Goddess, it hurt.

The veins over Jason's shoulder burned as hot as the lava found in the deepest volcanoes. His muscles spasmed periodically, causing his limbs to twitch and twist around the filthy ground where the rogue dropped him two days earlier. Since then, no one entered the chamber to see if he was alright. Puddles of puke and urine littered the floor. He would have used the bucket provided, but the thought of standing on his own two feet sent his world spinning. He didn't have the strength to worry about the soiled state he was in; the agonizing pain took up most of his thoughts.

How long do I have to go through this?

He lay on his back, staring up at the starry sky through the iron grates. It has been three days. His stomach gurgled in protest; it has been days since they fed him. Did they forget about him? Or was this just another form of torture? Even the stale bread and drain-water coffee looked appealing.

The full moon slowly peaked over the edge of the hole in the ceiling, lighting up the darkened chamber. Before Jason could enjoy the moon's radiance, a nauseating crack rang out. He yelled out as his spine snapped him into a fetal position. Next to snap were Jason's shoulders, followed by his arms, and finally his legs. The transformation took hours while he sobbed along the way. At the crack of dawn, a presence roared in his mind. The last bit of his transition saw him burst into flames. The inferno engulfed the whole chamber, reducing everything to cinders. Even the iron grate overhead didn't escape the heat; the flames melted them into a pool of metal.

With an insistent chirping of birds from above his cell, Jason woke up with a jolt. The pain which had wrecked him for days had dissipated. He slowly rose to his feet, taking in the changes to his body. Jason was several inches taller than he was before and his body picked up a boatload of muscles overnight. Something sharp whipped against Jason's lower leg, causing him to flinch. He twisted around and yelled.

He had a fucking tail!

A scaly one that lazily whipped side-to-side. Frantic about the other unnatural changes, he began patting down his body. Well, he still had a plump ass and a dick. As he touched his face, another shriek pierced the walls—two fucking horns stuck out from his forehead. They weren't massive, but he could impale Alaric with them and cause serious harm.

I'm an abomination!

"Shut it, will you?" a sleep-drenched voice echoed inside Jason's head. "You're freaking out over shit."

Jason froze, swallowing nervously. It can't be. Oz?

A chuckle rang out. "No, you idiot. He's dead, remember?" Jason's heart sank. "My name is Cyron. And I'm a hellhound... or better yet, we're a hellhound. Your tail and horns stem from the merge between your demonic powers and the bite from the rogue."

Fuck me. Jason groaned, rubbing his watery eyes.

"Come on, it's not that bad."

Jason scoffed, "You're a demon. Your kind kills and destroys everything you touch. So don't act surprised that I'm not thrilled about having you living in my body."

"Our body. Don't forget that," Cyron growled. "And let's get this straightened out before you make another assumption about me. I'm not a vicious killer. I've been alive for only a couple of hours now."

Jason shook his head. "Should I be worried? You're not going to rip loose and start killing?"

"I may be a demon, but I'm a guardian first. Hellhounds are protectors, not killers. So don't worry that pretty face into an early retirement. I do not need to kill people. I'm not a savage."

Jason struggled to believe the hellhound. How could he? From all the stories he read about demons, the books didn't paint a pretty picture of them. He just had to hope he had enough will to put a short leash on the beast.

It was Cyron's turn to scoff. "Says the one who's got his own leash."

Jason's hand ran along the tattoo. "Do you know how to remove the damned thing?"

"Give me time and I'll see if I can muster the power to destroy it."

Which meant the chain was going nowhere. It would be only a matter of time before Alaric waltzed through the doors and started barking orders. Jason walked up to the wall and slipped down until he planted his naked ass on the ash-covered floor. He sneezed, disturbing the ash layer on the floor of the chamber. The inferno Jason unleashed blackened all the walls of the chamber. He couldn't even see where the door was, so black it was.

***

Night slowly snuffed out the light, plunging his prison cell into darkness. He was starving, and the groans emanating from his stomach agreed. To make matters worse, his throat was killing him. Whenever he swallowed, it felt as if he were swallowing a stone.

What is taking them so long? Jason would have thought that Alaric would be eager to retrieve his new toy. One that he could use to exact his revenge with. It pissed Jason off with the way his life ended up. Never in his wildest dreams would he have dreamed that he'd wake up in this nightmare. A nightmare that would never end.

"Stop being so pessimistic," Cyron said. "Things could have turned out worse."

"And how could it have turned out worse than it already did?"

The hellhound yawned, "You could be dead now."

Jason chuckled, resting his head against the wall and staring up at the ceiling. "I'd rather die than end up a killing machine for an arrogant asshole."

"And there you go again—"

A massive explosion shook the mansion. Showers of dust and soot snowed down upon Jason's head. Shouts and screams filled the hallways behind the melted doors. Jason slowly rose to his feet. What was going on? Another explosion ripped above him, causing him to stumble to his knees.

"Someone's attacking," said Cyron.

Jason tentatively stepped toward the metal doors and placed his ears on them. "How do you know?" Several voices cried out, accompanied by a thud that crashed into the door. Jason stumbled backwards.

"How many people do you know of who would willingly blow up their own house?"

Jason scoffed, "Smartass."

The doors in front of Jason groaned as the metal bent unnaturally. His intuition yelled out to get his ass out of the way. Jason barely stepped to the side when the doors blasted off their hinges and hit the opposite wall. A sharp light flooding the chamber made Jason flinch. He raised his arm over his eyes.

