What you seek is long gone.What you see is but a shadow of what once was.
Damon’s words from earlier rolled in his head. The male trawled easily enough through the Dark Realm.
Last fall, when they’d had to rescue Echo after the demon had abducted her, Damon had been pissed, but only with his help did they find her. He seemed to know things most immortals wouldn’t.
The cryptic words suddenly took on a new meaning.
No way. But hope was a bitch, and a relationship that seemed impossible hovered on the horizon. One he’d do anything for. He turned to Maloch, who’d braced his arm on a protruding rock, his avaricious gaze pinned on Blaéz like a parasite.
“You want a year, I want to see it.”
A guileful expression settled on Maloch’s face. “Very well.” He lowered his hand to his crotch and unzipped his pants. His cock poked out through the opening like an anemic worm.
Blaéz merely stared at him.
“It will happen,” he promised, zipping up again. “Youwillcome to me all on your own.”
Blaéz hadn’t in three and a half thousand years, why did the fucker think he would now?
No longer pretending not to understand what Blaéz wanted, Maloch snapped his fingers. A small, glowing, black metal box appeared in his palm. He stroked the outer casing. “I feel its power…”
His dark irises bled into the rest of his eyes, morphing into black pits of evil. Flames flickered inside. “For making demands of me, with no payment…”
Another snap of his fingers and a human appeared in front of them. The screams started. A scaly, horned demon nearby grabbed the male with a red t-shirt—the man Blaéz had seen hours ago—and chained him to the wall. The human wasn’t damned or dead. The monster’s talons lashed out. Fabric shredded. Strips of skin peeled off the male’s back. More soul-destroying shrieks layered the dense air.
“Kill him. Set his soul free, or he’ll stay there. I’ll heal him and start the process again.”
“Why? He’s not damned.”
“Because I feel like it. And because you think you can order me,” Maloch retorted. “However, give me what I want and it all stops.”
Sayyesand become this prick’s fuck toy? Just so he’d have his soul back?
Blaéz turned to the mortal and lashed out, the whip unfurled in a deadly crackle, severing the carotid. The poor bastard would at least have peace now.
Maloch smirked, and it ignited something within Blaéz. For millennia, he’d been yanked here with no way out, taken innocent lives. Now, the one person he wanted he couldn’t claim because of his tie to this psycho. As those thoughts swirled in his mind, Blaéz broke through the hold that had stayed his hand since the first time he’d attacked Maloch and lashed out with the fiery whip. The tail end licked around Maloch’s arm. Flesh slid off in a chunk. Blood poured.
Maloch roared and flashed away. The metal container fell to the stony ground in a thunk. The lid flew open. An orb of glowing light hovered in the air. Blaéz dove for his soul. Instead of coming to him, it fizzled and dissipated into the sulfuric air.
Another truth settled inside him. “You don’t have it.”
“Then how do I summon you?” Maloch blasted him back with a flick off his hand. Blaéz hit the wall, pain strumming up his spine. Maloch snatched the whip back. “Did you think I’d open the box with your true soul around you?”
Ear-splitting chaos erupted. Animal-like, hairless beasts with red-hued skin and black talons fell on Blaéz, shredding his skin. Vicious pain tore through him. He welcomed the agony. It gave him the momentum he needed. Detonating several monsters on him with a thought, Blaéz propelled free and hurled himself at Maloch, slamming his fist in the demon’s face. Bones crunched.
Indeed, cage fighting had its perks.
“This isn’t over,”Maloch snarled, blood gushing from his broken nose. “I will find what’s closest to you and destroy it!”
“Over my dead body.” And since he couldn’t die— he snatched a demon’s axe, jumped onto a ledge and flung his body off, hurtling into the air with his weapon swinging. Heads rolled, bodies turning to black sludge. Maloch swung the fiery whip like a lariat, Blaéz dodged, but the tail caught him dead across his back. Pain simmered as his flesh split.
“Don’t you know pain is what drives me?” Blaéz released the axe with deadly aim, but, unfortunately, the trajectory was skewed as demons jumped him. Maloch evaded death, the weapon slicing him in the shoulder instead. Maloch screeched.
Jacked on his own pain, Blaéz tore through the demons around him, turning them to ash, and went after Maloch. He flashed out from the cavern. Blaéz skidded to a halt, panting heavily.
The cavern began to waver…Blaéz shook his head to clear the fog inside his skull and staggered.
Demons and monstrous beasts rushed him, sensing his fault line. He was weakening, his strength waning from his wounds. He had to get out of here before he passed out and set himself up as a prize for the scourges.
