by Sammie Joyce
She knew just how to make him crazy, and used all of her tricks. Mace was soon groaning and trembling at her touch.
“Rose… wait… I want you to come first.”
Rose pulled off his cock, replacing her mouth with her hand, which she held still in a fist around his shaft. Mace struggled to get up, but fell back, panting, this time not with lust.
“I told you to lie back.” Rose put her hand back on his chest, pushing him down. “You want to see me come? Turn over and watch.”
Rose pushed her hand into her pants, her fingers unerringly finding her clit. She started rubbing, her eyes fixed on Mace.
His eyes were on the bulge her hand made as it vanished into her pants. Rose groaned as she started to forget about putting a show on for Mace.
He started to move again, but she put her free arm over his chest. “I said stay.”
“You’re torturing me,” Mace moaned.
Rose just chuckled as she picked up the pace. Mace reached a hand under her shirt and started stroking her breasts. Rose was in her pajamas, which meant there was no bra separating his skin from hers.
The added contact spurred her on further. Rose looked at Mace’s cock, which was still hard, thanks to her display. She thought about what she was going to do to that cock with her mouth, about the noises Mace would soon be making.
Rose came with a long moan, turning into Mace and biting down on his shoulder. She gave herself a few seconds to recover before taking his cock back into her mouth.
Now that she was sated, Rose was quickly becoming sleepy and sluggish, but she was determined to get Mace off before she rested. She started pumping the base of his cock with her hand, where her mouth couldn’t reach. She swirled her tongue over the head, tasting his precome.
Mace cried out her name as he exploded into her mouth. Rose smiled around his cock as she swallowed, licking her lips clean when Mace was done.
She lay down next to him, trailing a hand over his chest. Mace’s eyelids were already drooping, and Rose’s weren’t far behind. Within a matter of minutes, they were both asleep.
Chapter Eleven
“I should come. I’m the one who’s actually seen the place.”
Rose struggled not to roll her eyes. They had already been through this. “Someone has to stay with Hope. We’re not risking her losing all of her parents to a battle in hell, we’ve already agreed on that. The moment you enter hell, Grilth is going to want to snatch up your soul. We have no way of telling if he’s able to sense when you come into the realm, so we need to be careful. It makes sense for you to stay. When hell is destroyed, your contract will be destroyed with it. Only then will you be safe.”
Mace struggled to come up with a counterargument, but even he could see the sense in the plan.
“What about the havoc the demons will wreak here?”
That was the weak point in their plan. They needed to get the demon guards away from the pillars. Then the entire coven could work together to take down the shielding. It could be done quickly, unlike when Mace was trying to do it stealthily.
The only problem was distracting the demons. They hadn’t been able to come up with anything good. Their plan sucked, but it was the only one they had.
They were going to open the gates of hell. All the inhabitants of hell would no doubt rush for freedom. Until they destroyed hell, which would suck all its souls back as it imploded, Earth would be home to every demon and evil soul ever imprisoned.
When Rose didn’t reply instantly, Maria took over. “We’ll have to be quick. There will be some deaths, but certainly less than when Hellith breaks loose, which will happen sooner or later if we don’t do this. probably sooner, since we’ve already weakened hell with our preparations for the attack. Besides, this will release the souls that don’t belong in hell. When hell is destroyed, those souls will be pulled to whichever realm they truly belong in.”
Of course, all of this was a lot of guesswork. They had done tests and research, and Maria had reasonably good evidence to back up her suppositions, but in the end, none of them could be certain.
If they were wrong, then they might just unleash hell on Earth permanently.
Rose was glad when Asher put an end to their procrastinating. “We’ve discussed this enough. We have the plan memorized. Nothing but fear is going to be gained by waiting. We should go, now.”
Mace, who had flinched at the word fear, spoke up again. “Remember the pillars. They will try to paralyze you, or make you otherwise unable to function. You need to watch out for all of them. They’re…” He trailed off, apparently lost for words. The look on his face was warning enough. “The more armor comes off, the more deadly they will become.”
“We know.” Rose squeezed Mace’s hand. It had been three days since he’d returned, and he seemed fully recovered, at least physically. He was still having nightmares about the pillars, though. Rose only hoped those would fade with time.
“We should go, then. It’ll take almost a day to get to the location.” Maria had decided that they would open the gate to hell in the middle of a desert. That should help to slow the demons in reaching people to torment once they were out.
Rose threw her arms around Mace. “I love you.”
“Love you too. Come back to me.”
“I will, I promise.” They both knew that it wasn’t necessarily a promise Rose would be able to keep, but she had to maintain hope where she was going.
The flight took about twelve hours. They stopped three times to rest, eat, drink, and switch out dragons. Half of the dragons flew at a time, while the others rode their backs, thus leaving fresh ones ready to switch out.
The temperature steadily increased as they started flying over sand dunes. Rose was just glad they were doing this in the day rather than at night, when it would be freezing. Of course, she didn’t know what time it would be when they got out.
