“What are you doing?” I asked, keeping my eyes above his waist.
He arched an eyebrow and silver danced in his eyes. His eyes were a good distraction from his body. “If I go in there dressed, I won’t have anything to wear when I come out.”
“Right,” I said as his jeans hit me in the chest. His laugh echoed around me as he dove into the water, morphing into a sleek, black hellhound.
I stared after him for a long moment, hoping he would be okay, before I turned and dumped his clothes on the ground. Gemma and Cole were standing a few yards away, not even paying attention to us, but deep in conversation. They were in love and I wanted them to work things out, but not here. Not now.
“Hey, guys,” I said, walking to stand in front of them.
“You can’t trust Riley,” Cole said abruptly.
I let out a long-suffering sigh. “Why are we still talking about this?”
“He’s cursed,” Cole blurted out, looking over my shoulder toward the black sludge.
“Wh—wait. What?” I said, wondering if I had heard right. “You think Riley is cursed?” That was ridiculous.
Cole motioned to Gemma, who nodded. “I tried to tell you. It was part of the deal that Callum made. He not only turned himself and future generations of the males in his family into hellhounds, but he also cursed them. All the hellhounds in Callum’s line were cursed with servitude to Beelzebub. They are literally at his beck and call.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I denied.
“It’s the truth. It’s why Callum seemed different after he changed. The curse was dark… It made it hard for the goodness in him to shine through. He had to fight against the darkness every day. And then Beelzebub came and wanted him to do something. It was a heinous crime and Callum resisted. It’s why Beelzebub killed him.”
“So you think Riley will betray us because he’s bound to do Beelzebub’s bidding?”
“I don’t know,” Gemma said. “I just think you need to be careful.”
“It’s kind of late, don’t you think? Look around. We’re in hell. He’s in that nasty water doing us a favor. I trust him.”
There was a loud sucking sound as Riley jumped out of the black sludge and shook, gobs of black ooze flying everywhere. He stared at me for a moment out of silver eyes that seemed to study me in such an intent way that I squirmed. Could he have possibly heard what we had been talking about? He walked over to where the three of us stood and unrolled his long tongue and three Lucent Marbles dropped into my palm.
“Thank you,” I said as he padded away toward his clothes. I turned back to Cole and Gemma and held out the marbles and widened my eyes as if to say, “see?”
Cole sighed, took the marbles and began cleaning them off with his shirt. “Let’s just focus on getting Sam. We’ll deal with this later, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Let’s go,” I said and started walking once more.
It didn’t take long before the ominous black castle came into view. Once again, I noticed that Riley seemed to be getting nervous. I understood now that it was probably because this was the home of Beelzebub, the guy who cursed his family and seemed to have some kind of hold over him. I wanted to know more, to know how the curse worked, but I didn’t think bringing it up right this moment was a good idea. It hit me then how much I was asking of Riley. I mean, this was a guy Sam practically ran out of town. He wasn’t (or hadn’t been) our friend when I found him and basically dumped a huge mess on him and asked for help. And now, I find out he’s basically going against a man he’s indebted to, a man that I’m sure Riley has avoided up until now. He had no reason to help us. He isn’t getting anything in return. In fact, it seemed to me this was risky for him.
And yet he was here.
We came upon the castle and I stopped short. Something didn’t feel right. “The draw bridge is down,” I said in a hushed tone.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Cole asked.
“It’s too easy.”
“I did expect more of a fight,” Gemma said.
“Maybe the fight is inside,” said Cole.
Usually, the minute I dropped into hell, Beelzebub was in my head, squeezing my skull and racing to do something horrible. But now he was acting as if he didn’t care I was here. “It’s almost as if he wants me to come inside…” I said, then gasped. “Sam!”
I took off running. I charged through the heavy front door and made my way to a large set of stairs that seemed to plunge into a black abyss. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t heed the warnings of my friends behind me. I was deaf and blind to all things not related to the dungeon.
There could only be one reason that Beelzebub would let me walk into his castle, around his land… It was because he wanted me to see something.
I prayed it wasn’t a dead body.
As I raced through the dark, I told myself Sam wasn’t dead. He was still alive. We talked just an hour ago… I would feel it if our Mindbond had been severed. I swung open the heavy door and rushed into the darkened dungeon. Burning torches lined the walls and I scrambled to the entrance of Sam’s cell.
“Sam!” I screamed, not caring who heard. “Sam!”
There was no movement, no response as I skidded to a halt, practically bouncing right off the force field that kept him from me. I didn’t see him. He wasn’t answering. My eyes sought out the darkened corners, the places he could be sleeping… only there were none.
All the darkened corners were lit. In fact, the entire cell was lit up like the fourth of July.
Sam was not in that cell.
“Sam!” I screamed and raised my fist to beat on the force field, only my arm went right through. I was mere inches from throwing myself inside when Riley grabbed me and pulled me back.
“It might be a trap.”
I didn’t care. I wanted what I came here for.
“Sam!” I screamed, my throat ripping raw.
“He’s gone,” a voice said from behind.
We all turned. “Kimber,” I said, “where is he?”
“I don’t know. He took him. After…”
“After?”
Kimber didn’t say anything else, but stared off into nothing.
“After what?” I cried.
Cole swore and I turned to see him staring into the cell, his eyes focused on something in the center of the room, something I hadn’t noticed in my panic.