Hard to Find (Hell Hounds Harem Book 4)

by Briana Michaels

  “We’ve got you, Sweetness.” Bishop wiped the sweat from her forehead and ran his hands through her hair to keep it out of her face. It felt like thick satin in his hands.

  Okay, now was definitely not the time to think about how soft her damn hair was. What the fuck.

  “Water! Please!” she choked out.

  “We canna give ye water, lass. Ye must expel everything first, then we can give ye something to ease ye.”

  Tilly flipped Valor the middle finger then went back to puking. It was awful. After another ten minutes, Tilly collapsed and Bishop caught her before her head fell into the trash can. When he repositioned her, his heart stopped beating for a minute and he grew dizzy with panic. “Fuck, did she just die?”

  Tilly moaned in response and Bishop sighed in relief.

  Jack stepped back into the room and hurried over to her. “We don’t have much time.”

  Bishop moved the almost full trash bin out of the way while Jack opened Tilly’s left eye to look at it. The coloring was good. At least, to Bishop it looked alright, but what the hell did he know about magic. He was just a Hell Hound.

  “I don’t think it worked,” Jack frowned. “Bloody hell, I’m not sure what to do here, Hounds. She’s cleansed, but… there’s a curse still in there. I can see it now, it’s like a pin prick behind her iris. I don’t have the right magic for this kind of thing. I’m so bloody sorry.”

  Valor looked completely defeated as he slumped into a chair. “Is she healed of everything else at least?”

  “Mmm hmmm,” Jack looked at her other eye just to double check. “If you’re this serious about her Val, you might want to take her to Luce.”

  “I canna,” he argued, “and ye ken why well enough. He’s not stable anymore. I’m already wearing him thin with what I’ve got going on with the twins. And it’s not like I can take her there to see him.”

  Humans couldn’t go into Hell without being dead first. Tilly, thank god, was still alive and well. And Valor was right, Lucifer was super unstable right now. He might look strong and act alright, but those who knew him well could see there was a slight change in their maker. To ask anything of him right now wouldn’t be right. Lucifer had bigger problems than one cursed human woman who was a thief and user of black magic.

  “Well, I’m going to draw some spells on her, but I don’t think it’s going to work. I’ll have to go back through my old books and see if there’s anything helpful in there. I really wasn’t expecting something like this, Hounds. Your woman has a high magical tolerance, that’s for bloody sure.” Jack took out a white paint pen and gently lifted her hospital johnny. Carefully keeping her more intimate parts covered, he drew a bunch of symbols on her belly, her thighs, neck and arms. “Help me roll her over so I can do her back, Bishop.”

  They flipped her over carefully and stared at her perfectly healed tattooed ass. Guess Valor’s magic hadn’t missed a thing. It wasn’t even scabbed and looked fucking gorgeous. Jack respectfully averted his gaze and drew more runes down her back. “These will wear off in a couple days, but she’ll be out of here by then and hopefully I’ll have some more answers for you.”

  “Okay,” Bishop stared at Tilly’s back while Jack finished working on it. “She’ll be staying with us, so when you find something that’ll help, contact me or Val.”

  They didn’t need one more thing on their plate right now – not with the twins missing and the devil out of sorts, but some piece of Bishop was almost relieved to have this distraction… as temporary as she may be.

  Chapter 17

  Sebastian and Drake dangled upside down, strung up by their feet, and were both rocking serious headaches.

  “You alive?” Baz asked his twin.

  “Unfortunately,” Drake grunted when he tried to move.

  “You hear what the guy called the other one?”

  “No. I couldn’t hear anything while they worked on me.” Drake winced when he twisted around to look at his brother. “What did they say?”

  “They think us being twins should have some kind of magical boost. They’re getting frustrated that nothing is working.”

  “What the hell are they even trying to do?”

  “Fuck if I know, D, but they called someone Master.”

  Drake jerked back and his body started swaying even more. “Master? What the fuck?”

