Page 36 of Hell's Prisoner
I wrapped my arms around his neck automatically before I could think better of it. He didn’t so much as wince.
“Don’t let go,” he said, as if he knew that was what I was about to do. And then he walked out of the cell without a single look back at the place he’d been chained for God only knew how long.
TWELVE
Joriel
Laila waseverything I’d never wanted. I’d watched my brothers fall in love and had no intention of following in their footsteps.
I was happy for my brothers, but I’d also seen how much love had taken over their lives. It wasn’t a small thing to entwine your soul with another being’s. It changed everything you thought you knew and rewrote everything that you were.
I didn’t want to be rewritten, and I sure as hell didn’t deserve it, but it turned out my mangled excuse for a heart didn’t care about my opinion on the subject. It didn’t matter what I told her or what I tried to tell myself. The instincts were all there, demanding I protect her, urging me to kiss or touch her whenever I looked at her or caught a whiff of her scent. I wanted her attention, to feel her skin against mine, to know what kinds of sounds she made when she came. It was enough to drive me mad.
And now she was in my arms, her body warm against my chest, her breath wafting over my burned neck.
Carrying her through the prison realm was a special kind of torture.
I tightened my grip on her thighs. I didn’t know how long I could pull this off. She deserved better than me, but that didn’t mean I’d be able to let her go when the time came. I’d smother her, trying to stay in the circle of her warmth and light.
It wasn’t hard to find the exit. For all their twists and turns, there were actually very few intersections in the tunnels. There were a couple of offshoots like the one that had acted as my cell for the past however many years. It made me wonder how Laila had managed to find me before finding the exit. Had she even tried to find her way out?
I stopped short when the end of the caves came into view. There was no mistaking this was the way out. Real light poured in, making the torches that lined the rock walls all but useless. I couldn’t see what lay beyond the prison realm. Only the light was visible around the massive hound with dark gray fur and red eyes that guarded the exit. It wasn’t the same hellhound that I’d seen in Lucifer’s palace the day I sold my soul. This one’s fur was lighter and he was considerably bigger, but the eyes looked the same, and the way the torchlight danced in his red irises made them look like they were burning.
Maybe this was why no one had worried about making it difficult to find the exit. Because there was a guard dog to make sure all the princes’ treasures stayed safely in their caves.
“Snow angel,” I murmured, trying not to draw the hellhound’s attention.
“What are we going to do?”
I hated what I was about to say, but I didn’t have any other ideas. “How close do you have to be to use your calming powers?”
“I have to be touching someone. I don’t even know if I can use them on an animal. I’ve never tried.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want her anywhere near the hellhound, certainly not close enough to touch him.
She tapped my shoulder. “Let me down?”
I tightened my hold on her.
“Joriel.” Her fingers slid up my neck and to my cheek, and I felt the tension in my muscles easing.
“That’s cheating,” I muttered, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t resist relaxing at her touch.
“I wouldn’t have to resort to cheating if you weren’t so difficult,” she said sweetly.
I set her back on her feet, mostly because I felt like an asshole refusing.
She sent me a quick smile and then started walking toward the hellhound without showing an ounce of fear.
I started to follow, but she held up a hand and shook her head. I gritted my teeth but stopped, watching her move closer to the massive animal.
She looked so innocent and small. Her bare feet didn’t make a sound, and the ribbons of her skirt parted around her legs as she moved. Her once platinum-blond hair was coated in paint, her own blood, and now a mix of my blood and demon blood that must have come from her leaning her head against my chest.
My heart stopped when she reached biting distance, but the hellhound didn’t make any move to attack her. His eyes watched her, tracking every move, but he seemed more curious than anything.
“Hey,” Laila murmured, her voice calm and full of kindness. “You’re so pretty.” She held out a hand between them. “Can I touch you? Are you as soft as you look?” She was cooing at the monstrous canine as if he couldn’t eat her in one bite.
The hellhound didn’t move as she closed the rest of the space between them and ran her fingers through the fur at his neck.
