by Liz Meldon
“You’ll need to ask Alaric about that,” he said with a sniff, arms crossed, blood crusted under his short nails. “It’s his house, not mine.”
She bit the insides of her cheeks, knowing he was being petty simply because he could—because she had been in the wrong, and him the right. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
A weighted silence settled between them, and they stood staring at one another, arms crossed and mouths set, until Moira decided to be the bigger person. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed at her braid, in need of something to fiddle with, and then nodded to him.
“So, you’re home early, and not nearly as bloody as usual,” she noted. “Does that mean you’ve learned something new?”
It should boggle her mind that they could discuss Severus torturing people so casually, but as soon as she woke up in chains, Diriel’s captive, Moira had distanced herself from the morality of the human world. The only way they were going to get information on Diriel, and by extension her dad, was by Severus applying just the right amount of pressure to finally break someone. She had accepted it, come to terms with it—although casual torture chats certainly hadn’t helped with her nightmares.
“We…” He pressed his lips together again, suddenly unable to meet her gaze. A quick blink and the human stare was back, irises nearly matching the pupils. He had been staying on top of his energy and strength levels by seeing clients each night—Moira had joked recently that he was working doubles every day, coming home from one job just long enough to kiss her cheek before flitting off to the next.
Ella had been positively outraged, in her own drunken way, that Moira had suggested Severus continue to see clients during this whole ordeal, but there was no other way around it. He needed to keep flying under the radar, and escorting had been a successful solution to the problem of his kind for decades. Just because he and Moira were, well, something—something unspoken, but intimate all the same—didn’t mean she thought he ought to stop.
He’d told her the first night out that he wasn’t sleeping with clients anymore, which had quelled the jealousy enough to make the conversations palatable. It worried Moira less knowing Severus was out there hunting and torturing Diriel’s minions if he was operating at full capacity, so that was what she focused on.
What did worry her, however, was the way he paused now, refusing to meet her eye.
“What? Did something happen?”
“I…I still need to confirm it,” he muttered as he stalked to the black dresser next to the bathroom door, rooting around inside for a fresh pair of pants. She stood there, watching, waiting for more, but he changed from his blood-spattered jeans into a fresh pair without saying a word.
“Severus.” She caught the way his head tilted toward her, but he didn’t turn completely, keeping his back to her instead as he changed. Moira briefly bit the insides of her cheeks again, her patience wearing thin. “Tell me.”
“It isn’t confirmed. Nothing worth noting unless—”
“Fine. If you won’t tell me, I’ll just ask Alaric,” she snapped, then marched for the door. “You know he tells me everything anyway.”
“Moira, wait—”
“I don’t know if this is punishment for not discussing Ella with you,” she muttered, “but keeping something from me like this is shitty and you know it.”
She wrenched open the bedroom door, only to have Severus slam it back closed seconds later. A startled yelp slipped out of her, and she stiffened when he grabbed her by the forearm, whirled her around, and pinned her back against the door. The black eyes had returned, his muscular frame bearing down on her, towering over her, but she refused to let the fact that he’d caught her by surprise intimidate her into dropping the issue. Moira lifted her chin defiantly, lips slightly parted as she met and held his unflinching stare.
In that moment, she could feel it—the heat between them. There was no denying it: three weeks of no sex had to weigh heavy on a lust demon, but Moira hadn’t been in the right headspace to do more than cuddle up to him. She had desperately needed the comfort, the security, and the stability that Severus freely provided, never with any strings attached.
One night, as she snuggled up to him in bed, silent tears slicing down her cheeks, hating that she couldn’t give him more, he’d gently insisted that she had experienced very real trauma with Diriel. “Darling, I have no expectations,” he had murmured, wiping her tears away. “I want to be here with you, however that might be.”
