Hellhound (6 page)

“What’s his crime?” I asked when we pulled up to an
old warehouse near deserted docks.

“Stole money from his clan before deserting them and
revealed his identity to some powerful humans with military connections.”

“And he’s here?”

“Should be. He’s been fighting here every Friday for
the past two months.”

We walked into a mortal underground fighting ring
filled with sweaty, testosterone-heavy males with a few female onlookers, and
wandered closer to the crowd.

When we walked in, several glares fell upon us. I
received leers and jeers, and lascivious thoughts were practically written on
some of these guys’ faces. I couldn’t claw through their throats and confirm
our existence, so I behaved.

“There,” Demetrius whispered. He jerked his chin
toward the main fighter who stood in the crude ring area.

His name was Lee, at six feet tall with a scar down
his temple. He wore jeans, no shirt, and was ripped with tattoos. He’d been a
sentry in his former, dutiful days I took it.

He won seven fights in a row, nearly killing all of
his opponents. He made a lot of money that night. Bright red blood stained the
floor, but none of it was his since our blood was black.

When I walked through the surrounding crowd, they
parted. One crude man was impudent enough to grab my butt. I grabbed his wrist,
spun around, and twisted. Then I broke it. He howled something fierce, drawing
the attention of others in the crowd near him. He whimpered back his yells and
tears and sucked it up like a real underground fighter.

“Don’t do that,” I muttered.

Demetrius bumped into him, growling as his eyes
blackened. “Do not touch her again.”

He had the right idea and left.

Once the current fight ended, the crowd cheered. Two
men dragged out the less fortunate loser.

“Who’s next?” a mortal asked into the silence.

No one spoke up. No one else wanted to fight the
winner.

Lee had his back turned to me while he collected money
from the bets. I stepped into the unofficial and invisible boxed-in ring.

“I’ll do it,” I volunteered in a high-pitched, feminine
voice.

“What are you doing?” Demetrius asked.

“Can’t I have fun?”

Everyone stared at me.

“Don’t get too cocky,” Demetrius warned.

Lee turned and dragged his gaze down the length of my
body and back up. He licked a busted lip and grinned. “Sure you wouldn’t want
to fight me in private?”

I returned the smile, hiding my fangs. They lengthened
with the anticipation of using my powers, making my gums ache. Slipping out of
my black trench coat, I handed it to a random man behind me. “Watch that, will
you?”

Before he replied, I stepped forward. Murmurs and
whistles echoed up from the crowd.

I pulled my hair back and tied it off with a hair band
then dropped my hands and assumed a very womanly pose. One knee slightly bent, one
hip arched to the side, my right hand perched on my hip, and the other hand
lazily dangled at my thigh.

Lee called me to come hither with a finger.

When we were close enough, I asked, “Do you know who I
am?”

I smiled again, revealing fangs. He beamed. Was I
overly arrogant or did he underestimate my skill? Not many women from the clans
went out fighting like this, much less fighting a potential sentry, so he had
to know who I was. Though female trackers weren’t as common, he must’ve thought
I was a tracker, at the least.

“Okay, then,” the mortal referee said in an uncertain
tone, and started the match.

Lee didn’t conjure up any special powers. He jabbed
lightly at first, and I ducked and dodged as we danced around the ring. He hit
harder, using both punches and the occasional kick. His eyes darkened, and the
Mythian birthmark made a dull appearance on his temple. Lee was getting mad.

I had to end this quickly before he gave us all away.
I crouched and launched myself at his chest like a crazed monkey. The force
knocked him back several steps. He staggered but kept on his feet. Grabbing
onto his collar, I punched him. One skull cracking blow and he toppled back,
hit the floor, and was out. I landed on my feet, straddling him when he hit the
floor.

The crowd gasped then cheered. I could see why my kind
went rogue; humans falling all over me in utter admiration was nice. I could
get used to this.

I bent down and a ripple of whistles echoed through
the room as I pulled the crescent from my belt. I hit the back of Lee’s wrist
with it. The crescent glowed silver, tightened around him, and tiny projections
injected my essence into his flesh.

There was no way to tell if it worked until Lee woke
up. Demetrius threw him over his shoulder and walked out.

I retrieved my trench coat. “Does anyone have a
problem with us taking in a wanted man?”

No one said anything, and no one tried to stop us. We
left without any problems, and the humans went on with their petty fighting.

Demetrius placed Lee in the back of the car and drove.
I twisted around in the front seat to view Lee when he came to during the trip
to his northern clan.

He opened heavy lids, his head against the window, and
watched me. His dark brown eyes turned black, offering a blank stare, very
creepy.

“What’s it like?” I asked, anxious to know if the
crescent worked.

He gritted his teeth, as if he fought against
answering. Through tight lips, he replied, “Painful.”

“More details.”

“What did you do to me? My veins feel like fire, my
flesh burns.” He jerked with every third word. “Cramps, muscle spasms.”

“Are you trying not to answer me?”

“Yes.”

That didn’t prove much. “Dislocate your right thumb.”

He did as I commanded and howled.

“But be quiet.”

Lee whimpered and clamped down.

I faced the road. “Wow! It works.”

Lee remained quiet for the remainder of the trip.
Night had just begun when we found him, and the drive took a few hours. The
woods, in which I was accustomed to seeing, were lacking out here. Fields of
tall, dry grass created a solid color in the night. I could see a long way into
the darkness as the sun gradually rose. Tinted shades of dark purple and pink
appeared over the horizon.

