by Rhea Watson
I went left; I would never go right again, not as I once had.
The lamp on Declan’s bedside table was on, but his bed sat empty.
As did Gunnar’s. I frowned in the doorway—until a wiry, luxurious shadow sidled into the corner of my eye. A glance down the hall had me grinning again: arms crossed, lips quirked, Gunnar leaned against the doorframe at Knox’s bedroom.
My cheeks warmed under that unfamiliar gaze. Everything else about him was the same: a statuesque figure corded with subtle strength, his skin pale, his lips thin and passionate, his limbs long. He stood before me in a slouchy pair of grey sweatpants, his chest bare and toned. But those eyes. Once a dark, lush blue, they had lost their sheen during Richard’s attack, and now, as if they had absorbed some of his magic, sparked with a startling bright blue, forever humming with electricity. In a way, they suited Gunnar better, but it would still take some adjusting to on my part.
“You’re all wet, reaper,” he mused as I padded over to him. His crossed arms loosened, and I rose up on the tips of my toes for a teasing little kiss. Our mouths lingered a breath apart, and his pursued mine when I eventually dropped back down, his chuckle tickling between my thighs. A firm hand cupped my chin, holding me close, and Gunnar cocked his head to the side, a few chocolate-brown curls falling over his new eyes. “I suspect this won’t be the last time I tell you that tonight.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Promises, promises…”
His touch was like fire, and I cuddled into his chest, my lower lip caught between my teeth, and basked unabashedly in the heat.
“Did all go well with Alexander’s pack?”
I nodded, trailing my fingers over the muscular curves of his arm. “My pack now—until they find a suitable replacement.”
“You should be the only reaper in Lunadell,” he murmured into the top of my head, his hands locked behind my back. “You can handle it.”
“No, I can’t.” Pushing up onto my toes again, I stole a quick peck, then danced out of reach when the hellhound snapped at my lips. The solid clack of his teeth colliding sent a shiver down my spine, a promise for what was to come glittering in his eyes. He had said it more than once in the last few days that I ought to be the only reaper—that I should just take Alexander’s pack and reap Lunadell on my own. But then I would never see my boys, forever jumping between Earth and Purgatory to escort souls—not for me. I was happy to share the burden. “But thanks for your vote of confidence.”
His arms tightened around me when I tried to squirm free, so I ducked under them rather than struggle to break through them, slipping around his narrow hips and skirting into the bedroom behind his back.
The sight always took my breath away: Knox actually sleeping in his bed, not just standing guard next to the hearth. In fact, until recently I hadn’t ever seen Knox sleep, but his body needed it to heal from the monumental trauma of that night. Shirtless, the alpha reclined into a mountain of pillows, half sitting up, like he had fought to stay conscious until he just couldn’t a second longer. His head lolled onto his shoulder, the stubborn creature, all those pillows Gunnar and I had fluffed for him totally wasted. Still, he looked peaceful enough, his eyelids smooth, his handsome scarred features relaxed.
Might wake up to a kink in his neck, but that was a small price to pay for recovery, surely.
At the end of the bed, Declan occupied his usual place, stretched lengthwise, snoring softly on top of the covers with an arm crooked under his head, his back to me. Long red stripes replaced what had once been shredded flesh; I still wasn’t used to that either. Charon’s brutal whip had left eight neat slices down Declan’s back, and while they had been the easiest to heal on the day, my magic and his natural healing ability working together to close his gaping wounds, there was still the risk that they would eventually just scar over.
Leave him branded.
It didn’t sit well with me.
But he was alive, same as Knox, and at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.
Moving quietly, mindful of the few floorboards that were extra creaky, I crept deeper into the room and climbed onto the enormous king-sized bed. It dipped beneath me, the blankets slightly askew under my knees. He looked so peaceful, my noble alpha—the hellhound who had been willing to die for all of us.