Rose joined hands with Maria on one side and Elaine on the other. They all knew the words off by heart by now, after having practiced for many hours. The dragons all shifted and stood arrayed behind the witches.
“On three!” Rose was leading the chant, even though Maria had offered. Rose felt it was her duty as rightful leader of the coven. “One, two, three!”
They all spoke the words together.
A rip appeared in the air before them. “Let’s go!” Rose wanted to get everyone inside before the demons realized that the gate was open and made a rush for it.
They all rushed in, witches first, then dragons. The moment they were inside, all the witches climbed onto the dragons’ backs. Rose held tightly to one of Asher’s spikes as he took off, leading all the others. They knew that the gate wasn’t far from the pillars, and it seemed that their sources had been correct.
They hadn’t been flying long when Rose saw light. She looked down to see demons running straight toward the gate. Rose flinched, but she knew that the only way they could solve this was to keep going.
The pillars were in sight.
The pillars weren’t the only thing.
Hellith was there. Rose didn’t know why or how, but she was out of her cage. She was directing demons who were scurrying around the pillars.
Rose’s heart sank. They were repairing the armor.
She was just wondering how in the world they were going to fight Hellith as well as all those demons when a demon ran in from another direction. It spoke to Hellith and what appeared to be one of the leaders. Moments later, they were all streaking off in the other direction.
None of them looked up to see dragons flying far above them. They were intent on getting out of hell.
Asher landed, and a series of thumps told Rose the other dragons had done the same. They quickly split into seven groups and approached the pillars of hell.
Mace had warned her, but Rose thought that she had never really understood his warning until now.
Her knees gave out as despair hit her. What were they doing? They’d just released demons on Earth
in the hopes they would be able to do something that no one in the history of the world had managed.
They should just stop now. There was no point. They could never win.
Asher, Dane, Annabelle, and Emily were similarly stricken. Rose couldn’t even bring herself to look around to see how the others were dealing with their own pillars. There was no point. They were all doomed. There was no hope, none at all.
Hope.
Rose remembered her daughter, on Earth with only Mace to protect her.
If they failed here, Hope and Mace would surely be killed by demons.
Rose dragged herself to her feet. She saw that most of the coven were on the ground. “Find a counter!” she shouted. “Despair’s counter is hope. Come on, Asher. Annabelle, Dane, Emily—there’s still hope. We can do this.”
One by one, they dragged themselves to their feet.
Rose moved over to the next pillar, the pillar of sadness. Jagger was curled up on the ground, tears streaming from his face.
“No jokes for me, Jagger? When we get back, I’ll never let you hear the end of this. Perhaps Gavin and I can compose a song.”
Jagger chuckled. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. He pushed himself up on his elbow. “Joy,” he murmured as he took Rose’s face in his hands. “Joy is the counter to sadness.”
He went over to Gavin’s pillar, the pillar of disgust. Rose went to Maria, who was by the pillar of loneliness. One by one, they discovered the counters.
Loneliness was countered by company, disgust by love. Fear with calm and apathy with caring. The pillar of death was countered by life—happy memories of life, or hopeful imaginings for the future.
It wasn’t easy, especially knowing the counter didn’t make the effects of the pillar go away. It was a constant effort for Rose to keep the counter in her mind. Hope, hope, hope. She had to have hope.
Rose didn’t think it was as difficult for her as for some of the others. She just had to think of her daughter.
She slogged forward, shooting a breaking spell at the despair pillar’s armor. It didn’t seem to have much effect, other than blackening the metal.
“A job for the dragons, then. Stand back.” Everyone at their pillar backed up as Asher shifted. He used his claws to start tearing at the pillar’s protection.
It worked, in that the armor was definitely decreasing… but the despair was increasing. Rose knew they needed to destroy the pillars quickly, or even the counters wouldn’t hold back their effects for long.
Asher worked around the pillar while Dane went over to help the group at the death pillar, who seemed to be having the most trouble working around the pillar’s effects. Dane confiscated a piece of sharp metal that Elaine was trying to use to slit her own throat.
Hurry, Asher. These pillars need to go now.
You’re telling me.
By the time the dragons had managed to get the armor off the pillars, everyone was on the ground again. Rose took the magical bomb tied to her belt. It didn’t look like a bomb. It looked like a carved piece of crystal, but it was invested with so much magic that it was vibrating in her hand.
Rose threw it, using magic to guide her shot, to ensure that it didn’t go wide.
The crystal hit the pillar and exploded.
When the smoke cleared, the pillar was still standing.
It was crumbling, blackened and wobbling, but it was still standing.
“Here.” Maria hurried over and handed her bomb to Rose.
“We won’t have enough! We only made seven.”
“That pillar needs to go.”
Maria was right. Rose threw the bomb. This one did the trick. The despair pillar vanished in a stream of smoke.
That left them with six pillars and five bombs.
Sadness took two bombs. Death took three bombs. That meant they were out, and they hadn’t even destroyed half of the pillars.
“We’re going to have to blast it!” Rose helped Asher, Maria, and Gavin pull people back from the pillars, so that they were out of their effect range. “Explosion spells. We’ll focus on apathy first, then move on to disgust. Fear next, and loneliness is last.”