Severus always knew how to soothe her, to make her fall harder for him with just a few choice words. While he seemed to enjoy the closeness in return, always eager to wrap his arms around her and nuzzle her neck, middle-school-level cuddling was the best she could offer in return under the current circumstances.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go to bed with him, to do something more. If the way their breathing spiked now, the way their bodies gravitated toward one another, electricity sparking between them, said anything, it was that she wanted him. Even in the midst of an argument, her temper piqued and her frustrations high, Moira wanted him.
She just wasn’t ready yet. Soon, hopefully.
Because she missed being with him.
A lot.
Slowly, Severus raised his fists and unfurled them, caging her as he pressed them to the door on either side of her head. She swallowed hard, still not backing down, and eased up on her tiptoes, pushing, pushing, pushing until their lips were but a breath apart. Each of his soft exhales danced across her skin, his stare hooded and opaque, stern yet dripping with desire. Even a slight movement nudged their noses together, and just as he tipped his head toward her, their mouths so close to meeting, Moira smiled.
“You can’t distract me,” she whispered, pulling away just enough to still be a tease—relishing the way he chased, lips seeking hers out. Seeking, but never finding; she ducked down and pressed back against the door as her heart thundered. “I know all your tricks, Severus.”
His jaw clenched as he scowled down at her. “Not all my tricks, darling.”
She licked her lips, which quirked into a grin at the way he tracked the movement. “Most of them then.” Before he could growl something back at her, the rasp of each word shooting straight to the crest of her thighs, Moira grabbed his chin, hard, and dragged him down so their eyes were level. “Tell me what happened today, Severus. What did you find out?”
His glare only seemed to harden as he twisted free and took a step back. “You want to know? Truly?”
“Of course I do.” Moira needed to know. Didn’t he understand that by now?
“Diriel is in Hell. He’s gone into hiding.”
Moira blinked up at him, at the flatness of his words, the stiffness in his shoulders when he finally admitted it.
“Hell,” she breathed, stomach looping, then cleared her throat and found her voice again. “As in…Hell Hell?”
“That would be the one.”
She used the door to prop her up as she digested the news. Demons could travel back and forth between the realms using hell-gates, according to Severus and Alaric. Farrow’s Hollow was located directly adjacent to a gate, which accounted for its demon population.
So, he had gone into hiding, had he? She pushed herself off the door with her elbows, a little light-headed at first—but, as the seconds passed, ticking down around her, it became clearer and clearer. Severus might as well have told her that Diriel had skipped town and gone international—because that was all the news meant to her. They simply needed to expand their search.
“Well then… I guess we’re going to Hell.”
Chapter Three
Of all the responses Severus had thought Moira might offer upon learning Diriel had fled to the underworld, that was certainly not one of them.
“What did you…?” When he finally processed what had just come out of her mouth, she was already halfway out the door. “Moira.”
She ignored him, the stubborn creature, and Severus stalked o
ut after her, slowing when he spied Alaric and a still noticeably drunk Ella seated together on the couch.
“Is it true?” Moira demanded, marching right up to the hybrid and blocking him from Severus’s eyeline with her distractingly beautiful figure. “Is Diriel in Hell?”
“Oh, yeah, well, he…” Alaric trailed off once Severus pointedly cleared his throat, then peered around Moira to catch his eye. When Severus’s gaze narrowed, his friend gave a barely discernable nod, and then shook his head up at her. “No, look—”
“It’s not an essay question, Alaric,” Moira snapped, hands planted on her hips as she stepped back and glared between him and Severus. “Is Diriel in Hell? Is that what you two found out today?”
Ella noisily slurped her water, having retreated to the far end of the couch, and Severus hoped the human wouldn’t insert her opinion into all this. Alaric, however, was the one who ended up disappointing him.
“Yes, he’s in Hell.” Alaric stood and skirted around her, shoving his hands in his pockets once he had some space. “My father extracted the intel from one of his inner circle today. That demon wouldn’t lie, not to him.”
