Page 114 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

The demoness huffed a breath and adjusted again in the chair I now knew she was chained to. Despicable as she was, the thought made me nauseous.

“I cannot rescue Whitney from Hell’s depths,” she said, “but I can spare Loren a similar fate. If I absolve him from his contract, his soul will no longer be sworn to Hell. Then, when he dies, he will be weighed and measured by his deeds. His actions.” Her gaze darted between Evander and me, turning slightly critical as she added, “I don’t know what criteria is used to judge a soul, but I imagine a man who surrendered his life to save someone else would hold up to scrutiny.”

“Twice.” I pressed my palm to my chest as though that would soothe the heartache. “He’s done that twice.”

Evander squirmed beneath Moira’s gaze and eventually sniffed a breath.

In the quiet, I felt compelled to ask the demoness, “But you could… you would do that? Let Loren go?”

Her red lips pursed but not with bitterness. Instead, she seemed almost pleased. “It has become quite clear he was never truly mine. Certainly not since he’s had you.”

Mine. I’d told Loren as much that night in our trailer while kissing him all over. Every inch, every scar, every beat of his heart belonged to me.

Moira opened one of the desk drawers and reached into the hanging files. After a brief search, she pulled out a sheet of paper and angled it enough that I could see Loren’s name scrawled across the bottom in his effortless script.

Evander swayed back, baffled and likely questioning how a displaced demon was stashing Faustian contracts in Heaven’s file room.

Moira smirked at the angel’s astonishment. “I knew I was coming here,” she told him. “You thought I didn’t take time to pack?”

She stretched the page between her hands, skimming over it with a pensive squint. About the time I started to worry she might change her mind, a spark struck on the bottom corner of the paper. It caught quickly, eating up and across the contract with a line of fire that reduced the whole thing to ash.

I wished Loren could have seen it, and my eyes stung again as I whirled toward Evander.

“Take me back,” I told him. “Please.”

“You will die?—”

“With Loren,” I interjected. “I want to die with him.”

As soon as I said it, I thought of what I’d asked him at the piano bar. He’d known what was coming, known I was dying and that he would have to give me up. He said he wanted to do what we always did, and so did I. If I was going to die, I wanted to draw my last breath in his arms. If the end was inevitable, I wanted to face it hand in hand.

Evander’s face twisted in a grimace. “It’s senseless,” he grumbled. “Wasteful to allow yourself to be exterminated for the sake of a dog?—”

“He isnot!” The words burst out with explosive heat that surrounded me outwardly as much as inwardly.

Evander’s eyes went fully round as he stared over my shoulders where tongues of fire danced in my peripheral.

I twisted my head to glimpse the edges of my wings, golden-feathered things dripping with flame. Rage and unbridled joy made an odd mix, and I found myself giggling like a madman as I gave them a tentative flap.

My phoenix soul chittered and chirped, and it felt right. LikeIwas right and as powerful as I had been when I torched thosehellhounds in Ohio. Full of the strength that had been waning decade after decade, life after life.

Heaven’s jumper cables had given my heart a fresh charge. I knew without asking it was also a temporary one. Like any high, it wouldn’t last. There would be a crash, and this one might be my last, but it would also be fucking glorious.

“Loren’snota dog,” I told the angel. “He’s the goddamn love of all my lives, and Iamgoing back to him. I told him everything would be okay, and I meant it.”

And I meant it when I said I didn’t want him to die for me. With my powers returning, that end felt less inevitable. If I could keep this charge long enough to release it on Nero, I could hurt him. Maybe even kill him. Then the bad hellhounds would have no one to follow, no reason to persist, and Loren would live. He would be free from Hell and able to get into Heaven the good old-fashioned way, and I…

I tested my fingers, feeling the fire flowing like lava through my veins. Evander looked sour, as if he could tell what I was thinking, though I’d made it pretty clear.

“Am I strong enough to do this?” I gave a feather-ruffling shudder and answered myself, “I have to try.”

Evander bristled, visibly uncomfortable. “It will destroy you.” His protest was weak. “You’ll burn out like a dying star. A supernova.”

A smile pulled at my lips. “Those are kind of beautiful, though, don’t you think?” I asked, then shrugged. “Not the worst way to go.”

I glimpsed it again, that thoughtful look he’d had upstairs when he talked about Heaven’s extermination order and his decision to disobey it. He’d spared me a hundred years ago and stayed close ever since, finishing the job he’d first been assigned: protecting me.

The war being waged across his face spoke to that desire even now. Bringing me here, preserving me, had achieved his ultimate goal. If I left, then died…

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