To Hell and Back

by Juliana Stone

  “There,” he said, nodding. “We’ll take the car.”

  They reached the driveway just as the clouds overhead began to seep heavy, fat drops of rain. The car, a small, silver Honda Accord, had more rust along its panels than steel, and Kira thought it would be a miracle if the damn thing actually worked. She looked back toward where they’d come from, her eyes narrowing as she tried to see through the gloom and thick sheets of rain that now fell.

  “I’ll see about the keys.”

  She heard Priest but couldn’t look away from the vision that now emerged from the rain and mist. A shudder wracked her body and she pushed long, wet pieces of hair from her eyes as the fear inside her tripled. Huge, hulking beasts—seven of them—walked through the park in slow, controlled movements. They were flanked by two animals nearly as tall as them—animals that looked an awful lot like Logan’s hellhound form.

  Red eyes burned into the back of her brain and a steady, low hum began to navigate its way along the slick driveway, up her legs, where it settled inside her stomach.

  Hurry!

  The whispered word slipped through her brain and then she yanked on the car door, eyes frantically searching for Priest as he appeared from behind the two-story, white plank house.

  “Hurry!” she shouted hoarsely.

  Priest jumped into the car, cursing as he adjusted the seat to fit his tall frame, and when the engine roared to life, Kira exhaled, her hot breath misting up the window as she tried to see. The rain was now heavier, and the only thing her eyes could pick out were the two sets of burning red eyes—hellhound eyes. They terrified her more than the hulking beasts who accompanied them.

  Images—smells and emotions—assaulted her. She’d been dragged down to the underworld so many years ago and yet it felt like yesterday.. Kira was ashamed when she squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered at the heaviness of it all.

  Would they ever truly go away?

  Her heart was beating so hard it was painful and she gasped, clutching at the door handle as Priest spun out of the driveway and turned right, heading away from the danger.

  They drove in silence, the old car giving all it had to keep up with the relentless pressure Priest applied to the gas pedal. The only sounds in Kira’s ears were the tires humming along asphalt, the splat of rain against the windshield, and the roar of the wind as it buffeted them mercilessly.

  Her chest constricted tightly and she had a death grip on the dagger in her hands as they blew through a stop sign and continued forward. She kept glancing in the sideview mirror but for the moment couldn’t see any sign of their pursuers.

  They were on a rural road and when they came to the next intersection, they were forced to stop as a large blue tractor pulled a load of pumpkins along the road in front of them. The rain had stopped and warmth seeped through the glass windows, though it did nothing to penetrate the cold inside her bones. A long, slow breath fell from between her lips as she gazed ahead at the wagon full of pumpkins.

  “That’s the slowest tractor on the planet,” she muttered.

  Priest remained silent, his jaw clenched, his eyes on the rearview mirror.

  Her fingers gripped the dagger and her foot tapped the floor nervously as the wagon finally cleared enough room for Priest to gun the engine. They zipped across the road and barreled ahead, the silver car’s engine making a grinding noise, no doubt in protest to the relentless pressure to move. Minutes later she relaxed slightly and turned to Priest.

  “I think we lost them.”

  Kira didn’t see the black SUV come from out of nowhere but she sure as hell felt the hit when it crashed into the back of the Accord. The car swerved crazily and slammed into a ditch, where it bounced on impact and went airborne.

  Kira was tossed around like a puppet and for a moment everything went hazy. She felt pain. Smelled blood. She heard cursing—words she didn’t understand. They came from behind her, or maybe ahead of her.

  She struggled to open her eyes but everything was heavy. Chaotic.

  Kira didn’t give in and as the moments ticked past, eventually her eyes slowly opened. She shivered at the sight of three dark forms solidifying in the mist. They moved toward her, and even though Kira wasn’t sure if she believed in a higher power anymore, she said a soft prayer hoping someone would hear her…

  But as the demons moved closer, darkness bled into the hazy red in her mind and a painful groan escaped her lips. And she slipped into oblivion.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  “LOGAN, YOU KNOW I don’t like it when you ignore me.”

