by Sammie Joyce
“Asher…” Rose whined. If she didn’t come soon, she thought her body might implode.
“On the headboard,” he repeated.
Rose did as she was told, spreading her legs wider. Asher pushed into her at the same time as he put his fingers on her clit.
He paid close attention to her thoughts and let himself be guided by them. The result was that Rose was soon squirming desperately as his cock impaled her over and over again.
She grabbed Asher’s waist, holding onto him for dear life as he hit her every pleasure point over and over again.
A scream was drawn from Rose’s throat as she came. Asher wasn’t far behind her, spilling his seed into her pussy with a roar that sounded more dragonish than human.
He held himself still over her, his face set in ecstasy as his orgasm came to an end.
Finally, he rolled off her, pulling Rose so that she was resting against his side. Rose spent a few minutes catching her breath, then got up to get some water. She took a few sips, offering the glass to Asher when she was done.
They needed to pace themselves. They had the whole night, and Rose intended to take advantage of it.
If Jagger noticed that she wasn’t quite walking straight the next day, he didn’t say anything. At Rose’s urging, Asher had fucked her so thoroughly that she thought it would be a year before her pussy was ready to take more cock.
Rose dawdled at breakfast, knowing that when they were finished, Asher would leave, and it could be weeks before she saw him again.
Unfortunately, there were only so many pieces you could cut a croissant into before you had to eat it.
Rose and Asher walked out onto the lawn, Asher with a large bag of supplies. They hugged hard, neither wanting to let go.
“I’ll call you every day,” Asher promised. “And Gavin will be back.”
Rose missed Gavin desperately, but it was hard to be pleased that he was returning when she knew that it meant Asher would be gone next.
“We’ll find a way to help Hope.” Rose didn’t yet know how, but she wouldn’t stop until she managed it. “Then you can bring her home.”
“I know. I’ll see you soon.”
Asher shifted to his dragon form and snagged the bag of supplies in his claws. Rose watched him fly away until he was just a tiny speck in the sky.
Jagger took her hand, and Rose used the contact to strengthen her will. She knew what she had to do. She turned to Maria, who had come to see Asher off.
“Asher and Hope are safe. As much as I want them back immediately, it’s Mace who needs our help most now. We need to focus on getting him out of hell. Then we can work on getting Asher back here.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Maria looked in no small way relieved. She’d probably been wondering how she was going to convince Rose not to prioritize getting her daughter back.
Rose had learned enough from Mace that she knew she had to be strategic about it. First, she had to make sure none of her dragons were in danger. Then she could worry about finding a way for them all to be together.
Maria turned a little so she was speaking to the group at large. A number of people had come to say goodbye to Asher. He was well liked within the coven. “We need to start building those bombs. Emily has the most experience in explosives, so she’ll be leading the team.”
“I want to be on that team too.”
Jagger stiffened, but wisely didn’t protest. “I’ll be there too. If something goes wrong, a dragon is just as good as a witch shielding spell to protect people.”
Rose didn’t much like the sound of that, but she could hardly argue when he wasn’t trying to convince her not to be involved. Besides, he had a point.
“Perfect. We can start—”
“Now.” Rose wasn’t going to waste a moment. “We can start now.”
“Rose, you look exhausted. Come on, let’s rest.”
“I’m fine. I can keep going.”
Jagger added his support to Gavin’s suggestion. “You haven’t eaten lunch yet. Come on, there’s a whole team working on this. They can afford to be without you for an hour.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Yes, there was a whole team working on it, but their progress would be dramatically slower without Rose. She wasn’t sure why, but her necklace was working overtime on these bombs. There was scarcely a moment when it wasn’t glowing, adding its power to the project.
“You’re no good to anyone if you pass out. This is dangerous, remember? If you make a mistake, you could blow up the whole building.”
Gavin did have a point. The last thing Rose wanted was people getting hurt because she was having trouble dealing with her emotions.
She’d discovered that when she was busy, it was harder to grieve over the absence of Asher, Hope, and Mace. At least she could Skype with Asher and Hope, but for all she knew, Mace could be dead by now.
“Don’t say that.” Jagger took her hand, tugging hopefully. Rose sighed and let him start leading her away. “Mace will be fine. He’s smarter than any of the rest of us. No way is he going to let anything prevent him from coming back to you.”
“It may not be within his control.” Rose dipped into Asher’s thoughts and winced. Hope had just caused a large section of rock to come dislodged, and Asher was moving her to an undamaged portion.
They would probably have to postpone their Skype while Asher did damage control. Of course, Rose could talk to him mentally, and to some extent see through his eyes, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him in a video image.
“Rose, there you are,” Emily called out from the end of the hall, probably having come from the same direction as Rose—the portion of the mansion they had set aside for bomb making.
“Do you need something?”
Jagger and Gavin both growled under their breath, but Rose ignored them.
“I was thinking, we make the most progress with your necklace—”
“You’re right, I should go back.” Rose tried to move back toward the work room, but Jagger and Gavin grabbed her arms.
