Page 15 of Shadowed Spirits (Haunted Magic #2)

CHAPTER 15

IZZY

“ I t’s a fucking family reunion down here,” I mutter to myself. Archer snorts behind me, but I keep my focus on Cain and the man claiming to be his grandfather.

While I’m no longer shaking with rage, I’m still having a hard time keeping myself from murdering Mira slowly and painfully. Seeing my kind, strong, and stoic mate flinch away from her had my vision turning red, and all rational thought went out the window. Before I knew what was happening, I had her plastered against the column, six feet in the air, with purple magic because my magic just casually changed colors on me.

A few guards tried to come to her rescue, but my magic unleashed a can of whoop ass on them. It was super badass, if I do say so myself. Hades ordered the rest of the guards to stand down and told me not to make too much of a mess when I killed Mira. Cain doesn’t want me to slaughter her, so here she is. Since I don’t trust her, she is still encased in my magic where she’s kneeling on the floor, unable to hurt Cain.

My magic didn’t work in this realm when Levi brought me here after I passed out, but it’s working now without a problem. I’m guessing drinking water from the River Styx is why, since that’s supposed to determine if I’m cura or not. That’s also probably why my magic color changed. At least, I hope so. Otherwise, there’s something very wrong with my magic.

The man claiming to be Cain’s grandpa reaches out a hand to Cain before letting it drop, seeming unsure if Cain would welcome the contact. “My name is Adriel, and your pops was my son. My mate, your other grandfathers, and I spent a lot of time with you when you were a pup. When your fathers died, your mother wouldn’t let us see you.”

Cain looks shell-shocked at this information. “Why—” He breaks off, his voice catching in his throat. After swallowing roughly, Cain continues. “Why can’t I remember you? I thought Prue and I had no family, other than our parents.”

Adriel rubs his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Si. That’s something I want to help you figure out, though. How is your baby sister?”

“A freaking menace is how she is,” I grumble before Cain gets a chance to answer. He chuckles softly, knowing I’m telling the truth about Prue. I’m still unsure about his chaotic sibling, even though Cain says we’re pretty similar.

“Who’s this?” Adriel asks as his intense hazel eyes look me up and down, not in a completely unfriendly way. He looks more confused than offended.

Cain pulls me until I’m nestled in his side and smiles down at me. “This is Isabel Gallagher, my mate.”

“Trouble wrapped in a deceptively nonthreatening package,” I answer at the same time Cain does.

Pursing his lips, Cain gives me a small shake of his head. “You’re not trouble, angel.”

I raise my eyebrows and spread my arm out to gesture around us. “The fact that I dragged you to literal Hell proves you wrong, quiet boy.” I’m really not sure how he can claim that I’m anything but trouble. All I’ve done since meeting him is create one problem after another.

“No. I’m part hellhound, so I would’ve ended up down here at some point, anyway.” He cocks an eyebrow at me, silently daring me to argue with him, which I would love to do.

As I open my mouth to do just that, Adriel interrupts before I can say anything. “You’re what?” His booming voice is almost a shout as he stares at his supposed grandson in complete and utter shock. I’m not sure why he’s surprised, when he’s a hellhound. It doesn’t seem that strange that Cain would be too.

Cain’s forehead wrinkles in confusion. “I’m part hellhound, according to Hades. That’s why you were called here. You didn’t know?”

“Uh, no. He was called here because Mira insulted you, tried to physically coerce and bully you, and attacked you.” I can barely get the words out through my clenched teeth because I’m still so furious about it. My magic bubbles in my chest and desperately tries to get out to make her pay for hurting Cain. While I would love nothing more than to let my magic have free rein, I refuse to go against Cain’s wishes like that.

“You lying little earth scum!” Mira struggles to get to her feet, but I press her down with my magic, keeping her on her knees. “I wasn’t attacking the useless mutt. I was disciplining him for disobeying a superior.”

