Everything around him seemed to fade out as her sweet face filled his vision. Her bright eyes turned sultry as she slowly blinked, looking up at him through her lashes. Her breath smelled sweet, like a cinnamon roll. Colt got lost in the moment. Damn, he just wanted a taste. Just one more taste. The tips of her curls tickled the side of his neck as he leaned in to kiss her.
A low, feral growl issued from behind him and brought reality back into sharp focus. Sulfur suffused the air. The hairs on his head all tightened, making his scalp prickle and itch almost as hard as his gun hand. He gazed into the darkness over his shoulder, unable to pick out anything except a glowing pair of red eyes, chest height, tucked in tight against the rock, but approaching them slowly, black against darker black.
As the dark beast entered the edge of the yellow oil lamp light, Colt could make out the massive shoulders and ridge of raised black hair along the hellhound’s back. More importantly, he could see the grizzly bear–sized mouth full of bared, glistening dagger-like teeth just beneath the scarlet eyes, which flickered with the glow of red-hot coals in a campfire.
The thing was the size of a buffalo, black as night and as angry as a pissed-off mama bear. Its sides bellowed in and out, its breath a stinking wind that reeked of sulfur. It stalked them slowly and deliberately, laying down one massive paw in front of the other, dark curving nails clacking against the rock floor.
Normally hellhounds came after you when they were guarding something, an entrance to Hell, something of supernatural significance, or hunting down a soul bound for damnation. He’d never fought off a hellhound before, but based on the description he was pretty damn certain the creature eyeing him like a prime cut of steak was one. He knew of only one Hunter who had fought a hellhound and managed to survive. That was if you called missing both legs and having half a face that hung in limp chunks survival.
Without hesitating he whipped out his revolver and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing happened. The Colt revolver had misfired.
Shit.
His stomach shriveled into a tight, uncomfortable knot as his brain spun searching for options to defend them against the beast. “Dammit. Must be wet. Any suggestions for dealing with a hellhound?”
“No.”
He threw her an incredulous look. “You’re the Darkin here. I thought they’d at least give you some idea how to deal with your own kind.”
Her brows knitted and mouth hardened. “Normally we don’t have to. They only sic the hellhounds on people they want brought back dead or alive, but preferably dead. You could try to bargain with it.”
“Bargain with it! Are you insane?”
She shrugged. “Good dog. Nice dog.” She materialized a thick-cut raw hunk of steak and shook it.
The hellhound shifted its glowing red eyes in Miss Arliss’s direction, but flattened its ears tighter against its buffalo-sized skull. She tossed the steak into the darkness behind the hellhound. It snapped as the steak sailed past, but didn’t go after it. Instead it growled low and deep. The vibration of it reached right through Colt’s gut and rattled his spine. “Not interested in steak.”
“Really? Hadn’t noticed,” she said dryly.
“No reason to settle for an appetizer when you’ve got a full course and dessert sitting in front of you, I suppose.”
“At least there’s only one of them.” Lilly scooted back, but kept her hand latched firmly on Colt’s forearm and her eyes keenly focused on the hellhound stalking them.
She really had only two options. A: she could help the Hunter send the hellhound back to the depths from which it spawned, or B: she could let it take him. The problem was, if she let it take him, she’d still have to find the door he was searching for herself and she’d be no closer to getting rid of her ties to Rathe and getting back to being human. Therefore, there was really only one option—beat back the hound. This was going to hurt.
“Watch out for its teeth.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” His tone was condescending and irritated.
“No. It’s the venom. They aren’t just razor sharp. They’ve got a fast-moving acid that paralyzes the victim, but allows them to continue to feel all the pain.”
“Nice to know. Suppose that’ll leave you to clean up the mess when it’s done chewing on me.”
She glanced at him, daring to take her gaze off the hound for only a second. “It works on Darkin and mortal alike, lethal to both. So if you want my help, you’re in this fight too.”
Colt eyed her suspiciously, but she knew he was smart enough not to argue with her. “So how do you plan on getting out of this?”
“Any way I can.”
“So pretty much kill it or die trying.”
“Pretty much.” Lilly steeled herself for the fight and materialized a whip from thin air. Bright red flames licked down the length of the black leather lash.
Colt’s eyes gleamed in the flickering firelight. “Do I get one of those?”
She obliged, and with a shimmering of the air Colt held a twin to her whip. He tested the grip in his hands as he stared down the hellhound.
“Ever use one of these before?” She pulled back and let the whip snap. The gunshot-like crack echoed off the rock walls. The hellhound stepped back one pace and snarled.
Colt’s avid expression made her hope dwindle. “Nope. Guns are more my thing.” All eagerness and no experience meant he was likely to end up maimed or dead.
“It’s all in the wrist. Keep your elbow and wrist loose. Flick it at the last moment. Follow my lea—”
Colt pulled the whip back and let it snap. The end flew back, pulling a strip of shirt and skin off his shoulder. The rest of the pale blue cotton around the wound caught on fire, and he hastily patted it out as he cursed.
“Damn touchy, aren’t they?”
Lilly barely had time to mutter under her breath before the hellhound lunged, snapping at Colt. She pulled the whip around her, keeping her movement fluid and supple until at the last instant she flicked her wrist and let the flaming end fly. The whip curved through the air.
Crack.
It snapped across the beast’s three-foot-wide nose, stripping off a ribbon of black flesh. The hound howled and snarled, swiveling toward her, red eyes glaring.
A second later two more pairs of red glowing eyes appeared in the darkness behind it.
“Oh, this just keeps getting better and better,” Colt muttered. “Three of them?”
They closed ranks, the two hounds in the back right on haunches of the irascible lead dog, filling the breadth of the cavern, their mingled growls rumbling the cavern enough to send down a shower of rock dust from overhead.
