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 Copyright © 2022 by Source of Magic Publishing LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place, and incidents are

either the product of the author’s imagination or are used factitiously
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Hell’s Storm: Book Three

ISBN: 9798844051395

Imprint: Independently published

Copy editing by Raven Quill Editing, LLC

Proofreading by LiSara Cool Editing

Cover Designed by Open World Cover Designs

Chapter header – Canva

 Disclaimer:
This book contains adult/mature situations.
This book may contain triggers: examples include mention of rape,
retelling of past abuse or even the death of a minor.
This book contains sexual encounters.
This book is a reverse harem.
That means the lead female does not choose between her love
interests and will have multiple sexual partners.

Hell’s Storm ends on a cliff hanger–Sorry!

My cheeks are crusted, dry with tears that have stopped running.
The icy feeling of numbness runs across my heated body, my eyes
are locked on the palace in front of me. My home is completely
engulfed in flames. The tears and the echoes of ached wailing have
finally stopped, but I still cling to the small body in front of me. My
mind can’t wrap around what just happened in the last few hours.
“A-Asura?” Hazen asks, crouching before me, but he sounds
like he’s at the end of a tunnel. Distant and far. His blue eyes are
filled with tears. He reaches up to touch my cheek but pulls back
hissing. “Fuck, she’s hot!”
“No one touch her,” Khazon’s voice comes.
 “Too late,” Hazen mutters, rubbing his fingers.
When did he get here? Had he seen what happened like I
did? Did he… do it? The people are masked… But Khazon would
never hurt me like this. No matter how much he hates me. He would
never hurt the man that was a second father figure, and the boy
who was like a brother to him. I think.
“Asura?” He waves his hand in my face, causing me to blink.
“Give him to me.”
My limbs sag heavily, like I have massive weights around me.
I’ll be sinking into the ground if the pressure sticks on.
“You’re burning him more… Give him to me.”
Slowly, I pry my eyes from the castle before me and onto the
body I so desperately cling to. Fenric’s body is turning to ash…black
instead of his life-filled, pink ivory complexion. It makes him look
even more lifeless. My bottom lip quivers, and my eyes tear up
again.
Crack!
Then a whipping noise filled the air, and my father turned just
in time to see a knife flying into the chest of Fenric.
Bile burns at my throat as waves and waves of coldness rush
over my body.
“Asura?” Khazon reaches out to me.
My breath is gone, and I take quick puffs to catch it. I push
away from my brother and let Khazon take him. Turning away, I
puke, hurling up food from the party. My eyes burn with tears, and I
watch as they drip onto the dry soil before me.
“Let it out, baby,” Hazen whispers.
I cringe, not wanting them to see me like this, but I can’t help
it. My eyes move to the castle again as I wipe my mouth with the
back of my hand. My home is gone. Everything is in flames and
falling to the ground, exactly how it was in my vision. I tried to stop
it. I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I would have tried to
stay away, tried to save…
My eyes move to… Fenric. Khazon has him wrapped in a
jacket, so I can’t see his face anymore. But I see it every time I
close my eyes. His small, taunt face shifts into a look of horror as
that dagger enters his heart. The world around me spins like a top
as the heat of Hell engulfs me. My skin becomes slick, and my
breathing staggers.
“Asura?” Hazen’s words sound farther away than they did
before. My body wavers as I hurtle to the ground and let the
darkness take me.

We all rush out to catch her before she hits the ground. As soon as
Hazen or Jigsaw touch her, they hiss, trying to hold on to her. My
arms wrap around her, using my weight to anchor us from hitting
the ground. I don’t feel the same blazing heat they are hissing
about. Yeah, her body feels a few degrees hotter, but not to the
point where I can’t touch her.
“What happened?” Khazon whispers, looking down at Fenric’s
body.
Hazen is shaking his head, looking down at his blistering
hands. All he wanted to do was comfort her, but he probably
couldn’t because of the flame she inherited.
I look down at Asura. The flame is now more prominent
around her body, swirling a blazing amber around her. Red blazing
lines swirl on her skin. The same magic that her father has—had. It
was the power and reign of Hell. Her curls are messy from the night
she had, and her PJs are almost entirely burned off her body.
“She just started…” Jigsaw starts, running a bare hand
through his shoulder-length hair. He looks like he just woke up too,
but probably with her. He smells like her; her sweat, her juices, her.
“Screaming,” Hazen finishes. “She woke up screaming, and
that’s when the flame ran across her body. Then… the smell of
smoke filled the air. I-I—”
 Killian let out a sobbing cough, drawing my attention. His
body is huddled against Derrick, and Derrick has his arm around
him. I wasn’t even sure he was capable of having feelings.
“When we were leaving… she was clinging to Fen.”
“Fuck!” Jigsaw growls, his hellhound threatening to take the
surface. His hellhound hasn’t been out for a while, and it’s an
excellent reason.
“Calm down!” I snap.
“Me? You fucking calm down!”
“I am calm!” It is a lie. I am not calm. I feel hotter than Asura
probably does with the flame.
“Everyone, calm down!” a voice comes. Heads turn to see
Ryker and his hounds with other Soul Reapers behind him. How did
he sneak up on us? His pink eyes drop to Asura, and his jaw
tightens. I pull her closer to my body, protectively. His pink eyes are
filled with concern, but... I hope he gets burned trying to comfort
her. I was her boyfriend, not him. “Everyone, stay calm. We will take
it from here. Take her to the nearby triage.”
“No!” Khazon snaps. “You can’t just come here and think you
know what’s happening. Asura is Queen now. She can’t—”
“Dad’s dead?” Killian’s small voice asks.
A wave of emotion rushes over me as we all look at him. He
doesn’t know that she has the flame, meaning… the Devil is dead.
“Dad’s dead, too?!” Killian shouts, voice breaking. “How could
someone kill the fucking Devil?! We have guards! My father is
basically immortal! How?”
“Get them out of here. Get the queen and heirs protection,
please. Process and question them all. The slightest scrap will have
you in jail for treason,” Ryker orders the men behind him.
One of the Soul Reapers reaches out for Asura. He has a
medical symbol on his tactical uniform.
I growl at him, pulling her away. “She’s hot. Don’t touch her.”
“It’s fine.” Ryker dismisses my attitude. “He can go with her.
Take them away.”
The group of Soul Reapers start ordering us away like a horde
of cattle. None of us objects to escape the horrors of last night.
 Killian and his brother end up being taken away to be with a
family friend while Asura recovers until it’s safer for them. Jigsaw,
Hazen, and I—after processing—sit in the waiting room in silence,
waiting for Asura to wake up or be cleared.

