To Hell and Back (8 page)

“Okay,” the man said with a nod. “I can take you as far as Hagerstown but that’s the best I can do.”

“Thank you.” Kira ran around the truck to the passenger side and climbed aboard.

Once settled, the two of them headed out into the night, and she closed her eyes tightly. She didn’t want to watch as all hell broke loose in the parking lot of the Last Chance Truck Stop.

Chapter Nine

“C
LOTHE HIM!”
S
ANTOS
snarled, his eyes red with fire.

Lilith shrugged. She sighed and turned to Logan. With a flick of her wrist, his broken, battered body was once more dressed in denim, boots, and a T-shirt that had seen better days.

“My jacket?” Logan uttered softly.

Lilith’s eyes glittered and her lips thinned, but she motioned once more and his jacket appeared at his feet.

Logan wasn’t exactly sure what was happening. The man had let him suffer in the pit for hundreds of years, so why the doting father all of a sudden?

Don’t be an idiot.

This wasn’t about Logan and any suffering he might incur at the hands of Lilith. No, this was about power. This was about his father pissing all over his territory—marking it—and sadly Logan belonged to him.

At this point he wasn’t sure what was the better option: taking his chances with Lilith or leaving with his father. Either way he needed to find his way out of District Three.

Anxiety roiled inside him and his chest tightened. Had Kira managed to get away from the League members sent for them? Was she on her way to Hill Valley? Or on her way to The Pines and an uncertain future?

Logan’s father glanced around the room until his eyes settled on the tangled and bloody sheets that covered Lilith’s bed. His nostrils flared. He glanced at his son and then swung back to Lilith, a smile breaking his cold features. It was one that never reached his eyes.

“He refused you.”

Lilith walked toward Logan and ignored his father’s comment. She ran her hand across Logan’s chest, pushing there where his wounds still oozed blood. Within seconds his T-shirt was stained. She dug her finger into his flesh until Logan glanced down at her. Until his hatred shone through. His contempt. His utter lack of respect.

Something flickered in the depths of her eyes. She leaned forward, rested her lips against his ear, and whispered, “I will break you.”

Still naked, Lilith then straightened and stepped away from him. She paused, tossed a lock of golden hair behind her shoulder, and turned to his father.

“Your son was in the gray realm.”

Logan’s father didn’t say a word.

“I’m assuming it wasn’t sanctioned.” Lilith stared at her fingers. “At least not by you, because we all know that hellhounds don’t belong in the gray realm.” She waved away a pesky fly, eyes narrow, lips shiny where she’d licked them. “Or was it?”

Logan watched the power play with veiled dislike. The two of them were similar enough that it would have proved entertaining if he didn’t need to get the hell out of Hell. Pronto.

“Logan answers to me. He does not do unsanctioned runs,” Santos said haughtily.

Lilith squared her shoulders. “I beg to differ. Ask him yourself.”

Overlord Santos walked toward Logan, his eyes blood red, his fists clenched hard at his sides. “Is this true?”

Logan eyed his father coldly. He hated lies. Hated what they did to a person. Lies made you weak, but in this instance …

“No,” he said softly. “It’s not true.” He glanced to Lilith and sneered. “The bitch is using rumors as an excuse to get me into her bed. She’s bored and pissed off that I’m not sniffing between her legs like a dog.”

Lilith’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m loyal to you,” Logan said to his father. What was one more lie piled on top of another?

“Prove it,” Lilith whispered. Something about the tone of her voice put Logan on alert. Her heart beat rapidly, her eyes glittered strangely and—he was disgusted—she was fully aroused. He’d never met another demon—male or female—who got off on pain and torture the way she did. Not even Lucifer’s appetites compared.

“I’ve nothing to prove to you,” Logan said harshly as he bared his teeth and took a step toward her.

“Prove it to me,” Santos interjected.

Logan’s gaze swung back to his father. He didn’t like this one bit, but there was no choice. He was cornered. “Anything, my lord.”

Overlord Santos whipped out a cell phone and spoke so quietly neither Logan nor Lilith could hear his words. Within moments, Lilith’s doors flew open once more and Kraghten, one of his father’s hellhounds, appeared, a sobbing child in his arms.