“The more, the scarier,” she replied. Damn. Damn. Damn. If this was Rathe’s sick idea of a joke, it sure wasn’t making her laugh. Three hellhounds? Wasn’t that a bit of dramatic overkill, even for a demon lord? Lilly muttered a few choice curses underneath her breath.
“I’ll take the one on the right. You get the one on the left.” Colt shifted his stance, preparing to strike.
“What about the one in the middle?”
“Greedy, are we?”
“No. Just didn’t want you to forget we had extra helpings for dessert.”
Colt gave her a wicked grin. “Just the way I like it.”
Men. Always hungry for more.
Lilly focused on the hellhound in front of her. She let the whip fly. The fiery lash made an orange arc in the air, striking the hound’s cheek and nearly taking out one of its glowing red eyes. The beast roared.
Crack.
She heard Colt’s whiplash echo in the air. Together they held the three hellhounds at bay.
“Try circling to see if we can get behind them.” Colt’s cool tone belied his focus. Together they lashed and drew back, a deadly duel with the three hellhounds as they adjusted their position so that the hounds were now in the direction of the waterfall, and the untried tunnel and unexplored second cavern at their backs.
The hellhound snapped at her. She jumped, avoiding the poisonous fangs. She pulled back the whip and let it fly again. But as it sailed backward, it struck an unintended target.
Colt cursed loudly. She glanced back to see his gun hand tucked beneath the pit of his other arm and his gun lying in the dust. He was glaring at her as hard as the hellhounds surrounding them were. “You might warn me before you strike.”
The hellhound he’d been fighting bit the whip, grabbing it like a toy, shaking Colt violently.
“Let go of the whip!” she yelled at him. He did and dropped fifteen feet to the dirt.
Momentarily preoccupied, she failed to notice that hellhound number three had joined up with the lead hound in the center and they were nearly nose to nose, mouth to mouth, with her in the center, a bone to be fought over.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Lilly pulled back the whip, hoping to lash them both, but the hellhound closest knew that whip and moved a split second before the lash connected with it. It snapped at the whip, catching it between its enormous teeth and ripping it out of her hand like a plaything. It shook the whip, striking the second hound and nearly striking her in the process with the swinging handle, then tossed the offending item across the cavern. It roared in irritation, then raised one massive paw in the air, moving to squash her flat.
She hit the dirt and rock floor of the cavern with a thud that shoved the air out of her lungs like a punch to the gut. There wasn’t time to think on it. A giant paw was coming down toward her. Fast. She rolled to the side, narrowly missing becoming ooze between the hellhound’s toes.
She shoved the curtain of hair out of her face and spotted Colt’s revolver in the dust and scrabbled for it. “Colt!”
He’d risen from the cavern floor and swiveled in her direction. She tossed the revolver in the air. For an infinite moment it seemed to hang suspended in slow motion just like her stomach, weightless and fluttering with uncertainty. The hellhound closest to her snapped at it, but missed. Colt caught the revolver and with long-honed reflexes cocked it and fired in one lightning-fast motion. The dead center of the hellhound’s head exploded with a fist-sized hole, splattering the wall just above her head with black ooze and chunks of hellhound gray matter.
“Duck!” He fired off two more shots in rapid succession, landing one in the center of the hellhound’s hip and taking down the third hound with a shot to the throat. The howl of pain from the giant beast rattled the rock walls. The beasts then erupted into a blaze of fire one after the other. She had to raise her arm to stave off the broiling heat. The mine shaft acted like a funnel. Fire shifted, moving with lightning quickness toward them, obliterating everything in its path.
There was no time to think. He caught her by the arm as he ran past her down the dark tunnel, and she pumped her arms and legs hard and fast to keep up with him.
The gnashing of giant teeth, agonized howls, and the crackle of the fire started to fade as the darkness consumed them. The stench of burned fur and flesh lingered thickly in the air, a noxious cloud making them gasp and wheeze. They both were out of breath and doubled over by the time they stopped.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
A feeble blue light emitted from the coil illuminator.
Colt stared at Miss Arliss with amazement, his chest still heaving. Her face was unnaturally pale and the demon glow of her eyes obvious in the bluish light. “You just helped me send those hounds back to Hell.”
Still breathing hard, she shoved back an unruly tendril of dark red hair that had come loose in the scuffle. “Well, I couldn’t let them take you to Hell when we were this close, now could I? Besides, I’ve never really liked hellhounds. They stink.” Her elegant nose scrunched up.
“But it was your own kind.” His tone echoed his suspicion.
“Darkin—yes, but not like me.” She folded her hands together, as if unsure of what to do with them. “I don’t want to be a Darkin any longer. I’ve never wanted to be one, but I had no choice.”
His brow bent. This was the first he’d ever heard of a supernatural who didn’t want to be one. Pa had never mentioned it was even possible. Perhaps it was a trick. “What do you mean? Don’t most demons become demons by choice?”
“More like by bargains badly made. We all think there’s a way out, until you find out there isn’t.”
“So what did you bargain for?”
“I saved my little sister from becoming a whore to support us.”
Colt launched into a coughing fit and pounded his chest with his fist. Hell’s bells. He certainly hadn’t seen that coming. “Can’t say as I’ve ever heard a lady be so blunt before.”
She gave a shrug of her dainty shoulders, but her eyes still held shadows of the past. “I haven’t had the luxury of being a miss with delicate sensibilities. Not when I was mortal, and certainly not now.”
If she weren’t a succubus she would’ve been damned near the perfect woman. Soft sensuality and feminine curves over a core of iron-hard determination and stamina—a woman who wouldn’t wilt every time a supernatural came near—a woman who could cope with the Hunter life.