Chapter 66 - Fighting for our lives.

LENA WOKE UP SCREAMING, and not for the first time. The hounds had been haunting her every waking moment and it seemed they weren’t giving up when she fell asleep. Her mother’s scream rang through her mind all the time.

This was never going to end! All Lena could think about was her family screaming in pain and those monsters … Lena washed her face with cold water again, trying to get the images out of her mind. She knew what they did. She knew what it did to push energy into a thought and make it come true.

“LENA!” Alaric bashed on the bathroom door and she turned around and unlocked the door. It was her new thing. She locked the door behind her to make sure that she had her back covered.

“I’m sorry. I’m okay. I just needed a moment.” I wanted our life back. I wanted our happiness back! Tears flowed down my cheeks and he pulled me into his arms. I knew we could never get it back, but I still wanted …

“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry that this happened to you.” He whispered and I gasped, trying to get air into my lungs while my body shook as tears ripped through my body. I mumbled over and over that I just wanted our happiness back while he told me that he knew, but we both knew we could never go back.

When I finally calmed down, washed my face, and got ready, I walked out of our room with Alaric at my side. I could feel the fear in the pack house. I could see it in their eyes. Everyone was brave before they knew exactly what was coming. Now that everyone knew … Now that they had seen … Lena could see the fear in their eyes and this was not the way she wanted all of them to live. This was not what she wanted for her son.

There had to be something they could do to stop all of this. There had to be some way of getting around this damn deal her ancestor made. Lena’s eyes grew wide over breakfast. She had to do some research. She had to find out everything she could about the crossroads demons and every single detail of how their deals worked.

After breakfast, Lena grabbed her laptop in her office and she looked at the screen for a couple of moments. She warned Rebecca that not everything they found on the internet was true, but she had to start somewhere. Crossroads demons were well known for bamboozling humans into deals they didn’t need. It was their job. It was the only way they could steal souls!

Humans were found on the internet. Humans would look for their information on the internet, so that was where she would start. Lena read through every single piece of information she could find. She printed some and highlighted even more and by the time Alaric came around to escort her to lunch, she was simply drowning in information.

She suspected that there might be something on the internet, but she had no idea there could be that much! It was a new world they were living in and everyone who was looking for anything did so on the internet. All through lunch, she couldn’t wait to get back to her office and this time around when she returned, she went through what she had with Alaric.

Rebecca joined them after lunch as they sifted through all the information to try and find out what could be real and what was definitely fake. Lena wanted to jump in and start doing the spells, but Alaric quickly convinced her that they needed more information. They had to find that one demon. The one who originally made the deal with her ancestor or all their work would be for nothing.

If they made the wrong deal with the wrong demon, the hell hounds would still come. They would probably take a couple of years before they came for her, but they would still come. Making a new deal was not the way to go. It would just land them even deeper in this mess than they already were, and right now they had to take each step very carefully.

The alarms sounded as Lena and Alaric’s eyes met, and the sound of the hell hound’s howl echoed. Lena wanted to fight. She really wanted to protect her people. Her family! But she couldn’t. The hounds would stop coming as soon as she was killed and Alaric didn’t want to take the chance that she might do the death spell again.

He hoped that if she didn’t do it again, they might just stand a chance of bargaining their way out of this, even if he couldn’t see a way out yet. So, while her pack fought the demon mutts, she hid in the small dark room waiting to find out how many more of them had died before the mutt was put down. Lena had no idea how much longer they would be able to do this. Most importantly, she had no idea how much longer the pack would be able to take this.

She was on the verge of screaming when the door burst open and Alaric pulled her into his arms. He was covered in blood and she could smell the foul scent of Sulphur all over him! Lena couldn’t stand the smell, but she couldn’t stand being away from Alaric a second longer. He picked her up and carried her to their bedroom. They only let go of each other so that she could get undressed and then they got into the shower together.

Holding onto each other while the water washed away all the bad things physically and until the water ran cold before, it felt as if they finally came up for air and climbed out. After cleaning up, they went next door to check on Ben and Rebecca. Lena couldn’t stop thinking about the information they had and what to do next. How was she going to convince a demon to give up the deal he made.