Come to me, my child, a voice whispers in my head. The voice is

familiar… comforting, like a warm hug. Child… Come here.
Dad? I ask back. My eyes wander about this dark and cold
place that I am in. I don’t have the slightest clue of where I am.
Yes.
The scene of my father trying to reach Fenric enters my head
like a flashback. His body, crawling to get his youngest son… Heat
kisses my body as a growl leaves my mouth. The pain of seeing…
The pain of knowing my brother is… dead.
Diaboli, the voice speaks, almost… almost calming me down.
But the unbearable rage that enters my body shakes me to
my core. I wanted to kill. I wanted to hurt someone or something.
The masked figures. They deserve it. I will kill them! I will kill them!
A body-shaking scream leaves me, flames erupt around me in
the hospital room. They flicker and hit the stainless-steel walls but
quickly die. I let it out, slamming my fist against the wall until there’s
a dent they will never get out. After a moment, which raging fire
inside of me dies down to a sob. Two of the people I love are gone.
“It’s going to be okay,” Khazon’s voice comes from the open
door.
I send him a glare, but he doesn’t waver. He knows I could
burn him to ash by just a thought. He shoves his hands in his
pockets, sad brown eyes meeting mine. His short chestnut hair is
messy, and his eyes have bags under them like he hasn’t slept in
days. He lost someone important to him too. I find my shoulders
starting to loosen up, and my jaw unclench. He was at my house
every day as a kid, hence him growing up with my father, who was
always another important figure in his life. He lost that.
“It’s going to be okay, Asura.”
“You don’t know that!” I growl, clenching my jaw. “You are
just saying that fucking bullshit because you think that’s what I want
to hear. It’s not.”
“Calm yourself,” Khazon snaps. “You’ve already burned
another room before this one.”
Silence fills the air, and my jaw clenches and unclenches. The
anger burning in my chest is intoxicating.
“W-What happened, Asura?”
I swallow the spit in my mouth, which travels down my throat
like a lump. I wish I could answer that question, but I can barely
understand what happened last night. “I don’t know.”
Khazon let out a shaking sigh. “I can’t even imagine what you
are going through.”
My eyes close, and I inhale deeply. The only thing I know
right now is that I have inherited my father’s powers. The flame that
declares me the ruler of Hell. “I can’t be Queen… I can’t protect
anyone.”
“We will figure it out. Right now, you should worry about
yourself and healing. Everything is going to be okay. The council is
here, talking about a plan of action.”
The council? Picking up my head, I rip the small remains of a
cover off my body and stand.
“Asura?”
“Without me?” I ask, moving around him and out the door.
“Asura, get back here. You are unstable and naked!” He let
out a sigh while speaking. Sucking on his teeth, he moves to one of
the cabinets and pulls out a patient gown. I glance down, seeing
that I am indeed stark naked. My eyes meet his, which stay focused
on mine.
I snatch it from his hands and quickly throw it on. The old me
would have waited naked to see if he would break and look at my
body, but now wasn’t the time. I march out of the room and lean
against the nurse’s station in the hall.
The nurse stares at me, visibly shaking. I must get used to
demons shaking before me - because of who I am now, and I
probably look like a crazed girl.
“Have you seen many old, wrinkly, important men around?” I
ask.
Her hand shakes as she points down the hall.
“I’ll take you,” Khazon says, moving in the direction of her
hand. I follow but don’t question his motives. Maybe he doesn’t
want to be burned alive by my rage. Perhaps he’s just as curious as I
am.
Once we get to a conference room, Khazon raises his fist to
knock politely on the door. Fuck knocking. I grab the door handle
and push the door open. The talking of the council reduces to soft
speaking around the huge table.
“Asura,” Thatcher—Death and Khazon’s father—says. “You
should be resting. We—”
“Are you having a meeting without me?”
He sits there stunned. “It’s too soon for you to even think
about meeting with us.”
“I saw them.”
“Who?” Hades asks, standing.
“The people who murdered my family,” I snap as if he should
be able to read my mind and figure out who I was talking about.
“Asura… we aren’t even on that topic. The Soul Reapers will
handle the investigation.”
My shoulders sag. They don’t care that they have died? My
father was their friend for years. Even Hades, the oldest, says my
father was the best ruler of Hell they have ever had. And they didn’t
care to get revenge?
“So, what are you talking about?” Khazon asks.
“You,” Thatcher says, looking straight at me. “You are
welcome to—”
“Join? No. I’d rather figure out who killed my father, unlike
everyone in this fucking building!” My voice fills with rage the further
the sentence goes on. The feeling engulfs me and makes me grow
hotter.
“You must learn how to control the flame. You have—”
“I don’t want it!” I snap. “I don’t fucking want it!” I need to
explode, scream, and let all the anger and heat out of me. I need to
go. I need to leave.
“Asura, calm down!” Hades snaps, along with the other men.
Why is everyone mad at me? I glance over and see the door
with black soot on it. I had been burning it with my anger. Is this
how it’s going to always be? Family dying? People dying?
Uncontrollable rage?
I let out a growl, rushing away. I want to get out of here; I
can’t think or breathe. Everything is so overwhelming.
Ignoring the various shouts for me to stop, I push out the front door.
How are they going to stop the Queen of Hell? They could never
stop me. My cocky self runs right into the chest of someone outside,
stopping me.
“Woah there, Princess Flaming Hot. Where are you going?” a
familiar, cocky voice says.
I look to see Ryker standing before me in his tactical Soul
Reaper gear. He’s in a sleeveless black tank top with arm sleeves
running from his fingers to mid-bicep and showing the ridges of his
muscles. He’s in cargo pants with combat boots. Today, his powder
pink hair is down, hanging to his shoulders and hiding the pointed
ears I know he has. His hands are around me as if the flame isn’t
burning blisters into his hands. “I-I just need to get out of here. I’m
hot and overwhelmed. I-I’m—”
“Are you okay, baby?” He whispers.
“I need to kill someone or scream or scream while killing
someone. Can you take me out of here?” Tears fill my eyes. I’m not
sure what I need, but I know I need to disappear for a moment and
to make time stop. Everything was going by too fast.
He nods, flashing a smirk as he pulls me close. The hospital
lobby blurs as his magic takes hold of both of us. “Hang on.”
The feeling of being punched in the gut washes over me as I watch
her talk to Ryker. I didn’t hate Ryker; in fact, I looked up to him
while he was at the academy. He helped me get through training in
my first year, and he was top of his class, but I hate how she looks
at him like he’s a great guy. He’s not. He’s not demonic that much I
can tell, meaning he’s one of the first non-demonic Soul Reapers in
Hell, and the Shadow World. Ryker plays women, just like Ledger
does. That, and I know nothing about him despite spending a year
training with him. Ryker kept to himself, barely talking about who he
was or where the fae came from.
The Angel of Death inside of me stirs when Ryker wraps his
arms around her. My lips part as I want to say something. What
would I say? Get off my girl? She’s not mine… obviously. Lately, he’s
been hard to control, even with the same medicine Asura takes.
Ledger said he smelled Ryker on Asura the day of the party,
but it wasn’t the “I had sex with her, and now she has my scent on
her” smell.
This was new for Ryker to not fuck a girl the first chance he
got.
And he can touch her.
My hands are raw and healing slowly from even placing my
hands on her for more than a moment. The Flame is blazing hot—
hotter than Ledger’s hellfire.
Ryker’s magic spikes in the air as if he’s about to use it to
transport somewhere else. Where would he go with her?
“Wait!” Hades’s voice has me looking over my shoulder as he
and the rest of the council rush forward, looking at Asura. “Asura!”
But then the two were gone, vanishing in the thin air of
Ryker’s magic.
“Where did they go?” Hades snaps at me.
I shrug. “I don’t really know where Ryker takes her.”
His brows pull together. My eyes are playing a trick on me for
a second, making me think I’m looking at Ozias. Ozias is a bit taller,
almost like a hellhound and his hair has a slight purple tint in certain
lights. His eyes are a cold, lifeless black, and his thin lips are in a
frown. His power radiates like Ozias’s darkness. “Are you stupid?!”
My brows cock.
“Hey! Don’t take it out on him!” My father comes to my aid,
but I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle myself better than he can.
“You and I know that she can’t handle The Flame right now,
and you aren’t even worried?” Hades snaps.
“She’ll be fine once she can control it,” I say, knowing that it
took her father a day or two to control it.
Hades growls, sounding like a hellhound. “With The Flame,
the demon controlling her demonic half is gone. It was expelled from
her body when the Flame touched her, meaning Asura is fully human
right now.”
 A cold sweat runs down my body. No human has ever
survived the Flame, though there haven’t been many to attempt it.
Asura’s father told us a story about how one of the heirs, a long time
ago, gave up his Flame to a human. The human lasted five seconds
before combusting into flames.
“H-How is that possible?” My father takes the words right out
of my mouth. His eyes glance around to make sure no one is
watching our conversation. “Although she’s technically half-human,
she’s a demon too, right?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to find Ryker and get
her to a safe place before The Flame kills her,” Lucifer says, joining
the conversation. He stands tall, blond hair pushed back with a suit
on.
Did all the rulers of Hell know something we didn’t?
Hades sighs. “Or until those after her finally find her.”
My brain is firing with all the possibilities of what might
happen to Asura, after we just got her back from Earth. She finally
returned to Hell and has only been going to the Soul Reaper
Academy for a short time. I should have tried harder to stop her and
Ryker, but she’s an adult. She can make her own decisions like she
always has, regardless of anyone else’s feelings.
And I was being a dick instead of doing what Ozias was
doing, getting in good with her graces.
Goosebumps rise against my skin, telling me my hellhounds
are trying to find me. My nerves must have ticked them off to look
for me. “Why would people be after her?” I feel like, in a way, I
didn’t need to ask it. Asura was the heir; that’s enough.
“She has the Flame now… She’s the Queen of the
Underworld. Someone can kill her and take the Flame and the
throne. Do you need much more than that?” Hades declares.
Ryker’s magic makes me dizzy, but when I open my eyes, I see we
aren’t at the Shadow World hospital. We are at the blue lagoon… the
place Ryker took me to before, when he kissed me. Only kissed
me. I look up at him and see his pastel pink eyes wander in the
same type of amazement. “I thought you came here often?”
He sucks on his teeth, then sighs almost sadly. “Truly, never
enough. My mother… She used to bring me here a lot when I was a
kid. We’d swim until it was dark and then enjoy the glowing lights.”
The night sky is still pitch black where we are, but with the
bright blue flowers covering the tree or the lagoon swirling with the
same luminous color, I can barely tell it’s night. “What happened to
her?”
Ryker pulls away from me, straightening. “Who?”
“Your mother…” I almost hesitate. He obviously knew who we
were talking about, but why would he bring it up if he didn’t want to
talk about her?
His eyes find me as they fill with sadness. “She was killed.
Much in the same fashion your family was…”
Ice runs through my veins. Somehow for those few minutes, I
forgot about it. Now, knowing Ryker has gone through the same