On that awful day, once we had stabilized Declan, Gunnar and I whisked them both back to the house. Knox’s wounds would have been fatal had the angel I’d summoned from the reaping department not arrived in time. At first, Angelus—do not get me started on the name—had refused to treat my dying alpha. After all, he had touched a reaper’s scythe: he should die, or at the very least lose his hands. But then he saw the marks on my neck, my shoulder, my wrist. And then, patiently, he had listened to my story, really absorbed every detail. Knox and I were fated mates, same as Declan and Gunnar and me, and with his alpha blood, Knox had been permitted to return my scythe to its rightful place—though not without cost.
Slowly, the angel and I had fixed him up, me sealing bone and sinew, Angelus growing flesh from nothing. From there, he had returned to the Silver City and summoned a tribunal council to assess the incident. We had been called to testify—Knox gave his deposition from this very bed—and Alexander had disappeared. The trials were then postponed. No penalty had been placed on my beloved hellhound for taking my scythe into his own hands, but he was cautioned from doing it again.
“If I have to choose between my hands and her life, I’ll do it again in a second,” Knox had snarled from beneath his blankets, all those pillows stacked high around him, his hands red and sore and healing.
Today the flesh was pink and soft, like stretching out his fingers risked tearing it along the faded lifelines on his palm. Gently, silently, I lifted Knox’s huge hand to examine the new skin, pleased with its progress. Angelus had estimated he would need another week before his full strength returned and suggested Knox not shift in the meantime. My poor alpha had been miserable sitting around in bed these last few days, even with the TV we had set up for him, all the books, the steady onslaught of healthy meals I made him eat, but the only real thing that seemed to make him happy was our company.
I was just about through examining his other hand when Knox exhaled curtly and nudged me away.
“Stop fussing, woman,” he muttered, voice rough with sleep, eyes still shut. At the end of the bed, Declan roused with a deep breath of his own, and I shook my head, grinning.
“Hush and let me fuss.”
I snatched up his hand and gave the fingertips a hard look; they had been a little too pale that first day, leaving Gunnar and me fretting about circulation through his new skin. Knox shuffled about beneath the covers, then snapped his hand around mine and shot up with more vigor than I’d seen in days, tackling and pinning me to my back with a growl. Months ago, that sound would have terrified me. Tonight, I went down in a fit of squealy giggles, curtained by his black mane, tickled by the ends of his beard.
“Knox, stop,” I ordered halfheartedly, squirming when he secured my wrists on either side of my head. “Your hands—”
“They’re fine, mate.” His mouth seized mine midprotest, swallowing my indignant noises with a kiss that made my toes curl. Not only did it thrill me to see his energy up, his movements less stilted, but I’d really missed his rough caress in the short time he had been bedridden. I wriggled beneath him, my effort to escape more for show than anything, my heels digging at the bed, my hips writhing, my back arching. The dip in the mattress told me Declan was up, and the faint tread of bare feet across the hardwood confirmed that the little display had caught Gunnar’s eye too.
I sucked in a gasp when Knox dragged an openmouthed kiss along my jaw, my lashes fluttering in the dim lamplight. Outside, another crash of thunder announced that the storm wasn’t dying down anytime soon.
“Did you all miss me today?” I asked—moaned, more like, the sound bound to entice the hellhounds closing in on every side. Reaper business had occupied me
since this morning, which had left the pack to fend for themselves in my absence. They were good at it now, taking care of each other, fixing meals that didn’t just consist of raw meat, but after the Charon debacle, the four of us all preferred to be within an arm’s reach.
Because frankly, the memories of that day cut deeper, scarred harder, than any physical injury.
Declan’s ragged screams, his back split beneath Charon’s whip.
Gunnar’s body jittering and contorting, his spine nearly breaking, the awful dance accompanied by that warlock’s cruel laughter.
Knox’s hands, bony and bloody, the resolve in his eyes as he croaked what he thought—what I feared—were his final words.
If I had it my way, I would never be apart from these three hellhounds again. Never. But the world we found ourselves in didn’t work that way, and for now I’d suffer the nightmares of those images on my own, just as I savored whatever time we had together with a smile on my lips and in my heart.
Really though. Nightmares. For the first time in my afterlife, I was afraid to fall asleep—terrified of memories so vivid that it was like we were all back there reliving it.