“You were going after someone who was clearly scared! That makes you a bully. Respect is earned, not automatically given. If you want Cain to obey your orders, then act like a fucking leader by showing respect, consideration, and strength of character, not by physically harassing him.” I’m so enraged by the hellhound that I feel tears prick the corners of my eyes. I ruthlessly shove them down because I refuse to cry in front of her.

I also understand the irony about going off on Mira for being a glorified playground bully when I can’t do jack shit about my own tormentors. The worries about Danielle, her cronies, and my classmates seem so small now when compared to everything else going on, though. It’s funny how life can change your perspective so much.

“That was surprisingly well said, earthling,” Hades chimes in.

I roll my eyes at the surprising part. “Gee, thanks. That’s what I aim for. Doing surprisingly well.” Hades cackles at my response.

I ignore him to focus on Adriel, who’s doing the weird hellhound rage growth thing that Cain did last night. “Um, Cain, you might want to talk with your granddad before he kills Mira.” Solid black flames run down Adriel’s arms and snake toward Mira, who thrashes about, trying to get away from them. I don’t know what the solid black flames are, but from her reaction, they’re nothing good.

“Adriel,” Cain calls, his steady and stoic voice ringing out in the throne room.

Adriel turns burning red eyes toward him. “Yes, Silence?” His voice holds a strange resonance that I can feel vibrating in my chest. The sound makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and goose bumps prickle along my arms.

“Please don’t hurt her.” I don’t know how Archer can say Cain’s not sweet and gentle, when he’s pleading for mercy for someone who tried to attack him. He’s far too kind and forgiving toward Mira for my taste, but I admire his good heart.

“She hurt my own blood, so she will pay. I could not protect you from losing your fathers, but I can protect you from her.” A roiling storm of grief and loss and regret rolls through Adriel’s eerie red eyes as he watches Cain.

“That’s what I was saying,” I mutter to myself. Adriel gets me. Mira hurt Cain, so I’ll hurt her. Repeatedly. With a smile on my face.

“If you feel a punishment is appropriate, I won’t get in your way. But I don’t want any death doled out on my behalf. My life has already been steeped in enough blood and death as it is.” Cain bows his head and gazes at the floor sightlessly, his green eyes open but glazed over. Whatever he’s seeing in his mind is clearly not a happy memory, by the way his whole body tenses.

I reach out and hold his hand, hoping to comfort him. The contact startles him, but he doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he holds me tighter, like I’m his only anchor in a violent hurricane.

“Why? Did your mother fail to protect you?” Adriel questions.

Cain lets out a bitter laugh. “My mother was the cause of much of it, but that’s a story for another time.”

At the news of Cain’s mom hurting him, Adriel releases a low growl that has even the guards backing up, their eyes wide in fear.

Footsteps sound outside the throne room before three more large dudes burst through the open doorway. Two of the guys look like twins, with black hair with crimson ends and red eyes. Fortunately, one of them is wearing a navy button-up and the other is wearing a black dress shirt, so I can tell them apart. The other one has forest green hair and deep red eyes. Dressed the most casually in a black tee and jeans, I can see flame tattoos curling around his arms.

The man with deep green hair assesses the room with a sharp gaze, taking in Mira on the floor, guards passed out, and Adriel still in his raging hellhound form. “What the fuck is going on here? And why did you need the hellhound conclave for any of it?” His questions come out more like stern demands.

Oh, good. More hellhounds to cause problems.

“For fuck’s sake. When are you guys going to stop popping out of the woodwork? This is enough of a shit show as it is. And I swear to God, if any of you try to hurt Cain, I’ll murder you with my bare hands, understand?” I’m at my limit of people messing with my mates today.

“Goddamn, that’s hot. Why is it so hot when she threatens people?” Archer asks in a whisper from somewhere behind me. I hear a thump, and Archer lets out an oof that turns into a quiet, wheezing laugh.

