Page 22 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

Indy

We kept busy till evening,when Sully announced we would be closing for a long break. Summoning a demon seemed like an odd thing to do over dinner. I wondered what she’d put on the sign on the door: Out to commune with evil. Back in 15.

After checking the chalk and salt lines, Sully and I gathered beside the sigil circle. I held the vial of tears in my fist and watched as she lit a fresh candle to serve as the timer for our visit. Negotiation. Groveling.

Sully opened her grimoire and began to read in that unnervingly deep voice. I stood by, tugging on the hem of my skirt and knocking my bootheels together like Dorothy, telling myself there was no place like home for me and my hellhound.

The floor shook, and the room flooded with the stink of brimstone. Smoke swirled up, up, up, and left behind not one, but two figures.

Moira wore a curve-hugging gown the same vibrant red as her eyes. I remembered Loren returning from various Hellish events in chest-baring suit jackets or vests that made me drool. The underworld must have been a glamorous place because the man standing beside the demoness was similarly attired. A sheerwhite button-down exposed most of his torso and was tucked into fitted black slacks. His thick chain collar was reminiscent of Loren’s except this one was shiny gold.

With wavy blond hair and sharp green eyes, the stranger peered at me from his post at Moira’s side. A gilded leash led from his neck to the demoness’ hand. I knew without asking he must have been a hound, but he wasn’t mine.

“What the fuck?” I blurted.

The timer candle wavered, and Moira’s lips tipped in a grin.

“No deal.” I shook my head and tucked the tear vial into my chest. “You better go right back where you came from and get Loren?—”

“Lorenzo is no longer in my possession,” Moira said.

Everything stopped. No one moved or spoke until I croaked, “What?”

The demoness rolled her shoulders, causing her ebony hair to ripple. “He hasn’t been for some time now. A few weeks, I believe?” She glanced at the man beside her, who nodded in agreement.

My fingers tightened around the glass vial, squeezing so hard I risked shattering it. I didn’t care if I did. A palmful of glass would have been less painful than the barb of that admission.

Sully snapped the grimoire shut. “Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

“I said I needed to consider your offer, and I have decided to accept,” Moira said. It wasn’t an answer.

I stomped my foot. “There is no offer. Not without…” My gaze slid over to the blond hellhound standing idly by. He was a handsome devil and somehow familiar. His posture and presence reminded me of Loren, but that wasn’t it. I’d seen him before. Recently.

He’d been outside the drugstore the day after I got out of rehab, talking to Loren, though Loren hadn’t seemed pleasedabout the encounter. So far, I wasn’t pleased about this encounter, either.

Moira’s smile persisted as she twirled the chain leash around her index finger. “I will accept one vial of your tears in exchange for Lorenzo’s freedom.”

“You just said you didn’t have him,” Sully cut in. Contempt hardened her voice.

The demoness thrust her leash-holding hand toward the hellhound. “Allow me to introduce Whitney Perkins. Since you’re so keen on my other pet, I thought you may be interested in this one, too.”

“Well, I’m not,” I crossed my arms with a scowl, then offered an apologetic look to Whitney. “No offense.”

His indifference was almost expected. Silence and solemnity must have been universal hellhound traits.

“You should be,” Moira replied, and I wanted to slap the smile off her. “He can find Lorenzo.”

“It’sLoren,” I corrected. “You can stop dead naming him anytime, bitchwich.”

“Indy,” Sully warned.

I huffed and turned aside, clutching the tear vial that had gone warm in my grasp.

The day’s work in the art gallery had quieted the chaos in my brain, but it was stirred into a frenzy now. Loren was gone and, by the sound of it, the demoness didn’t even know where he was, but she was willing to put her sexy bloodhound to work sniffing him out.

“Why would he do that?” Sully asked, clearly on board my train of thought.

“He’ll do whatever you command once you are his master,” Moira said.

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