They would pass in time, as all things did; I kept them to myself, preferring to live in a bubble of sex and love and relief that we were all together again. Each one of us a little broken, sure, but together, we were whole.
A second pair of lips found my skin, and where Knox had been all teeth and force, Declan was subtle and soft, confident in the lazy way his mouth dragged along my flesh, tickled my sides, nibbled at my belly.
“Always and forever, sweet,” he murmured against my thighs. Knox leaned back on his elbows, watching the scene unfold before him like a king on his throne, his eyes a brilliant obsidian that I locked onto, even as I threaded my hand into Declan’s hair. The hellhound at my thighs flicked his tongue over my clit, the caress featherlight, a sinful tease, and I looked down at him with a hapless moan. He grinned up at me, slowly parting my legs and settling between them, one over each of his shoulders. “For as long as we love you, Hazel, we’ll always miss you.”
The notion brought tears to my eyes, just as it had the first time we whispered sweet nothings to one another in the aftermath. As soon as Knox and Declan regained consciousness, I’d told them—fervently—that I loved them with every fiber of my being. Gunnar’s had been a quiet declaration, the two of us entangled on Knox’s armchair after Angelus left, watching our pack sleep away the trauma. He had whispered it against my neck; I had murmured it against his lips.
Declan’s tongue swept the full length of my sex, delving between my slick folds, not stopping at the first swirl around my clit. Pleasure bloomed behind my eyelids, and I arched up with a moan, my hand twisting in his hair. Just one touch and he could melt me.
“O-oh,” I stammered, undulating against his mouth, my thighs trembling over his shoulders. “My loves—”
Gunnar’s snort cut me off. “So sappy, all of you.”
A sharp slap had me giggling, though I wasn’t sure who had swatted at who, but when I stole a peek, I found Gunnar shedding his sweatpants. His cock jutted out at a perfect right angle, eager for some attention.
“Even if we didn’t miss you, per se,” Gunnar carried on as he climbed onto the bed, crawling past Declan and up my body. His strong hand cupped my breast, plucking at my nipple even with our gazes locked. “How else are we supposed to act when you strut in here stark naked?”
“How do you think I feel all the time? You lot are always naked,” I snapped, trailing off with a sharp breath that Gunnar muffled the moment he slammed his mouth to mine. When Declan eased a finger into me and stroked my inner walls, a delicious shiver sleuthed down my spine, languid as the lightest rain droplet parachuting down the windowpane.
You’d think I would be accustomed to the touch of multiple lovers, but the thrill hadn’t dimmed even a little. Declan lapping expertly at my sex, his fingertips bruising my hips; Gunnar kissing me like he wanted to consume me, his hand tangled in my hair; Knox watching it all unfold with such keen interest, waiting patiently, biding his time until he could really take me…
It would never get old, never lose its thrill. How could it when my body responded like it was made for the passions of more than one?
I came apart at the seams under their undivided attention, and Declan kissed me just as deeply as Gunnar when I reached my breaking point, fucking me with his tongue. He groaned, gripping my hips hard, thrusting as deep as he could while pleasure erupted from my core and radiated out like a nuclear shock wave. I cried out into Gunnar’s mouth, one hand clutching at his wiry bicep, the other fisted into Declan’s hair. Their movements quickened, mouths working me from both ends, threatening to swallow me whole as I writhed through my first climax of the night.
But not the last. Experience had taught me that. Was it fate that made them capable of playing my body like a finely tuned instrument? Because they were just so fucking good at it, their fingers, tongues, cocks skilled to a fault.
Stars still danced across my eyes when Declan withdrew, a rush of cool air brushing over my wetness, arousal smeared over my thighs, across his mouth. Without speaking, the pair of hellhounds found a rhythm in their manipulation of my body, Declan rolling me onto my belly and lifting me onto my knees just as Gunnar settled in front of me, the head of his cock teasing my lips. Flushed from head to toe, I found my steps in this complex little dance, arching my hips and my back for Declan, offering myself freely, and sweeping my tongue across my lower lip with a coquettish flutter of my eyelashes for Gunnar.
The hellhound before me swallowed hard, the bulge in his throat bobbing. He was always so talkative, but I was learning how to silence him with subtle movements, with the promise of my surrender.
