Page 35

Dove

Elder Allen dragged me, throwing me into the back of a van and slamming me into the darkness. My hands reached around, feeling for some kind of resemblance, but found every wall to be hard and metallic, the inner walls of an unfinished back of a van. The vehicle screeched to life and I grabbed hold of the nothingness of the bumpy metal as we lurched forward, finally managing to get a grip around the smooth curve of the wheel well.

I curled into myself, clutching my knees with one hand and trying to remain upright with the other.

“Let me out!”

I screamed, banging on the side of the van, and a darker side of me added, “My Fated mates will fucking kill you!”

No response came from the driver behind the flat dark wall near the front of the van.

I had no representation of time in the back of the dark van, and I’d left my phone in my bag on the table at the restaurant. We drove for a long time, and like a kidnapped victim in a movie, I tried to memorize each turn of the vehicle, and attempted to track time.

It was hopeless.

I kept screaming and pounding on the hard walls.

When the van stopped, I was unprepared, cowering in the corner. The back doors creaked loudly as they opened. Bright lights shone in onto me, blinding me. I propelled toward them anyway, desperate to free myself.

A fist slammed into my stomach, and they shoved a bag over my head, restraining my hands behind my back. A rope twisted around my wrists tightly and they dragged me out of the safety of the van.

I fell to my knees, sharp pains shooting up my body as I hit the hard ground. But there was a clue. It wasn’t the pavement and cement streets of the city of Lethe. It was dirt.

Someone gripped the ropes around my wrists, nearly breaking my arms as they yanked me back to my feet. My heels had been lost in the fall, and I now was barefooted. “Get up, Disciple.”

“Release me.”

Then I laughed. “Or don’t. My Fated mates will be here any minute. And you will be punished for your insubordination, Elder Allen.”

“If they can find you, we welcome them. The more of you we can capture, the better,”

he laughed back at me. But it was cold and heartless, evil and void of sympathy. “You’re just the bait.”

Something in my heart squeezed, some part of what he spoke was the truth. At long distances, how would my Fated males find me? How long did it take before Damon and Seven had noticed I was gone?

The man continued to laugh as I stumbled behind him over the uneven ground.

My skin trembled and burned as something scorching passed over my skin, and then a pain I recognized passed.

Hellfire. I could see its blue lighting up all around me through the cloth mask blocking my vision. An arch of blue fire. The Hellgate?

The sound of metal hitting against rock, grunts of unearthly beings—demons—rang out. The crack of whips, the higher Tier monsters commanding the lesser. The cries of pain, whimpers of hopelessness. The distant cackle and roar of the everburning fire. I didn’t need the cover over my eyes to be lifted to know where I had been brought.

Hell.

A hand grabbed the fabric covering my head, some of my hair ripping out with it as I saw the gray-green knobby fingers with claws like a reptile. Shiny skin made of scales. Horns wrapped with dirty twine. I followed the hand to the face, misshapen teeth protruding and covered with a black film. Demon blood. Because the occupants of Hell didn’t have the privilege of eating humans or kitsune or other supernatural creatures. They feasted on their own.

Oni, Tier IV.

His slit eyes widened as he saw me, then his eyes flicked down to my arm. A stream of red blood dribbled out and he smacked his lips together several times, a lumpy tongue with sores swiping over his lips as he imagined the taste.

The demons all around ceased their work, their own nostrils flaring as they smelled their favorite meal. The irresistible blood they all craved more than life itself.

The oni hauled into overdrive, dragging me away from the surrounding demons as they drew closer, their whispers and deals meeting my ears.

“Just a taste, master, just a taste.”

The oni snarled at the others, whipping me around as his clawed hand stretched out and swiped at the oncoming attacks.

“NOT THIS ONE!”

he screeched, biting one of the arms of the demons. Black blood spurted out, covering his face and hitting my cheek. With my hands behind my back, there was no hope of wiping the disgusting filth from me. It smelled putrid. Decaying garbage and filth mixed with the sulfuric rotting egg. He whipped me around in circles as he fended them off. “We need this one!”

“We were promised,”

the lesser demons cried. “Why do you get a taste and not us?”

The monsters snickered and clicked their tongues, alien sounds erupting from their throats like garbled plastic crinkling.

“Nobody is tasting it! Not even me! You will have more than your fill when the Hellgate is broken! Now get back to work!”

The oni managed to fend off the others, and for a brief moment, I was thankful to the high Tier demon. He growled in my ear, “As much as I want to.”

Until I remembered I was merely captured for some greater use.

What had Sana said? Her voice rang out into my ears. Dove, I heard what they plan to do with you. You need to leave. It’s a fate worse than death.

I could think of several fates worse than death. Losing my Fated males, for one. But having the flesh peeled from my bones and eaten alive by demons was a close second.

Whips cracked, getting the lesser demons back under control. The only light in hell was the blue of hellfire, hot and bright. It hurt my eyes to look at it directly. It was scorching, and the dirt was blackened char. Burnt bones crunched below my feet, and I knew I walked over centuries of bodies of all types of beings. And there was a wetness I had no desire to identify.

I staggered and the demon towing me had no patience for my inability to walk over the terrain. He had feet like a reptile, only the ball of his foot touching the ground, his claws sinking into it. And I could see the black liquid seeping up as he pierced through it. My bare feet turned black from the minute I’d spent in Hell.

We entered a long narrow cave, this one empty of demons, instead, it was a hallway of cages, hands reaching out to me as though I could save them.

“Please, food, water, anything, please,”

the voices echoed, rasped, begged.

Most of the hands were human, but some looked demonic, clawed. All were dirtied with the filth of Hell.