The redhead leaned against Severus’s bookshelf, shrugging in response to the irate look he shot him. Moira whirled around, pinning a formidable look of her own directly on Severus.
“Then I guess we’re going to Hell.”
“We are not going anywhere,” he snarled. “Hell is no place for you.”
“Why? Can hybrids not use the gates?”
When he didn’t respond right away, she turned to Alaric. Severus looked to him too, telepathically ordering him to shut his fucking mouth—but his roommate was a wretched liar. Always had been.
“Hybrids can use the gates,” he admitted softly, then crossed his arms when Severus scoffed at him. “Look, I’m sorry, but she has a right to know.”
“Thank you.” Moira shot him a strained smile. “You’re absolutely right. I do have a right to know, and I have a right to go. I refuse to just sit here in this house, waiting for you, not knowing if you’re—”
“Do you know how dangerous it will be?” Severus demanded, crossing the room so that they stood glowering at each other on either side of the coffee table. Neither appeared keen to back down, and now that they had an audience, he couldn’t exactly seduce her into submission—not that it had worked earlier, but he was sure with enough persistence he could persuade her to forget all about it.
Three weeks. Three fucking weeks he’d gone without ravishing her, and it was moments like this, fire blazing between them, that were the hardest. “Moira, you know how dire the situation is here. Can you imagine it in Hell? Diriel fled because there’s an angel on his tail—”
“My dad,” she said curtly. Some of the fight drained out of him, and Severus pressed his lips together tight when he realized they’d fallen apart. Fuck. He hadn’t meant to blurt it out—he’d wanted more proof before he told her. Moira fidgeted with the skirt of her fetching little outfit, glancing between Severus and Alaric quickly before finding a spot elsewhere to focus on. “I know. Diriel told me he was hired by my dad to torture and kill me. He seemed to get a little kick out of it.”
The room fell silent, save for Ella rapidly tapping her nail against her nearly empty glass. Severus yearned to reach out to his hybrid, his blossoming angel. The look on her face—she couldn’t hide the hurt, no matter how even she had learned to keep her voice. All he wanted to do was to wrap her in his arms and hold her until the ache went away.
But then—she had known this very vital bit of information all this time and had never thought to share it with him. The urge to nurture faded, replaced by a swift, white-hot anger that had his hands in fists and his jaw clenched. She should have told him. She had told him nearly everything else, from the way Diriel had dug his talons into her back to the fact that he’d gotten hard when he pierced her nipples. It had pained her, but she had told him, late at night, curled up against him. Moira had been very open with him, and Severus had risked his life, daily, to bring her justice, to bring her vengeance.
How dare she keep this from him?
“Wouldn’t Hell be safer for me?” She slipped around the coffee table and gently grasped his arm. “If we’re worried about angels, then isn’t Hell better than Earth? I’m guessing they don’t exactly roll out the red carpet for angels down there.”
The inner demon rumbled contentedly at the touch, so desperate for any kind of physical contact from her that it could ignore the lunacy of her statement. Severus, however, wasn’t so easily tamed. He shrugged her hand off, pacing toward the stairwell and resting against the railing. She remained right where he’d left her, studying him with that wide-eyed imploring look, the very same she had used when he’d first shattered her world—the one that had plunged into his weak, weak heart and roped him into all this in the first place.
That look might have worked on him then, but she was no longer the wide-eyed ingenue, unaware of the evils of his world. Moira had experienced them firsthand, and now she wanted him to take her into the belly of the beast? Into the epitome of all things vile, the great black pit of treachery and torment?
No. He wouldn’t do it. Severus would move mountains for her, but not this.
“You were not meant for Hell, Moira,” he said softly, hoping that would be the end of it—and knowing that was a fool’s hope. His little hybrid huffed at him, her wide-eyed look vanishing.
