ARES
“Where’s the prison?” I asked Marcel, once he was clothed. I pulled Hella out of the cage and threw her over my shoulder to carry her more easily. That bitch seemed to like it, too, because while she still squirmed in my arms and was bound up, she tried to touch every part of my body.
Marcel nodded down a hallway toward a set of stairs. “This way.”
After hurrying down, Marcel grabbed my shoulder when we settled on the landing and pulled me behind a door to hide us. He pressed a hand over my mouth and Hella’s, so we both couldn’t speak.
A couple moments later, about ten hellhounds ran down the stairs and out one of the side doors that led to the land behind the castle. I tried to get a glimpse of the outside and found nothing but chaos happening.
Wolves and gods and hellhounds. Blood splattering. Bones breaking. People howling.
“Stay strong, Aurora,” I whispered through the mind link.
I didn’t know where Aurora was, but my wolf could tell that she was close. Through the mind link, I heard her thoughts racing about a million miles per second. She was worried about something—maybe about me. I needed to get out of here and find her.
But right now, she was the only thing getting me through this hell down here. She didn’t know how much I needed her, nor how strong she was. And I hoped that Mars saw her strength too. I hoped he didn’t think she wasn’t strong enough to defeat Nyx on her own.
Once the guards passed, Marcel let go of our mouths and hiked a thumb back toward the door. “Did you see that?” he asked, eyes widening. “They’re here. We have to go help them. They won’t be able to defeat all those hounds alone.”
Swallowing hard, I stared at the door. Aurora and Mars had to be right outside, in the midst of the fight too. But if one thing was certain about all this, it was that we couldn’t go out and fight them, no matter how much we wanted to.
We needed to get Hella as far away from them as possible. Maybe then she wouldn’t be able to control the hounds as strongly. Maybe then the hounds would finally be weaker, and we would finally be able to win this raging war.
I wasn’t sure if it would happen, but we had to try.
As Marcel went toward the door, I grabbed his shoulder. Guilt washed over me because I doubted that Marcel had seen the outdoors in a long time. Hella had had him cooped up and chained to this house since he had been down here.
I wanted him to taste freedom again, but at the same time, I wanted him to be able to see Charolette again. I wanted him to see his mate. I wanted him to get back to the Sanguine Wilds and be happy.
Because no matter how much he’d tried to convince me, he wasn’t staying down here.
No fucking way would I do that to him or to Charolette.
“We have to lock Hella up in the prison,” I said, clenching my jaw as howls echoed through the room. “It’s the only way to help them. Let them take care of Nyx, and we will take care of this bitch.”
Confusion and hurt crossed Marcel’s face. He hadn’t been able to fight since he’d left the Sanguine Wilds with us, and he had been born and bred to be a warrior, to fight in battle after battle, to kill.
“Think about Charolette,” I said.
Marcel finally nodded and pointed down another staircase. “We have about four more floors to go. If we keep heading down here, it’s the fastest route, but there will be more hellhounds and warriors that we’ll need to keep an eye out for.”
After nodding, I followed him down the flights of stairs. Every floor, we had to hide behind another door as more and more hellhounds and hounds piled out of the castle to join the fight outside. We needed to block more of Hella’s power before she summoned every hound to fight.
If she did, we would lose this war, and I would lose my mate. No doubt about that.
Once six more hounds passed, we finally made it to the prison door. Marcel easily knocked out the two hellhounds that guarded the door and grabbed the key to the prison from his back pocket. He thrust it into the door.
As soon as the door opened, I could feel the intense searing and pain from the barrels of silver in the room. I didn’t know how much was in here, but it was enough to make my knees tremble. Maybe this was her plan all along.
“Dump her over here,” Marcel said, opening a cage in the back of the prison.
Every inch of the cage was laced with some kind of metal that seemed to repel gods, even me. It was worse than silver. The mere air in this room felt like knives cutting and sliding into my skin.
Once I dumped her onto the ground, I took the chains that I had already placed around her body and replaced them with these stronger ones that would bind her here forever. As soon as I stepped back, thoughts of another life rushed through my mind.
This was where they’d trapped Aurora.
This was where they’d tortured Aurora.
This was where they’d killed Aurora.
My hands balled into tight fists, and I gritted my teeth.
Before I could rip her to pieces, Marcel grabbed my shoulder and pulled me out of the room. “You will never be able to kill her. She’s far too strong, especially with all those wolves. They feed off her the same way that she feeds off their energy.”
I stepped back and glared at her in the cell, looking so broken and beaten.
Good.
“So, we wait,” I said, hating the thought, but knowing that it was the only way.
“We wait.”