"Jason?" said a voice that made his heart hit a brick wall.

Mallory was the last person he expected to see when he lowered his arms. She ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging the stuffing out of him. Jason shoved his nose into Mallory's hair and took a whiff of the apple-scented shampoo she always used. The familiar scent calmed the raging storm that waged inside of him. The fact that Alaric turned him into a creature of destruction, a pawn the vampire wanted to use to sow chaos among the supernatural community.

A small crack in his façade caused tears to slip down his face. Jason missed them so much—all of them. He stared at the faces of the people he called friends, Ishmael, Astrid, Darren, and a couple of other supernaturals he didn't recognize. Jason hugged Mallory tighter, even though he was butt-naked. He only hoped that Mally's mate didn't see them.

Jason pulled them apart, wiping the tears from her face. "What are you doing here?"

Mallory raised her eyebrows and said, "What stupid question is that? We're here to save you." She took several steps back and examined Jason's latest additions. "I'm sorry it took so long—Goddess, what have they done to you?"

Jason wanted to dig a hole and die in it. He turned away from their curious stares, even though he couldn't hide his tail and horns.

"It's not important right now." Ishmael stepped forward. "We need to be gone before Alaric returns and finds his mansion in ruins." He turned to Astrid. "Ash, can you get Jason some clothes to wear?"

Astrid nodded and then flitted away before returning a few minutes later with a pair of jeans and a red hoody. "Sorry, that's all I could get my hands on."

She threw Jason the hoody while she punched a hole in the back of the pair of jeans. Jason slipped on the hoody, zipping it up to his neck. Afterward, he pulled the jeans on while threading his uncooperative tail through the hole.

"Well, it's time to go. Come," Ishmael said.

Jason followed the group until he reached the threshold of the chamber. The collar around his neck activated, causing his muscles to spasm. Jason dropped to the floor.

Mallory turned around and rushed up to him. "Jase! What's the matter?"

Ishmael and Astrid joined Mallory, crouching down beside him.

"I can't," Jason choked out, staining his taunting neck muscles. "Alaric has this fuckin collar around my neck." He pointed to the tattoo engraved around his neck.

Ishmael moved in and twisted Jason's head to the side to get a better look at the collar. He touched the tattoo, sending a bolt of electricity through his body. Jason yelped out, flailing on the ground.

"Do something!" Mallory yelled out.

Ishmael unclipped a chocker necklace around his neck and hung it around Jason's. With a sizzle and a burn spreading around his neck, Jason's muscles slacked. He slowly, yet carefully, struggled to his shaky legs and stepped over the threshold. His punishment didn't come: the collar didn't activate anymore.

"Better?" Ishmael smiled at him.

Jason nodded and smiled back for the first time in weeks. "Yeah, thanks."

***

When Jason's bare feet met the gravel of the curved driveway, he couldn't stop a smile from creeping across his face. He was finally free. He turned around and stared at the ruined mansion. Half of the upper right corner of the house was destroyed, blown sky-high. Bodies of the fallen lay scattered amongst the rose bushes in the garden. They would be dispatched by the sun when its rays hit their bodies in a few hours. The bloodsuckers weren't alive anymore, so the enchanted tattoos that protected them from the sun wouldn't work anymore.

Vampires didn't burst into a column of ash when one killed them. They died like most people, but they would slowly turn to stone until they crumbled to dust. The sun, however, would speed up the petrification from hours to mere seconds when a vampire's naked flesh met the sun's light. It was a curse that was passed down from the first vampire, Adair, who earned the scorn of Aphrodite when he rejected her advances. The goddess cursed him to live as long as he drank from the same mortals he craved above her. Jealous much? What the goddess most likely forgot to consider is that Adair was gay. No matter how many times she fluttered her lashes at him, he would never have appreciated her beauty. That was what the vampires believed anyway, not that Jason ever met Adair in person. The vampire king didn't interact much with common people.

"Jason?" Mallory's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

He twisted around and saw that they were waiting for him to climb into the SUV. "Sorry," he mumbled and then rushed up to the car and climbed in, making sure his tail wasn't in the way.

The SUV sped down the driveway and out of the front gates of the mansion. Jason glanced back at the estate to see an orange glow peeking out above the treetops. Served the bastard right. Alaric had it coming to him, but it meant that Ishmael had just made a dangerous enemy. It was obvious where Alaric would begin his search.

"I'm sorry, Ishmael," said Jason, picking at the scales on his tail. He couldn't look the warlock in the eyes.

Ishmael chuckled while staring back at him in the front mirror. "What for, little one?"

"Little one?" Cyron scoffed. "The idiot should get his eyes tested."

Jason groaned, rubbing his forehead. He forgot what it felt like to have another voice in his head. "Shut it, will you? Nobody asked for your opinion."

Cyron drifted back to sleep, grumbling to himself.

"Alaric most likely knows who attacked him and will target your club and everything you own. Not to even mention that he'll try to kill you for what you did," Jason said.

"Don't worry about that right now," Ishmael replied. "Alaric can't touch my businesses without pissing off the Collective. Not even he is that crazy."

"Maybe... but he has an army at his command and..." Jason swallowed nervously. "And he has my blood."

Mallory turned to Jason with a creased forehead. "What's so special about your blood?"

"It's demon blood."