Before she could reprimand them, Emily hastily continued. “That’s not what I meant. You need your rest, or you’ll endanger the whole project. But the necklace works for Annabelle too…”
Rose hesitated. She trusted Annabelle, but she had sworn that she’d never let her necklace out of her sight again.
“I can go with,” Gavin suggested. “I won’t let the necklace out of my sight. I’ll bring it back to you the moment you’ve rested and are ready to resume work.”
Some things were more important than old promises to herself. Like getting Mace back.
Rose unclasped the necklace and held it out to Gavin. “Take care of it.”
“I will.” He kissed her quickly before hurrying off after Emily.
Jagger kept hold of Rose’s arm, steering her toward the dining room. She realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything. Her stomach growled angrily at the thought.
There were a couple of other people in the dining room, even though it was a bit too late for lunch. Most of the coven were working odd shifts, fitting in with each other and trying to get the bombs for hell ready as soon as possible.
Rose dished up some chicken and vegetables. She was sure the food was as good as usual, but she couldn’t taste it. She had trouble focusing on it. Her mind flicked wildly between Mace, Asher, and Hope, and the making of the bombs.
“Jagger… do you think Mace is still alive?”
Jagger put down his fork. “Of course he is. He’s my brother, and your mate. We would know if he died. We would feel it.”
“We would feel it if he was in this world, but what about hell? We have no idea how things work with him there.”
“We would feel it,” Jagger insisted. “Don’t torture yourself. There are enough real things to worry about. We don’t need to make up more.”
That was true enough. The work they were doing was beyond dangerous. They had to trust Mace to take care of himsel
f. Rose had considered separating off a team to work on a way of staying in contact with Mace while he was in hell, but in the end had decided it was an indulgence she couldn’t afford to act on.
While it would have some tactical advantage, her main motivation was a personal one. She just wanted to hear Mace’s voice, to have him reassure her that he was safe.
Please, let him be safe.
Chapter Nine
Mace dodged behind the pillar as the demon patrol went past. There were a number of demons patrolling around the pillars of hell, but they were relatively easy to avoid. None of them really expected someone to try to dismantle the protection surrounding the pillars.
It would be pointless. No one in here had the power to destroy the pillars, even if the protection was taken away. Mace certainly didn’t.
But his coven did.
So the demons patrolled, since someone smarter than them had obviously told them to, but they didn’t put a lot of energy into the duty.
Once they had passed, Mace went back to picking at the shielding on the pillar. He could have changed to his dragon form a week ago and torn off all the protection, but that would only draw demons like ants to honey.
No, he needed to do this subtly, while he waited for his backup to arrive.
The pillars had protection all around them. Mostly it was thick metal plates, but some of them had mechanisms that sent a shock of pain through him when Mace touched them. He’d spent the first few days disabling those. Now he could work in peace, slowly unscrewing the plates and taking them off.
He had to work at the back of the pillars only, so that the demons couldn’t see that the pillars were being slowly stripped of their armor.
Mace winced as the plate came off.
It turned out that the pillars weren’t just shielded from the outside. They all had their own individual defense mechanisms, which were all a lot more troublesome than physical pain.
Mace’s knees gave out as despair swamped him. What was the point in all of this? They would never win. Hell would take them all.
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to get away. He couldn’t walk. He could only crawl.
Unfortunately, this pillar was the furthest from his hiding place. He had to pass the other six to get back to safety.
The despair lifted somewhat, only to be replaced by sadness so crushing that it was all Mace could do not to wail in agony. Next was loneliness, and he had to fight to stop himself from handing himself in to the demons, just so that he wouldn’t be so alone.
The next pillar was fear. Mace struggled to keep a clear head, barely holding himself back from running around screaming in terror. He was caught up at the pillar of apathy for about half an hour before he convinced himself to move again, only to be confronted by disgust.
Who was he, to think he was worth anything? Here he was, pretending he could do something good, when Rose would be so much better without him.
The last pillar was the scariest. Death.
Mace gazed longingly at the heavy metal armor that he’d removed. He could use it to slit his throat. He could throw it at the demons and have them kill him. He could—
He passed the pillar, crawling into the small cave that he’d uncovered. Mace pulled the cloak he’d gotten off a dead demon over the opening. The lights that illuminated the pillars were now blocked out.
Mace took a shaky breath. He understood why the pillars were shielded. The pillars themselves were weapons of hell. Sadness, despair, loneliness, fear, apathy, disgust, death. The emotions had oozed off the pillars ever since Mace had partially removed their coverings.
He just hoped that the demons didn’t notice. Hopefully, they weren’t close enough. The effects didn’t seem to last far past the pillars, at least for Mace. He just had to keep himself moving until he was a few feet away from them.
After resting for a bit, Mace forced himself back out of the cave. He was beginning to wonder if the pillars’ effect was as small-ranged as he’d thought. Sadness, despair, loneliness, fear, apathy, disgust, and death still haunted him, though in a less paralyzing way than when he was close to the pillars.
