Chaos cursed. The fact that the little goth female was somehow involved with whatever was going on at that location meant something a whole fuck of a lot bigger was going on.
“You think he’s there?” Gunner growled out. The powerful demon the other female was mixed up with, the same male who had recently summoned a beast from Hell and let it loose on the city in the name of Diemos—the current king of Hell. Lucifer, Diemos’s father, had managed to send the beast back, but he’d sacrificed Tobias to do it.
The knights had believed their brother Tobias was dead. He had succumbed to his inner demon completely soon after he lost his mate—but before he was sucked into the bowels of Hell with the beast, they saw the truth. Their brother’s eyes hadn’t been black anymore, they’d been bright green, back to the way they’d been before Scarlet was killed. Tobias had been looking right at them as he was taken from them all over again.
They wanted the fucker responsible for that shit. They needed to take the demon down before he built his army back.
It was only a matter of time until Roc's female finally came into her power and was forced to use it, forced to open the gates of Hell for Diemos.
“Could be a trap,” Gunner said.
Chaos nodded, worry in his gaze as he looked at his mate, her determination written on her face.
“We need to go now. I’ll call my people,” she said, taking her phone back and immediately tapping on the screen.
“Don’t message James just yet, we need to make a plan. I’m not running into this headfirst, right into a goddamn trap,” Chaos said, voice hard.
James was telepathic and Grace’s right hand. He sent messages out to her crew using his ability, kind of like a mass text but far more secure, and there was no chance of someone missing the message.
“We don’t know for sure it’s a trap, Chaos,” she said, eyes flashing. “And do you really think I’d run in there without a plan of my own?”
Chaos gripped the side of her slender throat and held her gaze. “I know how fucking kickass you are. How capable. But you have been worrying about this female for the last four months. I am going to say the same thing to you that I do to my brothers, the same thing they’ve said to me when my emotions are involved and I’m ready to tear the fucking walls down. Step back, let me take lead on this.”
“I’m not staying behind,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Not asking you to, angel, I have a feeling we’ll need you and your people if this is a setup. But let me take point on this one, yeah?”
She released a long breath but nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m going over there now,” Gunner said, a tight, strange urgency gripping him low in the gut. “Do a flyby, check out the situation.”
“Good,” Chaos said as Laz, Zen, and Kryos walked into the control room.
Gunner yanked off his shirt and tucked it into the back of his jeans as his wings extended. He quickly texted Roc and took flight. His brother would want to be in on this. Plus, they’d need all the manpower they could get if that twisted demon was involved.
Roc was there when he arrived, hovering above the empty lot. It was dark, and Gunner couldn’t sense a damn thing, not one single demon.
“Anything?” he asked Roc.
Rocco shook his head as his white wings, streaked with demon blood, beat slowly, the silver tips glinting in the moonlight.
Gunner didn’t ask where the blood came from, he already knew how Roc spent his time, and he fucking got it. If Gunner knew his female was still out there, he’d torture, kill, tear down fucking walls to get to her as well.
They’d both seen what happened to Tobias when he lost his female, how he’d embraced the darkness, the demon inside him, instead of living with the pain. But right now, Rocco wasn’t the only one fighting the darkness inside him, trying to pull him under. Fuck, at least Roc had a glimmer of hope. Gunner’s had all dried up.
They waited, watched, used their senses to search the other houses on the street in case the female they were searching for was somewhere there. The dull thump of their boots on the packed soil when they finally landed broke the intense silence.
“Where are you, love?” he muttered.
Love?
Where the fuck had that come from? Guilt shot through his chest even thinking of using the endearment with another female. It should be reserved for his mate and her alone.
But he could admit to himself that he’d thought about the curvy little goth demi more than once. Her pale face and unusual violet eyes. The terror he’d seen in them when he’d pinned her by the throat to the car seat flashed through his mind more often than he’d like.
They were still trying to pick up any sign of her, to sense her, when Chaos arrived, followed by Zenon and Lazarus.
“Anything?” Chaos asked as his gaze slid to Roc. He didn’t approach, though, or try to get their brother to talk. He’d learned by now that Roc could only handle one thing at a time and keep his control. Having all his brothers coming at him at once would send him running.
Gunner planted his hands on his hips. “Nothing, no sign of her or anything else.”
On full alert, they scanned the area.
Zen’s phone buzzed, loud in the silence. He pulled it out of his pocket and sighed when he checked the screen.
“Lucifer?” Laz asked.
Zen muttered a curse.
“What is it this time?” Chaos asked as he searched the shadows. “Another picture of his cat? Or more about his truly disturbing sex life?”
Lucifer liked to send pics of his cat, memes he thought were amusing, and occasionally shared tales of his sexploits, much to Zenon’s horror. The former king of Hell was determined to build a relationship with his grandson. Yes, it was a fucking odd way to go about it, but then this was Lucifer. Unsurprisingly, Zenon wasn’t that excited about any of it.
And after what happened with Tobias, the way Lucifer had used him to send the beast back to Hell, none of them were the guy's biggest fan.