  “These guys must be the ones who were trying to crack Hell’s walls.” That’s what was happening when the twins were taken. The Hounds were in the middle of a war with the malanum and Sara, the Devil’s Darling, had come into their home, shared dinner and drinks with them, and met privately with Bishop afterwards. That was the night shit went sideways for the twins. Very. Fucking. Sideways. “They must be the traitors we’ve been looking for. We’ve got to get out of here and tell Lucifer and the others.”

  “But I like it here so much, Baz. Please… don’t make me leave now.”

  He rolled his eyes at Drake’s dry sense of humor. Doing a quick inventory of his body, Baz’s wounds weren’t nearly as nasty as they had been. Earlier, he tried to send his soul out to get help again. All to no avail. Annoyed that they couldn’t figure a way out of this clusterfuck, Baz refused to stay strung up like meat for the butcher.

  “Fuck this.” With a grunt, Baz started swaying his body, getting it to swing back and forth towards Drake. They looked like two bloodied acrobats. One, two, three, four – damnit! – five, six swings later, Baz reached Drake’s hand. The twins clasped onto each other but Drake’s grip slipped and Baz swung back and forth one more time before they got a good hold on each other again.

  Baz’s body stretched and his bones cracked as he struggled climbing up Drake’s body so he could reach the ties around their feet. With one hand around the rafter, he used the other to untie the ropes. “Ready to drop?”

  “Not really, but go for it. I’ll just fall.”

  Baz unbound his brother’s feet and Drake crashed to the ground with a loud “oomph!” Next, Baz grabbed the rafter with both hands and untied his own feet. Bending in half hurt almost as much as stretching himself had. Every bit of him was sore. Finally, after a little finagling, Baz unbound his ankles and dropped to the ground with a little more grace than Drake had, but not by much.

  Drake slowly pulled himself up to his feet and stumbled over to the stone wall. Bracing against it, he tried to catch his breath. His eyes were purple and blue with white centers. Cuts and symbols were carved into his skin. His dark hair was matted to his head and his nostrils were crusted with dried blood. For a Hell Hound who prided himself in always looking clean cut and perfect, he looked like a neglected animal with mange now. “Did you get out at all?”

  Baz gripped the side of his head and staggered over to his twin. “Yeah, for a second, but everything got fuzzy. I couldn’t see much.”

  “Still drawn to the same thing?”

  Baz nodded and they both slid down the wall until their asses hit the floor.

  “I remember,” Drake huffed, “Lucifer telling Valor something about Sara drinking the blood of twins when she was taken. Did I make that up or did that happen?”

  “That’s the story.”

  Drake looked at the crease in his elbow. There were holes big enough to drive nails into his veins that were still seeping blood, “Pretty sure they drained me almost dry this time.”

  “Mmmph.”

  “What the fuck is going on, Baz? How is any of this possible?”

  “I don’t know, brother. I’m more concerned about how we’re going to get out of here. We can’t keep being guinea pigs. Soon, they’re going to figure out a way to get what they want from us.”

  “And then we’re done. There will be nothing left to survive.” Drake hit the back of his head on the wall with a thump. “There’s nothing left to live for anyway,” he murmured.

  “Hey,” Baz shoved a finger in Drake’s face, “don’t you fucking go there, Hound. There’s always something to live for, we just haven’t found it yet.�
��

  “And we’re not going to. I’ve told you that a million times.”

  This was the problem with sharing a soul. The twin who didn’t carry it was usually hopeless while he was soulless. It took a little while to get that low, but they always arrived at rock bottom eventually. Baz wasn’t in the mood for it so he grabbed his brother’s leg and transferred their soul to Drake. The exchange was like having the floor drop out from under him and for a split second, Baz felt like he was falling into nothingness. The transfer only lasted about two seconds, thank god. The sensations that came with giving your soul to someone else was never something Baz got used to. Drake either, for that matter. His brother jerked as the soul settled into him.

  “How many Masters can there be?” Baz asked.

  “Even one is one too many.”

  “Three of them worked on you from what I could see. I think.”

