Seduced by Power by Alex Lux Read Free Book Online Page B

literally. If she didn't save the O'Conner brothers, she wouldn't be able to live. I couldn't let that happen.
    "What can I do to help?" As much as I didn't want Derek in the picture anymore, I couldn't allow her to suffer.
    "I need you to help me communicate with the demon dimension. I need to find my father and learn what he knows."
    I pulled away. "No. Absolutely not."
    "You asked how you can help. This is how. If you won't, then I'll try it on my own. I have the spell, I just thought it would be smarter to have help."
    I shook my head. "Nothing about this idea is smart, no matter whose help you have. You don't know what you're asking. You have no idea what they're like, what that place is like. All the stories you've heard of the Christian hell? Multiply that by an eternity of pain and you might start to get a glimpse of an idea of what the demon dimension is like." I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. "Are you listening? They feed on pain. They need it. They will destroy you just to get a decent meal, and you will never recover. Never."
    "That's all the more reason why I have to do this. Derek and Dean are already there, suffering in all of those ways you just described. I will not leave them there." She stood, perhaps for the first time in two days, and steadied herself on the dresser when she realized she couldn't put pressure on her injured leg.
    As inappropriate as it was, the sight of her in yoga pants and a form fitting cotton shirt aroused me. I hadn't fed since I'd been in this dimension. I would have been out of control by now if I hadn't had some of her demon power when we fooled around the night before she left with Derek.
    She'd saved me more suffering than she could imagine, and my desire for her caused more suffering than I thought possible.
    I rushed to help her. "Sit. You can't walk in your condition."
    "I'm going to get help. Father Patrick might know something. You can help me, or get out of my way. Those are your choices."
    Scenes from my childhood flashed through my mind. The beatings bestowed on me by parents to increase my pain threshold. The days and nights of listening to prisoners howling in agony. The guilt when my family glutted on that pain.
    How could I let the woman I loved see into the world I was from? She would see into the true me and never look at me the same again.
    With renewed energy and stubbornness, she limped to the bathroom and locked herself in. The toilet flushed, water ran, drawers opened and closed, and she emerged looking less like death.
    "Are you going to help or not?"
    I sighed, knowing I was defeated in this. "I'll help, but you have to promise to do exactly as I say, or you won't make it through this alive."

T EN
     
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble
     
R OSE
     

     
     
    Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
    — William Shakespeare, Macbeth
     
     
    THE COLD AIR stung my cheeks as Blake carried me outside toward the rose garden that now looked more like a dug up grave. The ceremony would be more effective on sacred ground, and the garden was as sacred as it could get.
    I'd insisted on walking and had tried, but my leg wouldn't bear the weight. I wondered if it would ever heal properly, but I didn't really care all that much.
    Something had died in me. I could feel it. Even the pull of Blake's sexual energy had little effect on me. The pain in my leg barely registered. All of my attention had pooled inward, sucked up by the misery in my heart.
    Father Patrick drew symbols on the ground, with Drake helping him. Ocean had tried to come, but I refused to even be near her or anyone else. I didn't even want Father Patrick and Drake near me, but he'd assured me that they were protected by other forces.
    Since we needed his help, I didn't argue. I had no energy left as it was.
    Blake set me down in the middle of a circle and pulled out a knife and bowl. "Any portal into the demon dimension requires a blood sacrifice. I'd do it for you,