The HellBeast’s Battle (The HellBeast King #10)

1. Gates of Hell

Chapter 1

Gates of Hell

Jared

“ E lla…”

Her name slipped passed my lips like a lost prayer as I fell, the pain of fangs sinking into my neck piercing through me. There was just too many of them to fight, a fucking army that was impossible to defeat by myself here in the mortal realm. Fuck, but it felt like there were hundreds of them, and even after transforming into my HellBeast form, it still wasn’t enough to stop them.

All I could hope for was that it was enough to give Ella a chance at escaping. If only I could hold them off long enough… just that bit longer.

That had been my only hope.

However, the second I saw the blurred green lines of demonic forms all joining the fight, I knew what she had done.

She hadn’t run at all.

Half of me was furious, and the other half of me was proud as fuck! I should have known she wouldn’t run when I told her to. That she wouldn’t have left me to battle this alone. My girl was a fighter, after all. The problem was that, eventually, that fuck Garmr would come for her when using her powers like that. Hell, a small amount of her blood spilled and it was enough to summon an army of HellHounds.

HellHounds that I knew wouldn’t stop coming, no matter how long her summoned souls would fight them. Because that portal would just get bigger and bigger, releasing Hell on Earth until she was taken. And unfortunately…

Ella knew it too.

With the last of my strength, I started to crawl my way to her, seeing now in my blurry, blood-soaked vision that she was standing at the mouth of the portal. She was looking down inside it with what I knew would be a steely resolve. Her back was to me as I started to drag myself closer, trying to get my fucking lips to move, now that I had transformed back into that of a man.

“Ella… do… don’t do it…” I begged, the words like fucking acid burning my throat. But then she turned to look at me over her shoulder, her beautiful eyes consumed with the power she commanded. The whites now completely black with their centers glowing demonic green to match that of her souls.

“It is the only way,” she told me in a haunting tone.

“No,” I forced out, then she held her hands out to the sides and told me,

“It’s the only way to save them, to save everyone… to save you.”

I felt myself shaking my head despite the pain it caused.

“No, don’t do this… Ella, please… don’t leave me,” I begged. The agony rolling through my body was nothing compared to the agony ripping through my heart.

“I will always be with you… my heart… my HellBeast King… I love you,” she said with determined sadness in her voice, one that already felt far away.

“ELLA!” I roared out her name, just as she let herself fall into the glowing void that would take her to the Demonic Gods only knew where. The second I did this; it was like my true self had just slammed into my body and I woke with a painful howl as if my heart had just been torn in fucking two.

“Fuck, easy, brother!” I heard as my eyes took in the missing portal, one that looked long ago closed off. The floor was nothing but a charred wooden mess like the aftermath of an explosion, and a black sun marred the space.

“Ella!” I shouted, trying to crawl toward where she had once been, the haunting reality now seeping back into my conscious state.

“She’s gone, J. Fuck, brother, what… what the hell happened?” my brother asked, making me close my eyes as the pain washed over me.

Every muscle tensed and I welcomed the ache it caused.

I had lost her.

The memory of what had actually happened seeped into the dark corners of my mind. It was a cruelty near too harsh to bare, and I soon realized that all she had said was just what my desperate mind had fabricated. It had been another level of the nightmare to grip me when hiding in the shadows of the truth.

Because in reality…

She had fucking jumped into the portal.

She had let her summoned souls save me, giving herself time to kick out the banister and jump from above into fuck knows where! And as for me, I had been fucking powerless to stop it, with not enough in me to cry out after having my throat nearly ripped out. I had nothing but the ability to bleed out on the floor as the souls fought to keep me still living.

The sight flits through my mind, of each soul fighting around me until every HellHound was dead, before they had all flowed as one back into the portal she had disappeared into. I had tried to crawl toward it to follow them, but I hadn’t been fast enough in my pitiful state.

I had failed her.

And my punishment had been the manifestation of her saying goodbye for what had sounded like the last time. Like she would never again get to tell me that she loved me. It was a bittersweet ending my mind had conjured up after passing out on the floor.

I didn’t answer my brother, instead forcing my still healing body to move, seeing now that the sun was rising and casting the light of day on this living nightmare.

“Easy,” Orthrus said as he helped my staggering form to stand.

The sight of the pools of my own blood staining the floor was just a testament to how close I had come to my vessel dying. What would have happened after that, I was unsure, for these had been HellHounds like I had never known.

Stronger. Faster. More bloodthirsty.

Fucking possessed.

As for the cabin, well, it looked just as it had been, like a fucking battle ground that had been torn apart. The bodies of the fallen HellHounds had long ago turned to ash, no doubt severing their ties to Hell and the one that controlled them the second the portal had closed. I knew my brother was trying to get me to explain what had happened, but all I could do was replay it all in my mind, having no choice but to cut out the parts I, myself, had invented when Ella left to save me.

But then I felt myself being shook out of my macabre memories with Orthrus calling my name.

“Jared, for fuck sake, brother, come back to the living!”

I gritted my teeth at that and shrugged out of his grip on my shoulder, putting distance between us in my anger.

“Ella… she… she fucking left me!” I told him bitterly, surprised I got the words out between my gritted teeth.

“What do you mean she left you?” my brother asked in confusion. At this, my anger took over and I flipped a broken piece of furniture as I roared,

“SHE SACRIFCED HERSELF FOR ME!”

My brother’s eyes widened before he looked around the ruined remains of what was left of the cabin.

I watched, and I saw his mind quickly filling in the blanks as they landed on the charred remains on the kitchen floor. Then his gaze travelled to the destruction left outside, his face hardening when he found the source from where the HellHounds had crawled their way out of Hell.

“They found her,” he stated, as it certainly wasn’t a fucking question I would answer! No, instead I hammered my fist into a piece of the banister that still remained and snarled,

“Foolish girl!”

“I’m sure she did what she…”

“Don’t!” I warned on a growl, knowing I was in no mood for excuses.

“J, come on, man…”

“I said fucking leave it, Orth!” I cautioned again, making him sigh as he shrugged his shoulders before crossing his arms.

“What do you want to do?” he asked instead, and finally this was something I could answer.

I looked to the remains of where the portal she had created was once breathing life.

“Gather the men, I want every HellBeast ready,” I said, now turning from the sight and walking barefoot toward the broken wall of glassless windows. The lethal debris bit into my flesh and again I welcomed the pain, letting it feed the burning need for revenge of my beast and I.

“Ready for what?” he asked, following me, and without looking back I told him,

“For war… as it’s time this HellBeast returns…”

“…To its Gates of Hell.”