Kraghten didn’t say a word, but set the child down on the floor between them and disappeared immediately.

Logan had a bad feeling about this, made doubly so as Lilith clapped her hands and nodded, eyes wide, face flushed with enjoyment.

“Yes.” She nodded. “A true test, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend,” Overlord Santos growled.

The child was dressed in pajamas adorned with trains, planes, and cars. He looked to be about five or six, with blond hair that curled crazily around his face as if he was just from his bed. Tears filled eyes the color of gunmetal; they were huge in his small, pinched face. In his hand he clutched a teddy bear, which was missing both an ear and an eye. It looked much loved and well worn, and the child tucked it tight against his chest as uncontrolled sobs wracked his small, thin frame.

“What the fuck is this?” Logan exploded,

Fear fell off the poor thing in waves, and Logan noticed that his pajamas were wet. The child was terrified, and he should be.

Santos was silent, his expression unreadable.

“What kind of game involves a small human child?” Logan asked scornfully.

“Why, the kind that entertains,” Lilith replied. “The kind that thrills and pulls at your heartstrings. A winning combination, in my opinion.” She laughed, a tinkling sound that was slightly off-key. “Isn’t that true, Overlord Santos?”

Logan tried not to think of another time. Another child.
Kira
. He pushed all of that away and turned to his father. “I don’t play games.”

Overlord Santos never took his eyes from the child in front of them. “You
will
play this one.”

Logan took a step forward, while beneath his skin, his beast shifted. Fire churned in his veins. It fed the power inside him and it took everything he had to keep the hellhound at bay. He couldn’t fuck this up. As much as he wanted nothing more than to smash his fist into his father’s face, he had to keep his cool.

The child’s whimpers became louder and each time one fell from his mouth, Lilith mimicked the noise, which only served to increase the tension in the room tenfold.

Logan refused to look at the child. He couldn’t. His father had never forgiven him for taking Kira back out of Hell all those years ago, when she’d been a child not much older than this one. Santos had been looking for a way to break him, and now it had been handed to him on a silver platter. All thanks to Lilith.

Overlord Santos would ask him to do something awful. Something so reprehensible that it would haunt Logan forever. He knew this.

Yet, sadly, he would play whatever game was asked of him.

Because he had to.

“Why is he here?” Logan asked harshly, moving until his body was between both his father and Lilith and the young boy.

Santos shrugged. “Because I wished it.”

Logan nodded to the child. “This is a sanctioned run?”

Again, Santos nodded, but Logan had the feeling something else was at play.

“On whose authority?”

His father took a step forward, anger filling his features. “You would question me?”

Logan had a moment to choose sides. A moment to make sure he did the right thing. But down here the right thing was complicated. The right thing wouldn’t get him back to Kira. Even though everything inside him screamed to take the child and do whatever it took to get to a portal, he unclenched his hands and stepped back.

He stepped down. Anguished, his body trembled, his heart pounding rapidly.

Something tugged on his jeans and he glanced down. “I want,” the young boy gulped, “I want my mommy.”

Logan’s moment came and went. He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do what they were asking of him. He couldn’t play the game.

“This child has been sentenced to District Three? On what grounds?” he ground out, ignoring Lilith as he faced his father.

Santos folded his arms over his chest, his face cold, eyes dead. “You don’t get to ask those questions,
boy
.”

Logan’s chest rumbled. The beast scratched beneath the surface and it took every ounce of his control to keep himself in human form. His father had always hated Logan. Always. He’d been born of brimstone and fire, yes, but he was also light and magick. Logan was not from the same bloodline as his brothers.

His mother was not from the Hell realm and Logan was not a child born of love. He was a child born of lust, of illicit desires and unquenchable need. All of it one-sided, of course. Sadly, Logan Winters was a child born of rape.

His mother had kept his existence secret for the first twenty years of his life. Not only for his own protection but for hers as well. As princess of the in-between worlds, she would have lost everything if it had become common knowledge that she’d given birth to a child of darkness. Logan would have been killed within moments of his birth and his mother would have had the fight of her life. There were those who would use such information to destroy her. There were those who would use the life of her child as a weapon against her.

