Page 26 of Soulmarked (Hellbound and Hollow #1)

25

FINAL GAMBIT

T he warehouse felt wrong without him. The familiar space that had become our shared sanctuary now echoed with absence, every corner holding memories that cut like knives. Cade's coffee mug still sat on my weapons bench, half-full and stone cold. His jacket hung by the door where he'd left it, like he might walk back in any moment.

But he wouldn't.

“We need a way in.” The words came out rough, my accent thick with exhaustion and grief. “Has to be someone who knows how to open a controlled portal. Someone who can reach...” My voice caught, but I forced it steady. “Someone who can reach wherever he's gone.”

“I might know someone.”

Juno materialized from the shadows like she'd always been there, her vampire grace making even my hunter instincts miss her approach. She looked exactly as she had during the fight, sleek black clothes unmarred by combat, dark eyes sharp with dangerous knowledge. Always watching. Always calculating.

“Course ye do.” I couldn't keep the bitterness from my voice. “Always got an angle, haven't ye?”

She didn't bristle. Didn't smirk. Just watched me, expression unreadable. Then, softer than I expected, she said, “Not about angles this time. This is about getting him back.”

The dagger's edge bit into my palm as my grip tightened. “Why do ye care?”

Juno tilted her head slightly, as if weighing her words. Then she sighed, shaking her head. “You still see me as a hunter.”

I frowned. “What's that got to do with anythin'?”

“It means you don't treat me like a monster.” She glanced away, just for a second, before meeting my gaze again. “Cade was the same.” A pause. “Is the same.”

I stilled.

She exhaled, slow and deliberate. “You think I don't have reasons? I owe Cade more than you know. He...” She hesitated, something flickering behind her dark eyes. “He didn't look at me like a mistake that needed fixin'.”

I didn't answer right away.

Juno was one of the best hunters I'd ever seen, until she wasn't. Until she ended up on the other side, turned, forced to carve out a new place in a world that didn't want her anymore. And I knew what that was like. Not the turning, not the hunger, but the feeling of being other, of being something people feared on instinct.

“He didn't treat ye different,” I murmured, the pieces clicking into place.

She nodded once. “And I won't let them take him.”

A breath. A choice.

“Then talk,” I said, my voice steady now. “Tell me what we need to do.”

“Lissandra McBride.” Juno settled against my weapons rack with fluid grace. “Old-world witch, lives deep in the Glades. The kind of power that makes even creatures like me think twice.”

Lex straightened from where he'd been pretending to study my arsenal. “And you think she'll help us?”

“That depends.” Juno's smile showed just enough fang to remind us what she was. “She doesn't do charity work. And opening a portal to Hell? That's not just a spell, it's an invitation. Puts her on the radar of things worse than princes.”

“Don't care.” I was already moving, gathering weapons along the way. “Take me to her.”

“Sean...” Sterling started, but I cut him off.

“Don't ye dare tell me to think this through.” The words came out like broken glass. “Don't ye dare act like there's any choice here.”

I needed to get him back. Needed him back to me.

The Glades lived up to their reputation, a maze of ancient trees and darker shadows, where the very air hummed with old magic. Fog thick as grave dirt clung to the ground, and unseen things watched our progress with hungry interest.

Lissandra's sanctuary rose from the mist like something from a darker fairy tale. The witch herself matched her domain, storm-grey hair wild around a face that had seen centuries, eyes like wells into darker worlds. She greeted Juno with casual familiarity but barely glanced at the rest of us.

“You want to open a gate to Hell.” Her voice carried weight beyond sound, making reality ripple slightly. “Ambitious. But foolish.”

I held out Cade's dagger, ignoring how my hands wanted to shake. “Can ye find him?”

Lissandra's fingers brushed the blade, and her eyes began to glow with inner fire. Power crackled through the air as she reached out with senses I couldn't begin to understand. For a moment that stretched like years, she was silent.

