Undaunted Read Online Free PDF

blackboard. It took her a few moments to realize she was hearing the screams of the damned—the howls of lost souls forever condemned to hell.
    But that noise was coming from across the river. There was another sound close by. One even more terrifying than the cries of the damned. Breathing. Slow, deep, steady breathing, accompanied by absolutely foul breath that almost made the sulfur smell good.
    Blinking slowly, Addie held perfectly still, somewhat anchored by the hard ground beneath her and the fact she still held her short sword in her hand. She tightened her grasp and slowly turned her head.
    Blue claws attached to huge blue feet dug into the rocky ground not six inches from her nose. Swallowing back the bile that rose in her throat, she looked up—and up. Past scaled legs—he was obviously favoring his left—and knees covered in spikes. Past thick, overly muscled thighs ringed in claw-like spikes, and darkened leather covering what had to be the demon’s sex. His body was almost square, so muscular and overdeveloped, so covered in armor-like spikes, that he looked like something out of an old Marvel comic.
    He stood with one huge, meaty fist planted firmly on his left hip. His right arm ended midway past his elbow. Black blood had congealed at the stump, but as she watched he leaned over and picked up the bloodied wrist and hand lying at his feet and stuck the raw ends together. He snarled. After a few seconds, he opened and closed the freshly reattached hand, testing the use of his fingers. Then he grabbed his razor-studded whip off the ground and jammed it into a holster at his hip.
    His left leg straightened. Obviously the tendons Jett severed were healing as quickly as the hand Azrael had amputated. This was not looking good. Throwing caution to the wind, Addie looked up. All the way up.
    His face was the thing of nightmares. Long, sharp horns curved out of each side of his jaw. Not tusks—there was no room for tusks inside a mouth filled with long, sharp teeth. Another set of horns curved upward from behind the demon’s pointed ears, and two more grew directly from the top of his head.
    She’d never seen anything like it. Not a creature as well-armed, as big, or as intelligent as Naburus obviously was. He watched her watching him, his silvery eyes narrowing to mere slits of ice against his dark blue skin.
    His voice rumbled up out of his chest like rolling thunder. “You have my hellhound. I want him back.”
    Slowly, Addie stood, and even as tall as she was, she barely reached the middle of his broad chest. “No one has Azrael. He is his own man, and he stays with us by choice. He should not have been yours. You were promised the soul of Marcus Junius Brutus upon his death, and yet you took the living soul of a nameless man who was but a cook in the senator’s residence. He does not belong in hell.”
    “It was an honest trade. He is mine. You will return him.”
    He sounded calm, reasonable, even. Too calm. Shivers stole down Addie’s spine and set her radar on high alert. Something was wrong. She glanced at the River Styx. A boatman waited at the shore watching them with obvious interest. She was almost positive it was Charon. When he caught her looking his way, he dipped his head in salute, smiled, and then actually winked at her. Somehow, that bit of humanity in this place settled her nerves.
    She glanced around, paying closer attention to her surroundings. They were in a huge cavern hewn from black stone. Light flickered and it was as Az had described it—flames without heat lighting the darkness, and yet the screams of agony echoing off the walls were the sounds of souls burning in flames. This had to be the incoming side of the river, the place where souls waited to be ferried across into hell. The place where Azrael would bring the ones he’d been sent to collect.
    It came to her, then. This was as far as the demon could bring her. He couldn’t send her into hell because it was not within