thing I did, felt… oddly comforting.
“Swim with me,” he whispers into the shell of my ear, earning
a glare. “It’ll cool your skin. Fae waters have healing properties.” He
moves away, unbuckling his black tactical vest and belt, setting them
to the side. My eyes follow the threads of short muscles that line his
broad shoulder and biceps. His ivory hands slide under his shirt and
pull it over his head, ruffling his pink hair. With his black tank top
and arm sleeves removed, I can clearly see his naked upper body, all
creamy skin and muscles, with a long lean torso that has my eyes
dropping straight to his stomach. He has several various pink scars
covering most of his body, even some lining the ab muscles on his
stomach. “Are you going to drool or join me?”
My eyes snap to him. I can join and drool over him. I slip the
hospital gown over my head, not caring that I'm now stark naked in
front of Ryker. I am very comfortable in my skin and have come to
love myself over the years. My skin is abnormally hot with the Flame
stirring around. “How can you touch me?”
Ryker entirely turns, and his eyes lock onto my body. I watch
as they roam over me, taking in every swirling amber line and every
curve. I wonder if he notices the scars that Khazon gave me from
beating me, or the ones Inarian caused me. “Magic. Elves have
spells and almost endless amounts of magic. I make my body cold
when I touch you.” He steps to me, hand cupping my hip and pulling
me into him. My breast touches his chest, nipples pebbling at his
cold body.
His other hand cups my ribs and runs up. His rough, scarred hand
runs over my breast. I arch into his palm, but his hand keeps
climbing higher and higher until his fingers wrap around my throat
and tilt my head up to him.
My eyes drop to his lips, but when he doesn’t make a move to
kiss me, I whimper, “Please.”
His pink lips part.
Does he not want me in the way I want him? Of course, he
did. He flirts with me all the time. We kissed once, but maybe that
was all he needed. Am I mistaken?
“You’re fragile right now… I can’t take advantage of you like
this. I brought you here to help your Flame, not—”
“I am not fragile.” I snap.
“You can’t even control yourself.”
I feel my skin get a few degrees hotter, and that’s when I
realize, after a moment, he is right. He is distracting me, and his
touch is cooling me down, even if he doesn’t notice. With a sigh, I
speak. “Ryker… I like you.”
He lifts a brow.
 “You… helped me when I needed it at the palace with the
intruders.”
He shakes his head. “If I was there, I—”
“Couldn’t do much more because I couldn’t. This is far from
our fault. But right now, I need you again. I need you to kiss me like
you did before and take my breath away. When you touch me, I
can't think. A-And when you look at me, I feel like nothing else
matters, and when your arms are around me—”
He crashes his lips onto mine, obviously telling me to shut up.
A moan escapes my lips as I feel his softness, lips of pure velvet. His
hand moves from my throat to my cheek as his other hand pulls me
closer by placing his hand on the square of my back. I’ve barely
done anything, but I can already feel his bulge pressing into me.
Maybe it’s selfish of me. Perhaps I shouldn’t even be thinking like
this right now, but my body and mind have been in survival mode,
and right now, all I can think about is Ryker. I just need a moment;
even if he lasts five minutes, I just need to feel something else
besides this anger. It is going to consume me, even if it’s only been
a few hours of having the Flame.
He deepens the kiss as I try to pull him closer to me. My eyes
close as I let my mouth explore his.
Ryker lets out a heavy sigh, providing an opportunity to slip
my tongue into his mouth. I feel his sharp teeth scrape my tongue
and I shudder. Then his wet tongue begins to wrestle with mine.
Heat pools between my legs, hotter than the Flame.
His hands roam my body, cooling my skin to the touch. Then
he grabs the back of my thighs and pulls me flush against him. My
legs wrap around his hips, and my arms grab a fistful of his messy
hair. One hand leaves my ass, and before I question it, I feel him
pick up his feet before moving to the water. Glancing back, I see his
pants are entirely off.
The moment the water hits my skin, it bubbles, and steam
hisses into the air. Maybe I was hotter than I thought I was.
Ryker sinks us into the water, pulling back for me to have a
moment to breathe. “Are you okay with…”
“Having sex with you?”
 He nods.
“Yes.” I wasn’t lying. My thoughts are only on how his hands
caress my sore muscles or my hot swirls. My core aches to be filled
with him, to feel close to him.
Ryker lifts me slightly, and then I feel his huge mushroom tip
at my slick entrance. His pink eyes stare at me, waiting for me to
stop him, but I stare right back at him. Then he lowers me a bit but
picks me up again. His tip makes me close my eyes with a sigh. “No.
Look at me.”
Look at him?
I open my eyes, looking down at him.
“Good girl.”
My throat runs dry, and I feel like I’m cracking under the
pressure of his stare. This… feels intimate, something I’ve never
really had before. I barely notice that I’m moaning softly, getting lost
in his eyes.
Finally, his cock fills me, drawing a shared gasp between us.
“You feel so wet for me, Asura.”
I wanted to make a joke about the water around us being the
reason, not him, but I shut up. I don’t want to be the smart, witty
Asura. I want to be in this moment and forget the last few days.
His hands softly caress my cheek, lifting my eyes to his. “Are
you ready for me, baby?”
“Yes… Just get on with it.”
He chuckles. “Impatient.”
Very. The heat in my stomach is blazing and becoming
unbearable. Wrapping my arms around Ryker, I pull him closer to
me. He locks eyes with me before his chilled hand runs down my
spine and grabs my ass. Cooling, and heating my already feverish
skin simultaneously. Then he lifts and slowly lowers me. My head
drops back as I feel his curved dick hitting that spot inside me. My
walls immediately clench around him. Ryker hisses through clenched
teeth… “Look at me,” he orders, moving his hips to meet the
movement of mine.
I lock eyes with him as he stares at me. I can’t read his
expression, just that he looks like he’s admiring my face, my eyes,
and then my wide nose and full lips.
The tip of his cock starts rubbing my G-spot, making my hips
tighten. I moan, fisting his pink hair. “Ryker, I—”
“Don’t I feel good, baby?” he whispers, gritting his teeth.
My nails dig into his shoulders, I wrap my legs tighter around
his waist and start to move my hips faster, harder, I need to feel his
cock fill and stretch me
“Yes, your dick feels s-so good!”
The sides of his lips curl upwards.
“Your pussy is so tight and wet for me, baby.”
This time I smirk, tightening my muscles around him to the
point he can barely move but still pounds himself into me. His pink
eyes roll back as he moans. That’s the first time, even for a split
second, that he took his eyes off me. “I won’t last if you keep doing
that.”
“Neither will I.” My burning core feels tight and needs a
release that only he can give me. He pounds himself into me, and
my moans heighten. Even in the water I can feel my slickness
gushing. His cock, thick and long spearing me repeatedly. Relentless,
I can feel my sensitive nerves building with that familiar pressure.
My head spins, stuck in a cloud of lust, as I scratch at his
shoulders. He hisses in pain, but it gets him to pound himself further
into me. Water splashes around us. “Ryker!” I cry out, feeling the
start of a release. It rushes over me like a heat wave, hotter than
Hell.
“Yes, baby. Come with me. Come with me, baby.” He moans,
eyes closing.
My breathing stutters, and my toes curl as I stiffen for a split
second. As soon as I feel his cock swell and jerk with his impending
finish, I hit my release, throwing my head back and crying loudly.
Then I shatter around him, finally breathing out. I want to slump in
his arms, a boneless mess…but his dick is still moving in and out of
me, making me realize that he’s still fucking me. Then Ryker spills
his release into me. His moans are loud as ropes of his warm cum
paint my inner walls. After coming to a stop, he presses his face into
my shoulder. His soft lips graze my neck as he breathes out. “Fuck.”
 I lick my dry lips, looking up at him. His pink eyes lock with
mine, and I see it again.
The admiration for me.
I realize… all my other men do this without me even realizing
it. Ledger does it when he teases me, and I tease him right back.
Hazen does it while I’m speaking and watches like he actually
listens. Jigsaw barely looked at me but gave small glances, and I
would catch him with this look in his eyes. Ozias has always looked
at me like this.
Inarian and Khazon haven’t. I genuinely believe they hate me,
and for some reason, it makes me want them more.
Ryker caresses my cheek, bringing me back to reality. “You’re
staring… Is something wrong?”
“I was just thinking. I haven’t slept much.”
He nods. “I can take you back to the hospital or—”
I shake my head. “How about we stay here for a while? If
that’s okay with you, Mr. Soul Reaper.”
He smirks. “As long as you are safe, I don’t care where you
are, Asura.”
“Asura…” my father’s voice comes. Something in my chest tightens
as I open my eyes. I’m back in that dream world, where I first saw
him after he died. The obsidian throne engulfs my father’s human
form. He lifts his head, gray hair slicked back and his dark eyes on
me. He looked how he did when he was alive: pink ivory skin,
blazing red eyes, and a slight smile on his face. I step closer,
wanting to feel his warmth and hear him speak to me again. But he
holds up a hand to stop me. “I’m dead.”
A scoff escapes my throat. “Way to ruin the dream for me.”
For a moment, I forget where I was supposed to be and with whom
I was supposed to be with, but deep down, I know this isn’t real. I
know that he is gone. But his ivory skin and the gray beard he was
growing out look so real.
“Not a dream. A vision of sorts. I’m dead, but my
consciousness still remains in the Flame.”
Stinging fills my eyes, and I have to blink it away. “Please
stop saying you’re dead. I know. I saw—”
Sadness fills his eyes as he pushes up from the throne and
starts toward me. “I’m so sorry you had to see Fenric—”
I swipe out my hand, feeling heat rushing through me with the
onslaught of rage. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
But even without the Flame on his skin, my father ignores it,
moving closer. It’s because he’s dead. I’m dreaming and wanting him
to be real. I want nothing more than to go back to before they were
killed by those masked people. But I can’t rewind time, and I can’t—
My father wraps his arms around me, and I feel nothing but
peace for the moment. “I’m so sorry that this has been burdened
onto you. I knew I was going to die, and I’m so sorry you had to
witness it.”
Rage rushes through me, and I press my palm into his chest,
pushing him away. My teeth grind as my fingers flex into a fist. “You
knew? You knew?! I hate this. I hate life. I don’t want the fucking
throne. I don’t—”
“You have to control it, Asura!” my father says in a pleading
voice.
Part of me wants to stop and give him the comfort he needs,
but I’m still not entirely sure that this isn’t my dream, just talking.
There is probably some guilt in my subconscious.
“Asura! Asura!”
I fist my hair, confused and screaming out, “Shut up! Shut up!
Shut up!”
We had barely been looking for Asura when Ryker finally returned
her to the living room of Hades’ home. I am with Hades and Ledger,
and we have been trying to figure out where she could have been.
They had disappeared entirely from the radar.
Ryker drops to his knees as soon as he leaves his tornado of
transport. Asura is in his hands, burning a bright red. All her clothes
and most of his have been burned off.
“What did you do?” Ledger snaps protectively.
“We were sleeping, and she woke u-up screaming, and I-I—”
Ryker finally can pull away from Asura once Ledger takes hold of her.
She lays limp, sweat pouring from her body.
“It’s the Flame,” Hades explains, ushering Persephone to get