  Pain filled every single pore in his body. It seeped into muscle. Leeched into bone. It penetrated the calluses on the bottom of his feet. Even his fucking hair ached.

  “Look at me when I address you.” The petulant tone in Lilith’s voice was gone; it was now steel that propped up her words. Carefully, Logan glanced toward her, hiding the agony he felt as he gazed into the bluest eyes in existence. Her face was exquisite, the poison it hid legendary.

  Logan studied her in silence. It was a cosmic joke, really, that such beauty hid a voracious and sick kind of darkness. Unlike most of the bottom-feeders and midrange demons who populated the underworld, there was no need to glamor her appearance. This visage was the original. The real deal. The woman had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, same as any other woman, yet she was in a class all her own. Her features aligned perfectly.

  Too bad she was toxic. Adam, poor bastard that he was, had never known what hit him.

  “Are you ready to eat?” Her voice was a whisper, the notes heavy with compulsion, and it pissed her off to no end that he was immune to her powers of persuasion.

  He grunted and said nothing.

  Lilith was on her bed, a massive, decadent thing set on top of a large pedestal in the middle of her chambers. Long strips of white, gauzy material floated from the ceiling, surrounding her like wispy tendrils of smoke. She was naked and stretched just so, her generous breasts thrust upward as she arched her back and smiled lazily at him.

  Logan watched from the shadows, his body bruised, bloody, damn near broken—and as naked as she was. “Come here, hellhound.”

  Her voice changed, the subtle compulsion no longer evident. The floor beneath his feet trembled as she sat up and cocked her head to the side. A slight breeze parted the sheer columns of fabric so she was laid bare to him.

  Beside the bed a table overflowed with rotting fruit, their bruised gray-and-black skins nearly liquefied. The incessant buzzing from the flies that were never far from Lilith was like a worm embedded in his brain. It twisted and turned, burrowing deep. It would drive him crazy if he let it.

  A long sigh escaped her lips as her hands fell to her breasts. Scarlet-tipped fingernails tweaked pale pink nipples until they pebbled and hardened, as her cerulean eyes gazed at him hungrily.

  “Now,” she commanded.

  Logan gritted his teeth and slowly moved forward. Each step was pure agony. His muscles had been stretched and pulled to the extreme and his legs felt like they were dead pieces of flesh. As he moved, fresh blood flowed from several long slices into his pectorals, and by the time he reached the bed, a trail of crimson followed him across the cream marble floors.

  The pungent odor of pain, blood, and fear clung to everything. It filled the air so that his sensitive nostrils flared in disgust.

  He kept his hands loose, though his fingers itched to wrap around the bitch’s neck and squeeze until he stole her last breath. Unfortunately, down here in District Three nothing ever died, and the harlot before him was immortal.

  Logan took a moment and centered himself. He kept his mind blank of things she’d be able to probe. He thought of fire and death and pain. They were the things he’d been born into and ones he could easily hide behind.

  Hooded eyes gazed up at him as Lilith slowly ran her tongue across full, cherry-red lips. She rose to her knees and spread her legs slightly and he could tell she was irritated that his gaze remained fi
xed on her eyes instead of traveling downward, seeking the apex of her legs. The corner of her mouth tightened and red flashed in the depths of her eyes.

  He held her gaze for several long moments. Long enough to grab hold of a sliver of satisfaction as her anger increased. He’d pay for it later, but it was enough to keep his fire burning. His anger festering.

  He would see Kira again. There was no other option.

  When he knew he’d pushed Lilith far enough he let his gaze drop. He stared at her as if she were a bug he’d like to crush beneath his feet. Too bad his heels were bare. His kick-ass Docs with their steel-toe ends were long gone but they sure as hell would have done some damage to her pale flesh.

  “You will come to me,” she said pleasantly, as if they were friends.

  Logan’s gaze returned to hers. “Let’s just get this the fuck over with, all right?” There was nothing friendly about this situation.

