Chapter 30
A xel led us around the side of the building, causing Reese and I to have to duck under some low hanging branches. No one had said anything about how we planned to get in there, find Dani and get out, but it seemed like Elise and her hellhound had this under control.
Reese had other ideas. “You do know that we can’t just pop in and out like Axel, right?”
“Yes, Blondie, I am well aware.”
“Okay, so then?—”
Elise turned around so fast that we both collided with her. “I am honestly really not in the fucking mood for your questions. Would you like to get into this Hell prison or not?”
We both were silent, but nodded.
“Perfect. Stay here .”
“Stay here…Elise…” I argued, but she cut me off.
“You show up with me and this whole thing will go to shit. Stay the fuck put.” She nodded towards the door that was just a few feet away from us. “I’ll meet you there and let you in. Any issues and I’m sure magic man here can figure out something. Or Axel will take care of it.” She pointed towards Garrett and her pet.
“Elise why can’t we just go with you…” Reese insisted.
She had already turned away and was heading towards where I assumed the front of the prison was.
“Unbelievable,” Reese mumbled.
Axel was already pacing near the door, clearly anxious for his owner to come back, or he was just ready to get this entire thing started. I pressed my hand to the exterior and it was like dark radiation emanated from it. My head throbbed with the pulsing of everything I’d tamped down trying to bubble to the surface.
It was minutes before there was shuffling near the door and Axel lifted himself on his hind legs to scratch at the wood. Elise peeked out, motioning for us to come inside. The amount of damp air that flooded out from the open door nearly suffocated me.
Elise hadn’t even closed the door all the way yet, before I noticed the smell of fresh blood and the small groans before silence. I walked further into the hallway we found ourselves in and noticed four or five men and women laying on the ground in a small sized cell. The entire door was solid stone but there was a rectangular opening near the top.
Reese pushed past me to look, then he huffed. “We could have helped you with that.”
Elise waved her hands at us as if to show that she didn’t give a flying fuck about how we felt. She looked at Garrett. “Cover their angelic scents, will you.” It came out like a demand and not a question.
Axel led the way down the empty hallway. It felt lonely here and a lot like death. The smell of brimstone flooded my nostrils and I had to stop myself from having a coughing fit. I didn’t like the idea of anyone being locked up here, let alone Dani and Garrett’s family. Axel stopped at the end, peeking his head around the side.
As we followed him, I walked closely near Elise, whispering, “did they just let you in or something?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Why didn't you want us with you from the beginning?”
“As much as I love an all out brawl, Nicholas, I would rather the fights be when it counts. Fighting front gate guards is not high up on my list of priorities.”
That still didn’t completely answer my question, but I decided to let it go.
“Did you run into Dimitri?”
We halted, hearing voices, but then they faded. Axel sniffed near a closed door, right as we heard footsteps again. Without another thought, Garrett yanked the door open and we all shuffled inside. None of us moved as the footsteps went past the door, their sounds retreating.
“To answer your question,” Elise pushed away from the wall and followed Axel as he descended the steps that were in front of us, “no, he isn’t here. Apparently, he left a short while ago.”
Axel stopped after two flights of stairs and turned to shadows, disappearing from our sight. We heard him on the other side of the door, pawing at it. Once the hellhound had all of us on the other side, he bounded down the dark hallway that was littered with cobwebs and smelled so much like fire that my lungs were burning. The sound of soft crying filled my ears and Reese turned to look at me, his blonde eyebrows raised.
Garrett made a beeline behind Axel as if that one sound had given him more speed and energy then he knew what to do with. The large Enchanter stopped in front of a door and his face turned into something like relief.
“Leah?”
I sidled up next to him, seeing his wife and two children huddled together near the corner. I saw shadows form near them and Axel appeared, running over to the kids and burying his face in their small bodies. Leah looked up from where she held her children and it looked as if she wanted to burst into tears.
“Daddy!” Jasmine yelled, while Yuri scrambled to get up and ran towards the door.
“Are you alright? Everyone okay?!” Garrett said hurriedly as if he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.
They all quickly nodded and Elise placed her hand on the door, red sparks and black mists flowed from her palm and there was a resounding click. Garrett all but yanked the door open as he barreled into the cell and grabbed his family.
“Alright, we love the reunion but…” Elise started but then a loud, gravelly growl came from outside the cell. I took a few steps out and noticed Axel’s black hair standing on end near his neck. His tail was stiff and his stance was something I could only classify as immovable. The growl wasn’t one of a small animal, no, it was something bigger and much more destructive.
I looked up from the hellhound and noticed three guards coming through the door.
