Back From Hell (12 page)

“Sugar, she isn’t dead. But she’s not in this world anymore…and you can’t go there. You can’t find the path.”

Shaken, she pulled back. “Path to where?” she asked, her voice low and gritty.
Not dead…not dead…
Until that moment, she hadn’t realized just how certain a part of her had been. She really
had
thought Jenai was dead.

“In the Under Realm. Where the spirits of unrest thrive. Somebody stole her away. Only somebody who can see the paths will find her,” he said quietly.

Under Realm…
She’d never heard of such. Oh, she knew about Heaven and Hell. But wasn’t that all there was? Slowly, she uncurled her fingers from his collar, letting him go, but he didn’t move back.

Stephanie did. Slumping back against the bench, sucking air into her lungs, trying to quell the spinning in her head.

Jenai wasn’t dead
. Lifting her head, she met Beau’s eyes and said quietly, “Tell me.”

And he did.

From what she could gather, this Under Realm was a place between Earth and Hell. And Jenai was there. Long moments passed as he finished explaining to her and she sat in silence, trying to work her mind around it.

Damn it, Jenai was the strategist. Stephanie was a fighter, plain and simple.
What in the hell am I going to do?
she thought helplessly, fury and fear warring inside her head.

“The paths,” she finally said, staring out over the manicured lawn of the small city park. “Is this something you have to be psychic to see?”

“Yes,” he said, turning his head away.

“Then
you
go get her. And bring her back.”

He glanced at her, a brow winging up. “Risk life, limb, soul and flesh?” he asked levelly. Then he shrugged. “I would. But I can’t. Has to be a person she’s got a bond with. That’s the path to follow—it’s not like some hidden yellow brick road to Oz, sweet. It’s the bond. That emotional bond. It glows inside you like a golden string that will guide you to the person you need, the person you lost.”

A bond
… Steph felt her heart sink.

* * * * *

Ronan dropped to the bed wearily.

It had been late in the day by the time he reached Louisville, closing in on ten o’clock. After the empty days of searching, and then Stephanie taking off, he was exhausted.

Jenai
… Her eyes haunted him. The scent of her, the feel of her skin. He’d hoped she’d call him. Come looking for him. Even if it was just in his dreams. But the past three days since she had left, his dreams had been silent.

Flopping onto his back, he flung his arm over his eyes, remembering how it had felt to hold her in his arms, to feel her against his body.

Hunger, vicious and strong, tore at him. Loneliness ate at him. It was worse now. He had been lonely and aching for her for years, but now it was more than an ache. It was like a raw, open wound, like her leaving had torn something vital and he was slowly bleeding to death from it.

Rolling onto his stomach, he banished her from his conscious mind and forced himself to sleep. In sleep, she crept out of his subconscious, a sly, sexy smile on that wide mouth as she walked up to him, reaching up to cradle his neck, drawing his lips to hers. Through his lashes, he stared at her face as she kissed him, sliding her tongue delicately into his mouth, a soft little purr in her throat.

Come to me,
she whispered, the words echoing all around them. In his sleep, he moaned, his hand curling ineffectually into the bed linens as he pulled her against him in his dreams.

Her body, long and lean, sleekly curved in just the right places, arched against his.
Find me…
The husky words filled his mind and he lifted his head, staring down at her, into those ethereal eyes.

And then…she exploded into flames, until he was left holding nothing but a pillar of fire.

Chapter Eight

In the dark of the room, he jerked up in bed, torn out of sleep by the hideous, disturbing dream. Gasping for air, he stared into the darkness, his heart slamming against his chest.

Jenai…

Something was wrong.

Bad wrong.

When a knock pounded on the door, Ronan reached up to rub a hand across his gritty eyes, trying to dispel the fear that was rising in his gut.

The dream still clung to him—big and large and vivid—not fading away and falling to fragments, as it should, but playing over and over in his head.

Oh, yeah. Something was wrong.

Moments later, he opened the door, blinking into the blindingly bright sunlight with narrowed eyes. The thick curtains in the room had blocked out much of the light and he hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. Holding up a hand, he tried to make out his visitors as the sun glared in his eyes.

