Page 7 of Hellfire to Come (Infernal Regions for the Unprepared #5)

Chapter Seven

DOMINIC

The night didn’t breathe.

It crouched over the clearing like a beast waiting to pounce, heavy and still. Fog clung to the base of the trees, curling around our legs. The mansion loomed ahead, ruined, rotted, waiting.

We moved fast. Silent. Focused.

Brooklyn stalked through the overgrowth like she was born to it, hand signals quick and precise, eyes sharp and determent. She was a storm bottled into flesh, and if Alice wasn’t in that place, I knew she’d bring the whole damn building down just to make a point.

I’d help her do it.

I kept my steps light. The wolf mirrored me on the opposite flank, ears twitching with every distant creak or shift of wind. With a whispered good luck, Echo and Chester peeled off to the east to cause their very special brand of chaos.

Brooklyn and I headed west toward the breach the wolf and I had found: a collapsed portion of the mansion’s wall, now hidden behind thick ivy and decaying stone. It led to the lowest level, likely some old servant’s entrance or storage chamber. Somewhere no one watched anymore.

Except someone was watching.

I cursed myself for not paying closer attention before.

The scent hit me first. Sharp and oily. Burned ozone.

Witch magic.

I froze mid-step, holding one arm out to stop Brooklyn behind me. The wolf beside me snarled, hackles rising.

Too late.

The trees exploded around us.

Shadows peeled themselves off trunks and the ground, condensing into shapes with glowing eyes and rotted mouths. Blackened armor cracked and groaned as if it hadn’t been moved in centuries.

“Witches,” I hissed, already moving. “They’re summoning ghouls.”

The ghouls came fast. Unnatural. Silent. Weapons like bone scythes and shadow-tipped spears raised high. Their first target—my mate.

My heart shriveled in my chest as the first weapon was aimed at her.

I should’ve known better.

Brooklyn ducked the first strike with fluid grace, sliding beneath a curved blade and driving her elbow into one ghoul’s side. He didn’t grunt. Didn’t react. Just reeled back and swung again with robotic violence.

I didn’t wait anymore.

My bones snapped and reformed mid-step. Pain lanced through me from shifting twice in such a short time, but I welcomed it. It was real, grounding. My body stretched, fur tore through skin, and my animal took shape around my thoughts.

I dropped to all fours in a rush of heat and teeth.

The world sharpened.

Smells became knives. Sounds exploded like firecrackers. Every flicker of movement came with intention.

But my mind was still mine.

Alice. Protect Brooklyn. Kill anything that stands in the way.

I lunged at the nearest ghoul, jaws wide. My fangs sank deep into its thigh as it swung toward Brooklyn. The crunch of bone filled my ears, but it didn’t scream. Just tried to pivot toward me with mechanical precision.

Blindly, I ripped at it, tearing it limb from limb.

It fell.

More came.

Brooklyn moved beside me like fury personified, kicking, slashing, calling on something old and mean that lived in her bones. We fought back-to-back, the way we always did when things got ugly.

A ghoul got too close. I spun and slammed into its side with my shoulder, throwing the weight of my feline body into it. We crashed into a tree. I felt ribs crack, his, not mine.

They were stalling.

The realization hit me like a brick. They weren’t trying to kill us.

They were trying to keep us occupied.

Which meant…

“They know we’re here!” Brooklyn panted, hurling a ghoul into a patch of dead ivy. “They’re buying time for someone to move Alice or until the Council gets to us!”

I roared, tail lashing, claws finding the next threat. “We go now! No more waiting!” I thought to my mate.

“Echo and Chester…” She shook her head as if reprimanding herself. “They’ll catch up or they won’t.”

I growled my agreement, swiping through another ghoul’s chest. It fell in pieces while two others took its place.

Brooklyn didn’t wait for more encouragement. We broke toward the breach in the mansion, the wolf taking the rear.

Two Guardians blocked the path the moment we pushed through the brush, standing shoulder to shoulder like two boulders preventing our way in.

I didn’t slow. I launched. Before my mate could reach them, my body collided with them both, claws slashing, teeth tearing, and for one heartbeat, it felt like they had no weight at all.

Just air and ash wrapped in skin too thin for my claws.

Brooklyn slipped past me, darting into the opening, vanishing into shadow.

I followed, heart pounding, blood roaring in my ears.

Inside, the mansion breathed. Not with air, but with memories. Pain clung to the stone like mold. Chains and old screams lingered in the cracks. Familiar scents assaulted my nose so hard I was dizzy enough that my sight blurred.

I shifted back mid-stride, panting hard, chest rising with every breath.

“We’re in,” I said, voice hoarse. “She’s close. I can feel it.”

But Brooklyn didn’t look back. Her shoulders were squared, her steps silent.

“We must find her, Dominic, or we die trying.”

The air inside the mansion was thick, like stepping into wet ash. The temperature dropped by degrees with every step we took, but it wasn’t just the cold that raised the hair on the back of my neck.

It was the feeling of being constantly watched.

