Her eyes widened as she tried to push against him. “No, no, I’m—”

A succubus didn’t always have to take power. He knew that. He also knew that a succubus usually only shared her power with one person . . .

Even a succubus could mate. In fact, if she wanted to have children, a succubus had to find a mate—one man she could share her power with over her lifetime. Otherwise, there would be no births for her. Reproduction wasn’t just about sex with a succubus—it was about mating. Life, love—forever. Did Seline even know that? Because he was betting Rogziel hadn’t shared that information with her.

“Let me go!” She wrenched back, but he held her tight.

“No, you’re not running again. We’re settling this.” Anger and lust battled in his blood. “You’re not—”

The screams reached him then. High, full of terror. Breaking glass. Shouts. The thunder of footsteps.

Through the bars, he looked out over the club. Chaos reigned as the humans and Other rushed for the exits.

Then he heard the growls. Smelled the brimstone. No wonder the shifters were at the front of the fleeing mass. They would’ve caught the scent first.

“What’s happening?” Seline’s stare followed his.

Sam saw the deep claw marks that scraped across the table tops. Fuck, f**k, f**k. “Are you afraid?”

“Yes!” she yelled immediately as she wrestled away from him. Sam let her feet touch the bottom of the cage, but he held tight to her hand. “Something’s coming this way!” Seline said.

“Not just something . . . your hound.”

She stilled and stared at him with dazed eyes.

“When we were kissing, were you afraid?” he demanded. “Were you scared of me?”

She nodded, and it was like a punch to his chest. Fear and desire. They shouldn’t have merged for her. For them.

They had, and now hell was coming.

The other cages were falling from the ceilings now. Most of the folks had already fled El Diablo. Some stragglers were hiding behind the bar or crouching under tables.

Those claw marks were heading for Sam . . . for the cage that swayed drunkenly on a chain that looked ready to snap at any moment. Too much power in the air.

“The hound’s protecting you,” Sam muttered as he grabbed the nearest steel bar with his left hand and fought to steady them. “That’s why it went after the shifter and tore his throat out. That’s why it came after me in the truck . . . the hound f**king thinks it’s protecting you.”

A whoosh of wind came at them. Something—the f**king hound in question—slammed into the cage. The cage rocked hard to the right, to the left, and then that chain snapped. They fell to the floor with a bone-jarring crash. Sam twisted and tried to cushion Seline’s body with his own.

His hands held her tightly to him. He was sure that if he’d been human, his back would have broken when the cage pounded into the floor. As it was, the fall hurt like a bitch.

Then the cage bars started to snap—no, the hound snapped them.

Seline stared around with wide, stunned eyes.

Sam hurried to his feet. He still had his hold on her. No way was he letting her go. “You don’t know how to send the hound back, do you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t even know how the hell it got here!”

She didn’t know and only she could send the beast back. Talk about being screwed. Sam took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to survive.

“Are you going to kill me?” she whispered, and that fear flickered in her eyes again.

Sonofabitch. Growling, he pulled her even closer. His lips crushed down on hers. He tasted her, kept his mouth on hers, and drank her in, even as claws raked down his legs. “No,” Sam promised, his voice gritty as he lifted his head. “But when we get out of this, I am going to f**k you again.”

She blinked. He would have said more, but the hound’s teeth sank into his ankle and the beast dragged him away.

The hound’s image was slowly coming into focus. It looked like a beast made of smoke right then. Pale, hazy, but with really big teeth. Sam kicked, but the beast didn’t let go.

Fire won’t work. Rogziel had been right. Fire only made hellhounds stronger. Bullets wouldn’t keep the beast down.

Sam reached out and grabbed one of the cage bars. Metal snapped and popped. He shoved the bar right into the hound’s side.

The beast cried out and backed off.

Sam rose to his feet. Seline was behind him. “I’m not hurting her,” he said to the beast. Right, like reasoning with a hellhound was the way to go. “She’s mine, got it? So you’d better get used to seeing me—”