It was electrifying to somehow be submissive to three ravenous hellhounds, but also completely in control, one word from me capable of bringing this all to a crashing halt—or taking us to spectacular heights.
I’d only just gripped the base of Gunnar’s shaft when Declan plunged into me from behind, filling me with a single powerful stroke. Moaning, I fumbled forward, burying my face in the blankets for a moment as I adjusted to the sizeable intrusion. Only I wasn’t allowed a moment to myself: Declan’s hand wove into my hair, and without any real force, he guided me back up and positioned me over Gunnar’s cock. There was beauty in softness, and Declan was a master at it.
An incoherent flood of nonsense spilled from Gunnar’s mouth as soon as I wrapped my lips around his silky tip, sucking it with enough force to make his hips buck. My grin had the hellhound at my mercy scowling—had Knox chuckling—and at a pace that was perhaps painfully slow for him, I took him inch by inch into my mouth. Declan, meanwhile, ground against my backside, one hand at the nape of my neck, the other at my hip.
They were good at sharing, Gunnar and Declan. In fact, they almost always shared me, taking turns to occupy whatever part of me called to them in the heat of the moment. Knox, meanwhile, usually seemed content to watch, to sit back and allow his pack to ravish me before his eyes, his cock straining when the others finally handed me over.
I flicked my eyes in his direction; a voyeur, my alpha love. Had he always been keen to watch before, or was it a pleasure reserved just for me, for us?
We three found our rhythm in time: Gunnar sprawled back on his elbows, his cheeks hollow like he was biting down on them as I pumped half his length with my fist and teased the other half with my tongue. The up-and-down motion of my head set the pace for Declan, thrusting in and out of me at the same pace, his breath strained—like it killed him to go so slow and steady.
That thrilled me too.
As did the knowledge that they could all only hold back for so long. Eventually, the chord would stretch too taut—and snap.
The breakdown of their carefully orchestrated control was a guilty pleasure of mine. As soon as Gunnar started bucking his hips, driving himself into my mouth, Declan faltered too, his thrusts harder, fa
ster, more poignant in the delicious little spots he hit. His hand around the back of my neck tightened, gripping for balance as he pounded into me. We devolved into chaos, into frenzied rutting, both hellhounds setting their own pace, seeking out pleasure that dragged mine right alongside it. Every muscle stiffened inside me, pleasure burning in my core, my eyes watering as Gunnar fucked my face and Declan ravaged my sex.
We came undone together, a symphony of ragged cries filling the room. Gunnar spilled himself down my throat just as Declan stuttered to a halt, buried deep inside me, his hips jerking through a climax that made him hiss my name. I was helpless, trapped between them, forced to ride out the pleasure in whatever position they had me in.
With anyone else, this would have been the end of it.
But as Declan eased out of me and collapsed on the bed, I looked to Knox. Wiping my lips, I left a weak-kneed Gunnar behind to crawl up his alpha’s legs. Knox helped a little, yanking the blankets aside to reveal tree trunk thighs and a rigid cock. We needed no foreplay, no tentative touches, no kisses to reacquaint ourselves. I scaled him greedily, licking his cock along the way, flicking my tongue over the tip, wiggling my hips and ass for the others.
Before I could grind down onto him, bury his huge length inside me, Knox snatched my hips and lifted me. Turned me around with his damaged hands so that my back collided roughly with his chest. I let out a shocked breath, legs spread, and my head tilted back onto his shoulder with a drawn-out moan as he steered himself inside me.
Unlike Declan, Knox took his time—a tease, just like I had been with Gunnar, burying his cock into me an inch at a time. Torturous, his pace. I tried to just slam my hips down, but he held firm, setting the tempo for us.
Reminding me who was alpha here.
And I let him.
God, how I let him.
I threaded one hand up and into his hair, using it as an anchor more than anything, my heart skipping a beat at the thought of Knox’s usual rough thrusts. Fire raged inside me, a great inferno that required more than the average woman to extinguish. More lovers. More soul mates. More cocks and hands and tongues—more. Was I insatiable, or was this just my path?