Every cracked stone, every twisted beam above us remembered the evil that spread like a parasite through time. I could smell it in the walls, blood old enough to have soaked into the foundation. This wasn’t just a prison. It was a shrine to suffering.

Brooklyn moved ahead of me in absolute silence. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. Her rage hovered just beneath the surface of her skin like heat waves, warping the space around her. She moved like she belonged here. Not as a prisoner this time, but as a reckoning.

I kept close behind, scenting the air, every muscle coiled. Magic brushed against my senses, faint, complex, and full of poison.

A sharp crack split the air ahead of us.

Brooklyn jerked back and stopped.

So did I.

A shadow moved at the end of the hall. Then another. Cloaks dragging across stone, pale fingers lit with runes. My vision sharpened to the curve of a lip twisted in amusement under the hood made of moth-eaten fabric.

Four witches emerged from the gloom like ghosts coming home. All female. All deadly.

“So disappointing. You’re not supposed to be here,” one of them said, voice silken and cruel coming from everywhere at once. “We had such high expectations of you, Brooklyn.”

She didn’t blink. “Yeah? Well, I’m fresh out of fucks to give, as Alice would say.”

I barked out a laugh, unable to stop myself.

The witches moved as one, forming a half-circle to block the corridor.

My instincts screamed. These weren’t novices. Their magic ran deep into the old blood, the kind that didn’t need spells. It lived in the marrow. It was part of this place long before the building rose above it.

“We don’t want to kill you, you have another purpose. Our fates depend on you and the prophecy,” another said. This one was older, eyes too calm for my liking. “But we will because we have no choice, our hands are tied. The girl is not yours to take.”

Brooklyn cocked her head. “She was never yours to keep to begin with.”

No more words.

One of them struck without warning, a bolt of emerald lightning lancing through the air toward us.

Brooklyn threw up a shield instinctively—her mother’s magic coming to the front to protect her, the spell cracking against it like a gunshot.

Her feet ground to the grimy floor, sliding back from the pressure.

The impact pushed her back into me and I caught her, grounding us both.

Then we moved.

I shifted mid-leap, my body stretching into the sleek, familiar weight of my animal who burst forward willingly, eager to fight along our mate. No hesitation. No doubt. I hit the stone floor running, claws throwing sparks as I launched at the nearest witch.

She disappeared in a puff of smoke and reappeared behind me, but I was already turning, tail whipping to catch her in the ribs. She screamed, skidding across the floor, crashing into a crumbled archway.

Brooklyn was already in the middle of the other three.

She fought like the goddess of wrath had taken human form: fast, sharp, and unrelenting. Fire crackled from her hands, her boots moved like she knew the floor was about to betray her. Light, barely touching the ground. She wasn’t holding anything back.

But neither were they.

One witch snarled and sent a wave of wind so strong it cracked the wall beside us. Brooklyn ducked, rolled, and hurled a spear of flame from her palm, striking her square in the shoulder.

That one didn’t get back up. Smoke curled up from the heap under the cloak.

I tangled with another, jaws snapping inches from her throat as she tried to chant. She screamed when I sank my teeth into her arm. Magic fizzled and spat as her focus broke. Her blood hit my tongue, thick, bitter, burning.

I didn’t let go until I was sure she wouldn’t be casting again. My jaw released her only after she lost consciousness.

Two down.

The remaining pair circled Brooklyn now, weaving energy between them in a helix of blinding silver and black. They were chanting in a language long forgotten by men, faster now, braiding a shared spell that vibrated in the floor beneath us.

I shifted back just in time to warn my mate. “Break the link!”

Brooklyn didn’t hesitate. She dashed forward, throwing a blade, not a spell, a blade, straight into the throat of one of them.

The spell shattered like a burst bubble. The second witch howled as her partner dropped, blood spraying across her robes. She barely had time to react before Brooklyn closed the distance and slammed her into the wall, ripping her throat with her fangs.

The fight was over in seconds.

My mate turned slowly to check if I was okay, bright red blood dribbling down her chin.

I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

I caught her in my arms as she walked into me reverently like the blessing that she was, my breath still sawing in and out, heart still hammering in my ribs, body humming with magic and adrenaline.

Then I heard the scrape of a shoe over hard floor.

Footsteps behind us moving fast, uneven, unbothered.

Echo appeared first, eyes gleaming with residual magic. Her hands were stained with blood and something that looked like black sand. “Miss us?” Then she saw the witches around us. “Pfft. You two always end up having all the fun.”

Chester was right behind her, brushing soot off his jacket. “We brought fireworks.”

I rolled my eyes. “We’re past the party, unfortunately.”

Brooklyn didn’t even look at them. She moved to check over the fallen witches, shoulders tight, breathing shallow.

“They’re dead.” Nudging one with the toes of her boot, she wrinkled her nose in disgust but her eyes were unfocused. “Alice is close,” she said, almost too softly.

I believed her.

“Let’s go get her,” I said. “We’ll think differently when she is with us.