Zen rubbed his temples. “He’s going on a…Christ, a blind date.” He held up his phone. Two pictures of Lucifer were side by side on the screen, one of him in a tee and jeans, the other in a dark suit, “this or that” typed along the bottom. In both, he was doing that duck-lips thing.
Zenon shoved the phone back in his pocket. It buzzed again, then again…and again. Zen growled. “Ignore it.”
They split up, walking over the empty lot, each of them reaching out with their senses and got the same as Gunner. Not one damn thing.
Finally, they had no choice but to give up and head to the city for their normal patrol.
But for some reason, the farther away Gunner got from that empty lot, the stronger the sense of…wrongness gripping him low in the gut became.
Why couldn’t she die?
Pain was all Luna knew anymore. She thought she’d suffered before, but this was a whole new level. She was too weak to move, to speak, to breathe.
She’d stopped breathing a while ago, she didn’t know how long, but it was more than a day…possibly a lot longer. She guessed breathing wasn’t necessary for her kind.
Her eyes couldn’t open anymore, so dry from the lack of any type of fluids that her lids were now stuck to her eyeballs.
And still, she lived.
If she was strong enough, she’d take off her own head. That’s how the knights killed demons, removing their heads. But seeing as she couldn’t move at all, or had any type of weapon, that, unfortunately, wasn’t an option.
Gunner’s pretty, pale amber eyes filtered through her confused and sluggish mind. He had lovely lips as well. She’d never been kissed before. What would those soft yet firm lips feel like against hers?
What would it be like to be kissed by someone like Gunner?
She’d thought about it before. A lot.
Thinking about him had always made her even hungrier. And imagining feeding from him hadn’t make her want to throw up, it had made her heart race.
Seeing as it wasn’t beating anymore, that didn’t happen now. And the pain, the unrelenting burning, tearing hunger in her stomach, her throat, the agonizing throb of her head, made it impossible to focus on much else.
Her only escape was the memory of Gunner.
The scrape of steel echoed around the room.
Luna lay there and waited, it wasn’t as if she could lift her head to see who walked in. If they were here to kill her, she was only sorry she couldn’t thank them for it. If they were here to torture her, she doubted she’d feel it past the pain she was already in.
She didn’t care who it was.
A hand cupped her face. “Look at me.”
Sir.
He quickly worked out she couldn’t because he pried her eyelids open, forcing her to look at him.
He stared down at her. “You are repulsive,” he said. “So ugly, like this. Those awful unnatural eyes of yours have almost lost all their color.” His head tilted to the side. “Does it hurt, my little dhampir?”
She stared back, unable to close her eyes again. This was the first time he’d come to her since he’d locked her in here, at least she thought it was.
“Of course it does, and you deserve to suffer, don’t you?” He pulled out a blade and nicked the end of his finger. The scent of his blood filled the room as if he’d opened a vein, not given himself the equivalent of a paper cut.
She struggled to get to it, and he chuckled, holding his finger, a bead of blood on the tip, just out of reach. She didn’t want to want it, him, but starvation spurred her on, and somehow, she found the strength to drag herself toward him.
He laughed harder and gripped her jaw. “You’re pathetic.”
Then he pried her jaw open and let that single drop land on her dry tongue. Luna moaned as that single drop ignited her senses. She tried to grab his hand, desperate for more, but her hand wouldn’t move. She had nowhere near enough blood to gain any sort of strength back. He pulled his finger away and stood.
“Your suffering is so strong, my little one, that demons are coming again, from all over the city just to bask in it, to feed off your pain. No one will dare to cross me after this.”
She tried to talk but only managed to mouth the words kill me.
Anger transformed his expression. “You are mine. You have belonged to me since you were seven years old. You die when I decide.” He moved back in, and all she could do was lie there as he took her face in his hands again. “I love you, Luna. You are precious to me, but you betrayed me, you broke my heart.”
He had no heart. None.
“I have to make sure you never do anything so stupid again. I need everyone around me to know what will happen to them if they do. I want them to see you like this, ugly and starved and broken, and know that if they cross me, they will suffer the same.” He stood again. “I don’t think your will is completely broken yet, my little dhampir, and until it is, I can’t trust you.”
He stepped back, tilting his head to the side.
Please, she mouthed. Please.
Sir’s eyes moved over her, and the cruelty looking back would have made her flinch if she’d been able to move. Yes, he wanted to break her, badly.
“Your brother is dead, by the way,” he said in a low, almost gentle voice.
She stared up at him, not comprehending his words at first.
No. No. He was lying.
“Hmm, probably ten years ago now. He gained his powers early, which was a boon, but he continued to ask for you. Where’s my sister? Let me see my sister. It became tiresome, so I removed his head from his shoulders.”
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.
“You feel his power, so it can’t be true?” he said as if he could read her mind. “Grace was a rare find, I’ll give you that, but do you really think she is the only demi capable of absorbing others’ powers and using them as her own?”
Pain washed over her, more intense than anything she’d ever experienced. But this pain wasn’t the physical kind.
“Why do you think you’ve never seen him, you stupid little fool?”