“Who the fuck are you?!” One of them yelled, heading straight for me. Axel’s teeth grew larger, extending from his mouth as he clamped onto the guard's leg, causing the man to fumble and fall forward. The other two, a short man with cropped dark hair and a female with two braids down the side of her head ran towards us. Their hands were encapsulated by dark magic which they threw in our direction.
I grabbed my sword from behind my back and blocked one of the streams of magic. The female stopped in front of me, giving me a mischievous smile before holding out her hand and letting her blackened magic mold itself into a sword of her own.
Garrett hustled his family back into the cell, while he shot his foot out, kicking the male guard in the stomach. The man stumbled backwards right into Reese, who grabbed hold of him from behind, shoving one of his arrows into his neck. Blood spurted out when he removed it, the guard grabbing his injured neck and crashing to the floor.
I moved my sword from side to side, blocking each of the female guards' blows. She was pushing me back, so far back that my spine hit the wall. She slashed up high, causing me to raise my arm and block the blow, but she took that as an opening to raise her leg and kick my side.
I blew out a pained breath, but I kept my stance, using all my strength to shove her back. I stepped forward, cutting downward to hit her ankle, but she spun away, conjuring dark magic in her palm and throwing it at me. Elise’s hand shot out, collecting the magic in her grasp. Her body shivered like she was absorbing it.
“You need to pick one, magic or weapons, you can’t have both you bitch.”
The female guard looked at Elise, but then she really looked as if something had dawned on her. “You must feel right at home, huh.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Elise said, but her shoulders stiffened a small bit as if those words hit exactly how they were supposed to. She shook it off, but the female demon had her sword raised but it went clanging to the ground when one of Reese’s arrows went through her chest.
Axel bounded towards his owner, his face covered in blood as I looked past the female guard, noticing the one Axel had fought had the most mangled face I had ever seen. The female guard held the arrow in her hands and slowly pulled it out, blood leaking from her wound. Elise wrapped her tail around the guard's waist, holding her up.
I held my sword out and placed it at her throat. I said my words slowly, just in case anything I said was misunderstood. “Where. Is. She?”
The female guard narrowed her eyes at me. It was hard to make out the color of her irises when it was already so dark down here. She coughed, blood coming from her mouth and I realized Elise was squeezing her middle. “So many creatures down here, you’ll have to be fucking specific.”
She was taunting me.
I pressed my blade towards her neck, the silver wanting to become one with her skin. “Just fucking tell me.”
“Or what? I’m dead anyway. And so are all of you when he’s done with her.” Blood trickled down her lips and onto her chest.
“So forthcoming aren’t you. Axel can help us more than she can, but we’ll just need one thing.” Elise unraveled her tail from the guard's stomach and without even blinking, slashed the appendage across the female’s wrist. A sound of intense pain left her lips as she slumped to the ground. Elise caught the guard's newly severed hand in her grasp. “Thank you for your service.”
Reese made a gagging sound as he hustled over to us, Garrett and his family behind them. “What is that for?”
“Like I said, Blondie, only demons that have permission can open Dani’s cell. I might have the dark magic to maneuver the lock but I don’t have the physical permission.” She dangled the hand in front of us. “Now I do.”
“We will have to find her fast and hope no one comes down here before we’ve gotten her out,” Garrett explained, nodding over to me. I looked down at Axel who was already staring up at me, like he wanted this just as much as I did.
“Get me as close to her as you can.” The hellhound wagged his tail and darted out the door.
Months ago, if you would have asked me if I could see myself following a hellhound through a Hell bound prison, in search of my hybrid girlfriend, I would have said you were out of your mind. I pressed my back against the stone hearing the groans from cells around us. Axel had stopped and sniffed the air, licking at his blood stained teeth. His ears swung left and right as he looked down the hallway and trudged onward.
He led us down a narrow hall that seemed to diverge into two paths like most of them did, but this time we heard voices. Elise pressed her finger to her lips, placing her hand up as if to say stay here.
Garrett and Leah held each of their children, surprisingly having refused our offer to send them straight to Beetee and her moms. Their reasoning was that the portal from inside the prison could cause too much commotion, so they would stand by us or at least hide when they needed to.
Elise walked around the corner and started talking. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but then I heard a grunt and gurgled noises of choking. The dark haired demon brought her head around the corner and motioned for us to follow her. The narrow hall we walked out of, morphed into one that had a dead end on both sides.
“Axel…” I said, pining my gaze at the hellhound. He simply looked up and down the hallway as if to say this is the place .
“Start from that end and we’ll start over here,” Garrett delegated, bringing his family along as he walked down the hall.
My mind was racing with the amount of self doubt I felt. I didn’t want this to all be for nothing. It wouldn’t be. Axel wouldn’t lead us astray and I wouldn’t leave here without her. Reese was on one side and I was on the other, looking into the small rectangular openings at the tops of the doors.
