Hellfire heist, p.1
Hellfire Heist, page 1
Hellfire Heist
Bella Klaus
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by Bella Klaus
Copyright © 2021 by Bella Klaus.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
Chapter One
You know that jumping-off-the-dive-board feeling when you’re about to die and you see your entire life flashing before your eyes? Maybe you can get the drift, because that was exactly how my insides felt when I realized that the enchantment altering my appearance had reversed.
I sat on the mattress, stark-bollock naked, still trembling from the aftershocks of my orgasm. A lock of my original blonde hair fell to my face, and I tucked it behind my ear, already feeling my features were less delicate.
Griff stood three feet away, his back braced against the fabric wall of our pop-up shelter. His broad chest rose and fell like bellows, looking like he was building himself up to a hurricane of wrath.
Meanwhile, Beki, my sweet innocent wolf, tried to hide in the furthest corner of my soul. Gulping, I tried not to show any weakness. She'd warned me to confess my identity to Griff, but I’d been so swept away by the knowledge that he hadn’t betrayed me that I had let him give me oral even though he thought I was someone else.
My lips parted with an excuse, but he curled his lip with a snarl that made me clamp my mouth shut.
The floor vibrated with the force of his fury. It was so powerful that even the mattress trembled.
I couldn’t blame Griff. In his place, learning that he’d just had sex with someone who’d lied about their identity, I would be livid.
Hell, I’d been in a similar situation back in 1977 when Griff had fucked the alpha out of me and stolen my pack. When I went looking for my supposed mate, I found him under a pile of naked women, and he banished me and everyone I cared for from the pack, the mansion, and our village.
At the time, I’d done more than just growl. I had shot him in the kneecaps, beaten the shit out of him with my claws and fists, and shot him again in the chest before setting him alight. According to Hades, I had danced a jig on his charred corpse.
I had no recollection of having done that part, even though the demons had replayed me stomping around the room when the enforcers had come to carry out my arrest.
“You,” Griff snarled.
My throat spasmed. What on earth did you say to a man who just professed his love, thinking I was someone other than his psychotic murderer?
“Griff,” I whispered. “It’s not what you think.”
He bared his teeth, which looked like they were half-shifting, and he curled his hands into fists. “Explain yourself.”
Words tumbled to the back of my throat, but my sense of self-preservation pushed them back. All I could muster was, “What do you want to know?”
“You were her all along.” His handsome features twisted as he spat out the word, “Cathwulf Aibek.”
It wasn’t even a question.
I shuffled forward on the mattress, trying to close the distance between us. If I could forgive him for sleeping with those women, could he have it in his heart to forgive my transgressions? “Yes, but—”
“Stop.” He raised a palm.
I paused.
Griff’s lips trembled. “Come closer, and I will wrap my hands around your neck and tear off your lying head.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Listen, I’m sorry for what I did—”
“Silence,” he snarled with a burst of alpha power that made me flinch.
My insides tightened into knots. He’d never used that magic against me. Irritation rippled across my skin. Even though logic dictated that the power had come from Fenrir, part of me still felt that was the alpha magic he had stolen from me.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked. “You demanded an explanation, and when I tried to speak, you silenced me with your magic.”
His nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed a dangerous shade of yellow that reminded me of Hellfire.
Without meaning to, I did what I usually did when challenged. I rose off the mattress, curled my fists, and took a step toward Griff.
And he recoiled.
My stomach dropped. It was the same reaction someone would make in the face of a festering corpse. Was I really that revolting?
He turned toward the exit of our shelter and unzipped its door.
“Where are you going?” I whispered.
“I would rather be caught by Hades himself than spend a moment longer with you.” Without a backward glance or a fuck-you-and-goodbye, he stepped out into the dead forest.
As I hurried to the exit, I slipped on his hoodie and picked it up. By the time I managed to poke my head out of my shelter, he was already halfway into the one next door, where we had set the Hellhounds to rest for the night.
A red haze covered the sky, with streams of demonic light filtering through the dead forest, making it seem like it was writhing with spirits.
“Shit,” I whispered. “What are we going to do?”
Beki’s sharp bark was a warning that I couldn’t let our mate run into the forest while the demons were still hunting us. Griff had told me they usually spent forty-eight hours looking for intruders and that we were going to stay here for seventy-two. Less than two hours had passed since the patrol had inspected the area of our tents, and they were bound to be close by.
He emerged moments later, still shirtless and leading the alpha Hellhound.
“Griff,” I whispered.
“Don’t come near me,” he snarled without glancing in my direction.
“You’re leaving?”
He tossed a pair of saddlebags over his hound and mounted him.