He stared down at her, the evil inside him shining bright from his glowing eyes. He knew. He knew what she had been trying to deny, to hide. That she was regaining her emotions. And he was using them against her. He was using them to break her.
“Yes, you most definitely need more time to think about what you’ve done.” Then he walked out, shutting the door behind him.
Everything inside Luna built and built, the feeling so foreign, she didn’t know what it was, how to describe it, but it twisted and coiled together into one jagged ball of pain.
Physically, she could no longer scream.
So her soul did it for her.
Chapter 4
Hell
Tobias sneered at the demon’s back as it walked out of his cell. The fucker was sweating and out of breath from trying to make Tobias scream. That wasn’t going to happen. The torture was nothing compared to the pain he’d suffered before Lucifer sent him here, nothing compared to the pain he’d already been through.
And all the torture he’d received since he’d arrived in Hell was nothing less than he deserved. The things he’d done, the people he’d hurt… What he’d tried to do to his own brothers—
His throat worked.
He didn’t deserve their forgiveness or their love, but he’d seen both in each one of them, in their broken gazes, before he was dragged down to Hell. He wouldn’t let them down again.
He was here for a reason. Lucifer had been cagey with the details, but Tobias would do whatever he was sent here to do, no matter what it was, if it helped his brothers.
But there’d been more. Lucifer had offered him a reward for his sacrifice…there was a catch, of course, being chained to this wall, enduring months of torture was part of that. Tobias had been about to tell Lucifer he’d take the torture, he’d earned it, but he sure as fuck didn’t deserve a reward, not after the pain he’d caused.
Then Lucifer told him what it was.
Something he never dreamed possible.
He dragged in a rough breath, his nerve endings lighting up. He didn’t know the time, time didn’t seem to exist down here. Hours in Hell translated to days on Earth. But he knew when she was coming, felt her before he saw her, an internal alarm bellowing as she drew closer.
He stilled as the door opened, slow, hesitant.
She peered around the door, not meeting his eyes as she moved into the cell. She never did. Her wild red hair was braided down her back, reaching her waist, and her strong fighter’s body was covered in a drab, brown shapeless dress that reached almost to her ankles, a long cloak over that. She clutched the small bowl she always carried and moved closer.
He swallowed repeatedly. She was the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen, would ever see.
Fisting his hands, he dragged in her scent as she drew near. Christ, that scent. He’d dreamed about it, even when he was nothing more than a bloodthirsty demon. There was no mistaking it. And as she finally closed the space between them, he had to bite back his moan. It was agony and pure joy combined.
His female, his beloved Scarlet, was living and breathing, right here.
And she had no idea who he was. None.
Her hand trembled as she wrung liquid out of the rag floating in the bowl, as she reached out and began cleaning the blood from his skin, gently moving it over the gouges and cuts and burns, healing him so he would have lots of nice unmarred flesh to cut to ribbons all over again tomorrow.
She never spoke to him, and today, like every day since he’d been down here—maybe months?—he tried again to get her to acknowledge him.
“What is your name, female?” he asked as gently as he could. It was hard when his heart thundered in his chest and blood rushed through his ears whenever she was near.
Her hand stilled for a split second, then she carried on cleaning his wounds. Every day he asked, hoping she would tell him, that she would r
emember him, every day she said nothing, gave him nothing.
“Can you speak?” he asked.
Again, she ignored him, carrying on with what she was doing. Always focused on the task she’d been given. A tendril of her beautiful auburn hair had escaped her braid, glossy and vibrant. If his hands weren’t chained to the wall, he didn’t know if he’d be able to resist touching it.
“Your hair, it’s…beautiful. S-so beautiful. Did you know that?” he said, his voice breaking because again, she gave him nothing. And because, fuck, he loved her hair. Always had.
This, this was his true torture. His female not knowing who he was, that was what had the ability to make him scream. It hurt more than anything that had been done to him since he was sent here.
One last hesitant swipe with her rag and she stepped back. She was finished, all too soon.
Scarlet wasn’t the type of female to do things slow or hesitant. She’d forgotten the strong, independent warrior she’d been.
After she’d been taken from him, he’d been lost, so broken and desperate for an escape from the pain of losing her, he’d let his demon take over. Together, they’d shut off his emotions, protecting them both from the pain, and he’d turned into the thing he’d been fighting against all his life.
And horrifyingly, through Tobias’s demon, Diemos was able to communicate with him. Tobias had become that fucker’s puppet. His skin still crawled thinking about it, the things his demon had done for its king, taking Tobias along for the ride.
A vessel for pure evil.
Somehow, Tobias fought his way back. Somehow, he’d overcome his demon, and he wouldn’t succumb again, because now he had a reason to fight.
Scarlet turned away, and it felt as if his heart was being clawed from his chest. His demon howled, struggling to break free again, to take away their suffering, to make her see them, that part of him as desperate for her as Tobias was.
He didn’t know how long he had before he missed his chance to have his Scarlet back, to help his brothers.
Knight's Absolution (Knights of Hell Book 5) Page 4