“Who are you?” the man in the deep blue shirt asks with casual disinterest. He shoves his hands into his pockets and lazily looks me up and down before giving me a wide, menacing smile. “I wouldn’t threaten hellhounds, little girl. A single one of us can chew you up and spit you out before you’d have a chance to react. Learn your place, earth dweller, and fast because you won’t enjoy me putting you in it.”

Growls sound behind me at his threat, and I can feel magic other than mine in the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cain start bulking up as black, wispy flames curl around both of us. None of my mates like the hellhound’s warning.

“I’d like to see you fucking try, my guy.” My hair starts floating above my shoulders, and my magic buzzes over my skin, ready and extremely eager for a confrontation.

The hellhound who threatened me loses his smirk and stands up straighter when he feels my power electrifying the air around us. I give him a predatory smile in return.

All three hellhounds grow in size and have solid black flames swirling around them. Their eyes glow red as they start growling the same eerie way that Adriel did.

Do I have enough power to go against three hellhounds and keep Mira contained? I don’t know, but it looks like we’re about to find out.

“Children! Enough!” Hades shouts to be heard over all the growling and commotion, his voice dripping with authority and promised retribution if we don’t listen. The hellhounds back off at the warning but don’t let the weird flames surrounding them drop completely. My guys stop growling behind me, but I can still feel Bishop’s and Levi’s magic in the air, mixing with mine. Hades meanders toward our groups before stopping between us. “Earthling, you sure know how to stir up trouble. You make your great-grandpappy so proud.”

I roll my eyes at him so hard that it’s a wonder they don’t get stuck. “We don’t even know for sure that I’m related to you. Even if I am, I’m never calling you that, you weirdo.”

The man in the navy shirt eyes me suspiciously. “I thought you were from Earth. You smell like a mage.”

I let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “I thought that too. The things you learn when you go to Hell, am I right?” The three new hellhounds are looking at me like I’m a few marbles short of a full tool shed, and they’re honestly not that far from the truth.

“For the love of everything that’s unholy,” the man with green hair interjects. “Can someone please just tell me what the fuck is going on here?”

Adriel throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. “If you three would’ve let me explain before getting into a pissing match with my grandson’s mate, you’d know!”

The twin in the black shirt’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Your grandson’s mate?”

“Yes, Caster. This is Isabel Gallagher and her mate, and my grandson, Silence Blackthorne.” Adriel gestures at us before pointing at each of the hellhounds. “Isabel and Si, these are three of the conclave’s members, Caster, Ajax, and Vulcan. I apologize for your poor introduction to hellhounds, but I promise we aren’t all like this.” Caster and Ajax are the twins, with Ajax in the navy shirt and Caster in the black shirt. Vulcan is the third hellhound.

Honestly, four out of the five trying to attack or threatening me is pretty good, given my track record. That’s a twenty-percent-approval rating, which is way higher than it is in Hawthorne Grove. I’m really moving up in the world.

“It’s fine.” Adriel looks at me skeptically, but I just shrug. It’s not that I’m forgiving hellhounds as a whole, because I’m still very wary of them. It’s just that they rank very low on my list of problems right now, as long as they don’t actually attack me. Speaking of problems, we never really figured out what Cain is supposed to do. “Is Cain really supposed to go away for hellhound training?”

“Hellhound training?” Adriel tilts his head in confusion. “Like what we have for pups?”

“I don’t know. That’s just what Mira said before she tried to grab him.” I gesture in the general direction of the hellhound who’s one wrong move away from a very painful death.

Caster looks over at the still-contained hellhound with mild curiosity. He makes no move to help her, though. “What happened to her?”

I flash him a savage grin that has his eyes widening slightly. “I did.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Shit, kid. Mira is decently powerful, so I guess you weren’t so overconfident after all.”

