Page 111 of Hounded

A smile broke through the scorn on the demoness’s face. “Ah, Lorenzo, are you going to cry for me? Plead with me?”

I hadn’t noticed the tears washing over my face until she mentioned them. Blinking scattered more from my lashes as she stooped to my level and caught my chin in her palm.

“Go ahead,” she said through a wicked grin. “Use your words, pet.”

It was hard, painfully so, to push through the wall of terror, to think past my feelings and express what felt indescribable. But I didn’t have to tell her how I felt, only what it took to stay her hand.

“I’ll do what you want.” I cursed the crack in my voice. “Whatever you want—”

“Simpler.” She trailed her finger over my lips. “Less is more.”

Gulping down a swell of sickness, I barely uttered, “Please.”

She leaned so near I felt her breath hot on my face as she commanded, “Say it again.”

“Please, Miss.”

“Again.”

I grimaced, and my knees scraped against the stone floor as I battled the urge to pull away. “Please…”

“Enough.” She shoved my face aside. “Get up.”

For the briefest moment, I thought I’d convinced her. She cared for me in some way, perhaps as best she knew how. And she did spare Whitney and me from harsher treatment. Perhaps she would spare me this, too.

I stood, barely supported by my wobbly knees, and waited for her next words. But my tenuous thread of hope snapped when she stabbed her finger toward the open kennel.

“Get in the cage, or I will strip the soul from your body,” she seethed. “I can find a more suitable host for my hound. Perhaps that old lover of yours. I’m sure he’s here somewhere.” She cast a glance around the room as though genuinely searching.

“J-Jonathan?” I stammered. “He’s—”

“Damned, of course.” She crossed her arms over her cleavage while holding the end of my leash.

My head shook of its own accord, as though I could shirk the overwhelming disbelief. “He can’t be.” My eyes watered again, leaking out the corners in hot streams. “I gave you… we agreed…”

Moira gave her hair a toss. “Your deal was for his life, not his afterlife. And, truly, he was a despicable man.”

I swayed on my feet, so lightheaded I feared I may pass out. I wouldn’t wish eternity in Hell on my worst enemy, and Jonathan wasn’t my enemy. I died for him; part of me still cared for him. I had to. Otherwise, the regret would destroy me.

“But you didn’t know that, did you?” Moira clucked her tongue. “Sweet, simple soul. That’s why I chose you, you know. You’re loyal. I thought if you could devoteyourself to a philandering narcissist, then you could surely give yourself to me.” She sniffed a haughty breath. “Perhaps you would have if I had a cock.”

The statement struck me dumb. For a hundred years, I’d believed I had spared Jonathan a miserable fate. I thought I saved him by sacrificing myself, but he was damned despite it all.

Indy deserved a better protector. An effective one, to start. I was far better at fleeing than fighting, but Iwasloyal. Moira never got my devotion because Indy had it all. And, if I wanted to get back to him, I couldn’t run from this.

Breaths crowded in, and my hound whined so hard it made my ears ring, but I obeyed. I walked past Moira and approached the grid of packed cages.

The other hellhounds grunted and growled as they tracked my approach. The tray of fire on the wall cast an ominous orange glow.

“Lorenzo.”

Moira stopped me, and that spark of hope reignited, a flash of light in the abysmal dark.

I turned toward the demoness, who gave a beckoning wave. One step closed the gap to her, and she reached toward my face. When she touched my teary cheeks, a stifling strip of leather materialized beneath her fingers. The muzzle wrapped across my mouth and nose, then stitched itself shut at the nape of my neck. The immediate restriction of airflow made me want to gasp, to suck at the smothering fabric and fill my lungs before I knew they’d be starving.

I held in a sob as Moira smoothed her palms over myface. The chain leash clinked in her grasp.

“Good boy,” she said, and I whined an eerily canine sound.

---