  “You think?” Drake frowned, “Did you forget how to count?”

  “My vision is whacked.”

  “Mmmph,” Drake leaned over and peeled Baz’s eyelid open more, “Fuck brother, you’ve got floaters in there. They’re all purple and gray like worms.”

  “You should see your peepers, Hound. Freaky shit.”

  Drake swiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, “I’ll project our soul out again as soon as I can concentrate, okay? If it’s drawn to the same thing each time, that’s got to be a good sign.”

  “Or we’ve changed too much with the magic they keep pumping into us and the dark magic is drawn to more dark magic.”

  “That’s a thought.”

  “Maybe we can lure it in? Use evil to fight evil. I don’t know.”

  The twins knew from playing “unconscious” and listening to conversations their captors had while torturing the two of them, that the enemy was trying to turn the twins into something else. Not a Trojan horse for malanum, but something… else. The magics they were forcing into the twins was getting harder to handle and more difficult to come back from.

  Visions of dark things haunted the Baz and Drake now. And, even though neither of them said it aloud, they were both worried. All it would take was the right combination of magic to turn the twins into a new weapon. And with all that’s happened so far, Master was close to reaching his goal.

  What if they were turning into a divining rod of some sort? A dark magic hunter of some kind? Would they become a weapon or a tool to find something even more dangerous? Or would they be used to destroy more of Hell?

  Exhaustion crashed over them like a tidal wave and the twin Hounds slid in towards each other. Their heads pressed together and their eyes fluttered shut.

  When Tilly woke up, it took her a minute to figure out where she was. The city lights cast a halo out of her hospital window and there was a lovely smell of coffee tickling her nose. She licked her dry lips and cringed. Oh God… did a cat shit in her mouth? She slowly looked around her darkened room and saw a shadow looming in the corner.

  Her heart hammered. Had the creeper snuck into her room? Was he here to kill her?

  She sat up and tried to focus on the image and quickly reached around for the nurse call box. Blindly feeling around her small bed, she couldn’t find the damn thing at all, which caused her to seriously panic.

  The lights flicked on and she realized it wasn’t the creeper at all. It was Valor, or as she called him in her head, Foxy Boy.

  “Relax, lass.” Valor rose from his chair in a graceful way. As he approached her, Valor oozed dominance and control. His movements were almost predatory in a way, and he captured her attention and held it. It was his eyes. So fierce… penetrating. And his jaw clenched and released like he was chewing on dirty thoughts and liked how they tasted. He ran his hand over his long beard. His hands were massive and his thighs in those leather pants were impressive, as were the size of his boots.

  Wait, what?

  “Look at me,” Valor snapped his fingers.

  She blinked and shook her head, shaking out the ridiculous thoughts she was having. “What?”

  Valor lifted her chin with his finger and tilted her head. His gaze seared her. Tilly’s lips were a tight, thin line as he continued to stare at her with a mix of concern and something else. Desire? Nah, that was just her crazy talking again. “How do ye feel?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and shrugged, “My arm doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  “Does anything hurt?”

  She did a silent inventory of her body and discovered she actually felt really good. Was it the drugs? Or was it the insanity?

  Everything came back to her in a rush. The car slamming into her, the doctors setting her arm, Bishop and Valor saying they weren’t what she thought, Bishop scaling the wall like a big ass spider, and… that other guy. That guy with the duffel bag who made her drink some nasty fucking shit and then he—

  Tilly looked down at her arm. Her cast was gone. She had completely healed. There wasn’t a single scratch on her from the accident, just her regular scars remained. Thank god. But her stomach burned something terrible and the taste in her mouth was reason enough to not open it again.

  “Here,” Valor handed her a packet of mint gum, “This will have to do until we get ye home and cleaned up.”

  She quickly put two pieces in her mouth. Tilly didn’t have the energy to be embarrassed. So what if she smelled bad? It was because of what they did to her, so they shouldn’t complain. And she was too grateful for how good she felt to bitch about it. “What was that?”