Then she exhaled sharply, shaking her head. “Whoever has him... they're beyond my sight. Beyond even the princes of Hell.” Her eyes met mine, carrying ancient knowledge and something like pity. “But he's alive.”

The words hit like lightning, making my heart stutter. “Then ye can help. Can open a way to...”

“I won't open the portal.”

The words fell like stones into still water. Around us, the fog thickened, carrying whispers from things that had never been human.

“Won't?” My voice came out dangerously soft. “Or can't?”

Lissandra's smile was sharp with secrets. “Both. Neither. The magic required... it's not just about power. It's about balance. About prices paid in blood and bone and...”

“Name it.” I stepped closer, letting her see everything raw and desperate in my expression. “Whatever price ye want, whatever payment...”

“You don't understand.” Her power filled the air like static before a storm. “This isn't about payment. Opening a gate to those depths... it would draw attention from things that make your prince look young. Things that have waited millennia for such a chance.”

“Don't care.” The words carried all the weight of choices already made. “Let them come. Let the whole of Hell itself try to stop me. I'm getting him back.”

Lissandra studied me with eyes that had seen empires fall, her expression unreadable. “You would risk everything just to reach one man?”

“He's not just a man.” I held her gaze, refusing to back down.

Something shifted in her ancient eyes, recognition, maybe, or understanding. “You love him.”

“Aye.” The admission felt like breaking and healing at once. “Enough to tear Hell apart to get him back.”

Lissandra sighed, setting the dagger aside with deliberate care. The blade hummed faintly, still carrying traces of whatever Cade had become in those final moments. “Opening a controlled gate isn't like summoning some lesser demon for information, hunter. This isn't a one-way mirror you can just peek through. To breach Hell's domain is to tear a hole in the fabric of reality itself, a hole that won't close just because you want it to.”

“We've dealt with unstable portals before,” Lex stepped forward, but I caught the uncertainty in his usual swagger.

Lissandra's laugh carried centuries of scorn. “Have you? Because the last one nearly released of all hell's demons. If I open a path to those depths, something else will come through. Something that makes your prince look like a child playing with matches.” Her power filled the air like storm clouds gathering. “And if something already has your marked one, then it will know you're coming. You won't save him. You'll just become its next meal.”

My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out the whispers of whatever watched from the fog. Every second we wasted with words was another second Cade was alone in that darkness, becoming something beyond flesh while things older than time itself circled him like hungry wolves.

“So what?” The words came out like broken glass, my accent thick with fury. “We just leave him there? Wait and hope he finds his own way out?”

“Sometimes survival isn't about charging in.” Lissandra's expression might have been carved from stone. “Sometimes it's about waiting for the right moment, gathering the right tools...”

“Feck your right moment!” I took a step closer, letting her see everything raw and desperate in my expression. “You don't know him. Don't know what he sacrificed to keep this world from breaking apart. If there's even a chance to get him back, I'll take it. I don't care what it costs me.”

Juno's cool hand found my arm, trying to ground me, but I shook her off. The anger, the helplessness, the bone-deep fear clawed at my ribs like living things. Standing here, doing nothing while Cade faced whatever waited in those depths alone, was worse than any torture Hell could devise.

“You think I don't understand sacrifice?” Lissandra's voice rang with something deeper than sound, something that unraveled. “You think I haven't lost people to forces beyond mortal comprehension? Haven't watched love turn to ash in the fire of gods?”

“Then you know why I can't just wait!” My voice cracked on the last word. “Can't just stand here while he's... while they're...” The words stuck in my throat like thorns, choking on possibilities I couldn't bear to voice.

But Lissandra remained unmoved, her ancient eyes carrying something too close to pity. “Your love blinds you to the bigger picture. Opening a gate now, without proper preparation, without understanding what truly holds him, it would undo everything he sacrificed himself to protect.”

I couldn't accept them. Couldn't stand here and listen to reasons why I should abandon the one person who'd made me believe in something beyond the darkness we hunted.

