Cat out of Hell Volume II (Out of the Fire Book 5), page 1
Contents
Connect with Candace
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Bibliography
Only Human Excerpt
Only Human - Chapter 1
About the Author
Cat out of Hell Volume II © August 2021 by Candace Blevins
All rights reserved under United States of America copyright law, and the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
Cover design © 2021 Candace Blevins
First Edition August 2021
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Blurb
Becca’s back in Hell. Her worst nightmare. She’s almost certain His Majesty and Kendric will get her out, but how long will it take?
Before long, she understands that Lord Xaephan never intended to lose her for good. He wanted the Prince of Darkness to train her more harshly, to finally well-and-truly break her, so Xaephan could rescue her and be her hero — and have a blank slate to rebuild her as he wished.
The Lord of Lust seems quite determined to keep her, and she’s no longer certain of rescue.
However, he’s quite angry with her when he realizes she’s fallen in love with the vampire, and she has no intention of ever willingly submitting to Xaephan again.
1
Becca awakened in Hell. No other place else smelled like this, or was this hot. Her head hurt, her stomach turned in on itself, and she leaned over the side of the stone bed and puked.
“Oh, mon minou, the sickness will pass.” A hand stroked her hair and cupped her cheek, and she opened her eyes to see Lord Xaephan. He handed her a damp rag, and she wiped her face with it. It smelled like sulfur water, which almost made her throw up again.
Terror wouldn’t help, so she forced it down, breathed through it, and hoped she at least looked calm on the outside. “I can’t be here.”
“But you are, mon minou. You are.”
“I’m not a fucking kitten, and I’m certainly not yours.”
He chuckled, and it made things inside her tighten and throb. Fuck.
“Please send me back, Lord Xaephan. I beg you. I was finding myself, figuring out a life I liked and enjoyed. Please, please, please don’t keep me here.” She was close to crying, and she hated herself for it, but she couldn’t stay in Hell. She couldn’t.
He stretched out beside her and put his face near hers. “What is this? Does the chaton believe herself to be in love?”
She just stared at him. Her love life was none of his business. She started to argue the kitten again, but it seemed silly to argue that rather than the part about being in love. Also, he’d just called her a kitten, and not his kitten.
“You are mine, Rebecca.”
This part, she knew how to argue. “You traded me away. You didn’t want me.”
“I always intended to reacquire you, once our Prince broke you in a little better.” He gave a tiny shake of his head. “How was I to know you’d piss him off badly enough to trade you away? I was about to retrieve you from Zelos. I figured another week and you’d be at the perfect stage for me to rebuild you. Broken just enough, but not too much. However, when I went to check on you again, I discovered the Amakhosi had negotiated you away from Zelos.” His face dropped the happy, casual look and his eyes narrowed until Lord Xaephan’s gaze seemed to bore into her. “But never doubt that you are mine, Rebecca deAslan Lionne.”
She shook her head. “I belong to my king, the Amakhosi, who has temporarily given me to Kendric, the Master Vampire of Florida. I’m supposed to be in the custody of Kendric, not you, you arrogant cunt of a motherfu–”
He punched her in the stomach, and Becca curled into a ball and threw up again. Fuck, she’d forgotten how fast and how strong he was, and how quickly he lashed out when you let your temper control your mouth.
It didn’t matter though. She wasn’t going to admit to being his. Words have power, even more so in Hell than at home.
Home. Fuck, but she didn’t want to be here.
She sat up and noted a steel ring on her ankle. She was chained to the floor. A quick look told her she could probably move about the room, but wouldn’t be able to leave. Three breaths, and she looked to the ground at the two puddles of puke. Xaephan motioned towards it, and the mess went up in flames. Fifteen seconds later, the fire was out and the mess was gone.
She met his gaze, and her clit throbbed while her insides tightened, but he was the Lord of Lust. It didn’t mean anything. “I will never be yours, Lord Xaephan. Never.”
“And yet that empty cunt cries out for my cock. I can hear it begging from here, mon minou.”
