Chapter Twenty-Three

You're barking up the wrong tree.

Breathless with a combination of adrenaline and relief, despite the danger the young beast offered, Oliver couldn't deny Eva, especially after his neglect had caused her capture and torture. Such a gentle soul . . . How could he deny her anything after everything she'd been through over the past days?

Careful to keep some skin-to-skin-contact, hoping his power would strengthen her, he lowered Eva to the ground. She grimaced; rage filled him along with the immediate need to kill all those who had been a part of this torture again. Her perfect skin marred with purple and green bruises was proof of their extended abuse, with matching echoes under her eyes. Oliver might not trust the hellhound, but he did trust Eva. Sitting her part way on the ground, he supported her while keeping an arm stretched around her in case the beast attacked.

It didn't attack; at least not in the way Oliver feared or expected of the hell-born spawn.

"Baby Boy," she cooed, encouragingly balanced in his grasp, "we did it."

The hound crept closer with his belly to the ground before leaping to cover the last of the distance separating them, landing so hard he briefly pushed Oliver back on his heels before he regained his balance. Without hesitation or worry about the surrounding men, the hound landed on Eva's lap. She wrapped both arms around the demon, pulling him close as he frantically licked the blood from her face. "Hey, buddy, you're a good boy. What a hero. Paws-itively amazing." Glancing at Oliver, she added softly, "You too. Thank you."

Oliver could only awkwardly hug her tighter in his arms, pressing his face into her hair, marveling that they'd found her in time. No doubt they'd cut it close. Too close.

The group watched in awed silence as the hound preened under Eva's attention, before pulling himself off her to explore. He sniffed and huffed around the room while the team continued to observe him warily, determined to bravely hold their ground when his exploration found him too close to them. Finding the old witch's head, he cocked a leg over it and let off a long stream of hot piss as the mercenaries continued staring in disbelief. Satisfied with that act, he picked up the severed hand, promptly lay down with his back to the wall, and began chewing on the wrinkled gray appendage.

Hellhounds were rarely seen. Never had Oliver seen one in any state other than when trying to kill all those around it. From the looks and quiet murmurs among his wolves neither had they, despite their assumed relation to the beasts. Hellhounds were usually bearing down to maim and kill while leaving a trail of stinking brimstone in their wake. This young one looked and acted quite regular canine-like when he wasn't glowing, and if you could overlook the fact that the chew toy was actually a human body part, who was he to judge a fellow predator?

"Sir, the barrier around the house dropped when the old bastard died. All three hellhounds are able to enter the grounds and reports say they're coming straight for the house."

"Tell the witches to snare them again. Even if they can't see them, they can track them, can't they?" Oliver snapped.

The mission coming in had to be quick and precise, the entire location overrun with witches' traps, layered protections, and magical alarms. They'd opted to stun the pack quietly in case completely incapacitating them set off an alarm. Of course, knowing little about hellhounds meant that the stun potion had worn off more quickly than anticipated.

"They've moved too fast, out of range already," came the short report.

The men sized up again despite the fact that their guard hadn't been let down. Shifting heavily back and forth, adjusting the few weapons they were armed with, they awaited Oliver's next command.

Scooping Eva back into his arms, determined to whoosh her out of this hell hole, he noted the pup's eyes and ears perk up and follow his movement. Although Oliver trusted Eva, he didn't feel the same about this pup. Warily, he began backing from the room, preparing for an acceleration back to their safe house. The vamps still outside securing the area could easily outmaneuver the hellhounds as well, but Oliver wasn't so certain that his wolves would be left unscathed even if they did share a common ancestor.

Oliver assumed that if it were the decapitated witch who had brought the beasts to this plane and controlled them, his death made it possible for them to immediately return to the afterworld, which was generally what hellhounds seemed to desire. Looking once again at the tiny hell beast, he began to suspect that it might no longer be Eva they were after. Something else was bringing them to this house of horrors.

Eva's Baby Boy stood up, moving fast toward him; Oliver began to recognize that it didn't want Eva out of his sight, and while he commiserated with it, he also feared the beast had somehow imprinted on her.

"Good boy," she murmured to the beast, who happily wagged his entire body beginning at his tail at her praise, while his tongue lopped out the side of his mouth.

Hesitating, Oliver explained the obvious to Eva, fearing to see the disappointment in her face. "We can't take a hellhound with us."

"He's all alone, and he's a baby." Her brown eyes welled with tears, as if they were, in fact, leaving a defenseless baby behind to fend for himself.