The oni clanked open a barred gate, some kind of blackened metal, demon iron by my best guess, hardened by their hellfire. It was what composed their strongest weapons. The oni cut the rope from my wrists before tossing me in and slammed the cage shut behind me.

I crashed onto the ground, feeling the squish and give of the muck beneath me and I immediately jumped back to my feet, afraid to even brush away and touch the sticky damp wetness that clung to me. It was too dark to tell what it was. I didn’t want to know.

Then I suddenly missed the smell of sulfur. Because here, it was excrement. I gagged on the air and began to dry heave, what few bites I had for dinner threatening to come up, but I shook my head. Based on the other starving prisoners, I had no intention of losing what little nutrients I had to give me strength.

A light laugh came from the corner of my cage, “Stop being so dramatic, princess.”

I scrambled backward, almost falling over once more. “Who are you?”

I demanded.

“A prisoner, just like you,”

she said, stepping forward. Her voice was wispy and alluring.

I squinted in the limited light. The only illumination came from a faint hellfire torch a ways down the cavern of cages, but as my eyes adjusted, she came into sight.

Black eyes, purple skin, folded wings like a bat. Black claws, sharp teeth.

Succubus, Tier III.

She stepped forward further, and I stepped back, hitting another cage and feeling something reach through the bars and grab my neck. I screamed and wrenched myself loose, risking a glance back at the cage next to ours. I couldn’t tell in the darkness, in the filth, demon or kitsune or human. Whatever it was, its bones protruded out at odd angles, its starved and hollow face staring back at me.

The succubus laughed. “Don’t mind him, he just can’t resist your sweet aroma. He was actually pretty nice a month ago. But I think the hunger has gotten to him. So keep your distance, before he tries to eat you. At least until you smell as bad as the rest of us.”

My eyes snapped back to her. “Are you?”

I asked, and she raised her sharp eyebrows. “Are you going to eat me?”

I clarified.

She cackled, losing any allure she held. “Eat you? Are you stupid, kitsune? I’m a succubus. I can only feed on something else.”

She raised her eyebrows, winking at me. “If you’re interested.”

I shook my head, hurriedly, holding my hands out defensively as if to stop her.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, they wouldn’t put a good meal in here for me. I can only feed off your pleasure.”

She shrugged. “Maybe once you’re desperate enough, we can serve each other some good.”

“I don’t make deals with demons.”

“Oh, you will. After he’s done with you. You’ll give him anything he wants. Then you’ll be begging for a little comfort from your cellmate.”

She winked and took another step forward and I remained still, a hand from next door brushing against my leg. She walked with a limp and her wing was broken, and her stomach had a circle of dried black blood.

“You’re the demon I killed.”

She clapped her hands together several times, “Very good, kitsune.”

“Demon lock up their own kind?”

“It’s all a hierarchy, princess. The whole world runs on them, even down here. They found out I had a go at a Disciple. If I’d known at the time, I wouldn’t have tried. There were orders out to report your location to him. The archdemon in charge of this part of Hell. Apparently had a bounty on your head. But you were just so pretty. Your sexual energy pulsated that night. I thought it might have been me, with how you were leering my way. I could have shown you a beautiful flight. Being flightless yourself, you don’t understand the beauty of the world above. But then you attacked me. Must have been those males nearby you were interested in.”

I didn’t respond, just trying to keep myself still as I took it all in. It had been less than an hour and I was already adjusting to the nasty smells all around me.

“I suppose we can get along. Since you like to take multiple partners too. I’m Akanksha,”

she whispered, sitting back down on the filthy ground, flinching as her clawed wing caught on one of the bars.

“I’m—”

“I know, Disciple. You’re all they’ve talked about for weeks, the higher demons.”

She rolled her eyes, raising her voice, taking on a sing-song voice, announcing my presence. “Dove, the mystical kitsune sent by the goddess.”

A few of the creatures in the surrounding cells gained interest from her announcement, creeping closer and watching us. Calling out to me in weak voices.

“How lucky I am to share a cell with a Disciple. But they must think you weak, to put you here with us. They have stronger cells deeper down for the dangerous beings. Usually what you call Tier IV and Vs. But I won’t bow to you, anymore than I’d bow to your goddess. You’re just unlucky, cursed. You will be preyed on for your power, Dove.”

“You know of the goddess?”

“I know you’re young, but try to keep up. I was born centuries after her time, but the stories of her always permeated to a disgusting degree. Those who view her as a god, and those who view her as a devil.”

She laughed. “What a funny kind you are, kitsune. Worshiping a false goddess, murdering in her name. If only for the sake of more power.”

“We only kill demons—”

“And I only have sex with those who want me. It’s how my curse works. But you killed me.”

I snapped my mouth shut, shaking my head.

“On to more important matters. How vigorous are your boyfriends? Aren’t they the reason you’re viewed as powerful in the first place? And some Fated magic ties you all together? Do they love you?”

I started. Do they love me? Seven said they did, but none of them had really said it.

“Fuck,”

Akanksha snapped, throwing her head back to look at the dark ceiling. “So they aren’t even going to come rescue you? There goes our chance to get out.”

A few of the creatures in the surrounding cages slumped, losing interest.

“Prepare for a long sentence, Dove. Hell is an eternity of suffering and starvation and boredom. Take a seat, you can’t stand forever.”

She paused. “But it’s no more than you deserve. How many of us have you sentenced to Hell? How many of your kind send us back here when all we really want is to be free?”

“Twenty-two,”

I answered, remembering my last look at the leaderboard in the front lobby of Foxfire Academy.

“Huh?”

“That’s how many demons I’ve killed.”