“It’s so empty.”

Demetrius looked around to my side for a second.
“There’s grass, trees, hills, houses, and animals on the farmlands.”

“Farmland?”

“Where the humans grow vegetation and raise animals.”

“Where our food comes from?”

He shook his head.

“What?”

“You are so naïve, Selene. Everything’s been handed to
you from the labor of others.”

I frowned, having never thought about it.

By the time we reached his clan, the morning sun
peeked over the knolls. As the sun rose higher and the moon vanished from
sight, Lee became agitated. He yelled profanities and struggled against the
control over him.

“Shut up!” I snapped.

“Make me.” He twisted his wrists in an effort to get
the crescent off.

When I glanced down, I noticed the crescent’s glow
waned. Perhaps my power over it diminished during the day.

Six sentries surrounded us when we pulled up to a
meeting point. I retrieved the crescent while Demetrius hauled Lee out of the
car. He didn’t fight or try to get away, not with this many sentries prepared
to hunt and kill. They didn’t exchange words. The handoff was swift. One
minute, Lee squirmed in Demetrius’s hands, the next Demetrius held nothing but
an envelope of cash.

He didn’t check it. He dropped the envelope on my lap
and drove.

I held the thick package.

“You can have that.”

I ran a finger through several hundred-dollar bills.
I’d never had my own money before. Things were given to me at the domicile, but
if I left, I wouldn’t have any money. As of now, I was dependent on my
domicile. I didn’t want to be dependent on Demetrius, either.

A new sense of empowerment came with this first
payment.

Exhausted-the thrill, the fight, the hand-off, had
worn me out. We went straight home. Home? How strange to consider this human
domicile...
apartment
complex, as home. I took the extra bedroom, fully
furnished with oak furniture and grand eloquence. The sheets glimmered with
dark red and black, matching the curtains and my essence.

That night, I folded clothes, neatly putting them away
in the dresser. I took the extra bedroom, fully furnished with oak furniture
and grand eloquence. The sheets glimmered with dark red and black, matching the
curtains and my essence. He knew me so well.

Demetrius appeared in the open doorway. I glanced at
him but immediately returned to my task. He wore jeans and no shirt so that I
could see every swell of taut muscle, and there were many. He raised his hands,
gripped the top of the doorframe, and leaned in. His biceps bulged.

“Don’t you have a shirt to put on?” I muttered.

“Does me being half-naked bother you?”

“No, but your narcissism should bother
you
.”

“You ever heard the phrase that girls like bad boys,
Selene?”

Yeah, and Demetrius was as bad as they came.

“Well, it also works the other way around. We guys
love a bad-ass, too.”

I dropped my hands and looked up in time to see his
tall, broad body close the gap between us in two long strides. He took me into
his arms and kissed me. The kiss was hot, fervent, and completely unexpected.
My belly dropped, and my body ached, rendering me weak and under his control. I
knew better than to mate, and to mate with someone the clan didn’t approve of,
but I was a growing rebel, and rebel I did.

I grabbed Demetrius by the nape of his neck. My
fingers curled over his locks and pulled. Our essences emerged from our bodies
and flirted in the air, darkening the room in a matter of minutes. We were lost
in the fog, oblivious to the chain reaction our mating would cause.

He leaned against me. How I loved the weight of his
body against mine. Heavy, but not suffocating, trapping me between him and the
bedspread.

“Are you sure you want this, that you want me?” he
asked, his voice husky, so sexy.

“I’d never wanted anything the way I want you,” I
rasped.

“You won’t marry Nathanial?”

“No.”

He offered a rough kiss. My body heated as Demetrius’s
eyes turned black, hollow. He slowed down, shuddered as he restrained the urge
to go full force. Sweat trickled down his brows as he rocked with me.

Something changed, as if we breathed as one. His heart
beat against my chest, his pulse caressed my skin. His breathing slowed,
brushed my ear, a soothing sound.

My awareness of him intensified, filled me. My body
tingled, shivered with chills.

Biting, scraping, and clawing ensued. We succumbed to
a primordial path, unleashing the most unexpected bond imaginable.

“Damn, Selene,” he muttered in my ear as his fangs
scraped my flesh.

I knew that moment that our bond united us in ways
that broke the barriers of the most intense form of love.

Chapter Six

“Crap,” Demetrius muttered as he rummaged through the
apartment.

“What are you looking for?”

“One of my daggers is missing.”

I shrugged. “So, get a new one.”

“I’ll have to, but those daggers are near priceless to
trackers. I’ve never lost one, and it suddenly disappears.” He placed his hands
on his waist. “We have to backtrack.”

“To where?”

“The northern clan, the roads, the docks.” He rolled
his eyes. “The domicile.”

“Well, we were summoned for a ceremony, so...”

“I don’t care about those. Let’s go, before the wrong
person gets a hold of it.”

I didn’t understand the big deal, but I helped
Demetrius look for the dagger. We spent the entire time driving and searching
until the domicile was our last option.

We had to return, aside from the dagger and ceremony, to
cut ties with my people. I didn’t care about the ceremony, either, but I had to
attend and planned to break the news to Father afterward. I didn’t even know
what the ceremony was for since I never asked for details. I just always showed
up.

Demetrius handed me the keys to his car. “You go. I
have to check other places, too, even though I swear I had it when we went
after Lee.”

“Okay. I’ll check my apartment at the domicile and meet
you there.”

He kissed me goodbye. I drove off, uneasy with my lack
of driving skills, and he dashed away.