Page 17 of My Demon Hunter (Hell Bent #2)

16

I N T H E PIT OF DESPAIR

M ist dangled by the manacles at his wrists, his arms stretched painfully from his suspended body weight. He was hanging directly over the Pit, the grate over the top rolled back so if he were to fall, he would drop straight into the open mouths of the goraths below.

In front of him, at the edge of the Pit, stood Paimon, her red-eyed camel by her side. The crown perched between her horns glinted in the torchlight, long shadows cast across her face.

“You can’t escape me, you know.” She studied her claws. “It’s a waste of time to try.”

Mist said nothing, but inwardly, he burned with conviction. Giving up was no longer an option. Not now that he had Lily. Not now that she had accepted him for what he was. Not now that he had tasted her sweet release and she had done the same to him.

There was so much he wanted to experience with her. So much he wanted to show her. So much he wanted to give her.

For her, he had to live. He had to believe he could find a way to be free.

“You think you’re the only hunter in Hell? The only one who can find wayward rogues?”

“I am the best.”

Paimon looked up and smiled. “So confident. I always admired that in you, but right now it’s just annoying. Return to me now, and we’ll forget this unpleasantness. We’ll go back to the way things were.”

An obvious lie. There was no “forgive and forget” in Hell.

“So you don’t want to cooperate? Fine. Let’s try something else.” A malicious glint flashed in her eyes. “You were summoned by a human. At the precise moment you were about to be devoured, by freak coincidence, the first successful summoning of Mishetsumephtai in history occurred. You, a demon so unknown, most humans aren’t even aware of your existence. Seems odd, don’t you think?”

His heart started to pound. This was why he’d tried to leave Lily in the first place. It was like he’d once said to Asmodeus: If you really cared for her, you would have left her alone.

He now understood Asmodeus’s predicament on a visceral level. Only the cold claws of death could pry him from Lily’s side.

But if his witch ended up involved in this somehow... if Paimon found out she existed and got even an inkling of what she meant to him...

No. He wouldn’t allow it to happen.

“Nothing to say?” Paimon reached out and stroked the sandy hide of her camel. “Well, I have plenty. Isn’t that right, Shaheen?”

Shaheen blinked his long eyelashes.

Paimon’s head swiveled back around. “Since you’re being such an obliging listener at the moment, allow me to share. After Belial’s defection, I wondered what he could possibly be seeking on Earth when he already had everything in Hell. He was the most powerful King, held one of the largest, most lucrative territories in the underworld, and had legions of desperately loyal followers, waiting at his beck and call to serve him. And yet, he threw all that away to traipse about the Earth like a pathetic mortal, hiding in human form.” Her lip curled in revulsion.

“But I have finally discovered his true motives. Belial wants to usurp Lucifer as High King of Hell. Asmodeus, Raum, and Mephistopheles are helping him. Together, they seek a power source on Earth that Belial believes will give him the added strength he needs to defeat Lucifer.”

She was so far off, it was almost funny, except it wasn’t. Because, deluded though she was, if she was convinced Belial was plotting something, she would respond in kind. And that was no laughing matter.

“Do you want to know what I think? I think you found the rogues right away, as is your wont. I think Belial offered you a taste of power, and you took the bait.” She smiled coldly. “Tell me, what did he promise? That he would free you from the brands? That he would gift you with a territory and legions of your own?”

She threw back her head and laughed, the haunting sound echoing around the cavernous chamber.

“You will never have those things. You will never be able to remove those brands. You will never be anything except my servant, my Hunter, mine !” Again, her voice boomed around the darkness. “You will always belong to me.”

Mist’s hands clenched into fists, his claws digging into his palms until they drew blood. He hung there helplessly while everything inside of him wanted to attack, to rend her limb from limb, to tear her head from her shoulders and paint the walls with her blood.

“Still not in a sharing mood? I’ll continue, then. After I made the discovery about Belial’s motives, I reached out to my sources, endeavoring to identify this power source he seeks. They returned with an interesting tale.

“Twenty-seven years ago, two witches were born. Twins, from a long line of the most powerful blood-borns the Earth has ever seen. Their coming was prophesied centuries ago and was marked by a rare meteor shower at the precise moment of their births.

“The prophecy stated that the blood-borns would become immortal and so powerful, they would cause the downfall of a King of Hell. No one knows which King, of course, but you can see why that might cause some upset.”

Mist forgot about his aching arms and the monsters below as an ice-cold feeling of dread trickled over him.

“The mother of the twins knew of their prophesied power and that supernatural beings would try to steal it or kill them before they could fulfill their destiny. So, she concealed them using powerful blood magic to disguise their potent energies. But nine years ago, at the witching hour on the night of their eighteenth birthdays, the twins came fully into their powers, and the cloaking spell failed. It was only for a brief instant, but it was long enough.

“Duke Valefor—a collector of unique supernatural beings and artifacts, as I’m sure you know—had long been aware of the coming of the twins and had searched high and low for them since their birth. The moment the cloaking failed, Valefor’s tracking spells finally provided him with results.

“He discovered the parents and their coven desperately trying to repair the spell. Despite his interference, they were successful, and he could not locate the twins. When he could not breach the coven’s perimeter wards, he burned the building to the ground in an attempt to damage the spell and make it fail again. It did not, however, and the twins escaped. Valefor continues to hunt them to this day.”

