Behr listened closely, not daring to give away any emotion on the subject.
Wrapping her arms around his waist, she inhaled the rustic, woodsy scent of him. She’d always loved the unique smell of men.
“Don’t worry, though. I think I found a way to get his mind back in the game.”
Behr stiffened as his mind ran wild with the possibilities of what she had done. Did she kill her? Had she killed Erias? No, that was something she would never do. Well, not unless she felt threatened. And the only way to threaten her was to make her feel like she wasn’t number one.
He really hoped Erias hadn’t been dumb enough to do something like that.
“How did you manage that?”
She laughed into his back. “Easy. I took away his distraction, the little human female.”
“Did you kill her?” he fished.
“Of course not,” she snapped. “A pure soul like hers? Michael would be splitting the Earth to get her back, and his fury would pale in comparison to Angel’s. Never mind, the kind of punishment he would dole out.” She shuddered. “No, I would never be that great a fool.”
Turning to face her, Behr was careful to keep his emotions in check. If Erias lost his woman, he would be insane. He’d known him long enough to know that Erias would move heaven and hell for those he cared about and would kill anything that tried to stand in his way.
Which didn’t bode well for him.
It didn’t take a genius to know that Erias was gunning for him. Friends or no, if Behr didn’t find some way to make this right, his balls were going to be served up on a silver platter when Erias caught up with him.
Caressing her cheek with the backs of fingers, Behr let his eyes rove over her body. Toying with a strand of her long, golden hair, he asked her the one question that he would need to know if he were to take action.
“Well, if you’re not a fool as you claim, and you didn’t kill her, what did you do with her?”
That was smooth, wasn’t it? He hoped it was. Sometimes Persephone was an intuitive old hellion and others…well. She was a blond, after all.
Persephone closed her eyes to the delicious sensation of Behr’s calloused hand touching her skin. She was on fire. She wanted to be with him. To tangle herself up in him. She wanted to be slammed into walls and have her hair pulled. Angel used to be that way, but now he was all about work. She hardly ever saw him anymore.
“Mm, she’s safe,” she moaned, craning her neck back so he could have better access as he dipped down to have a taste of her skin. His lips were divine. “I put her in a place no one will ever find her.”
And that could only be one place that he knew of. In the deepest pits of Hell.
Tartarus.
Chapter 19
Cheyenne couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed. She couldn’t tell if it was day or night, what was up or down. Not even her hand in front of her face.
It was so dark.
Huddling into a corner against the dank wall, she could feel the grit and grime coating her fingers and soaking through her jeans.
The smell was horrendous. A strange bitter smell that reminded her of a mixture between skunk and rotting flesh. When she was first dumped here her stomach churned violently. She even threw up a few times, but now, she had grown strangely accustomed to it.
Her ears strained against the constant onslaught of screaming. It was so loud; she couldn’t discern what direction it was coming from. It seemed to be all around her. She thought she might go mad from it. Maybe she already was. Was this real? Was anything real?
Without light, it was impossible to tell how long she had been in this…place. The last picture she had was Erias’s cold demeanor toward her while he stroked the jaw of the woman he so obviously had a relationship with, while he told her that Cheyenne was nothing to him. Meant nothing to him.
And he was the one she had deemed worthy of giving her virginity to? How stupid was she? She should have just given it up to Jeffery Rosenthal if that was the case. At least he had pretended that she meant something to him. He wouldn’t have had the guts to sleep with her then tell her to her face that she was a lousy lay.
No, she had to pick the one guy guaranteed to break her heart. Worst of all, he put it all out there, and she still ran into his arms. They should put a picture of her in the dictionary right next to dumbass.
Maybe Kris was right. Maybe she was just a tease. She did, after all, give him everything but the one thing that she held dear, and he had cared for her more than anyone had in her entire life.
She’d known him forever and a day, and even though he could be a douchebag and a jerk, and he had messed up royally when they had been together, he had been spending every day since trying to make it up to her. Yes, that hadn’t been lost on her.
She had watched him make strides over the last year to be everything he thought she wanted him to be, but she never gave him an inch. She wanted to punish him for his crimes. He had always been a bit of a man whore; she knew that as well as anyone. Maybe even better, but she never let him know that she had forgiven him. Instead, she kept him at a firm friend distance and watched him squirm under the pressure to be perfect. He’d even forgone sex with anyone else. Something he hadn’t gone more than a week without since he was fourteen and lost his virginity to Jenny Peters.
Yep, she was a tease, but she still didn’t think she deserved to be treated the way he had treated her back at the hotel room. He was hurt. She knew, but had he been any better when he’d betrayed her?
Men. Why couldn’t she have just been born a lesbian?
A sudden, shrill scream reverberated off the walls drilling into her ears and giving her an instant headache.
Oh, God, where was she?
She could hear metal scraping against metal and what sounded like a whip cracking. And with each snap of it, she heard another scream, but she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. It was sharp and echoed in a weird, animalistic way.
