Red Blooded

“Crap!” I yelled.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ray shouted. “We’re going in.”

All three sprang at the same time.

Ray landed right in front of it, grabbing a snout under each arm. Rourke dove for the tail as I held my breath. Tyler took the flank, shoving the beast up against the wall with his shoulder right as it started to bellow.

Rourke was fierce, his back bending, muscles flexing as he took the tail right below its head with both fists. It lashed out at him, but he held on, turning his back into the flank to help Tyler. Sweat glistened along his chest, which was easy to see without his shirt on.

That man was pure heaven even in the midst of Hell.

“You’re not… going to win,” Ray ground out. “I can hold my own against you.” As the beast bucked its long necks, it repeatedly tossed Ray into the wall. “I’m not letting go, you dickweed, no matter how many times you bang me… up… against… ow.”

Once the beast was significantly pinned and had started to slow its efforts, Tyler yelled, “Go! Get into the rooms. We’ll follow you as soon as we can.”

Lili leaped forward, slipping by the howling beast at an angle. I followed, grabbing Selene by the arm and tugging her along with me. “Where’s the entrance?” I yelled.

“It’s camouflaged in the rock,” Lili answered. “My magic should still be able to break the code, but if not… you will have to do it.”

“Of course I will,” I grumbled. “You keep making this stuff sound easy, except it’s not. What’s going to be waiting for us inside, a griffin?”

“There will be nothing inside, except for relief,” she said. “Nothing is allowed to enter these rooms without permission, something the Prince does not give to anyone.”

Lili ran her hands over the rock ten feet from where the boys were still struggling with the orthrus.

“How long is the spell going to take to activate?” I asked, glancing back with trepidation. The snake tail still giving my mate a run for his money, and if he was bitten, I was going to lose it all over this hallway. We’d already encountered venom from the Underworld in the form of rabid bats. This would likely be much worse, judging by the size of the beast. I had no idea if I could cure Rourke if I needed to.

“It should be weakening soon,” Lili said, irritation in her voice. After a few more failed attempts to find the door, she dropped her hands. “The passageway is not here.”

“What do you mean, not here?” I moved up beside her and ran my hands along the wall, searching for anything I could find. “A doorway doesn’t move.” Well, it usually didn’t.

“The Prince has guarded against my attempts more than he ever has before. Even after all our many spats, this entry was still accessible to me through magic. I don’t understand it.” She appeared genuinely confused as she shook her head. “It should be here, and I should be able to sense it.”

I edged her out of the way and took over. “The relationship between you two is clearly over. He’s giving you no more chances. That’s why he has a huge, scary beast blocking your path.” A beast who was still struggling. “Lili?” I asked. “If the Prince thought you might come back here, and he bothered to mask the door, don’t you think he’d make damn sure the orthrus wouldn’t fall to your magic too?”

“It’s not possible for him to do so,” she answered, her face appearing struck at the notion. “I am the strongest spell caster in Hell. No one here can best my magic.”

“That may have been the case before, but something has obviously changed.” I shouted over my shoulder to the boys, “I don’t think Lili’s magic is going to work on that beast! We’re going to have to come up with a plan B if I can’t find this opening quickly.”

Rourke gritted his teeth as the snake rattled in his grasp. “We’ll have to take it down. There’s no other way.”

Tyler’s face was red with effort. “This thing is not even close to slowing down, if anything it’s gaining its second wind.” The thing bucked and raged.

Instead of trying to find the door, I rushed toward the head of the beast, where Ray struggled with both heads locked under each of his arms. He was holding on, but it wouldn’t be long until the beast finally bashed him off.

I grabbed the neck of one of the heads and the thing immediately tossed me off, slamming me into the wall. I recovered my footing and launched myself at it again. Its hair was coarse and warm under my grasp and its neck was about the size of a watermelon. I had to sling my elbow around it to hold on. Tyler was right, the beast was not even close to waning.

I glared at Lili as I yelled to the guys, “I’m going to throw some magic into it and see if I can do something.” We need to find a way to take it down. What do you see? I asked my wolf as my magic filtered in. This thing was all blackness. It was a true beast of the Underworld. I used my demon magic to prod it, and it pushed me back. But it wasn’t stronger than I was. We have to find something to hurt it or disable it. This thing had to have a heart somewhere. If I concentrated a blast of my magic there, it might work.

“Go for the stomach,” Lili called. “It will trigger a mass effect.”

“The stomach?” I questioned. “Why wouldn’t I try to stop its heart?” The thing roared in my ear, as if it knew my intent.

“Hannon,” Ray said through a clenched jaw, “can you hurry it up? I can’t hold this thing still much longer.” I noticed for the first time that Ray had pivoted himself up against the wall and had braced his legs across the cave so I could hold on to the neck without getting thrown again.

“I’m working on it, Ray,” I muttered. “I’m looking for something to hurt inside this thing, but I’m coming up short. It’s all darkness inside. Like a void.”

“The orthrus doesn’t have a working heart,” Lili explained. “It has no veins. Go for the stomach. It does eat. If it explodes, it should shut down the rest of it.”

“Where is the stomach located?” Rourke shouted as he turned, keeping a firm knee pressed into the beast’s flank. Tyler had spread his entire body up against its side, grunting with effort as he struggled to keep it pinned.

“I don’t know why it has not gone to sleep,” Lili cried. “I find it unbelievable. The stomach is on the bottom of the beast—”