“I’m not asking you to move me there permanently,” she told him, her cheeks flushed a pale pink and her eyes seeming to shimmer in the late afternoon sunshine from the nearby window. “Severus, if Diriel is in Hell, then that’s exactly where I need to be. I need to find out who my dad is so I know once and for all who’s really trying to kill me, and after that…Diriel deserves to die.”
“No. It isn’t safe, Moira—”
“Sev, you know the rules are stricter in Hell,” Alaric argued, pushing off the bookcase and crossing the room to stand next to Moira. Fucking traitor. “No one can touch her, especially if she’s a guest of your family. I’m sure they could keep her safe—”
“Haven’t you said enough today?” He seldom ever quarreled with Alaric. They had been good friends and companionable roommates for years now, so to snarl at him—Alaric stepped back as if Severus had taken a swing at him.
But he knew better than to bring up Severus’s family. He knew what those bastards had done to him. He knew nearly every sordid, gory detail, and still he presented the option anyway, encouraging Moira to keep pushing.
“They’re your family,” Alaric said flatly, hands in his pockets and brow furrowed. He wore a similar flush of colour as the hybrid by his side, but they seemed to embolden one another—a united front. “They would keep her safe. It’s been, what, nearly two centuries since you left? Longer, in Hell. People change—”
“Don’t speak about what you don’t know, Alaric. Not all of us are blessed with a father who loves us no matter the defects of our birth.”
“Okay, okay, Severus’s family is neither here nor there,” Moira interjected, physically placing herself between him and Alaric, who appeared completely thrown by Severus’s last comment. Had it really never crossed his mind? Did he not realize how fortunate he was that Verrier even acknowledged him—that he would kill for him, that he forced the boy to dine with him weekly, just the two of them, so he could catch up on his son’s life in peace?
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Alaric muttered, meandering back to the bookshelf. No. You shouldn’t have. The words danced on the tip of Severus’s tongue, but he swallowed them instead. Alaric didn’t deserve his wrath—neither of them did, yet it bubbled up his throat and burned them all the same.
Hell had a way of doing that to him, and the mere mention of his family hadn’t helped.
“It doesn’t matter, Alaric,” he managed. “It’s forgotten.”
He met the hybrid’s gaze briefly, an unspoken conversation flowing between them, o
ne rife with apologies and acceptances, interrupted by Moira’s very long, very drawn out sigh.
“Okay, back to Hell—”
“Moira, honey…”
Severus flinched at the intrusion of a fourth party in this conversation, having nearly forgotten Ella was even there. The woman stood, tugging her short, tight clothing down in the process, and appeared much more stable on her feet this time. With clearer eyes and less slurring in her voice, she addressed Moira and Moira alone. “I don’t want to pick a side here, but I kind of agree with him.”
Severus straightened when she gestured in his direction, though her unimpressed scoff had him pursing his lips rather than smiling triumphantly as he’d initially wanted to.
“I mean, you’re talking about Hell here,” she continued. “Like…fire and brimstone Hell.”
“And you think that doesn’t scare me? You think I’m looking at this like it’s some tropical vacation?” Moira faced Severus again, imploring him to understand. Of course he understood. Did she think him so simple that he couldn’t grasp the nuances of why she would want to be there when they finally tracked Diriel down? Far from the long-reaching grasp of her father, she could find answers and justice in Hell—but Severus couldn’t let her do it. The risk was too great. His parents alone would eat her alive.
“No, Moira, I don’t think that,” Ella insisted, plopping down on the armrest of the couch when it appeared her legs had given up. “But you need to really consider his opinion. These guys are from Hell, and you’re…not.”
“If I can pass through the hell-gate, then I can go to Hell too.” Moira took a step toward Severus, desperation etched plain as day across her face. “Please. I’ll sit in whatever house you tell me to. I’ll wait. I won’t go looking for him, or try to pick a fight, or make a big display, but I need to be there to get the answers I deserve, and…” She inhaled sharply, her lower lip wobbling before she steadied it. “And I deserve to punish the creature who haunts my nightmares.”
