Chapter Two
We didn’t get a wink of sleep.
Tristan barricaded the door with the wardrobe, the chair, the desk, and the bed, but the relentless banging, shouting, and hissing didn’t let up for hours.
“What do we do!” My nails dug into the sides of my head, clamping down on my ears. What was it about vampire hissing? Why did it strike the same fear in your heart as a snake’s rattle? “How do we make them stop! How do we get out of here!”
Tristan leaned against the barricade. He was sweating buckets holding them back. “Any plan we make, they’ll hear!”
Of course. I forgot about that cursed super hearing for a second.
I snatched up my new phone, typed up a message, and held it up for him to read.
Me: Sabrina once told me there’s a spell to thicken your skin so vampires can’t bite you. Isn’t that my only chance?
Tristan was shaking his head before he finished reading. Wedging his shoulder against the wardrobe, he took my phone and typed a reply.
Tristan: If it was that easy, every wolf would use that spell. But the price is too high. The longer you use the diamond skin spell, the more your other senses start to dull until you end up blind and deaf with no sense of taste, touch, or smell.
My eyes bugged. Dammit, dark magic! Why are you so twisted!? Who comes up with these sick downsides!
Me: So what do we do?
Tristan: They’re mindless with hunger. They’ll never stop trying to get through that door. The only one who can possibly stop them now is an Elder. The penalty for not obeying an Elder is immediate death.
A thick, sludgy, horrible feeling spread through my body. I typed in my reply with numb fingers.
Me: Is Professor Radu an Edler by any chance?
Tristan’s response was quick.
Tristan: Yeah. How did you know?
I could’ve thrown up right there on the carpet. I remember once thinking that the worst thing I could possibly do was get into a situation where Professor Radu was the only one who could help me get out of it.
Seemed that bastard was thinking the same thing.
I stepped back, tipping my head to the ceiling. “Okay, you’ve made your point!”
“Charlie?” Tristan hissed. “What are you doing?”
“We’ll work something out! I swear,” I cried. “I promise! Just— Just do something!”
Can he hear me? Is he listening? I flicked to my phone. Should I download this DeadDrop app and message him? How is—?
“All right, all right, that’s enough.” A voice I’d never forget for as long as I lived rang out clear from the other side of the door. “Fuck off, the lot of you,” said Radu.
“This one’s mine.”
THREE HOURS LATER, my clock told me it was almost breakfast time, but neither Tristan nor I even twitched toward the barricade.
“Should we go out there— Oooh,” I moaned.
Tristan bore down on a particularly tight knot under my shoulder blades. At some point in the middle of my pacing, ranting, and fretting, Tristan came over and interrupted me with a massage. He said it was because I was tense and freaking out, and it’s not like I could deny it.
“We can go out there whenever you want,” he said. My knees snapped together when a soft, caressing finger trailed down my spine. “I’m not afraid of any fucking leeches, but those fucking leeches are afraid of the Elders. They won’t disobey him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Of course that’s what I’m worried about! They’ve been starving for hundreds of years. One of them might get it into their head that one last taste is worth the death sentence.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you, Charlie.”
My cheeks heated up. Those words whispered in my ear while his hands were doing things that made my eyes roll up in my head was just too much.
I stepped out of his reach. “Either way, I guess I don’t have a choice.” My gaze traveled to the bedsheets hiding the note. “I won’t get Dora back by cowering in here.”
“How are you going to get your sister back?”
Sighing, I pressed my back to the cool stone wall and slid to the floor. “The first step is figuring out who or what the hallows even are. Lucifer didn’t even know that.”
Tristan dropped down in front of me and took my hands. Goose bumps popped on my flesh as he started kneading them. What did it mean that he couldn’t stop touching me?
What did it mean that I didn’t want him to?
“The entire fourth floor of the south wing is a library,” he told me. “We could start there.”
“We can but Radu warned us that hell prefers propaganda to the truth. Will we be able to trust anything we read?”
“True,” he agreed. “And now that we’re on the subject, that red-eyed bastard has access to more information, resources, servants, and lifespan than almost everyone in hell combined. At the very fucking least, he should be doing the research and pointing you in the right direction.”
I sat up straight, brows snapping together. “You know what? You’re right! He even said himself that he’s been searching for the hallows for centuries. Would it kill him to at least tell me what he’s crossed off the list?”
“Could you get a message to him?” he asked. “That snake of yours was his servant, right? What if I find her? Could she be your go-between so that Lord Shithead can still play like he’s not involved?”
