Page 10

Chapter Ten

LILY

Every minute we spent in Hell reminded me how much it sucked. Or maybe it just made me realize how much I missed Earth. Yes, the minus-frigidy temperatures sometimes made life there challenging, but at least Earth had never actively tried to kill me. In Hell, if it wasn’t the heat, then it was the terrain—a sadistic mess of craggy paths filled with serrated rocks and random geysers that loved to spit fire and lava at random intervals.

And then there was the other problem—the one silently padding along behind us.

A hellcat.

It’d been stalking us for the past ten minutes, slinking through the shadows and keeping just out of reach. Its glowing eyes tracked me like I was its special treat. I hadn’t mentioned it to the others yet because, frankly, I kept hoping it would lose interest in us and find someone else to terrorize. No such luck so far though.

Even Purrgy must’ve picked up on it. His carrier had gone suspiciously silent, which was never a good sign. Normally, he’d be grumbling about the heat or my uneven pace, but right now, he was deathly still. Great. If my lazy, overfed cat thought we were in trouble, we probably were.

Hellcats were nothing to mess with. Imagine a tiger, but far more intimidating. They were about the same size, but hellcats had sleek, jet-black fur that shimmered like oil, and they moved with a lazy confidence that only came from knowing they could murder you without breaking a sweat. Then there were the not-so-fun bony spikes jutting from their backs, running down the length of their spines to a barbed ball at the tip of their tail. Because their teeth, claws, and sheer size weren’t frightening enough, apparently.

Then there were their eyes. Yes, they glowed, like most everything in Hell, but there were four of them. Just enough to make sure they never lost sight of their prey. Their fangs curved out past their jaw and every so often some sort of liquid dripped from them that hissed when it hit the ground. Without having ever experienced a bite, it was clear those teeth were venomous.

“Hey, Meat Sack, you’re falling behind!” Vol called from Eliza’s shoulder, where he’d perched himself a few hours back. After the events in the cave earlier today, Vol had decided Eliza was his new best friend. “Any reason for that?”

I shot Vol an annoyed glance. I wasn’t “falling behind.” I was keeping an eye on the predator tracking us. A predator Vol apparently hadn’t noticed.

Rathiel, walking a few feet ahead, glanced back at me. His expression was as serious as always, but concern narrowed his eyes when he spotted the distance between us. “Something wrong?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “We’ve got company.”

Rathiel’s gaze followed mine, and his body instantly tensed. “Hellcat?”

“Yep.”

Eliza fell back in line with us. “What’s a hellcat? Should I be worried?”

“Very much so,” I said.

The beast padded closer, slipping out of the shadows just enough for me to catch a better glimpse. Scales that gleamed like obsidian covered its sleek body, and flames licked at its paws as it moved. Its eyes burned orange and watched us with unrelenting focus.

“Options?” Eliza asked, flexing her fingers in preparation for a fight.

“We can try to scare it off,” I said, already doubting my own words. “Or we can fight it and hope we’re faster and stronger.”

“Hellcats don’t scare easily,” Rathiel said, his wings stretching slightly, his body ready to spring into action. “I’ve hunted them before. They’re not easy prey.”

I shifted my pack higher on my shoulder and received an agitated cry from deep inside Purrgy’s carrier. “How far are we to the nearest outpost?” I’d lost track of our location once I’d noticed our feline stalker.

“Fellmoor is just beyond that sulphur basin,” Rathiel said, nodding toward a wide, shallow crater in the near distance, its surface encrusted with yellow deposits that hissed and bubbled in places. Clouds of noxious steam coiled into the air like ghostly serpents, and the ground shimmered with heat distortion. “If we push hard, we can hopefully make it in ten minutes.”

“We aren’t going through that, are we?” Eliza asked.

“Not if you like your skin where it is,” I mumbled. “The sulphur in there will strip you to your bones.”

“Hard pass,” she said, grimacing.

“We’ll have to go around,” Rathiel said, his gaze darting between the hellcat and the steaming crater. “Hopefully the cat’s as disinterested in melting as we are and will move on.”

I stole another glance at the beast. Its hulking frame prowled too close for comfort. Its eyes burned with patient hunger, and its barbed tail swayed slowly, lazily, like it was toying with the idea of how best to kill us. It wasn’t hiding anymore, so I had a feeling it wasn’t about to let us go. Thankfully, Rathiel and I knew how to handle creatures like this—I just didn’t relish killing them. It wasn’t the cat’s fault that it enjoyed feasting on flesh. My father designed the species that way. The blame lay solely at his ignominious feet.