all the stuff he had explained we would need when we found her.
Ledger hisses in pain. “She’s burning me! How?”
Ryker has moved to the kitchen without being noticed and is
running his blistered arms under the cold water. “She burned me
too, despite my magic.”
“Fuck!” Ledger says, about to drop her.
Instinctively, I reach out for my Soul Reaper and wrap my
arms around her. Steam is rising from them, but not a single part of
me burns.
Hades lets out a breath of air. “You got her? You’re not…
burning?”
I shake my head.
“Of course not,” Ledger growls under his breath. “Let me take
her.”
I lift her up higher against my body. “And burn yourself? You
might have Hell’s fire embedded in your skin, but you won’t be able
to handle The Flame.”
 “And of course, you will? You are just a glorified freezer.”
“Stop!” Ryker snaps, running his hands over his burned arms,
and with a flash of pink light, his skin slowly gets rid of the white
blisters that had formed. “Let’s focus on Asura!”
I glance at him, getting a whiff of her… juices… on his skin. A
smirk curls on my lips when my icy dark eyes move to Ledger, who
just noticed it too.
“We still have that bed,” Persephone says. “But it’s down in
the basement.”
“Bed?” Ledger asks. Obviously, he wasn’t paying attention
when anyone else was speaking before. Stupid.
Persephone moves around the wall corner to the basement
door, leading the way. “The bed Wells used when he got The
Flame.”
Wells.
That was Asura’s father, the Devil.
Was.
He hadn’t been gone that long, only a day, but it felt like an
eternity since I last saw him at the party. The party was for Asura
getting all her hellhounds. I glance down at Asura as we go down
the swirling steps to the basement. Her face is screwed up in pain,
and her skin is clammy. The even tan that she usually has is pale.
She has been through a lot in one day, losing her brother and her
dad while gaining The Flame and the throne.
None of us were prepared for this.
I am now the hellhound of the Queen of Hell.
But neither Hazen, Jigsaw, nor even I are celebrating. Part of
me wants that silver-tongued, witty girl back, and part of me is
worried about her. Asura isn’t okay, mentally, and physically.
Persephone quickly cleans and makes the bed for Asura
before I can set her down on it. When I pull back, I see my sleeves
are burned, but not the skin below the shirt.
My eyes move to Ledger, whose crimson eyes are on my
arms. Not because they aren’t blistered, but…
Glancing down, I see the row of fleshy pink scars against my
pale skin. Swallowing, I place my arms behind my back, out of sight.
That gets him to turn his attention back to Asura.
“I’m going to get some ice water and a rag,” Persephone
says.
“I got it,” Ryker says. “Sit down.”
Persephone grabs her round stomach, long, dark purple hair
settling against her shoulders.
Hades nods a “thank you” at Ryker and pulls a chair beside Asura’s
bed.
I open my mouth to speak, but a herd of footsteps stomps
down the steps. Before I can process who the fuck is coming down,
Khazon has Ryker by his collar and is pushing him into the cellars
stone wall. “What did you do to her?!”
Ryker’s jaw clenches as he pushes him away. “Nothing. She
fell asleep, and she woke up really fucking hot.”
“Yeah, she could have gotten the treatment she needed at
the hospital if you didn’t take her away.”
His chest starts heaving, and the tips of his elf ears are
growing red. “She asked me to take her away, and I did.”
“And you took advantage of her,” Ledger snaps.
“What?!” Hazen barks. Electricity runs through the air from
him.
“Fuck off. I didn’t do anything to her that she didn’t want me
to,” Ryker states, looking at Ledger. That makes Ledger charge at
him, looking like a vicious dog about to rip his head off. It takes a
whole crowd of us to keep Ledger from Ryker while Ryker just
stands and stares at him.
“Stop it!” Ozias snaps, voice laced with a hint of darkness that
he gets from his parents. “Asura is over here dying, and all you care
about is who fucked her and who didn’t. You are all fucking
pathetic.”
Agreed.
“She’s not dying,” Hazen says under his breath. “Is she?” His
bright blue eyes move to Hades. I almost feel bad for Hazen. The
rims of his eyes are red, and he seems far more upset than anyone
else in the room, or at least he’s the only one who shows it. All
Ledger knows is “smash anyone that hurt girl,” like the savage
cavemen he is. Jigsaw hasn’t shown a single ounce of emotion
behind his eyes; his jaw just tightened.
Hades sighs. “Her body can’t handle the Flame like her successors.”
My brows pull together. “Why? She’s the heir, is she not?”
“Asura is different from them.”
“A female?” Ozias asks, brows pulling together.
Hades nods. “But that’s not it. Every line of the heir has
been… demonic. The Flame raises their temperature, and they have
to learn to control it, but not nearly as bad as Asura will have to.”
“What makes her different from all the rest, if not her being a
female?” I ask.
Ledger sends me a glare as if I asked a stupid question. I
glare back, wanting to taunt him that Asura currently has four
boyfriends and will most likely gain three more, especially since
Ledger and I both know Khazon is now single. But my eyes flicker to
Asura. She doesn’t look the best to be dealing with our bullshit.
“Asura is fully human.”
My head snaps to Hades. Silence fills the room as we all try to
understand what he just said. “Wha—”
Hades holds up his hand. “For once, everyone needs to listen
and shut up. This does not leave this room. Asura’s mother was
human and fell in love with Wells. The night Asura’s mother
conceived Asura, Wells left a while later to take care of the gates of
Hell opening. Although the accident was short and dealt with, Wells
never returned to Earth. The night Asura was born… Her mother
summoned someone she thought was Wells. Instead, she
summoned a high-level demon who made a deal with her.”
“Circe,” Jigsaw says. I knew this name from him. Jigsaw had
talked about it to us after Hell’s Storm destroyed the academy, but
neither Hazen nor I knew what he meant or who that was. “Is
Asura’s demon the person that was summoned at her birth?”
Hades nods.
My eyes land on Hazen for a moment, and I expect a reaction
from him. Instead, he just stares at the gray floor.
“You knew?” I ask him.
 His eyes lock with mine, and he glances at everyone around
him.
“You knew that Asura wasn’t fully demon, and we were going
to follow her as a Soul Reaper?” I snap. “Is this why she can’t pull
out her fucking weapon or didn’t even fucking try?”
Hazen shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
I glance around at all the calm faces around us. “The Queen
of Hell is human, and no one else is freaking out?”
“Could you shut up so we can hear the rest of the story?”
Ryker snaps.
“Could you not take advantage of a woman who just lost her
family?”
Ryker’s ears turn red, but he doesn’t charge like Ledger would
have when I taunt him. Deep down, I don’t think Ryker took
advantage of Asura; if anything, she probably made the first move.
Apparently, men can’t refuse her.
I’m sure Ryker tried to, but Asura probably said she was okay.
The girl could handle herself, especially when she didn’t want to be
touched. I heard what she did to Eames when they first met at the
club.
“Continue,” I say to Hades with a huff.
Hades nods. “Asura’s mother gave her life to save Asura.
Circe, the demon, was planning to claim the throne as a reward for
keeping Asura alive. Circe would have been the reason that Asura
would have survived this.”
“But?” Ledger asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
“The Flame kicked Circe from her body, leaving Asura…”
“Fully human. What do we do?”
Persephone kneels next to a clammy Asura. “We do what we
can do; just wait.”
Inarian snaps at something Ledger says while trying to hold Asura
close to his body. The ice hellhound—although reluctantly—has been
cooling her down with his magic. He took the news harder, and I
think, in a way, I understand. He feels betrayed, like Asura hid this
from him as his Soul Reaper, instead of thinking of it like she was
protecting him.
I sit back, crossing my arms over my chest. I think back to
my Earth elemental hellhound, Alexis. I had done the same thing to
him, and he took it the hardest out of every one of my hounds. I hid
who I was, and he didn’t like that.
 My skin prickles as I feel my powerful hellhounds getting
closer and closer to us with someone else who is just as powerful.
Hades has my hellhounds escort a mage that can help with the
Flame. Apparently, this had been the same mage that helped her
keep Circe down with medicine that Asura had to take daily.
“Stop it!” Ozias snaps. “Will you both shut the fuck up?” His
anger is directed towards Ledger and Inarian.
Inarian’s jaw ticks and tightens as he places a hand on Asura.
Her face calms, and steam raises in the air.
I snicker. “I feel like Inarian being pissed off helps him cool
her down more.”
Ozias rolls his eyes but smirks. His parents had left, leaving all
seven men downstairs with Asura. Maybe they got tired of the
bickering or had more important things to attend to. “Did you guys
really…”
I look up to see his black eyes on me. They weren’t hurt, but
there’s a type of sadness I’ve only seen when a man loves a woman
that doesn’t love him. “Have sex?” I finish before nodding. I half
expect the room to explode and each one to hate us.
“How could you be thinking about that right now?” Ledger
asks in a grumble like he hasn’t been trying to fight everyone over
Asura since he found out about her and Jigsaw. I only found out
because he snapped at Jigsaw when Hades and his wife went
upstairs.
I shrug. “We weren’t. She asked me to help her not think.” I
wanted to taunt him more. Ledger is so easy to piss off, but I bite
my tongue from telling him how I got her to not think.
“So, you stuck your dick in her.” Khazon scoffs, crossing his
arms over his chest.
I roll my eyes. “You can’t talk! All the Soul Reapers in the
headquarters know what you did to her.”
His dark eyes narrow on me, brows pulling. “How?”
“Ask your girlfriend.” I taunt, cocking a brow.
Khazon groans. Grim’s daughter, Miya, told everyone about
Khazon and Asura. I heard about their little fight and him treating
her like she’s not the heir of the throne of Hell. He disrespected her,
and that pissed me off.
“Let’s focus on the task at hand,” Hazen says.
“You’re okay with this… this pink freak touching our girl?”
Ledger asks.
“Our girl is about to die, and all you care about is who is
sleeping with her!” Hazen snaps. “Why is that? Is that all you care
about? owning the girl?!”
“No!”
“Really? Then why are you picking fights with everyone?”
Electricity fills the air for a moment, as well as silence. “I can’t
even touch my girlfriend, and you aren’t even fucking worried about
that! Fuck! You guys don’t fucking deserve her!” With that, Hazen is
moving up the stairs with lightning bolts hitting the wall behind him.
I am the first to get up and actually follow him up the stairs.
“Are you okay?”
After the basement door closes, Hazen takes a deep breath at
the top of the stairs. “Peachy. Sorry… I—”
I shake my head. “Don’t be sorry. You are completely right. I
would never have slept with her if I knew her life was in danger.”
Hazen pats my shoulder, shocking me a bit. He’s so soft. I
almost forgot he’s a foot taller than me and a powerful hellhound.
“Ledger is… deflecting. He doesn’t know who to blame and doesn’t
want to be thinking about how, in a way, we failed Asura.”
Letting out a sigh, I shake my head. “You didn’t fail Asura.
You have been by her side, and she knows you are there for her. I’m
unsure what you could have done to stop what happened.”
“Just a lot is happening…”
“I know. My best team is trying to figure out what happened
last night.” I nod.
Hazen nods. “Oh… That spell you used to touch her; can you
use it on me? I want to be able to comfort her.”
A smile crawls over my lips. Whether she knows it or not,
Asura picked a good hellhound and boyfriend. He was more kind and
in touch with his feelings than those dummies downstairs. Not a
single one even told Asura how they felt about her.
 My skin prickles as I look towards the front door. There… I
feel them.

