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Chapter Twenty-Five

Sutton

I woke chained to a stone wall.

Snarls and growls echoed all around me. Poe had dosed me good, then had continued to drug me for at least two days, but it was obviously starting to wear off because I managed to lift my head and open my eyes.

The chamber was huge, set up like some kind of twisted demonic living room.

On one side, there were massive couches and chairs, and a huge widescreen TV—and on the other were several apparatuses, some that I assumed were for sex, and others that were obviously for torture, and in the middle, was a fire pit that spat hellfire every couple of minutes.

The huge cavern had openings on two sides, and on one side, a hound was chained at the opening, pacing in front of it, there to stop anyone from coming in.

It no doubt was Brick. They’d taken him from the sewers before the hounds could get to him.

Beyond him light flickered, and moans of despair and cries of pain echoed in the distance.

The other exit wasn’t passable either. I recognized Kurgan instantly, the hound I’d met with Jagger, his inner scars were impossible to miss.

He was in his hound form, huge and shaggy and foaming at the mouth.

Lucifer said there was a second hound missing, but he can’t have meant Kurgan.

Not only had I met the wild hound after the meeting at Rune’s, but he’d also told War it was someone the alpha didn’t know.

Which meant there was possibly a third hound being held down here somewhere.

There would be no moving the huge hound, though, no getting close, because if I wasn’t mistaken, locked in a cage right beside the entrance he was guarding, was his mate. The small female sat in the middle, her arms wrapped around her knees, trembling, and her face hidden.

They were using her to control him, and she was utterly terrified.

“You better have news for me?” someone roared.

My head snapped back as a door opened across from me, and Tarrant and Poe strode into the main cavern, followed by a huge horned demon.

“I’m sorry, Lord Beelzebub. We have nothing yet.”

Oh fuck . This was Beelzebub’s home. The terrifying demon spun and grabbed Tarrant by the throat, slamming him against the rough stone.

“It’s not time.” He shook his huge head.

“If this comes back on me, if Lucifer finds out what I’ve been planning, I’m fucked.

” He roared, then punched the stone beside Tarrant’s head, sending shards of stone flying.

I swallowed my scream. The last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself.

“I want the name of the traitor.”

Poe stood beside them, and his gaze slid to me, his eyes wild. He still hadn’t told Tarrant and Beelzebub it was me, that I was the one who blew everything wide open. For some reason, he’d decided to risk angering a lord of Hell to keep my secret.

Because he wants you to owe him, to be beholden to him.

I was fucked, either way you looked at it. My powers were still bound. I was in Hell. I had no idea how things worked between realms. Would Jagger still be able to sense me down here? Did the sigil Poe carved into my skin block me from him completely?

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Tarrant said, bowing his head in the face of the massive and powerful demon. “I let you down.”

“You got sidetracked with your own endeavors. These auctions you’ve been running, the drugs you have been selling, you forgot yourself.”

“I did that for you.”

Beelzebub leaned in. “Enlighten me.”

Gods, his voice sent terror down my spine.

“Every demon who came to our auctions, who bought and paid for a human, is now beholden to me… to you . I’m the only one who knows their identities, and if they were leaked, they would be dragged here to Hell.

They don’t want that. They owe us. They are allies in the war to come, because they have no choice. ”

Beelzebub stared down at him, his thick, leathery, muscled back moving in an odd way as he tilted his head to the side. “You have the next phase in place?”

Tarrant nodded enthusiastically. “We have a witch.” He pointed at me. “She created the potions we’ve been testing, to make sure of its effectiveness on as many different humans as we could, to make sure it’ll work on a high percentage of them. You see, I had a plan.”

Twisted asshole.

“We had another witch duplicate the drug she created, increasing its potency, then produced it in bulk. We have barrels of it now, ready and waiting, more than enough to poison the water supply.”

They’d had Luke copy my recipe. They were going to drug the entire city.

“Do you truly believe you can get the task done, Tarrant?” Beelzebub asked. “After your failings? Do you think I should put my future in your weak and incapable hands?”

“I can do this, my lord. I won’t let you down, not again,” Tarrant said. “This is the only way to shatter the path fate is currently on and set the forgotten prophecy into motion. It’s the only way you take Hell, my lord.”