A warning growl rumbled from Purrgy’s carrier. His carrier shifted as he pressed against the mesh window, no doubt flattening his ears at the incoming predator.

We picked up the pace, cutting a wide berth around the sulphur basin. The ground beneath us cracked with each step, the heat radiating from below enough to make sweat bead at my temples. The hellcat kept pace effortlessly, prowling just outside our reach, but it still hadn’t attacked.

Yet.

“What’s our move if it stops toying with us?” Eliza asked.

I tightened my grip on Inferno’s Kiss. “It dies.”

“That’s the confidence I love to hear,” Vol muttered. “Right before everything goes terribly wrong.”

I ignored him. That the hellcat hadn’t attacked yet had me questioning its purpose here. Perhaps it was wary of our numbers. Three against one certainly put the odds in our favour. Or maybe we were simply trespassing on its hunting grounds and it was stalking us until we left.

I certainly preferred the latter option.

“We’re close,” Rathiel said, his voice low. He nodded ahead, where the heat haze finally parted just enough to reveal the outskirts of Fellmoor.

The outpost wasn’t much to look at—just a scattering of dark, weather-worn structures carved directly from Hell’s stone, their edges twisted like melted wax. The buildings huddled together in tight clusters, connected by a mess of narrow alleys and precarious bridges that stretched over bubbling chasms. A faint, sickly glow pulsed from somewhere deep within the settlement, casting eerie shadows against the rock walls.

I glanced back at the hellcat. It had slowed its pace, hanging back at the edge of the basin, its ember eyes still staring. But it didn’t come any closer.

Rathiel noticed too. “I don’t think it’ll follow us into the outpost.”

“Why not?” Eliza asked.

“Too many hellspawn,” I told her. “The cat’s odds of survival are slim to nil, considering hellspawn love a bit of roasted hellbeast meat.”

“Ah,” was all Eliza said.

A few moments later, the cat turned and left, its tail still swishing. Relief loosened my shoulders, and I turned my focus to Fellmoor.

“What’s the plan?” I asked. “How do we wanna tackle this?”

“Carefully,” Rathiel said. “Hellspawn are loyal to your father, mostly because they have no other options. But they respect strength and power above all else and cull their weakest members. They’ll remember the war. And more importantly, they’ll remember we lost. So, the second we’re recognized, one of two things will likely happen. One: they’ll attack us. Or two: they’ll report our presence to Lucifer.”

Neither option thrilled me, but we needed to discuss the most pressing matter first. “We should assume Lucifer already knows we’re here.”

Rathiel’s head jerked toward me. “What?”

“We have to assume the fallen made it back to Hell. And the first thing they would have done?” I spread my hands. “Run straight to Daddy Dearest.”

Rathiel bit out a curse.

The thought made my skin crawl too, like I could feel Lucifer’s fingers already closing around my throat. But it was better to accept this truth now than pretend otherwise. “If the hellspawn report us, we should assume it won’t be news to him. So, let’s focus on what we can actually control.”

Eliza tilted her head. “Can’t you tell if the fallen came through the portal?”

I shook my head. “No. The more distance we put between us and the gate, the less I feel it,” I said. “But either way, we should assume the hellspawn will attack when they recognize us.”

“And you think they will?”

I let out a laugh. “Eliza, hellspawn don’t look like you, me, or Rathiel. They’re monsters. You’ll understand when you see them. Trust me—there’s no way we’re sneaking into Fellmoor unnoticed.”

“You’re both weirdly calm about this,” she muttered.

“Hellspawn love a fight. My father bred them that way—vicious, bloodthirsty, nothing but killing machines,” I said. “Great soldiers, but not much going on upstairs.”

“They’re predictable,” Rathiel added. “Which is an advantage. They’ll fight us, and when they lose—because they will lose—they’ll start to respect us. We’re here to spread word of our return and begin recruiting numbers. Best them in combat, and they’ll listen.”

“So, fighting is the only way?” Eliza asked. “We can’t, like, bribe them with better working conditions and a dental plan?”

I huffed a laugh, silently noting that she was starting to sound a lot more like Vol. “Yeah, no. They couldn’t care less about benefits.”

“How did you build your rebellion last time?” she asked.

“We didn’t,” Rathiel said. “It already existed, thanks to Lily’s friend, Levi.”

I blinked. Levi .

Oh, wow. I hadn’t thought about him in years, but I remembered him, and hearing his name brought a smile to my lips. It was so nice for once to remember something all on my own, and without suffering a splitting headache. Guess Rathiel hadn’t scrubbed Levi from my memories.