She shook her head and refused to look away. “Not your cat. Not your kitten. Not yours. Yeah, you can make me horny, but it’s just a biological reaction to your powers. Nothing more, nothing less, your Lordship.” Look at her, expressing her views while showing respect.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, his eyes piercing into her psyche. It creeped her the fuck out, but she didn’t lower her gaze. He could hurt her, he could make her want him, he could give her the most fantastic orgasms imaginable, but he couldn’t make her admit she belonged to him.
“We shall see, mon chatte.”
He left by poofing out of existence, and she stared at the walls around her. She was in a cave without a door, chained to the floor, and Becca knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
But he’d called her his cat rather than his kitten, which felt like she’d made progress, somehow, which was probably ridiculous.
Lord Xaephan knew how to keep slaves in line, and she was never in doubt that it didn’t matter whether she was here legally or not — she was here, abducted from the Human Realm, and he considered her his. In Hell, unless there were some serious extenuating circumstances, that’s all it took for her to be his slave.
She considered what she’d learned. He hadn’t been able to break her before — he’d wanted the Prince of Darkness to break her for him. Was that because he just didn’t want to be the bad guy? He wanted to rescue her from the one who finally broke her. Could she work with that?
2
Kendric flew from Miami to Orlando, and he drank down both Shawn and Vaughn when he arrived at the club. They’d live, but they’d remember nearly dying because they’d let their Master down.
And yes, technically, Horatio was their Master, but Kendric was Master to Horatio, and he owned anything or anyone his vampires owned.
He scented the sulfur in the bathroom, looked through the hawk duo’s memories, and made another phone call to Nathan.
“You assured me no one from Hell would come to get their property.”
“We got her back fair and square. No one in Hell has a legal claim to her.”
“It’s pretty much finders keepers by the rules of Hell though, isn’t it?”
Nathan sighed. “Sometimes. I’ve made some inquiries to see if I can figure out who has her. I’ll let you know when I hear something.”
Kendric nearly threw his phone against the wall, but he didn’t want to complicate communications with Nathan, so he put it in his pocket and then threw a table against the wall hard enough the wood shattered to splinters and that portion of the wall was demo
When no one did, he paced. He knew no one in the Demon realm who could help, and had no connections he was aware of to get him there. He was completely dependent upon Nathan’s contacts, and that wasn’t acceptable. He went through everything he knew about demons, and remembered that Brooke had occasionally smelled of sulfur when she’d lived with him, centuries earlier, and he knew she’d brought half-demons into her coterie a time or two.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and made another call.
“I am sorry, Kendric,” Brooke told him when he’d explained the problem. “She seemed happy with you. Not fully content, but the opportunity existed for her to get there.”
“Do you have contacts I can use to find her?”
She sighed. “I have a half-demon amongst my people, but he’s never lived in Hell. I have no contacts with the big guys. Nathan does though, and you know he’ll do what he can to get her back. The few contacts I have come to me when they need me to help one of their half-demon offspring. I don’t know how to go to them.”
“I don’t know how motivated Nathan will be to get her back. He was happy to leave her with Xaephan and the fucking Prince of Hell, it was only Zelos’s treatment of her that made him feel the need to mount a rescue. If Xaephan has her again, Nathan may decide she’s just as well off there as she is here, so long as Xaephan keeps her this time.”
“That was before. She’s thriving with you. Surely he’ll do what he can to get her back.”
“If you think of something that will help, please let me know.”
“I will. I’m sorry, Kendric.”
“Me too, Brooke. Me too.”
He put his phone away again and looked around the room. It wasn’t time for grief yet. Grief happened if he couldn’t get her back, and that wasn’t an option. Shawn and Vaughn were sitting up, leaned against the wall. Awake, but barely. He walked to them and towered over them. “Do either of you know how to get to Hell?”
“No, Master,” Vaughn said. “But if it’s possible for us to do so, we’ll go into Hell itself to try to get her back. We’ve failed you.”
“Yes, you have, but I’ve been in your memories, and I’d have probably let her go into the bathroom alone as well. You made sure it was safe, and then let her have a few moments.” He sighed. “Honestly, I’m not certain what you could’ve done to protect her from one of the greater demons even if you’d both gone into the bathroom with her. If we don’t get her back, we all know I’ll have to take a piece of your hides on principle, but let’s focus on getting her back.”
