Charade (Heven and Hell #2)(96)
Author: Cambria Hebert

I looked at Cole and the safety of the portal. I felt my soul literally ripping from my body. Safety called to me.

I turned my back.

“Sam!” I ran toward him, but when I reached the cell door, my body hit something and bounced off some kind of invisible shield.

Hecate laughed. “You can’t get in and he can’t get out. He’s a prisoner now.”

“I won’t leave him!” I screamed, my voice coming out far weaker than I thought possible.

“Then, in seconds, your body will be ripped free of its soul and you will become a demon!”

You have to go, Heven.

Even through my blurry vision, I could make out every single beautiful line of Sam’s face. His sun-kissed hair was sticking up and gray from soot. He was still the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen and he was still everything to me. I won’t leave you here.

You don’t have a choice.

“Heven!” Cole said, grabbing my shoulder. “The portal is closing.”

“No!” I screamed and flung myself at the invisible wall that separated me from my beloved.

Please go. I can’t lose you, he begged and flattened his palm against the wall.

Yet if I left, wouldn’t we lose each other?

Tears rained down my cheeks and blurred what was left of my vision.

I’ll get out of here, Heven. I’ll come home to you.

I pressed my shapeless hand up against his. We couldn’t touch, but I swear I felt his warmth through the barrier. A sob ripped from my throat.

Sam nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was looking at Cole. Suddenly, I was being lifted off my feet and carried away from everything that mattered.

Please forgive me, Sam said.

“No!” I screamed. “No!” I hit Cole. I scratched and kicked, but nothing I did would make him let go of me. Through my screams Hecate’s laughter echoed around us.

I hated her.

I’ve never seen anyone look so miserable as he stood there and watched Cole tow me away. I hated myself in that moment for not being strong enough to get away.

“Sam,” I sobbed my voice hoarse.

I watched as the full lips that kissed me so many times formed the precious words, I love you, Heven. I heard them as a whispered rasp through my mind.

And then Cole stepped through the portal.

Today, Hell was denied the souls it had been trying to claim, but in the end, it stole something much more valuable, something I wasn’t sure I could exist without. My heart.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Heven

I wiped the tears from my face and blinked against the harsh light, realizing that it wasn’t quite light outside yet, but it was still far brighter than where we came from. I didn’t have the strength to pull away from Cole, but I didn’t really want to. I wasn’t mad at him for towing me away like that. He was only doing what he thought best. I glanced down at my hand and noted that the edges of my body were no longer blurred. My skin was pulled taut across flesh and bone and my soul was safely contained within my body. Sam traded his safety for mine.

I ducked my head into Cole’s shoulder and tried to stop my insides from trembling, but it was no use. While my soul and body may have recovered from the horrible events that just occurred, my brain was still trying to catch up.

“Heven, look at me,” Cole demanded, his voice sounding like he hadn’t spoken in weeks. It made me wonder how long we were down in the pits of Hell.

Cole grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me away from his body, holding me out so he could study me. “How badly are you hurt?” he whispered.

Tears filled my eyes. Did he really even have to ask? We left Sam in Hell. The place that is most famously known for destroying a person’s soul and turning them into evil zombies. While I knew that as a hellhound his soul would stay within his body, I was still beyond grief. The boy I loved most in this world was torn from me and I don’t know when and if I would see him again.

“I’ll get you to the hospital,” Cole said, standing up and taking me with him. He swayed a little on his feet and I knew that he was trying to hold it together for me.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

He looked at me strangely before slowly asking me if my face hurt.

I shook my head. The only thing that hurt was my chest, where my heart used to reside.

“Heven, focus,” Cole said firmly and planted me on my feet. He kept his hands clasped around my biceps as if he thought I might crumble to the ground if he released me. “Your face.”

I made a frustrated sound. What about my face? I flung my hands up and pressed them to my cheeks and stopped, my eyes flashing up to Cole’s. Slowly, I lowered my hands noting that one set of fingers came away bloody. Visions of a swinging chain burst behind my eyes. Sam’s anger and cry of protest rang through my ears and I remembered.

Beelzebub tried to lash Sam with a chain.

I got in the way.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Cole asked apprehensively.

“No.”

The look on his face told me that he didn’t believe me.

I tentatively touched the gash once more. “It doesn’t,” I whispered. The pain of leaving Sam in that horrible place was far worse than any physical pain could ever be.

“You must be in shock. I think you need stitches…”

He was waiting for me to freak out, to scream and melt down. I wasn’t going to.

I didn’t have time for that.

I had to be strong; I was Sam’s only shot at getting out.

Sam. Sam, are you okay? Please God, let me still be able to reach him through our Mindbond. If we didn’t have that I was sure I would crumble.

Heven! Did you make it out? Where are you?

I literally sagged with relief, swallowed past the lump in my throat and swiped at my tears with the back of my hand. I could still talk to him. We still had our link.

Yes, I’m fine. Cole and Logan are fine too. (At least I prayed Logan was okay.)

His rush of gratitude and relief strengthened the tether I had on sanity and made me all the more determined to get him out.

Thank God.

What about you? Did Beelzebub come back yet?

I’m fine. He isn’t here. That was something at least. Still, how long until he came back, madder than ever? We had to work fast to get Sam out of there.

“Where are we?” I asked Cole looking around, trying to get a handle on my surroundings.

“The fountain,” he said patiently, pointing a short distance away at the fountain that we had entered what seemed an eternity ago.