Shaking from terror, Cheyenne squeezed her eyes shut and curled into herself even more, trying her best to disappear. Please let this be a dream. Why couldn’t she wake up?
The squealing hinges of a gate nearby caught her attention. For all the time she had been here, no one had come this close. The last time she had heard that gate open it had been when that bitch had left her here to rot. How long ago had that been? A day, a week…a year? She didn’t know.
She looked up to see a small torchlight flickering against the walls as whoever it was, came closer. Cowering lower, she wished herself invisible.
As the light filled the room, she was finally able to catch sight of what she was dealing with.
The gray walls surrounding her were shinning, slick with some sort of moisture that streamed down in small rivulets. Chains—some broken, some not—hung from the walls. And as the light grew brighter and filled out what she now knew to be a cell, she could see some of the boney remains belonging to former prisoners still hanging by them, but what scared her even more was the undulating floor beneath her.
At first sight, it appeared to be waves, rolling and swaying, but as she looked closer she was able to make out a tail and some hair.
Leaping to her feet, she realized that she was surrounded by rats. They were feasting off the corpses of two bodies lying in the middle of the room and the grime that was caked under her finger nails…was their coagulated blood that had streamed across the floor.
Cheyenne wanted to scream. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to die. Anything to make her wake up from this nightmare.
“You hold up better than the average demon,” a strong, male voice said.
Wow, but he was handsome. With wavy blonde hair and deep-blue eyes set into a delicate but masculine face, he looked like a Greek god. He was tall and refined, with a muscular frame. He wasn’t nearly as bulky as Erias, but there was still enough there to make a woman swoon. Most of all, there was an unmistakable power about him as he stood there, analyzing her in kind.
He bent down and, oddly enough, sniffed her. Not knowing what to make of it, her first instinct was to shove him away, but she didn’t know what she was dealing with here and considering the crazy shit she had been subjected to lately, she held herself taught and just hoped that he didn’t try to do anything more.
Suddenly, he stiffened, and then jumped into her face so fast she let out a startled squeak. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “I don’t smell demon on you. Are you human?”
“I…” Oh, God, what should she say? Of course she wasn’t a demon. She still wasn’t sure those even existed. If she told him she was human, would he rip her face off? Or would she end up on the floor being eaten by vermin just like those poor souls on the floor?
“Human?” she asked, unsure if it was the right answer, bracing herself for her demise.
Instead, the guy snagged her arm and dragged her from the cell.
“Where are we going?” she chanced asking him, practically sprinting to keep up with his long strides as he pulled her behind him down the dark, narrowed hall and closer to the source of the screaming she had been hearing during her stay.
He didn’t answer her. He just kept dragging her, his fingers biting into her flesh.
They entered a room lit up with torchlight so bright Cheyenne had to shield her sensitive eyes. He dropped his hold on her then and left her side. Forcing her eyes wide, she took in everything around her and almost screamed from the horror of it.
Men lay stretched out on stone slabs in the center of the room where winged creatures with mottled green, black and yellow skin cut away at their flesh with their sharpened claws.
Even more were strung up on blood-stained walls crying out in agony as skeletal figures whipped them with barbed chains that tore open their backs revealing muscle and bone.
Even more—men and women alike—lay writhing on the floor being repeatedly raped and sodomized by gargoyle–like creatures with fangs like a saber–tooth and five-inch claws that carved at their bodies as they held tight to their victims so they couldn’t get away.
Clasping her hands over her own mouth to stifle the scream inching up her throat, Cheyenne began backing out of the room. She’d rather be in the cell with the flesh-eating rodents then here, but as she turned to run, she came face-to-face with the most horrifying sight her mind could have never thought up.
With the face of a man, the body of a dragon, the creature had hooves for feet and scales for skin. His ears were tall and pointed and sheer black wings protruded from his back, flapping silently. He wore a sinister smile as he looked down on her.
“Hm, what have we here?” He circled her, his long, snake-like tail rubbing against her legs. Burying his face in her hair, he took a long breath, then licked his lips. “A human,” he mused. “Payne brought me a present? How generous of him.”
Cheyenne flinched as his tongue licked up her neck. “Tastes like chicken.” He laughed, bearing a row of serrated teeth.
And this time she did scream. She screamed for all she was worth, thrashing against his hold while he dragged her into his arms and sank his teeth into her neck.
Forced to relinquish her hold on him when her husband, the big bad, stormed into her bed chambers unannounced, Behr was finally free to go after Erias and explain to him what had happened and try to make amends.
He found him in his room. He looked like shit. Sprawled out across the bed, he lay on his back, asleep. Empty bottles of beer, vodka, and rum surrounded the bed looking as if they had been tossed there after they’d been used up.
Kind of like how he treated his females; Behr mused.
Careful to avoid stepping on any bottles, Behr nudged his leg to try and rouse him. “Gah.” He scrunched his nose and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. “Damn, dude, you smell!”
Erias stirred a little, but ultimately, he didn’t wake up. Behr shoved at him again, only harder this time.
