Page 94 of A Trial By Blood

“You having problems with Rose?” Relic asked from his spot sitting at the edge of the pit.

At the mention of her name, I roared and slammed my fist into the wall.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Relic said and jumped down with us. “Talk to us, we can help. I’m smarter than all my brothers combined.” He aimed his thumb at Warrick. “And he has a mate and can feel shit now. Lay it on us, we got you.”

I may have emotions now, but I still struggled with what I should and shouldn’t share. I felt close to these males. They’d taken me in and helped me when I was lost in every way a being could be. Planting my hands on my hips, I looked at my feet, unable to meet their eyes. “I couldn’t…when Rose and I tried to…I couldn’t…” I struggled to find the words.

“You couldn’t get it up?” Relic asked.

My gaze shot up and locked on his surprised one. I nodded.

Relic smirked. “Dude, Rose is fine.” His eyes grew heavy. “Yep, I’m thinking about her now and my dick just got hard.” He shook his head. “You’re obviously broken.”

I ran at him and slammed him into the wall, then got in his face. “You ever think about her like that again, I will rip your dick off and feed it to you, then I’ll tear your limbs off and shove them up your ass.”

Warrick snorted. “Creative.”

“I mean every word,” I snarled into Relic’s face.

“Brother, I’m messing with you,” the male said and shook his head. “Shit, after our last talk, I know how much you want her. Your dick isn’t the problem. It’s nerves.”

“That’s not it.”

“Then some kind of mental block?”

I shoved away from him. “It’s Azel.”

They both went silent, and Warrick’s face turned to stone. Luna and I weren’t the only ones to suffer at Azel’s hands. The twisted fallen angel had left Willow with scars of her own, both mental and physical.

We all thought he was gone for good, until he’d tried to escape Hell a couple of years ago to possess another body during Willow’s task. They’d kept it from me at the time. But Warrick had almost lost his mate because of that fucker, and the hound hated that male almost as much as I did.

“Talk to us,” War said.

They knew what had happened to me. I shared it with them in my emotionless fucking way when I first came here. At the time, I’d been confused by their reactions, their anger on my behalf. I understood now. “I want to make Rose mine, but he’s there. He’s always fucking there. In my head, crawling over my skin, talking in my fucking ear.” I snarled and punched the pit’s charred wall again. “I want to kill him, torture him, destroy him.” I looked up at them. “How do I give all of myself to my mate when Azel still has a part of me that I can never take back?”

Warrick glanced at Relic, and the other male gave him a sharp chin lift.

The alpha of the Hellhounds strode forward and gripped my shoulder. “I think I can help you out with that.”

I held his golden stare. “How?”

Warrick grinned, flashing sharp white teeth. “Feel like a little trip to Hell?”

CHAPTER 27

Rose

I turned to Mags sitting in the driver’s seat beside me. “You promise not to hit him?”

Mags grinned. “I make no promises. But he’s safe as long as he doesn’t act like a dick.”

I couldn’t ask for more than that. “Fair enough. If he’s a dick, I might just hit him myself.”

Mags was with Willow at the clubhouse when we got there. I decided it best not to ask Wills to come with me since she’d been deep in conversation with Ren. He’d obviously stayed at the clubhouse last night and didn’t look in great shape. So I’d asked Mags instead, something I wouldn’t be telling Ronan until after the meeting. He wouldn’t be okay with the change of plans, and I didn’t have time to argue about it again.

“I’d like to know if there’s anything I can tap into, power-wise. There’s something more, I can feel it, something just out of reach. My magic is subpar—”

“Bullshit,” Mags said.