I gaped at him, smile widening. “That’s a great idea. Not even that stamping toddler can argue with that. Oh my gosh, Tristan, what would I do without you?”
That set those dusky cheeks off like a brushfire. Not able to help myself, I leaned over and pecked him on the lips.
Tristan shot up like I pulled out a gun.
“I— I— I’m not leaving you on your own, so come with me.
We’ll grab something to eat and then I’ll see if I can pick up your snake’s trail.
She spent all her time wrapped around you and...
and...” He was really not looking at me then.
“I’d know your scent anywhere.” He roughly cleared his throat.
“I’ll just see if I can pick up a trail for now, but I won’t go looking for her until tonight.
After we’ve moved you into the werewolf wing. ”
“Are you sure I’ll be safer there?”
“There isn’t an alpha alive who’d call themselves a man after hurting a woman.” His eyes flashed. “And there isn’t one who wants to live if he even thinks of laying a finger on you.”
I don’t know if it was the continued silence on the other side of the door, or the homicidal intent in Tristan’s eyes, but I felt a little better about stepping out of my safe haven.
After changing quickly, Tristan and I walked outside—
—into a horde of vampires.
They crowded the hallway, not even trying to hide that they were waiting for me to come out.
One after the other, they bared their fangs—eyes darkening as their lungs filled with a potential kill.
But not a single one of them moved.
Tristan held tight to me, practically crushing me against his abs. Together we parted the crowd, and they let us—not stopping us from moving down the hall, but also not stopping themselves from following us.
I’d never thought it would happen, but I was actually relieved to walk into the demon mess hall and close the door on those silent, starving vampires.
“Ahh!”
“Fuck!”
“Argh!”
All around us, the demons scattered about the room, lounging at the tables, messing on their phones, or helping themselves to food—all stopped and clutched their heads.
Wait! I know what this is—
“Holy fuck.” A fur-faced demon climbed to his feet, leaving his phone where it fell. “DeadDrop was right. We’ve got some fresh pussy in our midst.”
Revulsion twisted my stomach as he leered at me—then twisted tighter when he closed the distance between us.
“Fresh, mortal pussy,” someone corrected, swinging my head around.
I wasn’t sure who spoke, because suddenly everyone was looking at me. Everyone was righting themselves or picking themselves off the ground. And everyone was closing in on me.
“Back off,” Tristan growled. A firm hand pulled me in closer. “Take another fucking step and it’s your last.”
“Ooooh, big talk from a mutt,” a voice crowed. “But now we all finally know why you were panting and drooling after this ugly green fucker like a bitch in heat.” A nasty dolphin demon stuck out from the crowd and started thrusting his hips. “It’s because that bitch was giving you the heat!”
Everyone laughed—howling like jackals.
“Give us a little taste too. I wanna know if mortal pussy is as warm, wet, and sweet as the legends say.”
“Forget her pussy. Are mortal souls really as powerful as the legends say? I read one human sacrifice boosts your magic a thousandfold!”
They were crowding in. Tristan grabbed and shoved me behind him, but I was already there—scrabbling at the doorknob.
It wouldn’t budge.
“Why won’t this open!”
“They’ll have locked it,” Tristan gritted. “This is going to get ugly, Charlie. Stay low... and don’t look.”
“Grab her!”
“I’m fucking her first!” The thud of flesh on flesh echoed in my ears. “Back the fuck off! I’m not going after you limp-dick shits have worn her out!”
“No, I’m going first!”
Fear clamped on my throat, strangling my screams. Terror like I’d never known before leadened my legs, and trembled my arms and lips. They couldn’t actually be arguing about who got to rape and kill me first? This wasn’t happening. This can’t be happening!
Under Tristan’s elbow, I watched the fight break out.
Shoving, punching, biting, tearing, gashing—black blood splattered and flowed as they ripped each other apart to violate me first. Through the break in the bodies, just for a moment, I saw Ronin Belphe reclining in his chair with his feet up. The horned pretty boy took one look at me—
—and smirked.
As if I could read his mind, I heard clear as day, “Are you sure you don’t need my help?”
I swung around, panic searing my soul. “Let me out!”
“Back off!” Tristan roared.
“Let me out of here!” I screamed as the shadows loomed, smothering the scant light in the mess hall. “Help me! Help—”
The door flew open.
I fell forward, collapsing in Erlik’s arms.
“What the fuck’s going on in here?” Ever the asshole, he heaved me up and tossed me aside like a beachball.
Tristan caught me before I hit the floor.