It shone down on the woman standing at his door, casting her in shadow until she shifted, turning into the light.

Foreboding moved through Ronan as he realized who it was, her silver eyes dancing with emotion, her face set in pugnacious, stubborn lines. Cocking his head, he let his hand fall to his side.

“Hello, Stephanie,” he said levelly. He flicked her companion a quick look before stepping aside to let them enter. “I didn’t miss the meeting, did I? Of course, if you had left some sort of information where I could contact you, we could have met earlier.”

She glared at him.

Arching a brow at her, he said, “Sorry. I had a long day yesterday. Spent it looking for your sister, and then came back and found you gone. Then I had to drive a while to get here. I’m a little tired.”

Her lip curled as she replied, “I’m so sorry. I just had some news I thought you might want to hear.”

Arching a brow at her, he stepped aside. “News, huh?”

Once Stephanie and her companion had entered, he closed the door, studying the man with curious eyes.

“I don’t guess it matters much how you found me,” Ronan mused, snagging a shirt from the chair and dragging it on before he dropped down on the bed, staring at her with brooding eyes. “What’s going on?”

* * * * *

The dream. As Stephanie explained, that bizarre dream finally started to make sense to him.

After Steph finally finished talking, Ronan rose from the bed and moved to stare out the window, pushing the curtains aside.

Too fucking late.

Damn it.

His head fell forward, pressing against the warmed pane of glass, the sun shining brightly down on his chilled flesh.

It couldn’t warm him though.

Not even remotely.

That dream—that vivid dream of her sleek body pressed against his as she whispered,
Find me
, and then dissolved into flames.

He swallowed, feeling a tight knot settle in his throat. “You know this for sure?” he asked grittily, turning to stare at Steph.

She shrugged, lifting her hands, a helpless look on her pretty face. “I don’t know what in the hell is going on. I just know one minute she was there…and then she wasn’t. We feel each other, have for years. If she was here, I could feel her. B-but I can’t.” Her silver eyes flicked over to the man who stood silently in the corner. At her look, he moved forward and Ronan met his pale green eyes, cocking a brow at him.

He knew the man was psychic. It wasn’t hard to peg somebody like himself. Not too hard at all. But he was a shifter, too. Not a werewolf, although were blood definitely ran in his veins. Ronan imagined he could shift at will, unlike the average werewolf. Studying him, Ronan stood there and waited.

Finally the man crooked a grin at him and said, “So did I pass the test?”

Ronan mildly said, “That’s yet to be seen. What do you know?”

He shrugged. “Next to nothing. But who does?” He sauntered across the room, moving with a lazy grace that was unlike the wild energy that tended to shimmer around most shape-shifters and werewolves. As he dropped into a chair, drawing one knee up and bracing an elbow on the small table, a dark look entered his eyes.

The air around him seemed to tighten, and Ronan suddenly saw right through that affable mask to the predator lurking just under his skin. But then he blinked, and again, he just looked like some good ol’ Southern boy.

“I don’t know your mate,” the man said quietly. “I’ve seen her around, once or twice. I kind of drift around and I was in Louisville, had been there a few months, was planning on leaving. Then three days ago, she showed up. I couldn’t go.”

Ronan felt the tight fist of jealousy settle in his gut, but he didn’t show it, neither in his face or in his thoughts. He couldn’t stop the way his heartbeat kicked up, though, or that first ragged intake of breath, however quiet.

The man saw it and grinned. “Don’t worry. Not because I couldn’t resist her lovely charms. She wasn’t for me. Lovely to look at, though.” For one second his eyes slid to Stephanie, and Ronan sensed a flicker of heat from the man, quickly banked, before he continued talking. “She wasn’t here long. Just a few days. I didn’t talk to her or anything. Well, not directly. I should have, I guess. She went to The Dark. Bad, bad place. I tried to get to her then, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Get to her?” Stephanie asked. Ronan glanced at her and saw the frown tightening her face.

He reached up, tapped his temple. “Talk to her. She’s got shields thick as any I’ve ever seen. She heard me, but she wouldn’t listen. And I couldn’t get inside her head enough to make her understand.”