Damn! He hated himself all over again.

"It needs to find a way home, and more are coming; most likely the ones that attacked you earlier. Even if their master is dead, they might still be following his last command, unable to give up the hunt. That's all they want to do: hunt and kill. Even that little one in there."

As Eva grabbed his forearms, Oliver felt her pulling energy from him, most likely still unaware that she did such a thing. Just a hint of it, before she gained enough strength to struggle from his grip and attempt to stand on her own. Letting her reluctantly go from his arms was the hardest thing he'd faced that day.

"Come here, Baby Boy."

The overzealous pup launched himself from across the room, jumping from a seated position into her arms, pushing her back against Oliver, whose solid frame caught her before she could stumble as much as a step back. "He's not like the others, and he's had a rough few days," she tried to explain as the pup proceeded to lick more grime from her face.

Oliver grimaced, wondering if Eva had forgotten that just seconds before the "puppy" had been teething on a human hand.

"Boss, we've got them coming in fast and hot. We need to get the asset out of here." Even if Oliver had begun to muddle the rescue, his men remained focused.

Rubbing his forehead, not wanting to disappoint Eva, Oliver realized that this particular battle needed to wait until they were safe. "Circle up." With a few hand gestures, he commanded the men to protect their backs as he pointed at another to be eyes up front, placing Eva and a hellhound right in the middle of the circle of protection. Apparently, he'd unknowingly become part of a hellhound rescue mission, but for Eva, he would walk through the fires of hell itself.

Moving quickly through the house could be detrimental if there were more traps in place that hadn't disintegrated at the old man's death. Once they were in the open, they could stagger the vampires and wolves and then back track in two groups along the path they'd already cleared. On alert, the group crept through the house, wary of potential dangers as Oliver carried Eva, who in turn held the unpredictable predator in her arms.

Standing tall, Oliver continued to rotate his head between the areas they passed through, as did Eva's newfound friend. He noted that the pup stayed on alert, alternating between happy licks to Eva's face, then twisting his neck to scan the area and men with wide eyes and perked up ears.

"Stay still," he ordered the pup as his movements attempted to unbalance him, hoping he understood him as much as Eva. The hellhound let out a low whine and licked one of the hands that held Eva, quickly, but complied although his eyes continued to rapidly access his surroundings. The pup already appeared to run on pure instinct, and perhaps that would help him survive—assuming they could all get out of there and get the pup someplace safe to nestle up next to some hellfire.

Two men moved forward to scan the exit door for magic and, finding none, opened it, so the group could file out and regroup in formation, before trekking off the wooden porch to fan out in the yard. The guards there joined the group, with Oliver and his cargo safely in the center of them.

A low voice whispered a warning. "Shit, two o'clock, the witches say they were unable to banish them back to hell. They were moving too quickly. They should be coming into sight now."

Slightly to the group's right, the pack of three hellhounds emerged from the tree line at break-neck speed, determined to reach their quarry. Skidding to a stop about fifty yards from the group, they stood firm, their hackles stuck up as gray smoke rose off their backs. Three sets of red eyes assessed the situation, and their pointed ears twitched in the wind, their pitch black fur soaking up every bit of the fading light.

A few of the rescuers slowly began revolving their swords again, while others clicked out fang and claw, as the two groups warily eyed each other at a standoff. Despite the fact that the mixed group included both wolves and vampires with magnified speed and strength, the hellhounds were also enhanced with similar demon-like abilities. As much as Oliver despised the creatures, he also recognized that they shared a lot of the same characteristics. And the wolves might hesitate to battle a creature that possibly shared the mythological Norse wolf Fenrir as an ancestor.

Except the hellhounds weren't at home here on Earth. A witch—he assumed the dead one upstairs—had called them forth from their home in hell, binding them to him, then forcing them to hunt those he chose. Driven by instinct, they would fight the binding, yet a powerful enough witch could usually dominate and control one, maybe two, but three seemed like an impossible feat. Could another witch still be nearby, wrestling control of one of them, while the others followed pack drive?

Oliver's own instinct as well as the intel they'd been gathering as they tracked Eva to this witches' lair told him the witches in the vicinity had been obliterated. Whirring, his mind tried to consider what could be driving the beasts. Then with a groan of realization it struck him; he would have thumped himself in the head if his arms hadn't been wrapped around Eva and the infernal fucking hellhound pup.