  “You wound me.” Lilith made a face and gestured into the dark. Immediately a wraithlike creature, tall, slender, merely flesh over bone, appeared with a soft, fluffy, royal-blue robe. She shrugged into it and slid from the bed.

  An invisible piece of lint on the cuff of her robe claimed her attention for a few seconds and then she sighed, head cocked slightly, brow arched. Slowly a smile crept over her mouth and she licked the generous lips salaciously.

  “So,” she began, doe-eyed … dangerous. “Here we are again, hellhound.”

  Logan said nothing. He just watched and waited.

  Lilith held out her perfectly manicured fingers and studied them. “You’re not going to tell me why you were in the gray realm, are you?” Logan stared straight ahead, expression blank.

  She giggled, then stopped abruptly, like the tinkling of a bell that had been squashed.

  “Who’s the girl?”

  His hands fisted in spite of himself and his heart sped up. It was only a second, but her eyes narrowed.

  “It’s always about a girl with you men.” Her hands fell to her sides, the perfectly manicured nails now grown into long, daggerlike talons. Her eyes were now as cold as the arctic.

  “Who’s the girl?” she asked once more, though she didn’t wait for an answer as she glanced behind him and nodded ever so slightly. She knew one was never coming.

  “Oh, Logan, you are a tough nut to crack, but—” She shrugged, eyes round like an innocent child. “It’s so much fun trying, and let’s face it,” she said with a wink, “what else is there for me to indulge in other than pleasure and”—her tongue flicked out from between even, white teeth—“pain.”

  Hot breath fell along his back and Logan someone was there. He glared at the woman with such hatred burning in his depths he was surprised she didn’t flinch. But then why would she? The woman dined on torture and ate fear for dessert.

  Searing pain shot along his left shoulder as a charmed dagger cut through his flesh.

  Lilith grinned and sat on the edge of the chair, a plump cherry in her mouth, a hard glint in her eye. “Dagos,” she addressed the demon behind him. “Our hellhound is still misbehaving. I think you’re going to have to kick it up a notch, no?” She sucked the cherry into her mouth and began to chew it slowly.

  The demon behind him grunted, and it took everything inside Logan to keep quiet, to hold in the scream of pain as the beast jerked the dagger deeper into his flesh. Blood spurted from the wound. It trickled down his waist, over his ass, and slid along thighs and calves before pooling upon an already blood-soaked floor.

  Three more demons just like the one at his back appeared from thin air and slowly advanced toward him. Their hands curled into fists, their eyes eager.

  “Let’s show Logan what happens to bad doggies when they don’t listen to their master.”

  Logan growled fiercely and spoke for the first time. “You are not my master.”

  Lilith licked her lips and spit out the remnants of the cherry. The pit rolled across the floor until it rested against his toe. She stood, stretched, and then settled her hands onto her hips.

  “No,” she said softly.

  The demon to his right plowed a heavy fist into his jaw and Logan’s necked cracked from the force of the blow.

  “I suppose I’m not,” she continued. “But no one knows you’re here, so what does it matter?”

  Logan didn’t have time to catch his breath or even to think of an appropriately snarky reply. The three demons attacked him full on and it was all he could do to keep his sanity—to stay conscious. But eventually even that failed, and hours later he was tossed like a bag of garbage onto Lilith’s bed.

  When her demons left, the statuesque blonde cuddled up to Logan’s beaten, bloody, and broken body and slowly began to lick the blood from his skin. She curled into his side like she belonged there, like she had every right to touch him. It gave her perverse pleasure, the act of breaking something as magnificent as Logan Winters.

  So much so, that she wasn’t even all that interested in why he’d been in the gray realm. Or who the woman he’d supposedly taken was. Not anymore. Her focus had shifted. She would break him. Maybe keep him as a pet for a while. At least he wasn’t boring like the pathetic creatures she’d collected of late.

  And the hellhound had staying power, which meant she had hours of torture to look forward to. In a world where the monotony of her existence was getting to be just a little too much, that was priceless.

