Chapter 179

“Morgan.” Jace’s hands settled on her back.
She kept drinking.
A white light entered hell. Small . Such a narrow opening. A man’s voice called.
Chanting. Serving up blood sacrifices. Trading lives because he wanted power.
“Stop!” The demon bel owed.
She drank more.
More.
The doorway opened. She saw the bastard who’d unlocked that door. Fucking ass**le. Betrayal.
The door opened in her mind, and fire raced out, burning, burning…
Morgan jerked away, screaming, as smoke rose from her mouth.
The demon laughed. “Told you, b-bitch…you’ll burn…”
She could feel the blisters in her throat. But…but she was already healing. Jace’s blood.
She blew the smoke into the demon’s face. “Time for you to go back home.”
He flinched.
“Tel me you know where the doorway is,” Jace growled the words behind her. She held the demon’s red stare a moment longer, long enough to see the fear flare in his eyes, then she faced Jace. “I know.” But first she had another matter to take care of. A little matter of a blood betrayal.
“Good.” Jace pulled her away. “Then it’s time to kill the bastard.”
The demon screamed in fury and surged against the wolves who’d grabbed him.
Morgan slipped back a few steps. She caught Paul’s stare and inclined her head toward the door.
The demon’s screams rose.
She swallowed back the taste of ash. “Where’s Devon?” She whispered to Paul.
Betrayal. She should have seen this coming. He’d always been such a power hungry ass**le.
He hadn’t been testing her with that fire. He’d wanted to kill her. So she wouldn’t find out what he’d done.
You nearly killed us all.
Paul’s eyes narrowed. “What did you see?”
“Devon killing humans.” Not just killing. Torturing. Sacrificing. “He’s the one who opened the doorway.” It made sense, but she’d been too blind to see it before. Devon was over five hundred years old. He would know al the ancient legends and spells. He would know how to raise demons, how to open a doorway.
And to get power, he’d done it.
Only the demons he’d let out hadn’t exactly been keen on obeying him. You can’t cage some beasts.
“Bastard.” Paul’s hands fisted. The demon wasn’t screaming anymore. Out of time.
“I haven’t seen him since the wolves came inside.”
“Because he’s running.” Dammit. “This is our mess to clean up.” Not for the wolves. Vampire business. “Get the others. Hunt him.” The order she’d never thought to give came from her as Morgan said, “Kill him.”
Paul nodded. He always followed her orders. Always.
Morgan rushed away from him, already heading to the winding tunnels that led beneath the house. Before she faced hell, she’d take care of her own nightmare. And she’d take full control of her vampire nest.
Morgan raced down the stairs. The others would come soon, spreading out.
Searching. Rage fuelled her blood. So many vampires had died at the hands of the demons. The demons hunted in heavy packs. Swooping in, preying when the vamps were weak— ripping us apart.
They’d tried to stop them for months. And Devon, he’d been the ass**le to bring those monsters into the world.
She twisted to the left. Snaked down the tunnel to the right. The scent of blood hit her. Fresh blood.
Dammit, what had he done now?
A heavy metal door waited in front of her, open by a few precious inches. Open just enough to let the scent of blood spill out.
“Devon!” She called out as she shoved at the door. “What are you—”
Inside, a pool of blood soaked the floor. And in the middle of that pool…the broken body of the werewolf who’d attacked Jace at Howling Moon.
Footsteps thudded behind her. “Morgan!”
Jace’s rumbling voice. She swallowed and glanced around the room. Blood-stained footprints led to the left, to an escape tunnel. One that opened in the heart of the swamp.
“Fuck!” Jace’s shoulders brushed hers.
Paul came in behind him and scanned the room. Disgust tightened his face. “Looks like Devon was still experimenting.”
Right below them. Right damn below them. The other Council members had forbidden his work long ago. But the bastard must have liked his blood and pain too much. Jace’s nostrils flared. “He f**king slaughtered a wolf.” And that’s what it was—a slaughter. The wolf’s flesh was a pale white, and Morgan knew that Devon had drained Mike’s blood. A fresh kill. While they’d been upstairs, this wolf had been dying. Jace’s dark eyes locked on her.
She swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. “ Jace, I-I didn’t know.” Like that would make it better. She should have known. Her nest. Her responsibility. It was al …
on me.
“Look, I was coming to kill Devon, okay? He’s the one who opened the doorway for the demons. When I drank that demon’s blood, I saw him!”
Jace stared at the footprints, following them with his eyes. His shoulders were tense, and she could nearly feel the fury roiling from him. “The vampires summoned the demons.”
Jace’s claws burst out. “The vampires have been capturing wolves…what other little secrets haven’t you told me, mate? ”
Oh, this wasn’t going to be good.
“Jace, let me explain, I—”
“Too late.” He grabbed her and put his claws at her throat. “Too late, princess. ”
Morgan knew she was staring at death.
“I want every single one of you bloodsucking ass**les to get in that cage.” His head jerked toward the left. Toward the heavily barred cel that Devon had used to house vampire prisoners over the years.
Those bars were reinforced. Able to hold demons, wolves, and, yes, even vamps.
We won’t be able to get out.
“Move,” he ordered, “or I slice open her throat.”
Her blood chilled at that threat.
Paul raised his chin. “You wouldn’t.”
Jace held her gaze. His stare seemed so cold. So…empty. Would he? “Get in the cel , Paul,” she told him quietly.
Jace’s jaw tensed.
Footsteps shuffled and snarls fil ed the air as the vamps went into their prison.
“They’re in!” Louis called out.
Jace didn’t let her go. “What are you going to do?” She asked. “I’m the one who knows where the doorway is. You need me to—”
“Devon knows where the doorway is. I bet that bastard is running there right now.
How did you put it? High on wolf blood. He’ll think he’s f**king invincible, and he’ll go back.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“Either way, I’ve got his scent.” Jace brought his head close to hers and those wicked claws didn’t move from her flesh. “I’m going to track him down and rip him apart.”
Because Devon had killed a wolf.
“He risked you. Tried to kill you.” His claws fell away. “The vamp will burn by dawn.”
Wha—
Jace lifted her up, moved too fast—damn him—and put her in the cell. Then he swung the door shut and locked her inside.
She grabbed the bars. “You can’t leave us like this.”
His brows rose. “Watch me.” He paused, staring down at Mike’s lifeless form.
“Take care of him,” he ordered two of his men, and they immediately bent to pick up the body. Then Jace followed the bloody trail of footprints.
“Jace! Dammit, I wasn’t going to betray you.”
He didn’t stop, but she caught his growled, “I know.”
What? “Then why are you doing this? Why?”
One-by-one, the wolves exited the containment area. Jace was the last to leave.
His broad shoulders scraped the arching sides of the doorway. “I’ll be back, Morgan.”
Her breath heaved in her chest.
“We’re not ending.” He spared her a glittering stare. “I’m not risking you, and I’m damn sure not taking the chance that the fire will get to you.”
“Jace—”
But he was gone, and Morgan was trapped with an angry cell of vampires. Her knuckles whitened around the bars. Alpha ass**le. He thought he could go out and take al the risks? While she what—stayed there and worried about him?
She wasn’t the kind of girl who stayed behind. Mostly because she wasn’t a girl.
“I knew he wouldn’t hurt you.” Paul’s cocky voice.
She’d known it, too. His claws had trembled and never so much as nicked her flesh.
“We real y going to let those wolves get al the glory?” He continued. “Because I’ve been wanting to give Devon a beating since I turned.”
She pulled at the bars. Yes, they’d been reinforced, and normal y, she’d never be able to break them.
High on wolf blood.
The bars began to bend.
“Don’t worry,” she told Paul and the others. “Jace isn’t getting away from me.” And he sure wasn’t going into hel without her being there to pul her wolf right back out of the fire.