I hurled his hoodie at his chest. “If you’re going to strand me in the middle of Hell, at least cover yourself up,” I snarled. “The last thing I need is to hear you screaming like a bitch when the demons capture you.”
His gaze snapped to my direction, and I straightened, waiting for him to speak.
But Griff didn’t even look at me. He only pulled on his hoodie and galloped away.
Beki sagged, her tail tucked between her legs. The heavy feeling in my stomach told me she was too depressed to whimper or howl.
I turned my gaze to the black Hellhound disappearing into the trees, my jaw tightening.
Griff had risked everything, including his pack, to go looking for Katie the pink-haired wolf. He’d even professed his love to her and pleasured her with his talented tongue. As soon as he discovered that Katie was his original mate, he was happy to leave me to the demons.
Beki growled.
“Okay,” I snapped. “There’s more to the story than just that, and I screwed up.”
She gave me a questioning bark with an extra hint of accusation.
I ducked back into the shelter and slipped on my leggings and knickers. “And I didn’t listen to you when you said I should open up to him. I didn’t listen to Dad, either.”
She nodded, seeming satisfied that I was taking responsibility.
“But can we save the recriminations for later, if we ever escape this shit hole?” I pulled on my tank top, shouldered on my hoodie, and reattached the ammunition he had draped over my shoulders at the hideout. “If you haven’t guessed by now, Hades has worked out that I’ve betrayed him.”
Another questioning bark, but this one was laced with confusion.
I sat on the inflatable mattress, pulled on my boots, and walked around the bed to release its enchantment. “Why else would Healer Iaso’s cosmetic enhancement suddenly fail?”
Beki sent me images from every Disney movie or cartoon that involved a curse breaking with true love’s kiss.
“No, it’s not because we had sex or connected our souls.” I gave my head a vigorous shake and packed both deflated beds into a spare saddlebag. “Hades was expecting us to seduce Griff for information. I should have told Marianna that the pack was planning a raid, and I didn’t. That’s why he pulled the magic.”
She growled.
“Well, he never once lied about not being a bastard,” I said with a shrug. “Demon King is pretty self-explanatory.”
After stepping outside, I folded up the shelter and sent Dad a silent word of thanks for making me set up camp all those times we went out on big hunts. He’d told me it was important for learning independence, even though I’d thought he was just being lazy. Turned out that all that knowledge he’d given me had prepared me for the moment I would be stranded in Hell.
By the time I stuffed the huge tent in the saddlebag, there was no space for the second one, so I made my way inside, where Glinda sat on her front like a sphinx.
She tilted her head to the side and gave me a quizzical stare. Of course, she was confused. I looked like a
Glinda leaned forward, her wet nose pressing against my knuckles. She reared back, her jaws parting with shock.
“It’s really me.” I took a tentative step toward her, remembering how she had bitten Tansy and put an end to the life of the body she’d inhabited.
When Glinda showed no sign of aggression, I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my face in her soft fur. “How are you feeling? Ready to make another run back to the Living World?”
She nodded.
I drew back and placed both hands on the sides of her face. “The demons will be looking for an invisible rider on a pale Hellhound.”
Her brows drew together.
“I’ve got an idea to make you less noticeable. Do you want to hear it?” At her eager nod, I continued. “The ground here is very dusty. What if I got you to roll around in the dirt and darken your fur? That way, the demons won’t suspect you of being an intruder.”
When she agreed, I exhaled a long breath of relief.
It took us another fifteen minutes to cover Glinda in enough material to make her look like a regular Hellhound, but there wasn’t anything we could do about her blue eyes. Glinda assured me she remembered the route back to the Living World, so I let her take the lead.
By the time we set off through the dead forest, Griff would have made it to the tunnel and would be well on his way back to the Living World. I only hoped he wouldn’t be vindictive enough to collapse it behind him.
Beki’s admonishing bark made me flinch.
“He seemed happy enough that I was in the Punishment Pits,” I said.
She had no reply to that, and I couldn’t tell if it was because she believed what I did to Griff had been heinous enough to warrant an eternity of suffering.
We continued through the dark with the scraping of claws against tree bark and the sound of leathery wings flapping overhead. A low echoing moan made every fine hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Beki’s hackles rose, and she bared her teeth. I clenched mine. This was Hell. It was supposed to be creepy. If I gave into fear, then Glinda would panic, and we’d all get caught by the demons.
I needed to focus on something else. Like Griff.
“Don’t forget that he deliberately robbed me of my alpha status,” I told Beki. “He hid the fact that he was beholden to the faeries instead of letting Gerrison and me negotiate on his behalf.”