When I’d met Deidre, I’d thought him nothing more than her pet snake—primarily because that was all he’d ever shown me. He used to coil around my shoulders and bump his scaly nose against mine as a way of saying hello. I just hadn’t known he was more than a snake. That’d simply been his disguise, to hide himself from Lucifer.

Because Levi was a celestial . And not one of my father’s fallen—but an actual angel. He was the one who had taught me about the prophecy and the rebellion. My memories grew fuzzy after that, thanks to Rathiel, and I knew not to probe any deeper, lest I suffer the consequences. And since we were about to face an outpost full of hellspawn, the last thing I needed was a raging migraine.

“Does someone wanna fill the rest of us in?” Eliza asked, her eyes bouncing between Rathiel and me like she’d just walked in on the middle of a soap opera. “Who’s Levi?”

“An angel,” I told her simply.

“And I assume you don’t mean that metaphorically.”

“Nope. A literal angel sent down from on high. Or rather, an angel who snuck through before the gates closed and stuck around a really long time, waiting until the moment was right to teach me about the prophecy.” My thoughts were already spinning a mile a minute. “We need to find him. Is he still alive?”

“He’s alive,” Rathiel said. “Do you remember how I told you I had help escaping your father’s dungeon?”

I arched a brow. “That was Levi?”

Rathiel nodded. “He found me and got me out. I was barely on my feet, but he dragged me to the gate, then ordered me to find you.”

“We can find him, though, right?” My pulse quickened with a mix of hope and desperation. “He raised the rebellion last time. He can do it again.”

Rathiel hesitated. “We can try. But don’t get your hopes up. Levi isn’t exactly easy to track down. If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.”

“Sure, but he’s a snake. And the only one in Hell,” I said with a huff. “At least he’ll stand out.”

Vol snorted from Eliza’s shoulder. “Unless he’s hiding in some shadowy crack, waiting to bite you at the worst possible moment.”

“That does sound like something he’d do,” I admitted. My lips twitched at a memory that rose to mind, one of Levi doing exactly that to me. The day he’d revealed himself, he’d slithered over to me, shifted, then bit me. The poison had knocked me out cold. And when I woke up, I’d found myself in a strange cave with a strange celestial, who’d told me an even stranger story about a prophecy.

“If anyone can help us, it’s him,” I said.

I turned back to the outpost and stared at the shoddy buildings in the distance. We were running on borrowed time—every second could be the one that brought Lucifer’s wrath down on us. But I refused to let that be the reason we made a mistake.

Storming into Fellmoor and announcing to the entire realm that I was back and ready to face my father again sounded bold in theory, but it could also bite us in the ass if things didn’t go exactly to plan.

“They’re gonna recognize us eventually—that’s inevitable,” I said, glancing at Eliza, whose siren-perfect face belonged in a painting, and then at Vol, who was currently riding shotgun on her shoulder like a tiny gremlin. Then there was me, the only celestial in Hell without wings.

The only one of us who had any hope of blending in was Rathiel. Except, they likely knew exactly who he was, thanks to my father naming him a traitor.

Yeah, we wouldn’t be able to hide for long.

Sighing, I dragged a hand down my face. “Maybe we should try to look a little less…?” I gestured to our dusty clothes—all from Earth. We blatantly stood out in these outfits. Cotton blends didn’t exist in Hell. Down here, they made everything from leather and hide. If we walked into Fellmoor dressed like we were, we might as well put up a sign that read we don’t belong here, please stab freely .

Rathiel nodded, his eyes narrowing on the outpost. “I’ll take care of it. I still look like a fallen, which means I won’t draw as much attention as you two. Fellmoor’s a trading hub. I’ll find what we need to blend in.”

“And then?” Eliza prompted.

“And then,” I said, exhaling slowly, “we see what happens. We plant seeds of discontent, make them question my father’s reign. Hellspawn are loyal to him because there aren’t any other choices. So, we need to give them that choice. Show them that Lucifer isn’t the only power in Hell.”

Rathiel nodded. “It’ll end in a fight, no matter what. So prepare yourselves for that.”

“And when we win, they’ll start spreading the word. Upside, if enough hellspawn start talking, maybe it’ll draw out Levi. He told Rathiel to find me, so I imagine he’s also been waiting for word of our return. I also doubt he’ll sit this rebellion out. He’s as invested as we are.”

“What if he doesn’t pop up, though?” Eliza asked.

“Then we keep moving forward. We have our own mission here. Now, let’s get moving before another hellcat tries to make us their next meal.”