I’ve been sitting in the dark for what felt like days, unable to escape.
“Hello, child,” a voice says, and I twist around, finally able to see
some light. Blinking away the stinging of the light, I see an old, tall,
ivory-skinned lady. She looks and sounds familiar. “How are you? You
were so tiny when I first saw you,” she says, crouching next to me. I
avert my eyes. “I’m Agnus. I’m here to help you with your feelings.”
I scoff. “No.”
She slaps the back of my head. “Don’t give me an attitude.
Your father was the exact same way. Rude.”
My hand rubs over the spot she hit as if it hurt. “You knew
him when he got the Flame?”
She softens. “He was one of my dearest friends. Your
brothers are staying with me while you get your shit together.”
A gasp leaves my throat. I had forgotten about Killian and
how he must feel. “Are they okay?”
She nods. “Killian is worried about you and is… sad.”
My heart tightens. “I need to go see him.”
She shakes her head. “See him again when you are ready.
Right now, you need to take care of yourself. Are you ready to wake
up?”
I let out a sigh. “Why? So, I’m alone? Dad is dead. Fenric…”
She rubs my hair. “You are never alone. Do you want to see
why?” When she holds her hand, I stare at it. I feel alone, and I
don’t know much that can change that feeling. In a huff, I take her
hand.
 My eyes open to the real world, and I see the palm of
someone’s hand over my eyes and the lady from my dream’s voice
whispering a spell. Heat washes over me, making me groan and
twist in pain.
“Stay still,” she mutters.
“You,” I grumble back. I’m so passive-aggressive as if I’m not
going to do it. The intense heat my body feels suddenly disappears,
making me let out a breath of air I didn’t know I was holding.
“There. You should be able to handle the Flame, but you must
be able to keep yourself calm. If you get angry again, the spell will
be broken, and you will heat up again. This is a temporary solution.”
Slowly, my hands are getting some feeling back as I run them
across the silky blanket. A groan escapes my mouth as I sit up.
“Careful,” Hazen advises, reaching out to me, but his hands
don’t touch me. I look over at him. He looks like a mess, eyes red
and puffy, curls wild. He was waiting for me. I glance around, seeing
Ledger, Ryker, Jigsaw, Khazon, Ozias, and even Inarian sitting
around the basement I was in.
“You guys… all waited for me?”
Hazen adjusts my blanket, so I’m not exposed so much.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t we? You needed us.”
My eyes meet his. I would never admit to needing them. I
would never admit to needing someone more than them needing
me. It made me feel slightly less alone to know they were all waiting
for me.
“How are you, darling?” Persephone asks, sitting on the bed.
I glance down at the flames covering my arms—the ones I
used to admire on my father. “Fine. Sweaty.”
“Yeah. Let’s get you into the shower, darling. Ozias, be a dear
and go run the bath.” Ozias nods at his mother’s command. Our eyes
meet as he starts up the stairs of the cellar. So, we are in Hades’s
palace, not at the hospital, or… Ryker’s blue lagoon.
My eyes move to Ryker, and we lock eyes. I remember our
intimate moment together and how he made me feel safe. That was
the last time I was conscious.
 “At least we know he didn’t take advantage of her,” Ledger
mutters from the corner.
“What?” My head snaps to him.
“Nothing,” he says, pushing from the cellar wall and walking
up the stairs. “Glad you’re okay right now, princess.”
My brows bounce. “I can tell,” I say with sarcasm that he
ignores.
Hazen sighs before placing a hand on my thigh over the
covers. “Are you hungry?”
I can’t tell right now. I didn’t feel exactly like eating, but I
nod. Hazen might feel better if he does something for me.
“I’ll see what Hades will let me make for you.” His bright blue
eyes drop to my lips before he stands and follows Ledger up the
stairs. Jigsaw follows without a word, leaving me to think now
something is wrong.
“Why is everyone acting weird?” I ask Ryker.
He just shakes his head, telling me not to worry about it.
After a few minutes, Persephone guides me up the stairs, Ryker is
behind me to catch me if I fall. My body is so weak, and the mage,
Agnus, said I’d get weak. She also explained that she would have to
go home and figure out a spell to help the Flame and I bond more,
but it would take time. What she did to me was temporary. At the
top of the stairs, I falter, out of breath.
Hands grab my waist, and I almost think it’s Ryker until I feel
they’re icy cold. Glancing over, I see Inarian holding me. His dark
eyes lock on me. “Don’t—”
“You should just carry me,” I tease, half joking.
He lets out a massive sigh before scooping me into his arms
and following Persephone. I have no strength to resist him.
“I like it better when you tease me,” I mutter, trying to hold
onto his shirt instead of his body. I’m sure he will hate me more if I
touch his body more than I need to.
The living room is full of men who all look at me and pretend
I don’t exist. I roll my eyes at them. In the guest bedroom, Inarian
drops me into the bathroom and quickly leaves with Persephone. He
doesn’t even give me a chance to ask him a question.
 Ozias is bending over, agitating the water with bubbles. His
hair hangs down towards the bathtub, and it’s almost long enough
to reach the water. A slight smirk runs across my lips, watching the
lean muscles as he does this. It makes me wonder how he is as a
Soul Reaper or how he was in the academy. “Do you have
hellhounds, Ozzy?” I finally ask.
He stands, flicking his wet hands into the water. “Not yet.”
“I’m sorry.”
He chuckles, looking over. “I’m not a gorgeous female that
gets all the men in the end.”
I snort, catching on that he is joking and means nothing by it.
Moving to him, I reach up and run my fingers through his hair, like
I’ve always done. “Are you sure? This hair says differently.”
But he’s not smiling anymore. His lips are in a thin frown
while his black eyes darken. “Uh, do you need anything else,
Asura?”
I glance around the vast, black bathroom. I have cups of ice
water on a tray and a hot bubble bath. What more did I need? But
being in this vast bathroom felt lonely. The silence would kill me, and
the thought of being alone right now terrifies me. The rage and fire
inside me are gone now, and I don’t need to break down alone.
“Are… you leaving?”
“I can... I also won’t leave if you want,” he offers.
“Yeah, just stay in here with me.”
Ozias moves and turns off the water before turning away, so I
can get in.
I drop the blanket before stepping inside the hot water. I
submerge myself into the water, making sure the bubbles cover my
naked body. Although it’s steaming, it feels like nothing compared to
the Flame and what I felt. “Okay, you can look if you want.”
He pulls a chair against the wall and sits, averting his gaze
from me.
I glance at him, trying to catch his eyes, but he refuses. It
wasn’t the first time he had seen me bathe or bathed me. “Why are
all of you men acting weird?”
 His dark eyes finally meet mine. “You almost died, Asura.
There could be a million reasons why they are acting like this.”
“Why are you?”
His leg starts bouncing. “I’m not.”
I roll my eyes.
He sucks on his teeth. “Stop rolling your eyes at me.”
“Stop lying to me.”
“You just went through the most traumatic thing you will ever
—”
I sit up. “You don’t think I know that?”
“—and I doubt you need us acting like the fucking children we
are acting like.”
My mouth shuts, but not for long. “Better than having you all
acting weird around me like I can’t protect my family and it’s my
fault they are dead.”
He sucks on his teeth. “We would never think that.”
I swallow. I don’t even know where those words came from.
They don’t even feel like my own. None of my men have made me
feel like this or said it to me. “I am trying so hard to keep everything
together, and I can’t when you guys are pissed at me. Agnus said I
would feel less alone, yet I feel worse.”
“No one is pissed at you.”
“Then why can’t you look at me?” I snap and look at him. He
looks away until he realizes that’s what I was talking about.
“Asura.”
“Get out! I’d rather be alone right now instead of feeling
alone with you.”
After a moment, he stands. “I’ll be outside the door,” he says,
leaving me alone.
Tears sting in my eyes, and my bottom lip quivers. But I lied. I didn’t
want to be alone. I just couldn’t deal with this on top of everything
else. Everything feels like it’s crashing down.
I ignore Ozias when I come out of the bathroom, dressed and ready
for food. I am still unsure if I can eat anymore because my appetite
is ruined, but I know Hazen will want me to. Downstairs, I walk into
silence. Agnus stands, moving to me. “I have to go. Maybe I can
help find clues at Well’s palace.”
Or what is left of it? “I appreciate that. Thank you. Any tips to help
me tame the Flame?”
She shakes her head. “Wells might know. I need to do more
research.”
What? Can’t look that up on Google? “Wells is dead,” I
deadpan.
 “Physically. Mentally, he’ll come to you and help you control
the Flame. All the successors have.”
I nod, thinking about how my father has come to me twice.
The rage and the sadness were overwhelming, leaving me in the
darkness of my subconscious, in a place Circe once was. Now, I
believe she’s gone. Where? I’m unsure. I haven’t taken my medicine
in hours, and I don’t hear her inside my head, and she hasn’t even
tried to take over.
Agnus leaves, and Hades closes the huge gothic doors behind her.
After I sit on the couch, I feel something wet against my foot.
I see Cerberus nudging one of his noses against my toe. Staring
down at him, I remember when Fenric was small, and we used to
put him on the dogs’ back, and Cerberus would let him ride him like
a horse. Sadness washes over me.
“I don’t want you to worry about your queenly duties,” Hades
starts, making me slowly pry my eyes from his hound.
I almost forgot that now I’m the Queen of Hell. I don’t feel like her. I
feel smaller and weaker than a queen should feel.
“Lucifer and Satan will have control over Hell until you are
ready.”
Ready? Will I ever be?
Hazen sets down a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of
creamy tomato soup. I tell him a quick thank you before eating in
complete silence. My eyes stay glued to the bowl. I’m so used to
sharing a bowl of tomato soup with Fenric. He would make us a
bunch of grilled cheese, mainly because that’s all he knows how to
do. Afterwards, I look up to stop the tears. All the men are staring at
me.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
Inarian stands. “As your hellhound, I think it’s pretty
important that you should have told us you were human.”
I stare at him. “That’s what’s on your mind? That I’m
human?”
“You have to admit, it changes a lot.”
I scoff. “Like what? That someone is murdering the royal
family? Or that I’m the queen?”
 “A human can’t be Queen!”
“And yet here I fucking am!” I bark.
He rolls his eyes. “You know damn well the Flame would
never have touched your body if Circe wasn’t in there.”
I shrug. “Maybe. Maybe not. You hate it so much, leave. Go back to
the academy. Go be a dick somewhere else. I’m not in
the fucking mood.”
He scoffs. “So, you’re just going to drop me like that?”
I am about to say yes when Hades butts in. “No one is
leaving, especially not if you are her hellhound. Those assassins
could be after you too.”
My eyes lock with Inarian, and I see the pure hatred that he
has in his eyes for me. I stick up my middle finger at him.
His brows pull. “Fuck you!”
“You wish, icy... bitch.” What can I say? I’m off my game right
now.
He scoffs. “Wait until the next time you fucking need to cool
down. I won’t be around to help.”
“Oh, you actually helped? I thought you just beat my ass
because you can.”
“I can right now.”
For some reason, all the rage inside of me is gone, but I can
still see his, and in a way, I find it attractive. His seven-foot build
frame towers over me. His arms are crossed over his muscular chest.
His lips are turned downwards in a frown, and his brows pull
together. Not an ounce of me is intimidated by him. He would be the
first to bow by my will if I needed him to. I used to be—short girl
versus a tall hellhound with powers. Now I was the Queen of Hell.
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
I roll my eyes, standing. “You’re right because you’re a
fucking joke. I have more important things to worry about.”
“Where are you going?” Hazen asks me.
“To bed. Want to come?”
Hazen’s bright blue eyes drop to the flames on my body, and
he hesitates. He is going to deny me because he can’t touch me. “I
can.”
 “I’ll come too,” Jigsaw says, standing. That is the first time I
heard him talk today. He’s back into his black hoodie and jeans with
too many chains hanging to his knees and worn-out combat boots.
I nod, moving up the stairs. I can deal with these two. They
don’t seem to give me much of a headache. Hopefully.
We make it to the guest bedroom, and I close the door behind me.
Hazen is the first to sit on the bed and look at me. My mind goes
back to Inarian and how mad he is. I’m human. Hazen accepted it,
Jigsaw... I’m not sure. “Jigsaw, are you upset with me?” I ask.
Jigsaw looks at me, lime green eyes scanning my face. His
hands are in his pocket. “I don’t know. I didn’t know you were so…”
“Different.” I beam.
“Ordinary,” he finishes, making me scoff. He lets out a
chuckle. “I’m not sure why I’m not upset. I knew something was
different, especially after I spoke to Circe, and she had no idea who
I was. I kind of knew something was going on.”
“When did you speak to her?” Hazen asks, sitting on the bed.
My eyes wander about his body. His tan skin is a bit pale, but
he looked tired more than anything. His body is large and wide, part
of his hips showing from under his t-shirt as he leans back in the
bed. His hair is messy, curly mohawk, showing off all the piercings in
his ears.
“After the Hell Storm,” Jigsaw says, drawing my attention.
Like Hazen, Jigsaw towers over me. His body is just as lean, even
though I’ve only seen him once without clothing. Right now, he’s
covered, mask over lips and long hair hidden under his hood. I want
to see his hair, but I don’t want to move. Magic swirls as I flick a
finger, and his hood comes down. His jet-black hair is down today,
hanging shaggily to his shoulders. His lime eyes snap at me. “How
did you do that?”
“The Flame?” Hazen asks.
I shrug. “I just wanted to see your hair. As a kid, you know
how you wanted to shut off the lights but didn’t want to move?”
“As a kid? I do that now.” Hazen leans back more, part of his
happy trail showing.
 Now, I can’t think. Where was I? “Uh, yeah. I just thought
about it, tried it, and… it did it.”
Hazen sits up, looking at me. “Do you think I can try to touch
you, maybe? Agnus said... I might be able to.”
I move, standing in front of him. Reaching out, I almost stop
myself. I didn’t want to hurt him, but he didn’t pull back once my
fingers caressed his cheek.
He lets out a sigh, placing his hand over mine. “Fuck. I
missed you.” His arms wrap around me, pulling me on top of him
while lying down.
“Haze!” I squeal a bit, not expecting it.
“Nope. You are getting squished tonight.”
I nuzzle my face into his chest, not realizing how much I
missed being this close to him. I am that type of person. The ones I
miss most, I won’t know until I have them again. It might seem
unappreciative, but it’s more like I can’t feel anything and focus on
the wrong things. With a small sigh, I listen to his heart beating
against my ears and fall asleep against him.

