Nala’s white, wolfish fur flashes before my eyes as she pounces, her jaw crushing into his head and ripping it clean off, blood splattering everywhere and staining her fur.
Then her yellow eyes fall on me, and I wait for her to rip me to shreds—to end this suffering and my chance of saving Sable.
Instead, she sniffs at a presence who has yet to shift into a hound. Her companion snaps the shackles free from my wrists and catches me as I drop to the ground.
Rubbing at the tender, red flesh of my skin, I pause and look over at Tony’s body, slumped and unmoving on the ground. I hurry to him, but when I roll him onto his back, I let out a harrowing sound as his head topples from his body and rolls to my feet.
Unseeing eyes stare back at me.
“No,” I say, my jaw shaking as rage builds. Human anger is nothing to these demons, but my hands fist anyway, and I glare over at the army of guards hurtling toward us. Backup must’ve been sent, because the entirety of Hell shakes from the stampede across the courtyard.
Nala nudges my arm with her head.
“The castle,” she growls. “Your girl.”
No. She can’t be. If Sable is there, then the likeliness of her being alive is slim to none.
“She’s upthere?”
Nala nods then pounces on the guard who’s reached us, sinking her claws into its face and yanking its head clean off. She’s out for blood as Tony lies dead on the ground.
All the hellhounds are shifting into their beast forms now and attacking the guards.
Screams pierce my ears, and I surge forward, blood splattering my face as a hound flies by me with a leg missing.
Fuck.
There’s a goddamn war going on in Hell.
A ball of flame misses me by inches, the heat singeing the hairs on my arm as I drop to the ground and cover my head. I throw myself behind a broken wall just before another ball of flame can hit me.
A roar follows, then a cry from a hound, and I look down to see a melee of bodies as the hounds fight for their fallen brother. A demon has a hound by the throat, readying himself to throw it at me.
Until Nala snaps him in half.
I slip away from behind the wall and continue running up the last of the stairs until the view of the dungeon below is gone. I reach the door—surprisingly, it’s unlocked and easy to push open. The sounds of screams and roars and flames swirling around Hell go mute as the door slams shut behind me.
And there she is.
Sable.
Wrists shackled to the ceiling as mine were, her eyes open but in a trance, sweat coating her skin as her body rattles, seizing in place.
A shadow looms over my shoulder, and I freeze.
Slowly turning around, I’m met with red eyes, a tall figure crowding the doorway with blood dripping from its black fangs and staining its chin. The rancid smell of rotting flesh fills the room—Its fur is matted and gray, singed from the inferno circling around It.
“Lincoln,” It says, deep and hollow.
The sound has me straightening, my body tense to stop my shaking.
Fear. Terror. My own nightmare about to restart as I look into the eyes of the Devil.
Now that I’m human, It towers over me as It steps into the small room, taking up most of it. Its claws retract, and It lets out a low growl. “You smell pitiful as a human.”
“Let her go.”
“I’ve watched you,” It continues, Its back a crooked arch, Its spine protruding from its flesh. “Lincoln Taylor. Son of Tabby,brother of Dylan. Human turned demon turned human, in love with the woman you murdered in cold blood.”