“Wha—” Erias grumbled, peeling his eyes open slightly. When he got a look at Behr, all signs of life came back to him. Pure hatred filled his eyes and without notice, he came off the bed in a fury, knocking Behr back ten feet and into a wall.
“You mother fucker. I am going to rip your balls off and shove them down your fucking throat!”
See, Behr told himself. I told you that’s what would happen. Quick to explain himself before Erias could make good on his promise, Behr bolted across the room, dodging his moves with his cat–like reflexes.
“I’m telling you, man, I fucked up—”
“You sure as hell did, and now you’re going to pay,” Erias growled, taking a swipe at him with his scimitar.
When the hell did he pick that up?
Behr held his hands up in surrender but pulled them back just as quickly as he ducked another swipe that would have taken both his fingers and his head.
“I’m here to make it up to you, E!” he yelled at him, leaping onto the bed and back down the other side.
“Then die.” Erias was seeing red. Every fiber of his being craved bloodshed. After being denied down at the bar earlier this…week? He had been plastering himself to the bed with liquor and every other form of alcohol he could conjure up just to keep him from taking some innocent fools’ life.
“Shit, man, your eyes are red.” There weren’t many things that could make Behr scared. He had seen it all, especially in his line of work, but when E’s eyes went red, that was a very bad thing.
The demon in him was craving blood and there was only one way to satisfy that particular monster. Kill something.
Since he really preferred for that something not to be him, Behr tried for second best.
“I know where she is, man. I can get her back, but I need your help if I’m going to succeed.”
Erias bared his teeth and lunged for him again. This time his blade connected with the soft tissue of his stomach, slicing through his shirt and spilling blood. The sight of it only seemed to make him crazier.
Faster and more focused than ever, Erias came at him with a flurry of upward and downward strokes, slicing through the air so fast Behr could barely see the blade as it skimmed his arm, his head, his chest.
“Listen to me,” he pleaded. “Cheyenne is in Tartarus. Persephone is keeping her there. She needs you, man. If you want to save her, you need to calm yourself and listen.”
That seemed to get his attention.
She needed him. That was what caught him. Erias’s head was swimming against a tidal wave of alcohol and blood lust, but he had heard her name and for the first time, the need to protect something greater than himself won out.
“Keep talking,” he growled.
Behr fumbled for words. He’d had it all worked out. This huge speech that was supposed to wow him and smooth everything out. Save the friendship, save the girl. Save the cheerleader save the world. It was mad genius. But as he stood there looking at Erias’s rough appearance, both of them sweating and panting from exertion, the weight of what he had done to the man, how thoroughly that one act had torn him down to the shell that stood before him, all humor flew out the window.
“I’m sorry. For everything. I was weak, and I couldn’t take being alone, but I never should have done that to you. I would do anything, will do anything, to fix this. You have to know that. Forgive me?”
“Put your money where your mouth is. If we get her out of this alive, then we’ll talk, but if she is in Tartarus as you say, then we are going to need a lot more than firepower and fast reflexes. What did you have in mind?” Erias asked.
Behr grinned. “Ever heard of the Helm of Darkness?”
Chapter 20
Erias and Behr’s plans to go after the Helm were put on hold when Kris and his team of henchmen burst through his door and started barraging him with accusations about Cheyenne’s whereabouts.
Erias looked up from the table where he and Behr were hunched over an old map of the local terrain that Behr had manifested, to see Kris cutting a hot path across the room.
Straightening himself and angered at the intrusion, he was prepared to give him a piece of his mind when Kris cocked his arm back and socked him square in the eye, putting enough force behind it to jerk his head sideways.
Behr stood silently watching the scene unfold. This was some shit. A human bursting into E’s room uninvited and knocking his block off wasn’t something you saw every day. If he hadn’t been immortal, this would have been the time where he would have cut out to save his own hide. Erias was one scary emeffer that even he knew better than to mess with. Well, with the exception of that one tiny mishap that led to his woman being carted off to a demonic prison, but to his credit, he was trying to fix that little situation.
As it was, he was prepared to bust out the popcorn and take in the show.
Folding his arms over his chest, he stood there studying Erias while he tried to collect himself. His face was red with fury, and his eyes were squeezed shut so tight they were practically nonexistent. His mouth was set in a thin, hard line, and his fists were clenched on top of the table to the point the knuckles were turning white.
Without warning, he slammed his closed fists down, making the table and everyone in the room, besides Behr because he wasn’t a pussy, jump a few feet into the air.
“What the fuck was that for, you little shit?” he bellowed, raging so close to Kris’s face that he could feel the heat of his breath wash over his skin.
His insides were shaking, and he was seriously wondering what the hell had gotten into him. Was it too late for a do over? Because he was pretty sure, this was where his life was going to end. Well, at least there would be witnesses. Something Cheyenne wasn’t lucky enough to have. And that thought gave him the courage he needed to get back into Erias’s face and challenge him in return.
“You know damn good and well what that was for, you sick bastard,” he seethed. “We want to know where Cheyenne is. What did you do to her?”
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