  “What was what, mo leannan?”

  “That stuff I drank.”

  “An elixir to dull your senses so we could heal ye properly and swiftly. I didna want ye to suffer any more than ye already had, and morphine wasna going to cut it for what we had to do to your body.”

  She tried to put that all together into some kind of logic, but magic rarely needed logic to exist or be understood. “Why do I feel so light on the inside? I feel like I’m made of air.”

  Valor’s slight smile made him even more handsome. “Jack was able to purge the residue clinging to ye. The lightness ye feel is the absence of darkness that came with what all ye’ve done, magically speaking.”

  Her eyebrows popped up and she tried to give him an innocent look. One, unfortunately, he wasn’t buying.

  “I understand,” he said softly. “You’re desperate to break your curse and are willing to do anything for a chance to do so. But,” he held his finger in front of her, “If ye dabble in the darkness, lass, ye must cleanse yourself of it afterwards or it’ll likely kill ye before this curse will.”

  The air rushed out of Tilly’s lungs, “You believe me then? You seriously believe that I’m cursed?”

  “I wouldna have doubted it, but Jack saw the proof and confirmed it.”

  Her heart raced, “Was he able to lift it?” She held her arms up to Valor, “Is that what these symbols are for? Am I cured?”

  Annnnd this was the moment her hip-hip-hooray crashed and burned.

  “No,” Valor whispered roughly. “That doesna mean we’re done trying, though.”

  Well, that was something at least. Tilly chewed on her gum and tried to reign in all her emotions. Her head felt a little too jumbled with a fuckload of questions and theories, but the one that stuck in her mind the most was the idea of synchronicity again. That word was seriously getting overused a lot lately. “Where’s Bishop?”

  “Outside. On the roof.” Valor took a step back, “He canna be in confined spaces for verra long and we spelled the door and room so no one would enter while ye rested. Your concussion was healed as well as your arm and anything else that ailed ye, but there’s no way to explain your miraculous recovery to the physicians here so we had to spell the place a wee bit.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Cue the awkward silence. Tilly fiddled with her bedsheet.

  “We need to get ye home.”

  “I can’t g
o back there, it’s too dangerous.” And she couldn’t go to her sister’s house either. No way was she going to let Vivian get caught up in this latest mess.

  “I wasna speaking of your home, Matilda Jane. I was speaking of mine. You’re coming back with us.”

  Oh no way. Nope, nope, nope. She didn’t know these guys and shit had hit the fan enough already in the brief time she’d spent with them. “I have enough on my plate right now. Playing house with two men I don’t really know isn’t going to happen.”

  “Ye doona have a choice, lass.” Valor began pulling out her clothes from the plastic hospital bag and handed Tilly her bra and panties. He dangled them off a long index finger with a grin, “Let’s start with getting ye dressed and go from there.”

  She didn’t argue. She wanted out of this place as fast as possible so she could plan her escape. Marco was after her and she refused to be a sitting duck. Even without the threat of Marco, Tilly and hospitals didn’t mix well. She needed to get the fuck out of there.

  Valor turned around to give her some privacy and Tilly quickly shimmied into her underwear, fastened her bra, and climbed out of the bed. Next, she grabbed her dress and tugged it over her head. “You can turn around now.”

  Valor barely looked at her as he bitched, “You’re not dressed properly for this weather.”

  “I missed laundry day,” she barked, “and all my other pants are getting too tight.”

  Valor chuckled and handed her Bishop’s leather coat next. “A woman should have meat on her bones,” he zippered her up, “and there’s no such thing as too tight, lass.”

  Now was not the time to have lusty thoughts, but goddamn… Foxy Boy’s accent was so fucking hot. If he called her Sassenach, would her panties melt off right now? Yup. Definitely. To her surprise, Valor bent down on one knee and grabbed her right foot. “Lift,” he ordered and then slid her flats on one at a time. His hand felt hot as he held her ankle and Tilly grabbed his tensed shoulders to stay steady while he slipped on her other shoe.