Or maybe that was just the effect of being in hell. Maybe the pillars were supposed to project those emotions throughout the realm.
Mace needed to work on the despair pillar some more, but he got stuck at the apathy one. It was getting harder and harder to resist them.
A patrol of demons approached. Mace harshly ordered himself to move, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He lay there, struggling to find some sort of self-preservation instinct, but it didn’t come.
“Hey!”
The demons surrounded him. Perhaps they were immune to the effect of the pillars, or maybe simply used to them, because none of them collapsed.
They grabbed his shoulders and dragged him away, toward their base.
The moment he was out of the pillars’ area of effect, the apathy left him. Mace’s first instinct was to fight, but he needed to be smart about this. If he fought, they would likely just kill him. Mace wasn’t sure what would happen to him if he died while in hell, but he didn’t want to find out.
Now that he was away from the pillars, his mind was no longer frozen. He could think.
“Please… help me. I’m so lost…” It was a pathetically weak argument, but it was all that Mace could come up with.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say,” one of the demons muttered. “It’s in the pit with you, just like all the others.”
Could they actually believe him? Mace didn’t dare say anything as they dragged him along. The landscape was bleak and endless, but they eventually reached something different.
It was just as the demon said—the pit. Mace didn’t even have time to protest before they threw him in headfirst.
It was a soft landing—sort of. A number of angry cries and a few fists had Mace struggling to roll off the mass of flesh he’d landed on. In the dim light from the torches around the top of the pit, Mace could see maybe a dozen other people.
“Um. Hi.”
“Get the fuck out of my space.”
Mace knew that starting a fight before he’d figured out what was happening was a bad idea, so he moved out of the man’s way.
“Hey. Over here.”
A woman about his age was beckoning to him. Mace went cautiously to her side. “Hello.”
“Get in here. Closer! I’m not exactly a top dog here, my space is limited.”
Mace glanced down to where she was pointing and saw lines drawn on the ground. Territories, he guessed, even though the pit wasn’t that big. He stepped into the small circle the woman was standing in.
“I’m Dani. You?”
“Mace.”
“So what did you do to get in here?”
“I… um… it’s a long story.”
Fortunately, Dani didn’t push. “I sold my soul to save my sister. There aren’t many like us down here.”
“Like us?”
“People who are in hell because we did something good, rather than something bad.”
“How do you know I’m one of those?”
“You learn to tell after a while. How long have you been here?”
“About a week.”
“The pillars got you, huh?”
Mace froze. What did she know?
“Me too. The ones like you and me don’t get our own personal hells like the others, and somehow, we’re drawn to the pillars. That’s part of the reason the demons do patrols.”
“What about the rest?” Mace gestured vaguely to the others in the pit, who were ignoring him and Dani now that he wasn’t in their space.
“None like us. They’re mostly here just to amuse the demons. Being this close to the pillars is difficult for souls; demons have no souls. I think they like to watch us suffer. That and they want our souls.”
“Don’t they already have those?”
“Not exactly.” Dane sat down, folding her legs carefully in her limited
space. “When a soul is consigned to hell, it can’t get out, but within hell, no one owns it. If someone agrees to sell their soul while in here, it goes to the demon they pledge it to. Making us suffer is a good way to get us eager to sell. You can’t suffer if your soul is dead.’
“What do the demons do with the souls?”
“Eat them. Apparently, souls are a delicacy for them.”
Mace grimaced. “Wonderful. Look, Dani, I need to get out of here.”
“You and me both. Unfortunately, there’s no way out except selling. Others have tried to climb the pit walls. Trust me, it never goes well for them.”
Mace tried to think. He hadn’t finished dismantling the pillars. If he didn’t do it, their mission would fail, and the team who came to set off the bombs would likely be captured. He knew that Rose would be on that team.
He couldn’t let that happen.
“What about deals?” he asked Dani urgently. “Can we bargain with the demons? Offer them our souls, but only after a time of being able to do what we want?”
Dani shrugged. “I suppose you can try. Most of us want to hang onto our souls. This place sucks big time, but at least we exist, right?”
“Right.” Mace looked up at the pit opening. “Hey! Hello! I want to make a deal.”
A demon stuck his head over the edge, chuckling. “That was mighty quick. Come on up, then.”
A rope was lowered. The others in the pit shied away from it as if it were a viper, but it didn’t hurt Mace when he grabbed hold of it. It didn’t take him long to climb out.
The moment he reached the pit’s lip, demons grabbed him. He was dragged to a tent, which he presumed belonged to their leader.
He was big and mean-looking, which was about what Mace had expected.
“A prisoner wishing to bargain, Grilth.” The demon holding him shoved Mace toward Grilth. Mace stumbled and fell to the floor at the demon’s feet.
“Well?” Grilth snapped at Mace. “What do you want?”
“I want out of hell.”
Grilth snorted. “So does every soul here. You expect me to start handing out free passes?”