“You’ll still need to, Master, even if we get her back.” Shawn spoke so low, Kendric heard his thoughts more than his voice.
Shawn was right, but Kendric was too focused on getting Becca back to worry about political ramifications or logistics. He’d get her back and then deal with the motherfucking political fallout. “We’ll deal with that bridge when we come to it. Do either of you or Horatio have contacts in Hell, or a way to open that damned portal back up and mount a rescue?”
The bones of Vaughn’s face stayed the same, but the skin and muscles reformed so he looked more like Horatio, and when he spoke, it was with the vampire’s voice.
“My source tells me that someone would’ve needed to do a ceremony or ritual in the club’s bathroom to create a temporary portal. It’s involved, and takes many hours, so we need to check video and security for the time frame from closing on Sunday morning until opening on Tuesday. It could’ve been done any time in the past couple of weeks, but my guess is that it would’ve been done around the time we booked the bachelor party.”
“Put your people on that, but finding out how it happened isn’t a priority at this time. Right now, we need to get her back. How does this help us get her back?”
“If it’s a temporary portal, it was probably a one-time-use deal. If it’s a permanent one, we need to know if it can be opened from either side, or only from the other side.” He sighed. “There’s a portal to Hell in the amusement park that can be opened from this side, but I’d like to counsel against rushing in without proper knowledge of how things work there, as well as backup accustomed to the environment we’ll be in.”
“You’re the one who tells me that with enough automatic weapons and ammo, and people trained to use them, we can win most skirmishes.”
“There’s a law in Hell that’s sacrosanct. No killing. You can cut someone’s arms and legs off and torture them to just this side of the point of death with no repercussions, but if you kill them, or in any way bring about their death, you’ll be tried in Hell, and it won’t be pretty. We can’t just go in with guns blazing, Master.”
3
Becca drank the water and ate the meat because she needed to keep her strength up. Kendric would come for her, but it was going to take a while on her end. Time in Hell runs on a different timeline than time on Earth, so she might be here a week before Kendric had time to mount a rescue or establish negotiations.
She hoped His Majesty would help, but she knew Kendric would do his best to get her back, and she had to believe his best effort would be enough.
Xaephan stood at the doorway to the room she’d been brought to after what felt like a day in the doorless cave. He stood statue-still, his arms crossed, as arrogant as always, and watched her eat. When she finished, he said, “Kneel and acknowledge me as your Master.”
“I told you, I have a Master and you took me from him. You’re my kidnapper, not my Master, Lord Xaephan.”
“Possession is the important bit here in Hell, mon minou. You’re mine, and you’ll kneel and acknowledge it, one way or another.”
“We both know you can wrap something around my willpower and turn me into a puppet, and we both also know that if I kneel once you’ve done that, it still isn’t me doing it. Turning me into your puppet isn’t the same as making me want to be yours.” She stood beside the stone table that she suspected would also be her bed. “The sad thing is, before you sent me away, I was close to saying it for real and not just giving it lip service, but you traded me and three others for a gryphon. You didn’t want me, so you don’t get my loyalty now.”
“You think you love him?”
“Him?”
“Your vampire. I see that you think you love him. Not just in your head, but in your heart.”
“Not that it’s any of your motherfucking business, but yeah, I love him.”
“But you’ve only had sex with him once?”
“We’re intimate in other ways.” It pissed her off that he was in her head, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Her relationship with Kendric was private, and Xaephan was raping her damned mind every time he went in and looked. She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“Unlike your king, the vampire lets you hurt others. I did so as well, and will again if you can be trusted in that position, but you’re going to have to acknowledge me as your master and owner for that to happen.”
“What’s the phrase? Hell will freeze over first.”
He chuckled. “For your sake, I hope that isn’t the case, but for mine? I could have fun torturing you for a few decades — as long as your body lasts, at any rate.”
Fear lanced through her system like acid in her veins, but she planted her feet and met his gaze. Her fear wasn’t for the pain he’d put her through, nor for the chance he might be able to break her, but at the thought of dying before she got to see Kendric again.