His eyes fell away and Ronan saw the frustration in them. “What’s your name?” he asked as the silence stretched on.

He flicked Ronan a glance and murmured, “Beau.” A long moment passed and Beau rose from the chair moving to stand at the window by Ronan, almost shoulder to shoulder, staring outside. Small places like this could close up on a shape-shifter, make them edgy, especially when there was something wrong. Judging by the tight way Beau held himself, there was definitely something wrong.

“She wasn’t like the other people who went in there. She didn’t want to hurt, didn’t want to get hurt.”

“What kind of place are you talking about?” Ronan asked quietly.

“Sex club. Not some bondage club, although that definitely went on there. It was about power. Blood power. The air reeks with it.” For one second, Beau’s eyes started to glow and Ronan tensed as the air around the shifter tightened and seemed to heat.

Then, like an eagle shaking the water from his wings, he shuddered, and when his eyes opened, they were cool and level, totally normal looking.

“I think she finally listened, or she figured it out for herself. I felt her—like she had made the decision to leave. I was so relieved, but then she was gone. I felt her pass by me, almost like I could reach out and grab her, but they were pulling her too fast.”

“What are you talking about?”

Turning his head, Beau said, “A demon took her.”

Demons…

Ronan hadn’t ever had to deal with them before, but he knew they slid out of Hell from time to time. Out of Hell, out of the realms between the mortal world and Hell, usually when they were summoned. Demons were like blind creatures, almost. They had been led into the human world.

“How did a demon get to her?” Ronan asked tightly.

Beau’s eyes became haunted and the other man turned away, wrapping his arms around himself as though he was cold. “Somebody gave her to it. Somebody in The Dark. I guess she was a threat to them—so they got rid of her.”

Ronan closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the pane of glass, the chill of it doing nothing to soothe the heat of rage tearing through him. “How do we get her out?”

When Beau remained silent, Ronan turned, his eyes narrowing with fury. “Don’t you fucking try to tell me we can’t get her out!” he rasped, his voice deepening to a rough growl as he advanced on the other man.

Beau stood there, staring at Ronan with unreadable eyes. “We can’t. You have to. You, and only you.”

“How?”

“You have a bond to her—Stephanie tells me you two are mated.”

Ronan said quietly, “Very newly mated. She hasn’t truly admitted it to herself.”

Beau shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The bond is still there—you two were born with the bond inside you, if you are truly mated. The bond is the path you have to follow.”

“If it was that easy, I would have found her before now.” Ronan dropped onto the bed, his hands opening and closing into fists as he tried to deal with the fury and fear.

Beau lifted one shoulder. “Maybe you just don’t know how to look.” He moved closer to Ronan, his pale green eyes narrowed, thoughtful. “The power inside you…it deals with death. I can show you how to use it to look for life.”

“I don’t have time to go back to school,” Ronan said shortly, rising from the bed and starting to pace.

Beau grinned. Ronan saw the smile spreading across the other man’s face as he turned and met his gaze. Beau stood in Ronan’s path, rocking back on his heels as Ronan continued to advance. “Don’t worry—school isn’t needed.”

With that, he placed the flat of his hand on Ronan’s chest and drawled, “This might hurt.”

Hurt…
No. It hurt when he stubbed his toe, when he got punched in the face.

What Beau did was beyond hurting.

It felt as though the man was trying to bore a hole inside Ronan’s skull using an ice pick. And once he got inside, it was like he was doing some kind of demolition derby. And Ronan’s brain was what he wanted to demolish.

By the time he finished, Ronan had collapsed to the floor, his body covered with sweat and the bitter taste of vomit rising in his throat.

Shoving past Beau, he stumbled into the bathroom and puked.

Moments later, he felt Beau and Stephanie watching him and he wheezed out, “What in the fuck did you do?”

“Well, you didn’t want to go to school,” Beau replied levelly. “So I just shoved the knowledge inside your head. If you didn’t have such a thick skull, it would have been a little less painful.”

Ronan waited until the churning in his gut stopped. The pain in his head receded until he could see. Lifting his head, he stared at Beau. “You are a bastard.”