She gave me a hesitant nod.
Glinda brought us out of the forest, close to the obelisks, where we had found the woman who had cried for help. The terrain reminded me of a documentary I’d once seen of the Grand Canyon, but through a filter of red.
“I understand why he did it,” I said. “He got the wrong impression about me and thought I would reject him, but he shouldn’t act like he was the innocent victim and I was a hundred percent to blame.”
By now, she’d stopped listening, and my words dwindled down to nothing. We were all at fault. Griff for his lies and concealment, me for my murderous rage, and the faeries for being… faeries.
None of this mattered if we didn’t find our way out of Hell.
Glinda ran at a steady pace, seeming to want to preserve her energy for the long journey through the tunnels. I rested against her neck and tried not to think about Griff or his beautiful hard body or how it felt to kiss him or how my heart had connected with his when we were on the mattress together, after he had professed his love.
The effort was futile.
We passed other Hellhounds, jackals, patrols of demons on winged horses, red-skinned imps driving oxen from village to village, but no signs of people being tortured. But then, this was the Asphodel Meadows, which housed those not virtuous enough for Heaven but not wicked enough for the Punishment Pits.
“Griff had to know what it meant to leave me here,” I said to Beki through our bond.
She gave me a sad nod.
“Did his wolf agree that he should dump us?”
She shook her head.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Her ears pricked.
“You and Griff’s wolf just want to be together, and we keep messing things up for you both.”
She raised her front paw in a wolfy shrug. It seemed that she was used to me wrecking her love life, and this was one more setback. Beneath the resignation was a shard of hope that she would see her mate again or that maybe Griff might come back for us once his temper had cooled.
As the roar of a mammoth-sized drake made Glinda slow down and allow it to pass, I swallowed hard. What if Griff returned to us so that Fenrir could bind my tongue? If Captain Caria or one of the other demon enforcers picked me up outside the gates of Shifter City, it would be me on the torture rack being impaled with hot pokers.
I stared at the wingless dragon, finding a blue-skinned demon riding on its back. They were heading toward a small lake of lava up ahead where a bunch of demons had huddled together in a tight crowd.
Beki’s heart plummeted, and pain lanced through her chest. I glanced around to see what had caused her so much anguish to find a wisp of green smoke rising to the sky. It looked like someone had shot a flare, and the signal had either been muffled or had faded. This was just like when I had shot the alligator demon.
My stomach flip-flopped.
Griff.
I squeezed my thighs together, urging Glinda to race after the drake. With a nod, she kept a reasonable distance behind the creature, who continued for another mile before it stopped and its rider dismounted.
To our right was a settlement of high-rises, surrounded by a wall of barbed wire. On the left stood a configuration of dusty rocks, and behind them a smaller village of stone houses with thatched roofs.
“General,” cried a voice. “Come and look at what we’ve found.”
My breath stilled. “Glinda,” I whispered. “Let’s find cover.”
With a nod, she headed for the rocks. I turned to find the crowd of demons parting to reveal a figure in black lying on the floor with some kind of javelin through his middle. My Hellhound hid behind the nearest boulder, and I slid off her back.
The pulse between my ears pounded hard enough to alert the demons. This had to be Griff. I had no idea how the demons had been able to see him through the invisible clothes, but they’d caught him somehow.
“What do we have here?” the general said in a bassy voice that aggravated the pit of my stomach.
“A male from the smell of it,” replied a red-skinned demon. “We saw a scrap of material floating above his Hellhound and knew he had to be invisible. A few carefully aimed shots later, and he fell to the ground with an audible thump.”
“We didn’t want to touch him without authorization,” added another, who sounded like he was part-snake.
I clapped a hand over my mouth. Griff hadn’t checked his saddlebags.
There were six in total, including the general, with their beasts of burden waiting at their sides. Two were white horses with manes of smoke, one was a black one burning red eyes with yellow flames for hair, and the other two looked to be some kind of rhinoceros chimeras that were shaped like triceratops. Then there was the fire-breathing drake.
“Let’s take a look at him,” said the general.
“Shit,” I whispered into our bond. “Is he dead?”
Beki shook her head.
“All right,” I whispered out loud for Glinda’s benefit. “You’re going to hide in that village over there until I call you over.”
Glinda whimpered, and I turned around to look her full in the face. The flames in her blue eyes dimmed, reminding me of all the times she was rejected by her mother.
“I’m not abandoning you, but if they see another Hellhound, they’ll know exactly where to attack.”
Her brow furrowed.
“I’m going to shoot those demons and grab Griff, but I can’t have you being such an obvious target.”