  Lilith hummed a tune and twisted her fingers in the thick hair that waved and matted against her neck. She rested her head on his chest. Listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart. She hoped he would recover soon, so they could play again. She wondered what it would feel like when he eventually broke—when he eventually fucked her like all the others she’d had. Her insides quivered at the thought.

  And deep within the recesses of his mind, Logan slipped away to a place that would help him heal. A magical place no one could enter save he and his mate.

  Thank God for fucking miracles.

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  THE SKY WAS as blue as a robin’s egg.

  Kira was on her back, gazing up at that perfect sky, one dotted with small bits of cotton-candy clouds. For the moment there was no sound. No pain. No fear. There was nothing but those fluffy clouds and the warmth of the sun on her cheeks.

  Somewhere nearby an insect buzzed. The noise started as nothing more than a mere annoyance, but then it filled her ear and the tone changed. It crashed through her, and Kira realized it wasn’t an insect at all. It was too sharp and growing louder by the second.

  She turned her head to the side and winced as shards of pain hit. As her eyes focused, the pain increased and she was helpless to stop it.

  Crumpled metal. A tire on its side. Glass everywhere. The smell of gasoline.

  The sound she heard was the dying engine of the silver Honda Accord. What was left of it, anyway. Several feet away stood three men. They pointed toward the wreckage and talked amongst themselves. Their dialect was crude, otherworld, and she knew without a doubt they hailed from below. From the Hell realm. She felt their darkness. It thickened the air and clogged her lungs.

  Her heart sped up. A shot of adrenaline rushed through her veins and for a moment she tensed, a bird about to take flight. But then common sense prevailed and Kira realized she needed to stay calm. In control. Everything Logan had told her, every single warning, nugget of advice, and defensive move he’d taught her over the last two weeks settled in her mind.

  She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, her eyes never leaving the enemy. She ignored the stab of pain that accompanied thoughts of Logan. She couldn’t go there. Not right now. There would be time to dwell on him and the implications of his disappearance later. Right now she needed to survive.

  Kira didn’t make a sound, but carefully moved all her fingers and toes. She’d been thrown from the car, and other than a nasty headache, didn’t seem to be hurt.

  The car was upside down in the ditch and it made a crun
ching noise as the weight of it shifted. This alarmed the demons and she quickly lowered her eyes as one glanced her way before following the others toward the wreckage. She had no idea if Priest had survived the crash and for a moment panic nearly overwhelmed her.

  How was she going to get out of this? If Priest was dead then she was on her own in a world where no one was what they seemed. The only person she trusted was Logan.

  She took a second. Pushed the panic away. Kira was in the middle of a fall paradise, complete with a field of pumpkins to her right, and farther beyond, a forest of multicolored trees. All the colors of fall dusted the tops of them, swaying slightly, leaves falling to the ground as the wind picked up.

  A forest. Trees. If she could make it there, she might have a chance.

  She shifted slightly and relief flooded her when her fingers brushed against the sharp edge of the dagger she’d grabbed earlier. She clutched the handle and held tight as the demons rocked what was left of the twisted metal, all of them eager to get to what was inside. They didn’t seem to care about her for the moment, but then why should they? She was human. It was the guy with her who would bear the brunt of their anger. Three against one? Not great odds.

  And then they’d come for her.

  She felt sorry for him—if in fact he was still alive—but at the moment her main focus was herself and the unborn child nestled deep inside her body. She knew he was there. Some might think it was a crazy assumption. She’d been with Logan for only a month, but she knew. She felt him—felt his spirit. And it was the babe growing inside her who gave Kira the strength to focus and to leave.

  The low rumbling of the demon’s words all of a sudden sparked, and growls rent the air as a loud scraping noise accompanied their shouts.

  Kira chanced one glance toward the car and saw that Priest had crawled from beneath its twisted mess, a long sword in his hand and blood flowing freely down his forehead. It did nothing to detract from the dangerous air around him. In fact, it enhanced it. He brandished his weapon and snarled, and for a second Kira didn’t know who looked scarier, the demons or the man who faced them.