The trickling dread had become an icy wave. Blood-borns with parents that had been killed in a fire. Nine years ago. It was too coincidental that the witch sisters Mist had accidentally encountered were the same ones Valefor hunted... but there was no other explanation.

“It is said,” Paimon continued, “that the one who harnesses the magic of the twins will be blessed by untold power. Power enough to, say, unseat the High King of Hell.” Her brow lifted. “That’s what Belial is after, isn’t it? That’s how he convinced you to betray me.”

“I’ve never heard a more far-fetched story,” Mist replied blandly, a cold sweat worming its way down his overextended spine.

Paimon smiled. “You’re nervous. I can see it in your eyes.” Her smile dropped, and her eyes darkened with wrath. “Serve me or die, Mishetsu. You know how the brands work.”

“Then I choose death.”

Paimon dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “I already know how to find you, anyway. There are hundreds of prophecies about artifacts, talismans, and destinies. Why do you think I fixated on that one in particular?”

He said nothing because he knew she would tell him anyway.

“I was shocked when you were summoned not only out of my lair, but out of your cuffs, by a human. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to analyze the magic responsible? The traces in the air were unmistakable. I sensed the powerful Temporal magic. I know who summoned you, Mishetsu. I know you’re working with the twins.”

His blood froze solid in his veins. He had never known fear like he did right then because, for the first time in his existence, he was afraid for another. Not for himself. For Lily.

“I’m going to find you and them. Since I’ve had a taste of their magic, it won’t be difficult to locate them.”

She is lying. She had to be. There was no way to track down Lily based solely on that, especially if she was under a cloaking spell.

But the fact that he didn’t know, that there was even the slightest chance she spoke true... It felt like having his insides carved out.

“When I do, I will deliver the sisters to Lucifer, and he will use their power to destroy you, Belial, and the three fools allied with him.”

Paimon’s eyes glittered with triumph as Mist failed to hide his horror. “In the meantime, I’ll be summoning you with all my power. I would say you have about two days left before you have to return or— Well, you know the consequences.”

Two days? He always had at least a week, if not two. She lies again.

She wiggled her claws in a wave, flashing a smile full of sharp teeth.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Mishetsu.”

Mist lurched upright in bed. His shoulders burned from dangling over the Pit, the skin at his wrists raw from chafing.

He hadn’t actually physically been in Paimon’s lair or she would never have let him go, but the Queen of Hell was powerful enough to trap his mind in vivid dreams. Generally only succubi and incubi had this ability, but Paimon was a rare exception. His consciousness had lived the experience, so lingering traces of phantom pain transferred to his physical body as he awoke.

He wasn’t immediately aware of his surroundings. Sunlight streamed through the window beside him, so he must have slept through the night. This was... unusual. That he’d been able to rest in another’s company, vulnerable and unprotected, was a first. But then, that was just what Lily did to him. She made him feel relaxed. Normal. Safe.

Panic filled him briefly when he noticed the empty space beside him, only to dissipate when he heard soft humming from the kitchen and smelled the scents of breakfast. He imagined Lily puttering around, golden hair spilling down her back, and something tightened in his chest so intensely that he gripped it.

Was it possible she and Iris were truly the prophesied twins? Or was it all a ruse Paimon had dreamed up as a way to... what?

What would she achieve by lying? He was already branded. He couldn’t think of a single thing she stood to gain from making up such an elaborate story, which made him think it was true.

And Lily was powerful. No one had ever succeeded in summoning him before, and he wouldn’t have thought it possible for him to be drawn out of the cuffs at all, which were supposed to bind him to Paimon’s lair.

A sudden searing pain erupted from the brand on his neck.

A low groan escaped him as his skin began to burn. Immediately, he felt a powerful force drawing him downward like a magnet in his chest. It took all his strength not to obey the compulsion right then. He sat there, claws digging into his thighs, breathing through the pain and trying to clear his mind of the urge to return to Hell.

Paimon hadn’t been lying.

At the rate his neck was burning, he figured he had only forty-eight hours before the compulsion stole his awareness. And maybe a week before it killed him.

That had been his plan when Lily first summoned him out of the Pit: enjoy his remaining days and then die on his own terms. But after last night... he wanted to live .

But Lily was in danger, and it wasn’t about what he wanted anymore. Now, he had to find a way to keep her safe.

Though he wouldn’t have traded last night with her for anything, he wished she’d never summoned him. He would rather be rotting inside a gorath’s stomach than know it was his fault she was being hunted.

He should have followed his own advice from the beginning and stayed away from her. He should never have left Hell, never embarked on this fruitless mission to taste freedom and enjoy himself.

This is what happens when the rules are broken. This is the consequence of insubordination.

Every single time. When would he stop this sad attempt to make his life have meaning? His life was worthless. He was worthless. He was worse than worthless, because by trying not to be, he had hurt the only thing he cared about.

He climbed out of bed, black spots flaring in his vision from the searing pain in his neck, and pulled on his pants in a daze. He remembered Lily’s curious expression as she tried to figure out how to take them off. He remembered watching her bring him to climax, feeling her wet mouth around him, her fingers stroking him, her moans of delight, her taste on his tongue...

It was the best thing that had ever happened to him. It was far better than anything he deserved. He would hold on to those memories for the rest of his days... however few remained.