Page 53 of Live Like Legends

Elise leaned down so that she was eye level with me. Her usual menacing glare had cracked just a bit as she watched me. She looked all around my body when something caught her eye. My heart didn’t feel like it was going to rip out of my chest, so I followed where her eyes led her.

I recognized Xander when he came around to look at me, but Elise shooed him back before she yanked my hand away from where I had it placed on my leg. She flipped my hand upside down so my palm was facing her. “Nick, what’s this?”

I swallowed down the thick lump that had developed in my throat. I narrowed my eyes towards the red dust on my fingertips. “It was on the floor in my room.”

It only happened for a moment, but I could have sworn her eyes flashed a violent red before they settled back to their normal grey.

Beetee bent down next to her, also examining my hand. She immediately started chewing on her bottom lip, her chest flushing a slight red. “Ellie…”

“What is it?” Natalia asked, quickly looking at Zane before focusing back on the group.

Elise swiped her fingers along mine so that they were also coated in the remnants of the last place my girlfriend was. She rubbed her fingertips together, before she brought it to her nose. She inhaled deeply, a sigh leaving her lips. “This is Hellfire residue.”

“Hellfire?” Reese and I both said at the same time.

Elise tilted her head to the side, the ends of her black bob swishing near her jaw. “Lilith doesn’t have your girl.Hedoes.” The way her voice inflected told me everything I needed.

“He?” Zane said, raising a thick eyebrow.

My mouth went dry all of a sudden and words were hard to come by. “Dimi...” My vision started to get spotted, and I could hear the incessant pounding in my head getting louder. I tried to breathe deeply again, focusing on a spot across from me.

Dimitri.

FuckingDimitri.

“Nick, hey, you okay?” Reese asked, but his voice faded.

“I need to—” I tried to get up from the floor but couldn’t, the spots in my vision getting thicker. “I have to go get?—”

I needed to save her. I needed to find her, but any thoughts I had were lost when my body felt limp, and everything went dark.

Ithought I would have been brought into the dungeons of Lilith’s castle when we exited Dimitri’s portal. It’s where she confined me when I was disobedient and back talked her enough to make her not want to see my face for a while. I was used to that kind of torment as sad as it sounded.

Dimitri had thrown me to two of his henchmen while he walked behind us. These walls were different. The smell and aura made me uneasy and slightly nauseous. The stones were crusted in dirt and cobwebs. Blood was splattered in nearly every crevice I could see, even along the bars that were cemented in the rectangular openings right in the center of the solid stone cell doors. Creatures barreled towards their small windows to the outside hallway.

Every movement of my wrists sent a heat wave through my veins, but I tried my best to fight through the pain. I took in the creatures I saw, realizing that they weren’t the normal ones from Purgatory. I couldn’t say that I was an expert on every species and entity that all the realms had to offer, but Purgatory wasn’tsuper eclectic with its residents. There was something oddly familiar about this place, like I’d heard about it before in grave detail.

This place smelled like brimstone and Hellfire.

He had taken me to Hell.

I had been sitting on Dimitri’s lap on a normal day while he worked in his office at Leviathan when he told me about these dungeons. His eyes lit up when he spoke about some of the pain he’d inflicted, thinking it would turn me on. The memory made my stomach flip in the worst way.

We stopped in front of a door that looked like all the rest, while Dimitri maneuvered in front of us, placing his hand against the stone while red and dark grey sparks illuminated from his hand. The door creaked open and before the room was even halfway exposed, I was pushed inside. I tripped over a piece of broken stone and fell to the ground with a thud. My wrists were still secured so I rolled over, blowing my hair out of my face. My cheek throbbed from how I’d landed, letting me know it would likely bruise.

The Son of Hell waved his hand towards the guards, providing them the okay to leave. Once they were gone, Dimitri ran his hand across his mouth, keeping his fingers at his chin as he looked me over. His green eyes were piercing and had me feeling a tiny bit unsettled. “I really would prefer you to make this easy.”

I sat up, shifting around so I could finally get back on my feet. “This? What isthis?”

“You just like to be so very difficult, which I’ll be honest, it is always a pleasure to see you so feisty, but sweetheart I would suggest you dial back your attitude if we are going to be in each other’s company,” he said, ignoring my question.

“If it were up to me, I would never be in your company again,” I spat out, looking right at him.

He chuckled, nodding aimlessly around the cell. “Well maybe you should be a bit more discreet with the way you use that newfound power of yours, hmm? I wouldn’t have had to gallivant into that horrendous place just to retrieve you.”

“It wasn’t like I was summoning you.”

He tilted his head from side to side. “Perhaps not, but alas here we stand. I would love for you to explain some things to me.”

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