Some of the prisoners were shrouded in their own darkness, not bothering to give us their attention while others stared right at me as if they were trying to dive into my very soul. Reese jumped back when one of them sprang over to the door, wrapping its hands around the bars. Every single time I looked into one of the cells and it wasn’t her, I felt defeated and I was mentally counting down the time we had here before shit blew up in our faces.
I blinked down at Axel when I heard him whimpering. His claws were scratching at one of the stone doors. Each time he pressed against it, a wisp of dark red mist came from the bottom. I looked down at him, but he swiveled his head from me to the door. Then he barked at me. One stiff bark.
I ran over to the door, wrapping my hands around the bars at the small opening and peering inside.
I saw an empty room and splotches of dried blood littered throughout the space and then I saw…
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t move.
My fingers flexed hard around the bars when I saw… her .
She was laying on the ground, her back to me. Those mess of curls I’d run my hands through more times than I could count were splayed out behind her. I noticed the large gashes on her exposed thigh and there was something about the way her shoulders were slumped that had my chest heaving.
I wanted to scream her name but something in my throat caught. It was like I was too pent up to speak. The already too hot prison suddenly felt like it was a million degrees. She was right there. She was right fucking there.
And I couldn’t get to her. There was something in the way.
I felt like I could throw up from my array of emotions, I felt like I could fucking cry. I smelled that cinnamon scent of hers, but it was wrapped in that thick brimstone smell.
She was right there. Right fucking there.
My heart thundered, wanting to claw itself out of my chest. I blinked rapidly, the bars I was holding coming back into my view. They were in my way. This whole fucking door was in my way.
I didn’t know when it happened, but I tightened my hold on the bars and started to shake them. I tried with all my strength to remove them from their place in the stone. I heaved out breath after breath as I pulled against them. I punched at the stone, pressed my fingers to the cold feel of the rocks. I couldn’t focus on anything but this— but her.
“Open the door,” I said more to myself than to anyone else. Axel was clawing at the stone with me as I tried to pry my fingers into the place where it met the threshold. “Open the door.”
Reese turned away from his place a few doors down and tentatively walked towards me. “Nick.”
I wrapped my hands around the bars again, nearly straining myself to find a way in. I heard someone call for the others, but they sounded so far away. My brain was overloaded with one thought and one thought only.
“Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!” I slammed my fist against the stone, thinking I had the kind of power to tear it down. I was losing my voice with how much I was straining it.
I saw her body move a bit, her shoulders shifting as she turned over. She pushed her curls out of her face and she winced as if she was in pain. Our eyes locked and I could feel my entire world collapse at the fact that she was too far away or I wasn’t fucking close enough. It didn’t fucking matter.
I nearly heard the metal bend on the bars as I tugged. “Open the door! Open the door!”
Someone gripped my shoulders and pulled me back. Elise was in my view now. “Okay, Nick. Okay.”
She placed the guards severed hand against the door, pulsing out her own reddish magic. The area around the door dimly glowed a deep red, but then a click sounded. The stone pushed away from the threshold and whoever was holding me back didn’t stand a chance of keeping me in place.
I ran into the room, sliding onto my knees the moment I was in front of her. Her mouth moved slightly, but she didn’t say anything. It was at that moment that I realized she hadn’t even been gone for long, not even a full two days and she looked like she’d been in here for months. I placed both my hands at her cheeks, noticing that my hands were shaking. My thumbs started to caress her cheek but she flinched.
I took a second to blink, finally taking her in completely. My thumb hovered over the large bruise at her cheekbone. She had the beginnings of a black eye and her bottom lip was cut. Her arm had large, long cuts and I surveyed the still bleeding open wound on her thigh, but then my eyes caught onto something else.
My hands traveled from her face down to her neck. Her brown skin was red and raw, like it had been burnt. She hissed as my fingers delicately traced the outline of a handprint. I clenched my jaw, wanting to remain calm for her but inside….inside I was fucking seething .
“Nick..” She started, her voice a little hoarse.
I brought my hands back up to her face, making sure to be gentle. “I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”
She gave me a short nod, but leaned her face into my hands. She reached her hand out and placed it at the side of my face, bringing me closer to her. My lips touched hers softly and that’s all I needed to know this was real.
The kiss was short and I would give her so many more when she was safe and away from his place. “I’m taking you home.”
I started to get up, wrapping her arm over my shoulder so I could pull her along. We were out of the cell and I reached inside my shirt to pull out my portal key. My movements were stunted by clapping.
It wasn’t a joyous clap, but one that told me whoever was on the other end of it was amused by this entire thing.
Footsteps sounded around the corner and the sight of a tattoo clad demon with only one hand had my fists curling at my sides.
“You really shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you.”