Twins. Týr should have known. “I’m not his keeper.”
“Here.” Riley pulled a pouch from his pants’ pocket and dropped it on the table. The male didn’t look at it, but he lost the cockiness, his expression grim as he folded his arms over the backrest of his chair. “Mount Algolaith. It’s where they are.”
“Shit,” Riley muttered. “The damn lower level.”
It wasn’t a question, but Dare nodded.
Týr knew squat about this realm. Even the hellhole he’d been incarcerated in had been a blur. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Trouble.” Riley scrubbed his face, exhaling a massive breath. “Algolaith is close to the gateways to the Seven Circles of Hell.”
Right. Why would anything ever be straightforward?
“Were anyhumankids brought in recently?” Týr directed a don’t-fuck-with-me stare at the male.
Dare shrugged. “There’re always deliveries coming from the mortal world. Not sure about the young, but there have been rumblings if you know who to ask.”
Yeah, those damn demonii or the blood drinkers.
“There is an easier way inside, something right up your vicious alley.” Dare shot Týr a shark-like grin. “Fight.”
“It’s likely, considering what we want to do,” Riley said.
“Not in Algolaith.” Dare shook his head. “Everything’s watched over by some real vile individuals.”
A moan drifted from the den of depravity. Bile tracked up Týr’s throat. His fingers tightened on the goblet, impatience bleeding into him, needing to be gone from this damn dwelling. “Regardless. It’s still a fucking fight, whichever way it’s delivered. We kick their asses, get the kids, and get the hell out.”
Dare cocked a brow at Týr. “This is the demon world. You think it’s all straightforward here?”
“Hold on.” Riley narrowed his eyes. “Is that the place I’ve been hearing about? The arena where anything goes?”
“If you mean death fights? Indeed.”
Týr shot to his feet, his lungs shutting down. He needed to get out of this fucking suffocating joint. Louder cries and pants filled the tavern. “When?”
“There’s one at midnight. Just so you know, it’s real brutal, pretty boy—”
Týr spun back, his fist smashing into the dumbass’s face. Dare flew off the chair and landed on the floor. He leaped to feet and swiped the blood dripping from his split lip. “Réomer, your friend is rather volatile.”
“Yeah. Long journey.”
Teeth gritted, Týr strode out of the den of iniquity before he truly lost his shit and tore everything apart. Moments later, he slowed down at the side of the gloomy building and slumped against the wall.
“A bidding, a bidding,”millennia-old roars crowded in his head.I always love this part,” his demon assassin hissed. “Who will it be this time, males or females wanting a worthless, one-handed loser?”
Fates. Týr squeezed his eyes tight, struggling to shut off his turbulent mind, but the fucking ghostly mirage had him in a stranglehold…
“Sssso, what do we have here?”
At the thick, sibilant tone, Týr’s head shot up, his heart slamming against his ribs. A dozen or so unfamiliar, sinewy, red-skinned demons, wearing only pants surrounded him. Ram-like horns curled back from their protruding brows and over their hairless heads. Flat, yellow eyes gleamed in anticipation.
Don’t engage—don’t fight—
“You think you’re too good for the likes of us? A contemptible Fallen? You ignore us?”
A sizzling energy-bolt struck Týr like a ten-ton truck hurtling into him, and nailed him to the building. Held in the vicious memories of his past, power zinged beneath his skin.
“You don’t belong in this world,” the shit-stirrer sneered.