I woke up after no dreaming and squished between two large

hellhounds. It takes me a second to realize Jigsaw is behind
me, holding my waist. My hands travel, and I notice he’s touching
my bare skin and not burning me. Before, we would have to use
lube or a barrier, so he doesn’t burn me.
I shift slowly, turning to face the toxic hellhound. Some type
of protector he is. He barely moves to wake up.
My eyes look up at him. For the first time in a long time,
Jigsaw looks comfortable. Even when we slept together that first
night, he was sure to keep his distance and not touch either of us.
Now he seems so relaxed. He’s shirtless, showing off the various
poison-themed tattoos covering most of his arms. My finger travels
up his left arm, over the snake that wraps around his arm to his
bicep, and the skull on his broad, muscular shoulder. I trace his
collarbone, right along the flowers, before moving down his chest.
Jigsaw shudders, and when I look up, I see his lime green
eyes looking down at me. We stare for a moment, waiting for either
of us to pull away or to make a move.
I run my finger further down his chest, tracing the indents of
his muscles.
He moves his hands, running them under my shirt, fingers
brushing my flat stomach. “Fuck,” he breaths out. “I’ve never—”
I reach up, fisting his shoulder-length hair. He looks taken
aback by this, eyes widening. I press myself flush against him before
capturing his lips.
He tastes sour, yet I never pull back.
He tries to, but I don’t let him.
Jigsaw’s touch isn’t hurting me.
Finally, he realizes that before he gives in. He presses his lips
into mine roughly, grabbing my hips. Lust swirls deep inside of me,
and by the way a growl is vibrating in his throat, I can tell he smells
it.
He pulls back, kissing my jaw before going to my neck.
“Look who wants me,” I tease.
He growls between kisses. “Don’t do this right now. I’ve never
been able to touch a girl like this.”
I stiffen. He’s… He wasn’t a virgin, I knew that. We’ve had sex
once… that night… but I never knew he never touched someone like
this. Bare. The moment he touches someone, they burn, leaving him
having to cover himself up a lot.
His hands travel my body feverishly and push me onto my
back. My head hits the pillow, and I close my eyes, enjoying the soft
kisses that caress my skin. He kneels between my legs, still licking
and sucking the soft spots on my neck. Then he presses his bare
thigh against my core, drawing a moan.
My hips involuntarily thrust against his skin, and the way my
clit rubs against his muscles has me panting. I stop myself from
going any further, but my legs are shaking and tightening around his
leg with need.
“Go ahead, baby,” he whispers against my skin. Part of me
wants to decline his offer to grind against his leg, but I can’t. I’ve
been dying for Jigsaw to be able to touch me bare like this, but the
need outweighs the embarrassment. With that, I began grinding
against his muscular thigh, feeling it hit all the right places on my
clit. “Good girl,” he mutters.
I roll my eyes, fisting his hair and bringing his lips to my
mouth. Crashing our lips together, we kiss like it’s our last breath.
The room grows hotter as my hands rip at his shoulders while he
burns through my clothing, letting them fall off my body. My hips
move fast, trying to satisfy that ache in my body. Each time I moan
into his mouth, he presses his thigh into me more until I’m grabbing
at his hair. With each thrust of my hips, I leave a trail of my slick
arousal, coating his thigh with my need.
“I’m close,” I whine, wrapping my leg around his calf.
Jigsaw fists my hair and pulls back. “Come for me.”
The sensation hits me as I move my hips deeper into him.
Moans leave my mouth, but my eyes never leave his. Euphoria
washes over me as I finally shatter on him, throwing my head back
into the pillow and crying out.
Hades better have thick walls.
He kisses my lips, muffling my moans a bit. “Good girl. Are
you ready for me?”
I glance at him, noticing his hard cock pressing right into my
stomach. Am I wet enough? Sure as hell felt like it.
He reaches between us and is hesitant. Slowly, he runs his
fingers through my lips and touches my wetness. No lube. And it
doesn’t burn.
Jigsaw lets out a throaty groan. “I need to feel you,” he says,
pulling back and dropping his shorts.
Finally, my head isn’t clouded by too much fog because I
remember Hazen. I glance over to see him staring right at me, but
he doesn’t seem mad.
“Keep going, baby,” Hazen encourages.
“Are you okay with this?”
He leans in and kisses me softly, nodding. “Can I watch?”
“Please.” I feel Jigsaw laying back over me. My hands snake
around his neck into his hair as he kisses down my neck and
collarbone. My eyes stay locked with my lightning hellhound, waiting
for him to get mad like Ledger did. Hazen is less possessive than
Ledger is, and I think, in a way, he just needs reassurances that I’m
his. His bright blue eyes travel to watch him, and I think about
everything Hazen has done for me: joined my team on a whim,
invited Fenric to lunch, and took care of me. He has been there for
me since I got back to Hell. With every fiber of my being, I trusted
him. “I love you.”
Everyone in the room freezes, even me.
I’ve never told someone outside of my family I loved them.
But looking at Hazen, I know that’s what I feel.
Hazen leans in and kisses my lips. “I love you too, Asura. Now
get back to it before you go dry on Jigsaw. He’s never felt you.”
A smirk runs across my lips, drawing my attention back to
Jigsaw.
He looks at me. “Should I leave this third wheel?”
I shake my head. “And miss out on feeling my wet pussy? No,
thank you. Come feel me.”
He hovers over me, biceps caging my head in. Without
another word, I reach and line him up to my entrance. In a way, I
love Jigsaw too. I love his mouth and his attitude. I love his teasing
and his constantly being gentle with me, but neither of us is ready to
admit that.
Jigsaw pushes himself in, and I feel a twinge of pain when his
cock stretches me. When he’s entirely inside of me, we both let out
a moan. His eyes close, and his breathing comes out panting. “Holy
fuck!”
Another random document with
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 “There's something else, sir,” he continued. “This Mrs. Marple
wasn't at the house that night. What evidence is there that Silverdale
and the Deepcar girl ever went home at all after they'd dined down
town? There's no corroboration of that story. Why not assume that
the Deepcar girl was an actual accomplice on the spot? She and
Silverdale may have driven out to the bungalow after dinner, and she
may have stood at the window during the whole affair. There's
nothing against that, if you discount her story. My reading of the
Deepcar girl is that she may be surface-shy, so to speak, but she's
got good strong fibre in her character underneath. Look how she
faced up to you not ten minutes ago. Not much shyness about that.”
“I think I'd have been a bit stirred up myself, Inspector, if you
came along in my absence and pawed over all my private
possessions. One isn't necessarily a scoundrel if one turns peevish
over a thing of that sort.”
The Inspector let the point pass.
“Have you any notion who this Mr. Justice can be, sir?”
“I've a pretty fair notion, but it's only a notion. Who stands to profit
by the affair?”
Some recollection seemed to cross the Inspector's mind.
“Spratton, of course, sir. And now I come to think of it, if you
shaved off your moustache, he's very like you in face and build. If
Spratton's going to collect his insurance on young Hassendean, then
murder's got to be proved.”
“Well,” said Sir Clinton lightly. “I trust Mr. Spratton will get what he
deserves in the matter.”
 Chapter XVI.
Written Evidence
Inspector Flamborough had to wait a couple of days before his
unknown ally, Justice, made any further move. It so happened that
Sir Clinton was not at headquarters when the post brought the
expected communication; and the Inspector had plenty of time to
consider the fresh evidence, unbiased by his superior's comments.
As soon as the Chief Constable reappeared, Flamborough went to
him to display the latest document in the case.
“This came by the midday post, sir,” he explained, laying some
papers on the table. “It's Mr. Justice again. The results of his raid on
the Deepcar house, it seems.”
Sir Clinton picked up the packet and opened out the papers.
Some photographic prints attracted his attention, but he laid them
aside and turned first to a plain sheet of paper on which the now
familiar letters from telegraph forms had been gummed. With some
deliberation he read the message.

