an expert in the art of bow tying?”
“Look, you don’t know everything. Just stop being a stubborn dick—”
“Mind your place, Declan.”
“Fuck off, Gunnar. Let me just—”
“Don’t touch me!”
“Stop squirming!”
We wrestled with only a hint of seriousness; no one in this pack had ever come to physical blows with one another, and that wasn’t about to change over a fucking bow tie. In our hellhound forms, we played roughly, jostling about, nipping at each other, and that seemed to translate to this, whatever this was, Declan doing his damnedest to
get at my bow tie, me bodychecking him off…
And Knox fully engrossed in his book.
How the tables had bloody turned.
I had Declan in a headlock when a soft throat clearing stilled the entire room. Releasing my packmate, I swiped a hand through my hair, both of us straightening, panting as we faced the doorway.
In which stood Hazel.
Wearing…
Oh fuck, what was she wearing?
A pulse of slack-jawed idiocy quivered through the pack bond, all three of us ogling the reaper like we had never seen a female before. When she stepped into the room, however, the stunned silence turned sharply to lust, so much so that Declan actually staggered a few paces toward her, enraptured.
Like me, Hazel had dressed in black tonight, which was no big change from her usual palate. However, rather than shapeless robes and unflattering shirts, she had donned a gown. A fancy dress to pair with my suit. The garment had no sleeves, her arms and shoulders bare, her collarbones on display for the first time. A heart-shaped neckline curved over her bust, leading the eye down to a snug bodice adorned with glittering gemstones that caught the room’s soft light magnificently. Fabric continued to cling to her delectable figure, over her hips, no doubt perfectly cupping her pert little ass, right down to her thighs. At her knees, the material flared to the floor. The reaper appeared slightly taller than usual, and the faint but firm click of her shoes was different than any we’d heard before.
She had dressed up for tonight.
And… She had dressed me up for tonight too.
I tried to gulp, but my mouth was just too fucking dry.
Cheeks flushed, Hazel looked between the three of us swiftly, clutching a gold strapless purse in both hands. Her white mane had been wrangled into an elegant knot on top of her head, exposing the beautiful lines of her neck, the slope to her shoulders…
Jealousy pounded through me out of nowhere, unexpected and strong, at the thought that Declan had touched her, tasted her, fucked her and I hadn’t. The emotion throbbed through our pack bond before I could stop it, but I shoved the pathetic emotion deep, deep down inside me, even as Declan and Knox’s gazes burned into the side of my face.
They understood the feeling. We were one, after all. But that did nothing to quell the sudden embarrassment, my face on fire, my palms sweaty.
“You look lovely, Hazel,” Declan offered, shattering the terse silence that had stretched on since her arrival. She swiped at her hair, tucking a few stray strands behind her ear, her blush delicate—and intimate, having just received a compliment from a lover.
Jealousy and longing twined together like thorny vines around my heart, my hands curling to fists at my sides.
“Thank you, Declan,” she murmured, her gaze darting to me. “Are you ready? The suit seems to fit well—”
“Yes, yes,” I growled brusquely, stalking across the room and ignoring Declan’s glare in passing. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
The whip-sharp snap of Knox’s book closing made me flinch, but no more than the ripple of upset across Hazel’s lovely features. Our rejection hurt her; we had known that from the first week here, and yet we continued to do it despite our plan to win her over with kindness.
Well. I continued to do it. She and Knox seemed to have found some begrudging mutual acceptance since the spirit encounter.
And Declan…
Smitten. Hopelessly besotted.
“Wait.” She barred my path suddenly, stepping between me and the door. “Here…”
I stiffened when she tucked her gold clutch under one arm, then closed the distance between us in two long steps and stood up on her tiptoes to reach my bow tie. The looping fabric brushed across my neck here and there, but I couldn’t tear myself away from her. Those eyes, those cheekbones—deliciously sharp enough to give my own a run for their money.
All these new phrases we had learned since settling here certainly made describing her easier.
And vastly more engrossing. An expanded vocabulary sent my mind racing in Hazel’s presence, her sweet alyssum scent positively intoxicating, lulling me into a stupor if I let it. Her smell, her featherlight touch as she expertly crafted the perfect bow tie—it all made my knees weak.
No.
It made me weak.
Declan’s chuckle had me steeling myself, and I darted around her as soon as she arranged the bow tie in place.
“Have fun, you two,” my packmate called as I strode out of the room, the poignant click, click, click of Hazel as she followed me down the corridor setting my nerves on fire.
How I was going to survive tonight, I’d no idea.