Her royal line would have been broken and she never would have been able to claim her birthright. Queen of the in-between world.

So she’d kept him at her Winter Palace. She’d loved him. She’d nurtured him until he had matured. Until he’d shifted that first time and had become something so volatile and unpredictable that not even her power could hold him at bay. Afraid her kind would hunt him down and kill him, she’d surrendered him to his father, and Logan had hated her for it for hundreds of years. It had taken that long for him to realize that he couldn’t exist in her world. The darkness inside him was too strong. There was nothing to counter it. His mother had had no choice.

Until now. Kira and his unborn child were his anchor.

The little boy began to sob uncontrollably, and something so fierce arose inside Logan that for a moment he couldn’t speak. He glared at his father. He felt the beast shift beneath his body, setting every cell on fire, and in that moment, he knew what he had to do. He would not sacrifice an innocent, not for the perverted power play going on here. Not for his father.

Not even for Kira. He couldn’t.

Logan squared his shoulders and let everything fall away.

He would get the child out of District Three. Or he would die trying.

He moved until the boy was safe behind him and spoke directly to his father, his tone hard. “I asked, who sanctioned this run? Why has the child been brought down here? I sense no darkness in him.” Logan scowled fiercely. “In fact I sense nothing at all except puppy dogs and rainbows.”

“You would question me?”

Logan ignored his father. “You took this child from his bed because you wanted to teach me a lesson. You wanted to torture me as much as you could, but it’s not going to work. An unsanctioned run to District Three is punishable by time spent in the pit.” Logan paused. “Even for you.”

Santos’s eyes bulged as his anger boiled over. “You think to
threaten
me?” he roared.

Logan shook his head. “No,” he said softly, “I’m issuing a challenge.”

“Well done,” Lilith murmured, sipping from a glass of blood-red wine. She nodded at Logan in approval, her thirst for a diversion finally appeased. “Well done.”

Santos didn’t have a chance to reply because Logan beat him to it.

“I challenge you to the cage.” Logan’s fists clenched and his eyes blazed red.

Santos’s chest rumbled. His eyes flashed crimson and his brows furrowed so low he looked demented. “You know what this means?”

Logan bared his teeth, more than ready to meet his fate. More than ready to claim his destiny.

His father snorted, amused, though the amused look faltered for one precious second when he caught sight of the fire in Logan’s eyes.

“I know exactly what it means.” Logan scooped the child up in his arms and strode toward the door., His father laughed—a harsh, guttural sound that died a quick death when Logan paused at the door and focused his steely gaze on Santos.

The two men stared at each other for several long moments and then Logan spoke so quietly that Santos wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. It was only several seconds after Logan had disappeared from the room that his words penetrated Santos’s brain.

“Only one of us will leave so you’d best be prepared to spend the next several centuries in the pit because it won’t be you. And I hope every single second is absolute fucking agony.”

Chapter Ten

T
HE CAGE WAS
suspended a hundred feet in the air. A ten-by-ten torture chamber designed to break the strongest of fighters. That was the thing about challenges. It wasn’t just your opponent you needed to defeat—it was the cage itself.

The arena chamber was a catacomb-like structure, several stories high, with hundreds of viewing chambers layered in a circular pattern all the way up. It resembled the inside of a bee’s nest and, in fact, was referred to as “the hive” by all.

At the moment it was filled to the brim with all sorts of otherworld creatures. Word had gotten out quickly—most likely due to Lilith’s insatiable desire for pageantry and mayhem. It wasn’t every day that an overlord of Santos’s reach and power was challenged to the cage; in fact, it probably had never happened before. That it was his son who’d issued the challenge made it all the more interesting.

Demons loved to gamble and favors were trading hands, currency exchanged. It was a veritable feast of darkness and not unlike the human spectacles held in Sin City, otherwise known as Las Vegas—the ultimate fighting championship. Except down here the stakes were so much higher and the rewards …