I choke on a laugh. “Out of my million and one flaws, overconfidence isn’t one of them.” I want to tell him that I’m also not a kid, but he’s probably billions of years old, like Levi. I bet I’m like a tadpole to people in this realm.

“To answer your question, Si doesn’t have to go to any hellhound training. I don’t know what Mira was talking about, but I will get to the bottom of it. You can rest easy knowing she will be reprimanded and stripped of her conclave position.” Adriel scrubs a hand over his face, seeming done with today.

Me too, dude. Me too.

“What? You can’t do that. You have no right!” Mira shouts. “My father won’t stand for this. He is the one who put me on the conclave in the first place!”

Adriel stalks over to Mira and roughly grabs her chin in his hand. The solid black flames slither down his arms to wind around her neck. She lets out a blood-curdling scream and starts thrashing, but Adriel doesn’t let her go. After a long moment, he pulls back, and I can see her neck has a fresh circular burn on it. Her chest is heaving, and tears are running down her face. I’m having a hard time feeling any sympathy for her, though.

Leaning down, Adriel gets in her face, his voice a low growl. “I am the ruler of the hellhounds. I can do whatever I please. The only reason you are still breathing is because Silence pleaded for mercy on your behalf. Be thankful for your life. Run to Endymion if you wish, but even he won’t be able to restore your spot on the conclave. Now, get out of my sight.”

I release my magic, and Mira scrambles to her feet. She gives me and Cain a hateful glare before sprinting out of the room. Good fucking riddance.

Trying to get this whole mess back on track, I ask, “So, what exactly does it mean for us that Cain’s a hellhound? Are we free to go back to Earth?”

Ajax cocks his head. “Why would you want to go back to Earth?”

I blink at him a couple of times, not sure what to say. Infernus is cool and all, but I like my world a lot better. “Uh, because that’s our home. And we have a metric shit ton of problems to tackle.” This has already taken longer than I thought it would, and I’m getting antsy. The longer we screw around here, the longer Doyle and the council have to stir up trouble.

“Hmm. Strange.” Ajax shrugs and dismisses me to talk quietly with his twin.

Adriel sighs in exasperation. I’m guessing he often has to wrangle Ajax during hellhound business. “Si doesn’t have to do anything. He should’ve been trained since he was a pup, and that failure is on me. Since neither you nor Prue have red eyes, I thought the hellhound side wasn’t passed on and didn’t try as hard as I should’ve to stay in touch. You’ll never know how sorry I am for that, Si.”

“Thank you,” Cain rasps, his voice roughened by the emotion he’s trying to stop from getting out. Sadness, regret, loss, anger, and even a bit of hope flit across his face as he stares at his grandpa. Adriel seems like he genuinely cares, but it’s probably hard for Cain to hear that he cares now that he knows he is a hellhound. Cain still deserved Adriel’s concern, even when he was just a regular wolf shifter. What he is shouldn’t determine how much his family loves him.

When it’s clear Cain isn’t going to say anything else, I try to get any info I can to help him later, when he’s less overwhelmed by all this. “Can he still train if he wants to?”

“Absolutely. You can come to me for training at any time, Si. Whether that’s in a day or a million years, I’ll be here. All of us—your other grandfathers and your grandmother—will be here for whatever you need.” Cain dips his head slightly in acknowledgement but doesn’t say anything. Adriel’s face falls, but he recovers quickly to give him a bright smile. “The conclave isn’t needed anymore, so we’ll get out of your hair. I’ll set up a visit with you soon. We’d all love to catch up with you and Prue.”

Adriel reaches out his hand for Cain to shake. After Cain grasps Adriel’s hand in his, the four hellhounds stalk out of the throne room. None of this helped Cain understand his hellhound side any better, but I guess at least we have a resource if we need help with it.

Relieved to be done dealing with hellhounds for now, I turn around to look at my mates and stop in my tracks when I see Levi has a massive pair of black, feathered wings. “Holy shit. You’re a fallen angel.”