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Him.

I haven’t seen that face since Hell decided it couldn’t break me and threw me topside instead.

He hasn’t changed.

Same calm face, same red eyes, the same bastard standing there looking at me like the centuries between then and now mean absolutely nothing.

My hellhound pushes hard beneath my skin—he remembers too.

For one long second, I’m not standing naked in a collapsing chamber in New Hampshire. I’m somewhere underground, young, starving, and furious, listening to voices explain in patient, bored tones exactly who I belong to.

Then he smiles, easy as a man greeting an old employee. “Still disobedient, I see.” His red eyes travel down me, taking in the blood, the bruises, and the fact that my cock is hanging out on display before coming back to my face. “Still overdressed for Hell, though.”

That does it.

My hellhound comes up through my chest like a struck match, burning through the memory before it can take hold.

I am not that chained animal anymore.

I never will be again.

He expects my eyes to stay on him. Waiting for me to posture, to snarl, to give him the confrontation he clearly walked through Hell’s front door expecting.

He doesn’t get it.

I cross the chamber straight to Echo, ignoring him completely, and drop to my knees in front of her so I can get both hands on her face, checking her jaw, her throat, the trembling line of her shoulders for anything that shouldn’t be there. She’s shaking, and not from the heat rolling off the chasm. Something has torn through her from the inside, and she’s staring at me like she’s already decided she doesn’t deserve to be touched this gently.

“I b-broke the b-binding,” she says, and her voice cracks straight down the middle. “Carnage, I b-broke it.”

I don’t understand, not until her eyes drop to the chasm and she forces the rest out through her teeth. “All of it went d-down.”

My hellhound understands before she finishes the sentence. The hollow place under my ribs, the one Malgrave carved out and left behind, stretches wider, and I know without needing to check that most of what he stole from me just got poured straight into Hell.

I grab her arms, checking them over before my hands move to her face.

She’s here.

She’s breathing.

No blood on her throat.

Good.

Echo catches my wrists. “Carnage.” Something in her voice stops me. Her eyes are glassy when they meet mine. “I fucked up.”

My brow pulls down.

“I heard you inside the binding. Your hellfire, your roar, all of it.” Her fingers tighten around my wrists. “So, I called to you. I thought if your power could hear me, I could pull it away from Malgrave. Pull it back to you.”

I glance toward the chasm.

“And it w-worked.” Her voice cracks. “You heard me. Your power started coming toward me, and I kept singing because I thought…” She swallows hard. “Fuck! I thought I was getting you back.” Her eyes drop. “I wasn’t.”

I catch her chin before she can turn away from me.

“The binding started breaking. Malgrave told me a Hellwarden can make one, strengthen it, move it between realms, but once he seals it, he can’t open it again.” Her gaze flicks toward the Devil. “That’s why they needed me.”

My hand stills against her face, but Echo’s breath shakes on the way out. “My voice was the key.”