They were looking at a family unit. The witch upstairs hadn't been strong enough to call forth three hellhounds and bind them to him. But he'd been smart enough to get his hands on a pup, then most likely bound one of the hounds to him. With threats against the pup, he kept them all in line to follow his bidding until his death. It wasn't remnants of a last command driving them. It was their pup.

"Eva," he whispered, nodding toward the frozen beasts, which had begun to growl low with a warning clear enough that the threat could be heard across the yard. "I think that's its family."

"Whose family?" At first confused, it took seconds for Eva to realize that the sooty, red-eyed creatures might belong to Baby Boy. "Ohh. Ohhh!" Squeezing the pup nestled against Eva's neck, Oliver could feel the disappointment emanate from her.

Standing her up again but keeping his arms around her and the overgrown pup to help support her, he told her sadly, "It couldn't continue to survive in this place. It needs the heat, brimstone, and hellfire to thrive. It needs its family, and they've been waiting for it. Everything they're doing is for their pup."

"I know." Nodding, Eva struggled to keep the tears from her voice. "Hey, Baby Boy, your mama and the others have found you." The poor little guy had been a prisoner just like her, and he deserved to return to his family as much as she did.

The group fanned out, leaving open space directly between the two sets of threesomes, still remaining prepared for the expected as well as the unexpected. One of the three hellhounds let out a sharp bark, along with a steaming puff of brimstone, and jumped a few feet toward the group, its tense muscles preparing for whatever came next. Eva's armed saviors tensed in anticipation but held the line just as they'd been trained to do, prepared to go down if necessary for the mission.

The noise caught the young hound's attention. His excitement grew, and he licked Eva while also wiggling and struggling to get down from her arms, yipping as he pushed away to find the source of the familiar sound.

Once on the ground, he let out a series of sharp, rapid-fire barks and stumbled briefly over his over-sized paws as he ran toward his awaiting family. Hesitating, he looked back at Eva and laid his ears down, giving a questionable yip at her as his eyes flickered a short flash of red before settling back into blackness.

"Go. Go, sweetie, your family is there. Go with them."

With another happy bark, Baby Boy turned and ran at full speed to the three adult hellhounds. Bouncing around, the group frolicked in greeting, nipping at each other while interjecting the play with joyful yips, clearly overjoyed at the reunion. One raised its head, flattening its ears and letting out a loud, long howl that reverberated through the air around them and had Eva covering her ears in pain as they snapped and popped. The howl tapered off as a fog rolled up around the beasts, whose eyes flared blood red before they simply disappeared. Just as quickly, the fog dissipated too. As it floated away, the scent of brimstone followed briefly and then was gone.

The forces stood in silent awe, watching the situation unfold, before Malthazar's deep voice broke the silence behind them. "Eh! I need to stay around here longer if you keep giving me such adventure."

Malth strolled out of the house, swinging the head of the wizard by his lackluster remaining strands of hair. His own wavy hair was pulled back away from his face, showcasing his two tiny horns. His hands and forearms were covered in blood; like Oliver, he hadn't needed any other weapons. Tossing the head to a startled guard who nearly dropped his weapon, but still caught it with one arm despite the look of disgust that crossed his face.

"Hold that for the boss. Interrogate soon." Malth was a man of few words, but he was correct; a necromancer could see what secrets the witch held.

Oliver's focus had only been on getting to Eva and destroying anything and everything that stood between them.

Bloody and damn, was he shirtless as well?

Malth paused before Oliver and Eva, studying her face. He began to reach out with one bloody paw and before Oliver could stop himself, he growled at his friend. With a guttural laugh, Malth continued reaching out to gently touch Eva's face with one finger, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.

"Sister," he said in his deep, raspy voice, "you have been sorely treated." Dropping his hand back to his side, Malth nodded solemnly to Oliver, confirming his relationship to the woman.

Solemnly, Malth continued kindly, "You're rare, sister. It is rare for a female half-demon to be born of a union. Long ago you were hunted by them. The hellhound that killed your parents could have been searching for you or for them. Retribution or attempted kidnapping? Probably never know. Memories are short in demons or anything that lives forever." With a shrug, Malthazar's clipped words confirmed some of what the group had guessed.

Scooping Eva into his arms and without looking back, Oliver demanded, "Burn it to the ground as soon as it's cleared." The home and land were seeped with dark, blood magic. Eva hadn't been the first to be brought here, but she would be the last. Burning the hovel to the ground was a start, and Hecate's coven would ensure the land was purged. Oliver suspected it might take generations to cleanse the land, but the witches were nothing if not thorough.

Home. Battered and damaged, but still alive. Oliver was bringing Eva home.