Hopefully a human died wherever we went and we’d be forced to reap them together—because, honestly, that was the only way we were going to see it through to the end.
All the raw emotion simmering to a boil inside me died when Hazel and I materialized at the foot of the Lunadell Opera House. Still hidden away on the celestial plane, yet also surrounded by humans in fine suits and silvery furs and shimmering silk gowns, we stood before a great black building akin to some of the old cathedrals I had seen online and in the news—gothic architecture, they called it. Reminiscent, in some ways, of the stone towers in Hell, yet no part of me recoiled from the sight.
For this was a house of worship, and the goddess inside was music.
Hazel needn’t explain an opera house to me. Ever since she had deposited that aging phonograph in the piano room, I had studied—in secret, mind you—the ways of music in the human realm. Genius creatures, these humans, who created such magnificent works. I had fallen in love with not only Beethoven and Mozart, but Debussy and Brahms, Shubert and Wagner, Vivaldi and Rossini.
Hell, John Williams made the list.
Even modern music with its synthetic beats had merit—because it was something new, something that elevated my heart and set my mind wandering.
Knox and Declan weren’t privy to my fascination with humanity’s rhythms, but Hazel knew.
And she had brought me here, to the steps of the Lunadell Opera House…
Guilt reared its ugly head as we ascended the wide-set stone stairs in silence, guilt for the way I had spoken to her back at the house, for the hurt I’d left on her with every snide remark. As I stared at her little feet, dress hitched just enough to reveal a pair of much higher heels than she had ever worn before, I acknowledged that the goal had always been to leave her…
But I needn’t be so cruel in the process.
I needn’t beat her down as so many had done to me, only with words instead of fists and whips.
She had chosen this place for me, for my love of human music, and it made me feel…
Too much.
Much too much.
Squaring my shoulders, I caught up to her, climbing two steps at a time while her dress only permitted her to scale the one.
“What show will we be enjoying this evening?”
She fidgeted with her hair, a shy smile on her lips, and nodded to the enormous posters stretching the full length of the main doors.
“It’s a new one,” she told me, “about the sacking of Rome.”
“Excellent.”
My praise brought the same flush to her cheeks as my scorn, but I still took it as a win. Lush red carpets and gold bannisters greeted us inside, the hum of countless human conversations in the foyer positively deafening. Despite looking the part, Hazel made no move to step off the celestial plane, and I stayed with her as we cut quite literally through the crowd. I lingered a half step behind, and it wasn’t until we had cleared the curved staircase that I realized my hand, of its own volition, now hovered over her lower back.
Protectively, almost.
Possessively, certainly.
I shoved it in my pocket before she noticed, following her through curtained corridors, opulent and classist in every sense, until we reached a roped-off seating area.
“I came in during the night to put the sign up last week,” Haz
el admitted with an impish gleam in her eye, her cheeks dimpling as she sidled around the Out of Order post. “Wanted to make sure we got the best seats in the house… Pretty sure nobody knows why it’s unavailable, but no one’s removed it.”
“Clever girl,” I crooned, following her lead into the small arched balcony, a pair of perfectly useable seats waiting. Velvet warmed beneath my fingers as I gave the back a cautious stroke, and I waited, again, for her to cross over into the mortal realm.
Only she didn’t.
Hazel sat in her seat, and I sat in mine, both of us hidden from the viewing hall. To our left and right, guests filtered into the other balconies, just as patrons below filled the red seats. Gold angels, seraphim with their harps and archangels with their swords, cut up the walls and across the ceiling around the stage, which remained curtained off in more red velvet. A bit much, really, but for my first operatic experience, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Only I would have preferred to experience it on the human plane. After all, that was the point of these outings—to walk among humans, to see the souls we were bred to reap. To know them. To feel them. Every element would have been so much stronger out there, off the celestial, so much more grounded and real.
Still she made no move to cross over.
The reaper to my right merely studied those around her with a familiar intensity.
“Hazel?”
“Yes?”
Below, nearly every seat had been taken in the twenty minutes since we sat down. Above, a gaudy, over-the-top chandelier crept from the ceiling toward the audience like a groping hand, crystals shimmering, the gold arms looking especially polished.
“Why do you hide from them?” I asked frankly, shifting my intensity to her, to her elegant updo and her beautiful dress. Looking like that, Hazel deserved to be seen—worshipped, really, just as I worshipped music.
Beyond that, the men here ought to know what they couldn’t have. Just the thought brought forth an immense satisfaction in my chest, a pleasurable tightness in my core.