“I enclose photographs of part of the correspondence which has

recently taken place between Dr. Silverdale and Miss Deepcar.
“Justice.”

Sir Clinton gazed at the sheet for a moment or two, as though

considering some matter unconnected with the message. At last he
turned to the Inspector.
“I suppose you've tried this thing for finger-prints? No good, eh? I
can still smell a faint whiff of rubber from it—off his gloves, I
suppose.”
Flamborough shook his head in agreement with Sir Clinton's
surmise.
 “Nothing on it whatever, sir,” he confirmed.
The Chief Constable laid down the sheet of paper and took up
one of the photographs. It was of ordinary half-plate size and
showed a slightly reduced copy of one page of a letter.

that things cannot go on any

longer in this way.
The plan we talked over last
seems the best. When I have given
Hassendean hints about the use of
hyoscine, he will probably see for
himself how to get what he wants.
After that, it merely means watching
them, and I am sure that we shall soon
have her out of our way. It will be
very easy to make it seem intentional
on their part; and no one is likely
to look further than that.

Flamborough watched the Chief Constable's face as he read the

message, and as soon as he saw that Sir Clinton had completed his
perusal of it, the Inspector put in his word.
“I've checked the writing, sir. It's Silverdale's beyond any doubt.”
The Chief Constable nodded rather absent-mindedly and took up
another of the prints. This showed a largely-magnified reproduction
of the first two lines of the document; and for a minute or so Sir
Clinton subjected the print to a minute scrutiny with a magnifying
glass.
“It's an original, right enough,” Flamborough ventured to
comment at last. “Mr. Justice has been very thorough, and he's given
us quite enough to prove that it isn't a forgery. You can see there's
no sign of erasing or scraping of any sort on the paper of the original;
and the magnification's big enough to show up anything of that sort.”
“That's true,” Sir Clinton admitted. “And so far as one can see,
the lines of the writing are normal. There are none of those halts-in-
the-wrong-place that a forger makes if he traces a manuscript. The
magnification's quite big enough to show up anything of that sort. I
guess you're right, Inspector, it's a photograph of part of a real
document in Silverdale's own handwriting.”
“The rest of the things make that clear enough,” Flamborough
said, indicating several other prints which showed microphotographic
reproductions of a number of other details of the document. “There's
no doubt whatever that these are all genuine bits of Silverdale's
handwriting. There's been no faking of the paper or anything like
that.”
Sir Clinton continued his study of the photographs, evidently with
keen interest; but at last he put all the prints on his desk and turned
to the Inspector.
“Well, what do you make of it?” he demanded.
“It seems clear enough to me,” Flamborough answered. “Look at
the contents of that page as a whole. It's as plain as one could wish.
Silverdale and the Deepcar girl have had enough of waiting. Things
can't go on any longer in this way. They've been discussing various
ways of getting rid of Mrs. Silverdale. ‘The plan we talked over last
seems the best.’ That's the final decision, evidently. Then you get a
notion of what the plan was. Silverdale was going to prime
Hassendean with information about hyoscine, and practically egg
him on to drug Mrs. Silverdale so as to get her into his power. Then
when the trap was ready, Silverdale and the Deepcar girl were to be
on the alert to take advantage of the situation. And the last sentence
makes it clear enough that they meant to go the length of murder
and cover it up by making it look like a suicide-pact between young
Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale. That's how I read it, sir.”
Sir Clinton did not immediately endorse this opinion. Instead, he
picked up the full copy of the manuscript page and studied it afresh
as though searching for something in particular. At last he appeared
to be satisfied; and he slid the photograph across the desk to the
Inspector.
“I don't wish to bias you, Inspector, so I won't describe what I see
myself. But will you examine the word ‘probably’ in that text and tell
me if anything whatever about it strikes you as peculiar—anything
whatever, remember.”
Flamborough studied the place indicated, first with his naked eye
and then with the magnifying glass.
 “There's no sign of any tampering with the paper that I can see,
sir. The surface is intact and the ink lines run absolutely freely,
without the halts and shakes one would expect in a forgery. The only
thing I do notice is that the word looks just a trifle cramped.”
“That's what I wanted. Note that it's in the middle of a line,
Inspector. Now look at the word ‘shall’ in the fifth line from the bottom
of the page.”
“One might say it was a trifle cramped too,” Flamborough
admitted.
“And the ‘it’ in the third line from the foot?”
“It looks like the same thing.”
Flamborough relapsed into silence and studied the photograph
word by word while Sir Clinton waited patiently.
“The word ‘the’ in the phrase ‘about the use of hyoscine’ seems
cramped too; and the ‘to’ at the start of the last line suffers in the
same way. It's so slight in all these cases that one wouldn't notice it
normally. I didn't see it till you pointed it out. But if you're going to
suggest that there's been any erasing and writing in fresh words to fit
the blank space, I'll have to disagree with you, sir. I simply don't
believe there's been any thing of the sort.”
“I shan't differ from you over that,” Sir Clinton assured him
blandly. “Now let's think of something else for a change. Did it never
occur to you, Inspector, how much the English language depends on
the relative positions of words? If I say: ‘It struck you,’ that means
something quite different from: ‘You struck it.’ And yet each sentence
contains exactly the same words.”
“That's plain enough,” Flamborough admitted, “though I never
thought of it in that way. And,” he added in a dubious tone, “I don't
see what it's got to do with the case, either.”
“That's a pity,” Sir Clinton observed with a sympathy which hardly
sounded genuine. “Suppose we think it over together. Where does
one usually cramp words a trifle when one is writing?”
“At the end of a line,” Flamborough suggested. “But these
crampings seem to be all in the middle of the lines of that letter.”
“That's what seems to me interesting about them,” Sir Clinton
explained drily. “And somehow it seems to associate itself in my
mind with the fact that Mr. Justice hasn't supplied us with the original
document, but has gone to all the trouble of taking photographs of it.”
“I wondered at that, myself,” the Inspector confessed. “It seems a
bit futile, true enough.”
“Try a fresh line, Inspector. We learned on fairly good authority
that Mr. Justice took away a number of letters from Miss Deepcar's
house. And yet he only sends us a single page out of the lot. If the
rest were important, why doesn't he send them. If they aren't
important, why did he take them away?”
“He may be holding them up for use later on, sir.”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“My reading of the business is different. I think this is Mr. Justice's
last reserve. He's throwing his last forces into the battle now.”
“There seems to be something behind all this,” Flamborough
admitted, passing his hand over his hair as though to stimulate his
brain by the action, “but I can't just fit it all together as you seem to
have done, sir. You can say what you like, but that handwriting's
genuine; the paper's not been tampered with; and I can't see
anything wrong with it.”
Sir Clinton took pity on the inspector's obvious anxiety.
“Look at the phrasing of the whole document, Inspector. If you
cared to do so, you could split it up into a set of phrases something
after this style: ‘that things cannot go on any longer in this way. . . .
The plan we talked over last seems the best. . . . When I have
given . . . Hassendean . . . hints . . . about the . . . use of . . .
hyoscine . . . he will probably see for himself how . . . to get what he
wants. . . . After that, it merely means . . . watching them . . . and I
am sure that . . . we shall soon have . . . her . . . out of our way. . . . It
will be very easy . . . to make it seem . . . intentional . . . on their
part . . . and no one is likely . . . to look further than that.’ Now,
Inspector, if you met any one of these phrases by itself, would you
infer from it inevitably that a murder was being planned? ‘Things
cannot go on any longer in this way.’ If you consider how Mrs.
Silverdale was behaving with young Hassendean, it's not astonishing
to find a phrase like that in a letter from Silverdale to the girl he was
in love with. ‘The plan we talked over last seems the best.’ It might
have been a day's outing together that he was talking about for all
one can tell. ‘He will probably see for himself how my wife is playing
with him.’ And so forth.”
“Yes, that's all very well,” Flamborough put in, “but what about the
word ‘hyoscine?’ That's unusual in love-letters.”
“Miss Deepcar was working on hyoscine under Silverdale's
directions, remember. It's quite possible that he might have
mentioned it incidentally.”
“Now I think I see what you mean, sir. You think that this
document that Mr. Justice has sent us is a patchwork—bits cut out of
a lot of different letters and stuck together and then photographed?”
“I'm suggesting it as a possibility, Inspector. See how it fits the
facts. Here are a set of phrases, each one innocuous in itself, but
with a cumulative effect of suggestion when you string them together
as in this document. If the thing is a patchwork, then a number of
real letters must have been used in order to get fragments which
would suit. So Mr. Justice took a fair selection of epistles with him
when he raided Miss Deepcar's house. Further, in snipping out a
sentence here and there from these letters, he sometimes had to
include a phrase running on from one line to another in the original
letter; but when he came to paste his fragments together, the original
hiatus at the end of a line got transferred to the middle of a line in the
final arrangement made to fit the page of the faked letter. That's what
struck me to begin with. For example, suppose that in the original
letter you had the phrase: ‘he will probably see for himself how’; and
the original line ended with ‘probably.’ That word might be a bit
cramped at the end of the line. But in reconstructing the thing,
‘probably’ got into the middle of the line, and so you get this
apparently meaningless cramping of the word when there was space
enough for it to be written uncramped under normal conditions. Just
the same with the other cases you spotted for yourself. They
represent the ends of lines in the original letters, although they all
occur in the middle of lines in the fake production.”
“That sounds just as plausible as you like, sir. But you've got the
knack of making things sound plausible. You're not pulling my leg,
are you?” the Inspector demanded suspiciously. “Besides, what
about there being no sign of the paper having been tampered with?”
 “Look at what he's given us,” Sir Clinton suggested. “The only
case where he's given a large-scale reproduction of a whole phrase
is at the top of the letter: ‘Things cannot go on any longer in this
way.’ That's been complete in the original, and he gives you a large-
scale copy of it showing that the texture of the paper is intact. Of
course it is, since he cut the whole bit out of the letter en bloc. When
it comes to the microphotographs, of course he only shows you
small bits of the words and so there's no sign of the cutting that was
needed at the end of each fragment. And in the photograph of the
full text, there's no attempt to show you fine details. He simply
pasted the fragments in their proper order on to a real sheet of note-
paper, filled up the joins with Chinese White to hide the solutions of
continuity, and used a process plate which wouldn't show the slight
differences in the shades of the whites where the Chinese White
overlay the white of the note-paper. If you have a drawing to make
for black-and-white reproduction in a book, you can mess about with
Chinese White as much as you like, and it won't show up in the final
result at all.”
Flamborough, with a gesture, admitted the plausibility of Sir
Clinton's hypothesis.
“And you think that explains why he didn't send us the original
document, sir?”
“Since I'm sure he hadn't an original to send, it's hard to see how
he could have sent it, Inspector.”
Flamborough did not contest this reading of the case. Instead, he
passed to a fresh aspect of the subject.
“Mr. Justice is evidently ready to go any length to avenge
somebody—and that somebody can hardly have been young
Hassendean, judging from what we've heard about his character.”
Sir Clinton refused the gambit offered by the Inspector.
“Mr. Justice is a very able person,” he observed, “even though he
does make a mistake now and again, as in this last move.”
“You said you'd some idea who he was, sir?” Flamborough said
with an interrogative note in his voice.
The Chief Constable showed no desire to be drawn. He glanced
rather quizzically at his subordinate for a moment before speaking.
 “I'll give you the points which strike me in that connection,
Inspector; and then you'll be just as well placed as I am myself in the
matter of Mr. Justice. First of all, if you compare the time of
publication of the morning newspapers with the time, at which Mr.
Justice's telegram was collected from the pillar-box, I think it's fairly
evident that he didn't depend on the journalists for his first
information about the affair. Even the Ivy Lodge news wasn't printed
until after he had despatched his message.”
“That's true, sir,” Flamborough admitted.
His manner showed that he expected a good deal more than this
tittle of information.
“Therefore he must have had some direct information about the
bungalow business. Either he was on the spot when the affair
occurred, or else he was told about it almost immediately by
someone who was on the spot.”
“Admitted,” the inspector confirmed.
“Then he obviously—or is it ‘she obviously,’ Inspector?—saw the
importance of hyoscine as a clue as soon as any word about it got
into the newspapers. Immediately, in comes the code advertisement,
giving us—rather unnecessarily I think—the tip to inquire at the
Croft-Thornton Institute.”
Flamborough's face showed that he felt Sir Clinton was merely
recapitulating very obvious pieces of evidence.
“Then there was the writing on the advertisements which he sent
to the papers—Mrs. Silverdale's writing rather neatly forged, if you
remember.”
“Yes,” said the Inspector, showing by his tone that at this point he
was rather at sea.
“Then there was the fact that he managed to choose his time
most conveniently for his raid on Miss Deepcar's house.”
“You mean he made his visit when only the maid was at home,
sir?”
“Precisely. I rather admire his forethought all through the
business. But there's more in it than that, if you think it over,
Inspector?”
“Well, sir, if your reading's correct, he wanted some of
Silverdale's letters to serve as a basis for these photographs.”
 “Something even more obvious than that, Inspector. Now, with all
that evidence in front of you, can't you build up some sort of picture
of Mr. Justice? You ought to be able to come fairly near it, I think.”
“Somebody fairly in the swim with the Silverdale crowd, at any
rate. I can see that. And someone who knew the Croft-Thornton by
hearsay, at any rate. Is that what you mean, sir?”
Sir Clinton betrayed nothing in his expression, though the
Inspector scrutinised his face carefully; but he added something
which Flamborough had not expected.
“Final points. The date on the fragment of an envelope that I
found in the drawer in Mrs. Silverdale's room was 1925. The date
inside that signet-ring on her finger was 5–11–25. And there was the
initial ‘B’ engraved alongside the date.”
Inspector Flamborough quite obviously failed to see the
relevancy of these details. His face showed it in the most apparent
way.
“I don't see what you're getting at there, sir,” he said rather
shamefacedly. “These things never struck me; and even now I don't
see what they've got to do with Mr. Justice.”
If he expected to gain anything by this frank confession, he was
disappointed. Sir Clinton had evidently no desire to save his
subordinate the trouble of thinking, and his next remark left
Flamborough even deeper in bewilderment.
“Ever read anything by Dean Swift, Inspector?”
“I read Gulliver's Travels when I was a kid, sir,” Flamborough
admitted, with the air of deprecating any investigation into his literary
tastes.
“You might read his Journal to Stella some time. But I guess
you'd find it dull. It's a reprint of his letters to Esther Johnson. He
called her ‘Stella,’ and it's full of queer abbreviations and phrases
like ‘Night, dear MD. Love Pdfr.’ It teems with that sort of stuff.
Curious to see the human side of a man like Swift, isn't it?”
“In love with her, you mean, sir?”
“Well, it sounds like it,” Sir Clinton replied cautiously. “However,
we needn't worry over Swift. Let's see if we can't do something with
this case, for a change.”
He glanced at his watch.
 “Half-past five. We may be able to get hold of her.”
He picked up the telephone from his desk and asked for a
number while Flamborough waited with interest to hear the result.
“Is that the Croft-Thornton Institute?” Sir Clinton demanded at
length. “Sir Clinton Driffield speaking. Can you ask Miss Hailsham to
come to the telephone?”
There was a pause before he spoke once more.
“Miss Hailsham? I'm sorry to trouble you, but can you tell me if
there's a microphotographic camera in the Institute? I'd like to know.”
Flamborough, all ears, waited for the next bit of the one-sided
conversation which was reaching him.
“You have two of them? Then I suppose I might be able to get
permission to use one of them, perhaps, if we need it. . . . Thanks,
indeed. By the way, I suppose you're just leaving the Institute
now. . . . I thought so. Very lucky I didn't miss you by a minute or two.
I mustn't detain you. Thanks again. Good-bye.”
He put down the telephone and turned to Flamborough.
“You might ask Miss Morcott to come here, Inspector.”
Flamborough, completely puzzled by this move, opened the door