“Fine.” I forced ice into my voice, letting fury freeze over the cracks in my heart. “You won't help? Then we'll find another way.”

Lissandra didn't argue, didn't try to stop me as I turned and strode from her sanctuary. My boots crushed ancient leaves beneath them, each step heavy with frustration and barely contained violence. The fog curled around my ankles like living things, whispering promises and warnings I refused to hear.

I paced like a caged animal, each step measured in heartbeats that felt like wasted time. Cade was alive. But for how long?

“You realize Lissandra was right about one thing.” Sterling's voice cut through my spiral, maddeningly calm as he leaned against my weapons counter. “Whoever has him? They're stronger than anything we've dealt with before.”

I met his gaze, letting him see the steel forming in my soul. “Then we get stronger. Find better weapons, darker magic, whatever it takes.”

“And there it is.” Lex exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. “Look, I want him back as much as you do, well, maybe not quite as much,” he amended at my glare. “But we don't even know where to start.”

“Then we don't stop searching.” My voice cracked like a whip, accent thick with barely contained fury. “We push until we find something. Someone. I don't care what price I have to pay...”

“And that,” Sterling cut in, voice sharp as steel, “is exactly how we lose you too.”

Something inside me snapped. “Lose me? Lose me?” The words ripped out of me raw, sharp enough to wound. “He walked into that void alone. Do you get that? He knew what was waiting and still...” My breath shuddered. “Still, he went.”

Lex took a step back. Juno, for once, stayed silent.

“I should've done more,” I rasped. The words tasted like blood. My hand slammed against the counter, sending a knife clattering to the floor. “Should've done something.”

“Sean...”

“Don't.” My voice was wrecked. “Don't tell me to be rational. To be smart. To wait. To think.” A bitter laugh tore out of me. “Waiting means watching him disappear. Thinking means remembering that I was right there, and I still couldn't save him.”

A heavy silence fell between us, the kind that pressed against the ribs like a physical weight.

Sterling exhaled, slow and measured. “You think he'd want you to do this to yourself?”

“Don't you dare use him against me,” I snarled.

“I'm not.” His voice softened just slightly. “But you're not thinking straight, and you know it. I know what losing someone like this does to a person. And I know it feels like if you don't do something right now, you'll come apart at the seams.”

My throat burned. “And what if I already have?”

Sterling's expression didn't waver. “Then we put you back together. But not like this.”

I looked down at Cade's dagger, still resting on the table where I'd left it. Its blade hummed faintly with traces of whatever power had consumed him. My fingers curled around the hilt, grounding myself in something sharper than grief.

“I don't care what it takes,” I murmured, running my thumb along the edge. “I will bring him back.”

Lex let out a long breath. “Well. That's not ominous at all.”

Juno's grin showed too many teeth, her dark eyes sparking with something unreadable. “I like this side of you,” she murmured. “The hunter losing control. It's a fascinating thing to watch.”

“This isn't a game.” But my voice had lost its edge, replaced by something colder. More certain. “This isn't about irony or revenge or even love, though God knows that's part of it.” I turned to face them, letting them see everything raw and unfiltered in my expression. “This is about choice. His choice. And if I have to follow him into the deepest depths of Hell to bring him home, then that's exactly what I'll do.”

Sterling studied me with eyes that had seen too much, that carried the weight of secrets older than time. “And if what you find isn't him anymore?”

I gripped the dagger tighter. “Then I become something else too.”

The air in the loft felt different after that, charged with something heavier than just magic. Fate, maybe. Or something darker.

Sterling exhaled. “Then let's make sure you don't lose yourself before you even find him.”

It wasn't enough. Wasn't nearly enough. But for now, it would have to be. Because Cade deserved more than a desperate, reckless rescue that would undo everything he'd sacrificed himself to protect.

And I wasn't losing him. Not now. Not ever.