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“He’s not here.”He lifted his hand and pressed it against the brick wall.His hand glowed, and the brick beneath it vanished before my eyes.A portal.“He’s in Hell.”

I took an abrupt step back.Jagger’s hand was still around mine, and his fingers tightened, stopping me from retreating completely.

“Nothing and no one will hurt you.Do you trust me?”

Did I?With my heart…the answer was still no.But this wasn’t about that.This was about my safety, and in that, yes, I did.I trusted him completely.I nodded.

“It’s okay,” he said.“I’ll keep you safe.”

I nodded again and reluctantly let him lead me through the now swirling portal.I was a healer.If someone needed me, I went and I did what I was born to do.Ignoring someone in need wasn’t something I could ever do.

Jagger strode briskly through tunnels, leading me deeper and deeper into Hell.The demon blood in me felt as if it were being drawn forth, as if that part of me knew we were home.My vision turned red before it settled back to normal.I lifted my hand and my nails had extended into claws, every vein on my hands, and everywhere else on my body, I was guessing, was now black.

Jagger stopped outside a large steel door and turned to me.When he got a look at me, at the way I’d fully transformed, he sucked in a breath.

Yes, look at your ugly mate.Bet you’re glad you never claimed me now, huh?

“I have no control over it,” I said.“It’s being down here.I can’t make it go away.So if it’s gonna freak out whoever’s behind that door?—”

“You’re fine as you are,” he said, but there was a weird look on his face.

I ignored it.I knew I was hideous, but there was nothing I could do about it.So I straightened my spine.“So, who’s behind the door.”

“A hound, his name’s Kurgan.He’s unstable, broken in ways we don’t know how to help him.Sometimes, he loses control and hurts himself trying to get free.I need you to sedate him, and heal him as best you can.”His thumb slid over the back of my hand.“Can you do it without getting too close?”

“I should be able to get enough sedation magic into him to calm a little, after that, I’ll need to get closer.”

Jagger looked grim but nodded.“You don’t approach him unless I say you can, yeah?And if we can’t physically contain him after that, you don’t approach him at all.”

“Okay.”

As soon as Jagger opened the door, I was hit by a bloodcurdling roar.The room had to be completely soundproof.Warrick stood on one side of the room, and the one making all the noise, on the other.He was huge, the biggest hound I’d ever seen.His black hair was long and wild, his skin streaked with blood, his own by the looks of it.It dripped from the iron collar around his throat and from hands that were basically stripped back to bone as he tore and yanked at the chain attached to the wall.

I dropped my bag and slid off my coat.Raising my hands, I stepped forward.The hound spun and dove in my direction.Jagger hooked me around the waist and stepped back, just out of the wild hound’s reach.

The massive hound stared at me with red eyes, huffing and snorting each breath, while he snarled and foamed at the mouth.

“Female,” he roared in a garbled voice.“Mine.”

Jagger’s grip on me tightened.“No, son, mine.”His deep voice resonated through me and made my belly swirl.“You’ve distracted him.Do it now,” Jagger said against my ear.

I let my magic build and sent a rush of it at the hound whose eyes burned into me.

He made a pained sound that lifted goose bumps all over me.It was one of pure agony, but his pain wasn’t the physical kind.I pushed more magic into him, reaching deep.

He moaned and stumbled to the left, then dropped to his knees, but continued to push forward against the cuff around his throat with enough force that blood poured from him onto the floor.

“Don’t stop,” Jagger said.

He was seriously drowsy, and I risked reaching out and placing my hand on the top of his head as I fired another burst of magic into him.

Jagger grabbed for my arm at the same time as the bleeding hound’s own hand snapped up, latched on to my wrist, and wrenched me from Jagger, throwing me to the floor.

He leaned over me, snarling in my face.Jagger and Warrick dove on him as he dipped his nose to my throat and scented me again.His head jerked back, and he shook it as he gnashed his jaws.

“Lenny,” he roared.

I wasn’t who he wanted.I grabbed his massive shoulders—while Warrick and Jagger tried to pull him off me—and pumped him full of power while reciting my spell more forcefully.