“Are you telling me this drug will make the humans offer their flesh to us? It’s the only way to redirect the path.”

Oh goddess, what they had planned was horrific.

“Yes, I’ve already seen it happen. It makes them easy to manipulate, to control. I can give you what you need. I can give you that.”

They were using my drug to change fate, and to do that they needed something that was so wrong, something so against the natural order, that it caused a major shift.

Humans offering themselves as food to the inhabitants of the underworld would definitely do that.

Beelzebub stood silent for several long moments.

“For now, here in my quadrant, we are relatively safe. But if Lucifer discovers who stole from him, he’ll know he was betrayed, and it will be only a matter of time before he summons all the lords for questioning.

You have two days to set the next phase in motion. ”

“Thank you, my lord,” Tarrant said, slumping when Beelzebub stepped back.

“If you fail in this, you will regret it, Tarrant,” the massive demon said, then strode away. Brick moved back, pawing at the ground as the demon strode past and out of the cavern.

“Come,” Tarrant said to Poe, then he headed in the same direction as Beelzebub.

Poe strode over to me, closing in, crowding me.

“See how I protected you? You owe me your life now,” he sneered as he tucked my hair behind my ear, then pulled it hard.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be away, but no one here gives a fuck about you except me.

The only thing keeping you alive while I’m gone are the hounds guarding the entrances.

If you try to leave, I will come after you, and if the hounds or the demons haven’t torn you to shreds, I will. ”

I rattled my chains. “Where do you think I’m going?”

He smirked and shrugged. “Just reminding you of where you are. You are in Hell, witch, and every demon down here, including me, would love to make you scream.” Then he strode away.

Maybe, but if I got free of these chains, I wouldn’t be alone.

There was no power vibrating through the iron around my wrists.

I was marked with a sigil, but my cuffs and chains were not.

I wasn’t a hound; they didn’t think I was strong enough to escape.

I turned to the female curled up in her cage. “What’s your name?”

She looked up at me, terror in her eyes. “Lenny.”

“Hi, Lenny, I’m Sutton.”

“Hi.” She jolted when Kurgan pressed his snout to the bars and scented her with bared teeth.

“I know you’re scared. I am too. But we don’t know how long we’ve got until they come back. If we’re going to get out of here, we need to make a move now.”

“How? I’m in this cage, and you’re chained. And I heard what that demon said, even if we can get out of this cavern, there are more, they’re everywhere, and we don’t know the way out.”

“I’m pretty sure I can get us free, but we’ll need to take the hounds with us. Brick’s family is worried sick, and Kurgan”—I saw Lenny flinch again—“can protect us.”

She shook her head, her eyes wild. “He’ll kill me if he gets the chance. He’ll kill all of us. He’s insane.”

The chains were long enough that I could twist, so I faced the jagged rocks behind me.

“I’ve seen inside him, Lenny. He doesn’t want to hurt you, that’s the last thing he wants.

He’s in agony over what happened, that he hurt you last time.

I think…I know…” I hissed as I scraped my chest against the sharp rocks, tearing at my skin.

“If you show him you’re in control, if you command him to stand down, he will. ”

She stood. “What are you doing?”

“Poe carved a sigil into my chest. If I can damage it enough, I can break the bind he has on my magic.” Or at least I hoped so.

She watched me wide-eyed, then turned to Kurgan, before her gaze came back to me. “There’s no controlling him.”

“No one knows we’re here, and I don’t know if the other hounds can track us between realms. We either make a break for it while we can, or we stay down here, prisoners for the rest of our lives, and suffer in a whole lot of really awful ways.

” I wasn’t trying to freak her out more, but it was the truth.

She bit her lip, trembling again now. “I’m scared.”

“I know, me too. But we have to be brave.”

She nodded, licking her lips. “Okay. I…I can try.”

I whimpered as I scraped my chest against the rocks once more, making another slice in my already damaged skin, and felt the bind finally give way and my magic rush forward.

I used the surge of power, sending it into the cuffs around my wrists.

I was already bleeding, and the blood strengthened it even more.

“Break these binds, set me free, demon iron cannot contain me.” Not the best spell I’d ever come up with, but it was all I could think of right then.