Loneliness was the easiest to combat, since they were all surrounded by their loved ones.
“One, two, three!” At Rose’s word, the entire coven shot blasting spells at the apathy pillar. It took more energy to do it from far away, but they couldn’t risk being downed by the pillar if they got too close.
The apathy pillar exploded, but Rose was more worried about the exhaustion she saw on the faces around her. Her own energy was already dangerously diminished.
“Wait. The dragons can do the next one. We’ll shift and blast fire at it.”
It was a good idea. Rose nodded her agreement, and Asher shifted. The rest of the dragons followed him.
Unfortunately, the pillars didn’t seem vulnerable to dragon fire. Asher eventually pulled the dragons back, and none too soon. They were all shaking when they shifted back.
“Right, explosion spells at the ready!”
It quickly became apparent that they weren’t going to be able to destroy all the pillars this way. The disgust pillar disintegrated, but there were still two more pillars left, and Rose could tell that the coven had next to no energy left.
She needed her necklace to contribute its power, but it stayed cool against her skin. Rose wished more than ever that she knew how to control it consciously, but that power was beyond her reach.
They couldn’t go home and rest. Rose didn’t know if the pillars would regenerate, or if the demons could rebuild them. They had to do this now, but she didn’t know how. She glanced at Maria, who looked just as frustrated as Rose felt. What could they do?
“Incoming!” Gavin pointed behind them. Hellith was flying toward them, with a crowd of demons following her on the ground.
They must have felt the pillars being destroyed. Some of the demons were smart enough to realize that if hell was destroyed, they would be destroyed with it, and galivanting on Earth for a short time wouldn’t save them.
They had no choice. “Pillar of fear, give it everything you have!” Rose went first, pouring all of her energy into her spells. The rest of the coven followed suit.
One by one, they collapsed. They were giving their all to the spell, until even the energy required to keep them conscious was depleted. Hellith was closing in, and Rose knew that they wouldn’t have the strength to stop her.
She heard a shout in the opposite direction and spun around.
Mace was there.
He was holding Hope in his arms.
Fear and panic raced through Rose, and she knew it wasn’t the pillar of fear, which now lay in rubble. This was her own fear. Why would Mace bring Hope here? It was too dangerous!
Hellith saw Mace and changed her flight a little, so that she was closing in on him. Rose screamed as she watched the deadly threat head for her daughter.
A burst of magic rushed through her body. Her necklace glowed brighter than it ever had before, and Rose reached deeper into herself than she had known was possible, pulling out the very last dregs of her magical strength.
At the same time, a bright light flashed out from Hope, blinding everyone.
By the time Rose could see again, the remaining pillars had turned to dust.
Hellith faltered and went spiraling downward. She landed with a crash. She was still alive—Rose could see her moving—but she wouldn’t be able to get to them for a few minutes. Those few minutes were all they needed.
Everything around them started shaking. Rose knew that hell was falling apart. She needed to get her coven out of here. “Everyone take their return potions, now!”
She didn’t wait to see that her orders were followed, but started running toward Mace and Hope. Jagger, Gavin, and Asher followed her. They met midway, panting.
There would be time to demand explanations later. “Do you have a return potion?” Rose gasped, trying to catch her breath.
“W
e do. Here.” Mace fed a small bottle of the potion to Hope before turning back to Rose. “Go on, take yours.”
Rose waited to be sure that all of her dragons had swallowed their potions before downing hers. As she left, hell shook and shuddered.
Chapter Twelve
Rose’s knees collapsed onto the carpeted mansion floor. All around her, people were groaning and pulling themselves up.
Hope was somehow still asleep. Had Mace drugged her with a sleeping potion before bringing her to hell?
Asher, Jagger, Gavin, and Mace were all around her in a tangled pile. If she’d had the energy, Rose would have lunged for Mace’s throat.
“What the hell were you thinking, Mace? How could you bring Hope down there? She could have been killed!”
“If I didn’t, we all would have. I worked it out. Your power and your necklace work based on the urgency of the situation. Nothing ever goes as planned—that’s the first rule of any strategy. I knew it was likely that you’d need extra power, but I couldn’t give you that. I brought something that could—fear for Hope’s life.”
Gavin looked like he would quite like to throttle Mace. “You had no right—”
“I’m her father—”
“Enough!” Asher broke through their argument. “What’s done is done. The mission succeeded. Fighting about it now will help no one. We should be celebrating. Let’s get the wounded to the healing ward, then we’ll go to the kitchens to get something to eat. Sound good?”
Everyone murmured their agreement. Rose knew she should feel happy. Hell was gone, and Hellith with it. They never needed to worry about Hope’s future, or theirs, ever again.
Rose supposed that happiness would come. Right now, they were all just shell-shocked and exhausted.
She reached over to help Jade to her feet. Jade wobbled dangerously. The return potion that Wendy had fed her had brought her back to consciousness, but it was clear that wouldn’t last long.