of the adjoining room and summoned Sir Clinton's typist.
“I want you to telephone for me, Miss Morcott,” the Chief
Constable explained. “Ring up Dr. Trevor Markfield at his house.
When you get through, say to his housekeeper: ‘Miss Hailsham
speaking. Please tell Dr. Markfield that I wish to see him to-night and
that I shall come round to his house at nine o’clock.’ Don't say any
more than that, and get disconnected before there's any chance of
explanations.”
Miss Morcott carried out Sir Clinton's orders carefully and then
went back to her typing. As soon as the door closed behind her, the
Inspector's suppressed curiosity got the better of him.
“I don't quite understand all that, sir. I suppose you asked about
the photomicrographic affair just to see if these prints could have
been made at the Croft-Thornton?”
“I hadn't much doubt on that point. Photomicrographic apparatus
isn't common among amateur photographers, but it's common
enough in scientific institutes. No, I was really killing two birds with
one stone: finding out about the micro-camera and making sure that
Miss Hailsham was leaving the place for the night and wouldn't have
a chance to speak to Markfield before she went.”
“And what about her calling on Markfield to-night, sir?”
“She'll have to do it by proxy, I'm afraid. We'll represent her,
however inefficiently, Inspector. The point is that I wanted to be sure
that Markfield would be at home when we called; and I wished to
avoid making an appointment in my own name lest it should put him
too much on his guard. The time's come when we'll have to
persuade Dr. Markfield to be a bit franker than he's been, hitherto. I
think I see my way to getting out of him most of what he knows; and
if I can succeed in that, then we ought to have all the evidence we
need.”
He paused, as though not very sure about something.
“He's been bluffing us all along the line up to the present,
Inspector. It's a game two can play at; and you'll be good enough to
turn a deaf ear occasionally if I'm tempted out of the straight path.
And whatever happens, don't look over-surprised at anything I may
say. If you can contrive to look thoroughly stupid, it won't do any
harm.”
 Chapter XVII.
Mr. Justice
Just before entering the road in which Markfield lived, Sir Clinton
drew up his car; and as he did so, a constable in plain clothes
stepped forward.
“Dr. Markfield's in his house, sir,” he announced. “He came home
just before dinner-time.”
Sir Clinton nodded, let in his clutch, and drove round the corner
to Markfield's gate. As he stopped his engine, he glanced at the
house-front.
“Note that his garage is built into the house, Inspector,” he
pointed out. “That seems of interest, if there's a door from the house
direct into the garage, I think.”
They walked up the short approach and rang the bell. In a few
moments the door was opened by Markfield's housekeeper. Rather
to her surprise, Sir Clinton inquired about the health of her relation
whom she had been nursing.
“Oh, she's all right again, sir, thank you. I got back yesterday.”
She paused a moment as though in doubt, then added:
“I'm not sure if Dr. Markfield is free this evening, sir. He's
expecting a visitor.”
“We shan't detain him if his visitor arrives,” Sir Clinton assured
her, his manner leaving no doubt in her mind as to the advisability of
his own admission.
The housekeeper ushered them into Markfield's sitting-room,
where they found him by the fire, deep in a book. At the sound of Sir
Clinton's name he looked up with a glance which betrayed his
annoyance at being disturbed.
“I'm rather at a loss to understand this visit,” he said stiffly, as
they came into the room.
 Sir Clinton refused to notice the obviously grudging tone of his
reception.
“We merely wish to have a few minutes’ talk, Dr. Markfield,” he
explained pleasantly. “Some information has come into my hands
which needs confirmation, and I think you'll be able to help us.”
Markfield glanced at the clock.
“I'm in the middle of an experiment,” he said gruffly. “I've got to
run it through, now that it's started. If you're going to be long. I'd
better bring the things in here and then I can oversee it while I'm
talking to you.”
Without waiting for permission, he left the room and came back in
a couple of minutes with a tray on which stood some apparatus.
Flamborough noticed a conical flask containing some limpid liquid,
and a stoppered bottle. Markfield clamped a dropping funnel, also
containing a clear liquid, so that its spout entered the conical flask;
and by turning the tap of the funnel slightly, he allowed a little of the
contents to flow down into the flask.
“I hope the smell doesn't trouble you,” he said, in a tone of sour
apology. “It's the triethylamine I'm mixing with the tetranitromethane
in the flask. Rather a fishy stink it has.”
He arranged the apparatus on the table so that he could reach
the tap conveniently without rising from his chair; then, after
admitting a little more of the liquid from the funnel into the flask, he
seated himself once more and gave Sir Clinton his attention.
“What is it you want to know?” he demanded abruptly.
Sir Clinton refused to be hurried. Putting his hand into his breast-
pocket, he drew out some sheets of typewriting which he placed on
the table before him, as though for future reference. Then he turned
to his host.
“Some time ago, a man Peter Whalley came to us and made a
statement, Dr. Markfield.”
Markfield's face betrayed some surprise.
“Whalley?” he asked. “Do you mean the man who was murdered
on the Lizardbridge Road?”
“He was murdered, certainly,” Sir Clinton confirmed. “But as I
said, he made a statement to us. I'm not very clear about some
points, and I think you might be able to fill in one or two of the gaps.”
 Markfield's face showed a quick flash of suspicion.
“I'm not very sure what you mean,” he said, doubtfully, “If you're
trying to trap me into saying things that might go against Silverdale, I
may as well tell you I've no desire to give evidence against him. I'm
sure he's innocent; and I don't wish to say anything to give you a
handle against him. That's frank enough, isn't it?”
“If it relieves your mind, I may as well say I agree with you on that
point, Dr. Markfield. So there's no reason why you shouldn't give us
your help.”
Markfield seemed slightly taken aback by this, but he did his best
to hide his feelings.
“Go on, then,” he said. “What is it you want?”
Sir Clinton half-opened the paper on the table, then took away his
hand as though he needed no notes at the moment.
“It appears that on the night of the affair at the bungalow, when
Mrs. Silverdale met her death, Peter Whalley was walking along the
Lizardbridge Road, coming towards town,” Sir Clinton began. “It was
a foggy night, you remember. He'd just passed the bungalow gate
when he noticed, ahead of him, the headlights of a car standing by
the roadside; and he appears to have heard voices.”
The Inspector listened to this with all his ears. Where had Sir
Clinton fished up this fresh stock of information, evidently of crucial
importance? Then a recollection of the Chief Constable's warning
flashed through his mind and he schooled his features into a mask of
impassivity. A glance at Markfield showed that the chemist, though
outwardly uninterested, was missing no detail of the story.
“It seems,” Sir Clinton went on, “that the late Mr. Whalley came
up to the car and found a man and a girl in the front seat. The girl
seemed to be in an abnormal state; and Mr. Whalley, from his limited
experience, inferred that she was intoxicated. The man, Whalley
thought, had stopped the car to straighten her in the seat and make
her look less conspicuous; but as soon as Whalley appeared out of
the night, the man started the car again and drove slowly past him
towards the bungalow.”
Sir Clinton mechanically smoothed out his papers, glanced at
them, and then continued:
 “The police can't always choose their instruments, Dr. Markfield.
We have to take witnesses where we can get them. Frankly, then,
the late Mr. Whalley was not an admirable character—far from it.
He'd come upon a man and a girl alone in a car, and the girl was
apparently not in a fit state to look after herself. An affair of this sort
would bring two ideas into Mr. Whalley's mind. Clothing them in
vulgar language, they'd be: ‘Here's a bit o’ fun, my word!’ and ‘What
is there in it for me?’ He had a foible for trading on the weaknesses
of his fellow-creatures, you understand?”
Markfield nodded grimly, but made no audible comment.
“The late Mr. Whalley, then, stared after the car; and, to his joy,
no doubt, he saw it turn in at the gate of the bungalow. He guessed
the place was empty, since there hadn't been a light showing in it
when he passed it a minute or two before. Not much need to analyse
Mr. Whalley's ideas in detail, is there? He made up his mind that a
situation of this sort promised him some fun after his own heart, quite
apart from any little financial pickings he might make out of it later
on, if he were lucky. So he made his best pace after the car.”
Sir Clinton turned over a page of the notes before him and,
glancing at the document, knitted his brows slightly.
“The late Mr. Whalley wasn't a perfect witness of course, and I'm
inclined to think that at this point I can supply a missing detail in the
story. A second car came on the scene round about this period—a
car driving in towards town—and it must have met the car with the
man and the girl in it just about this time. But that's not in Mr.
Whalley's statement. It's only a surmise of my own, and not really
essential.”
Inspector Flamborough had been growing more and more
puzzled as this narrative unfolded. He could not imagine how the
Chief Constable had accumulated all this information. Suddenly the
explanation crossed his mind.
“Lord! He's bluffing! He's trying to persuade Markfield that we
know all about it already. These are just inferences of his; and he's
put the double bluff on Markfield by pretending that Whalley's
statement wasn't quite full and that he's filling the gap with a guess
of his own. What a nerve!” he commented to himself.
 “By the time the late Mr. Whalley reached the bungalow gate,” Sir
Clinton pursued, “the man had got the girl out of the car and both of
them had gone into the house. Mr. Whalley, it seems, went gingerly
up the approach, and, as he did so, a light went on in one of the front
rooms of the bungalow. The curtains were drawn. The late Mr.
Whalley, with an eye to future profit, took the precaution of noting the
number of the motor, which was standing at the front door.”
Flamborough glanced at Markfield to see what effect Sir Clinton
was producing. To his surprise, the chemist seemed in no way
perturbed. With a gesture as though asking permission, he leaned
over and ran a little of the liquid from the funnel into the flask, shook
the mixture gently for a moment or two, and then turned back to Sir
Clinton. The Inspector, watching keenly, could see no tremor in his
hand as he carried out the operations.
“The late Mr. Whalley,” Sir Clinton continued, when Markfield had
finished his work. “The late Mr. Whalley did not care about hanging
round the front of the bungalow. If he stood in front of the lighted
window, anyone passing on the road would be able to see him
outlined against the glare; and that might have led to difficulties. So
he passed round to the second window of the same room, which
looked out on the side of the bungalow and was therefore not so
conspicuous from the road. Just as he turned the corner of the
building, he heard a second car stop at the gate.”
Sir Clinton paused here, as though undecided about the next part
of his narrative. He glanced at Markfield, apparently to see whether
he was paying attention; then he proceeded.
“The late Mr. Whalley tip-toed along to this side-window of the
lighted room, and, much to his delight, I've no doubt, he found that
the curtains had been carelessly drawn, so that a chink was left
between them through which he could peep into the room. He
stepped on to the flower-bed, bent down, and peered through the
aperture. I hope I make myself clear, Dr. Markfield?”
“Quite,” said Markfield curtly.
Sir Clinton nodded in acknowledgment, glanced once more at his
papers as though to refresh his memory, and continued:
“What he saw was this. The girl was lying in an arm-chair near
the fireplace. The late Mr. Whalley, again misled by his limited
experience, thought she'd fallen asleep—the effects of alcohol, he
supposed, I believe. The young man who was with her—we may
save the trouble by calling him Hassendean, I think—seemed rather
agitated, but not quite in the way that the late Mr. Whalley had
anticipated. Hassendean spoke to the girl and got no reply, evidently.
He shook her gently, and so on; but he got no response. I think we
may cut out the details. The net result was that to Mr. Whalley's
inexperienced eye, the girl looked very far gone. Hassendean
seemed to be thunderstruck by the situation, which puzzled the late
Mr. Whalley considerably at the time.”
Markfield, apparently unimpressed, leaned across and ran some
more of the liquid out of his funnel. Flamborough guessed the
movement might be intended to conceal his features from easy
observation.
“The next stage in the proceedings took the late Mr. Whalley by
surprise, it seems,” Sir Clinton went on. “Leaving the girl where she
was, young Hassendean left the room for a minute or two. When he
came back, he had a pistol in his hand. This was not at all what the
late Mr. Whalley had been expecting. Least of all did he expect to
see young Hassendean go up to the girl, and shoot her in the head
at close quarters. I'm sure you'll appreciate the feelings of the late
Mr. Whalley at this stage, Dr. Markfield.”
“Surprising,” Markfield commented abruptly.
Sir Clinton nodded in agreement.
“What must have been even more surprising was the sequel. The
glass of the front window broke with a blow, and from behind the
curtains a man appeared, who fell upon Hassendean. There was a
struggle, a couple of shots from Hassendean's pistol, and then
Hassendean fell on the ground—dead, as Whalley supposed at the
time.”
Flamborough stared hard at Markfield, but at that moment the
chemist again turned in his chair, ran the remainder of the liquid from
the funnel into his flask, and then refilled the funnel from the bottle
on the tray. This done, he turned once more with an impassive face
to Sir Clinton.
“By this time, the late Mr. Whalley seems to have seen all that he
wanted. Just as he was turning away from the window, he noticed
the new-comer take some small object from his waistcoat pocket and
drop it on the floor. Then Mr. Whalley felt it was time to make himself
scarce. He stepped back on to the path, made his way round the
bungalow, hurried down the approach to the gate. There he came
across a car—evidently the one in which the assailant had arrived.
The late Mr. Whalley, even at this stage, was not quite free from his
second idea: ‘What is there in it for me?’ He took the number of the
car, and then he made himself scarce.”
Sir Clinton stopped for a moment or two and gazed across at
Markfield with an inscrutable face.
“By the way, Dr. Markfield,” he added in a casual tone, “what was
the pet name that Mrs. Silverdale used to call you when you were
alone together—the one beginning with ‘B’?”
This time, it was evident to the Inspector, Sir Clinton had got
home under Markfield's guard. The chemist glanced up with more
than a shade of apprehension on his face. He seemed to be making
a mental estimate of the situation before he replied.
“H'm! You know that, do you?” he said finally. “Then there's no
use denying it, I suppose. She used to call me ‘Bear’ usually. She
said I had the manners of one, at times; and perhaps there was
something in that.”
Sir Clinton showed no sign that he attached much importance to
Markfield's explanation.
“You became intimate with her some time in 1925, I think, just
after the Silverdales came here?”
Markfield nodded his assent.
“And very shortly after that, you and she thought it best to
conceal your liaison by seeing as little of each other as possible in
public, so as not to draw attention to your relations?”
“That's true.”
“And finally she got hold of young Hassendean to serve as a
blind? Advertised herself with him openly, whilst you stayed in the
background?”
“You seem to know a good deal about it,” Markfield admitted
coldly.
“I think I know all that matters,” the Chief Constable commented.
“You've lost the game, Dr. Markfield.”
 Markfield seemed to consider the situation rapidly before he
spoke again.
“You can't make it worse than manslaughter,” he said at last. “It's
no more than that, on the evidence you've given me just now. I saw
him shoot Yvonne, and then, in the struggle afterwards, his pistol
went off twice by accident and hit him. You couldn't call that a case
of murder. I shall plead that it was done in self-defence; and you
haven't Whalley to put into the box against me.”
Sir Clinton took no pains to conceal a sardonic smile.
“It won't do, Dr. Markfield,” he pointed out. “You might get off on
that plea if it were only the bungalow business that you were
charged with. But there's the murder of the maid at Heatherfield as
well. You can't twist that into a self-defence affair. No jury would look
at it for a moment.”
“You seem to know a good deal about it,” Markfield repeated
thoughtfully.
“I suppose what you really wanted at Heatherfield was a packet
of your love-letters to Mrs. Silverdale?” Sir Clinton asked.
Markfield confirmed this with a nod.
“That's all you have against me, I suppose?” he demanded after
a pause.
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“No,” he said, “there's the affair of the late Mr. Whalley as well.”
Markfield's face betrayed neither surprise nor chagrin at this fresh
charge.
“That's all, then?” he questioned again, with apparent unconcern.
“All that's of importance,” Sir Clinton admitted. “Of course, in the
guise of our friend Mr. Justice, you did your best to throw suspicion
on Silverdale. That's a minor point, so far as you're concerned now.
It's curious how you murderers can't leave well alone. If you hadn't
played the fool there, you'd have given us ever so much more
trouble.”
Markfield made no answer at the moment. He seemed to be
reviewing the whole situation in his mind, thinking hard before he
broke the silence.
“Good thing, a scientific training,” he said at length, rather
unexpectedly. “It teaches one to realise the bearing of plain facts. My