I think I was. She answered my thought.
“Heven…”
Help me to the bed?
As carefully as I could, I lifted her, taking her to the bed and sitting her down with great care. I sat down next to her, glancing once more at the marks on her back, and then pushed the hair behind her shoulder. “Hecate did this to you, didn’t she?”
“I think so.”
“What the hell did she do?” The words came out as more of a snarl than I intended and I tried to control my anger.
Heven didn’t answer; she seemed to not hear me. She was looking a little green again, and I grabbed her hand. “Heven, are you feeling sick again?”
“What?” she said, looking up at me, focusing. “No, I’m okay.”
“You should have left me there,” I muttered, feeling responsible for this.
“No!” She gasped, grabbing my wrist and staring into my eyes. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. He wanted answers I don’t have. He would have found a way to do this whether I was in hell or not.”
“What did they do to you?” I groaned.
“I’m not really sure. I want to see.”
“No, you don’t.” I protested, but she was already up and walking into the bathroom, turning on the light. I watched as she blinked against the brightness, then turned to stare at the claw marks on her back.
“Beast,” she murmured, her face going pale.
“What?” I asked.
“Hecate said the word beast. I look like I was clawed from the inside…”
Realization and horror dawned. “No,” I said, hoarse. “They wouldn’t.” But they would. They had. Is this what had caused me to wake? Is this what I sensed?
Beelzebub might be immortal, but that would only give me the pleasure of killing him a thousand times over.
“Sam?” Heven said, her voice low, as she stared in the mirror at her back.
I clicked off the light and ushered her out of the bathroom. “Tell me everything that happened.”
Maybe it wasn’t what I was thinking. Maybe I was wrong and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. She sighed and turned to face me. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not tonight. This is our night. You’re finally home. Beelzebub took so much away from us and I refuse to let him have tonight.”
She was standing in front of the bed, blond hair falling into her eyes and the blanket falling off her shoulder. She held out her hand and stood there in silent invitation. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to forget all about what just happened.
So I did. I pushed it all away, for her. For me. For us. Until she fell asleep in my arms.
It was then, as I was lying in the dark, that I couldn’t deny what I saw and what she said. I couldn’t deny what the hound in me was saying.
Hecate trapped a beast inside Heven, inside my love, and I hadn’t the slightest clue how to get it out.
For the rest of the night, I would awaken, sensing that thing inside of her every time it stirred. I would lie there and worry that I wouldn’t be able to get it out. I wondered about everything I didn’t know the answer to and everything that I did. I lay there and imagined ramming my fist into Riley’s jaw. Yeah, I guess I was glad he’d been here to fight off that demon in Heven’s room, but he was bad news… And he wanted something.
It was eight a.m. when Heven woke up. I knew she was awake before she even opened her eyes. I enjoyed the way she settled farther against me and tucked her hand between my side and the mattress, like she had no intention of ever getting up.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, keeping my voice to a whisper.
She stretched like a cat before answering. “I’m good.”
I smiled up at the ceiling. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” She sat up and looked over her shoulder. “How does it look?”
I looked at her back; it did look better. The skin no longer seemed stretched to the point of breaking. The welts didn’t seem as swollen and they weren’t as red. It seemed whatever was inside her was calm. For the moment. “Looks better.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” She lied.
“Heven,” I growled.
“Fine.” She sighed. “It’s a little sore, but nothing like last night.”
I brushed my fingertip over the end of one of the longer marks and sighed. “Did you understand at all what Hecate was saying when she did this to you? I only heard the very end.”
She turned to face me, tucking her legs under her and pulling the sheet up to cover her bare skin. “I did hear the word ‘beast’ once or twice. Beelzebub told her he wanted me to know what it’s like to feel true evil inside me and to only be at peace in the place I hate most. Which is hell.”
“Hecate trapped a beast inside you,” I said, voicing what we both were thinking.
She swallowed. “I guess so. By the looks of the claw marks on my back, I would say it wants out.”
“We need to get it out. Right now.” I jumped out of bed and went to the dresser to find some shorts and a T-shirt.
“I don’t have time right now.”
I dropped my shirt. “You don’t have time?” I said incredulously. What could be more important that getting that thing out of her?
“I have the viewings for my mom and the funeral tomorrow.”
Her mother. It still hadn’t sunk in yet that she was dead. My parents cast me out, turned me away, so in many ways Hev and I were both orphans now. With the exception that my parents were still alive. I guess in the back of my mind there was always that very remote chance I would see them again. That they might apologize for what they did to me. But Heven… Heven didn’t have that. Her mother was yet another victim of Beelzebub and the crap that I brought into her life.
A victim of my brother.
I looked at her sitting there with a sheet wrapped around her thin frame. She had lost so much, yet she was still strong. What would it do to her when she found out my brother was responsible for her mother’s head injury?
I sank down on the edge of the bed next to her. She reached out and wrapped her hand around my bicep. “I’m sorry about your mom, Heven. I wish I had been here.”
“I know.” She cleared her throat. “She woke up before she died.”
My eyes widened. “She did?”
Heven nodded. “She said horrible things to me, Sam. Those weeks of her accepting us… accepting me… that was Beelzebub controlling her. She said I wasn’t her daughter anymore.”