Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) (27 page)

Lysia wished she could ease that pain for him, but all she could do was stand by his side and slowly show him that he was still the good man he wanted to be. He just couldn’t see it right now. He was too close to the events that had turned him against himself, his eyes clouded by the things he had done. It would change in time, the dark haze clearing to reveal that era of his life was over and he was stronger now. It would never happen again.

He had come through the darkness and was determined to keep striding onwards into the light.

Lysia pressed a long kiss to his left shoulder. Her warrior. He was beautiful in his desire to be good again, to be a man worthy of her and to right his wrongs.

“Tickles,” he mumbled into the cushion and his silvery eyebrows met in a frown.

His jade eyes slowly opened and sought her. She smiled and brushed her fingers across his back.

“You were meant to be resting.” She drew away to give him more room and he rolled onto his back, gloriously naked and delicious.

The sight of him had her heating inside and fire pooling in her belly.

He stretched and his grin was wicked as he caught her staring at his magnificent body, her eyes drifting over the honed muscles of his torso towards his hips.

His black loincloth appeared before she could reach them and she frowned at him.

He pushed himself up, yawned to reveal short canines instead of fangs, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“I was resting.” The deep raspy quality of his voice made her shiver. He sounded even more alluring and masculine than usual when roused from sleep.

The corner of his sensual mouth quirked.

Lysia blushed.

“You could have at least woken me with a proper kiss.” He moved quicker than she could evade, sliding his hand around the nape of her neck and clutching it, pulling her into his arms and her lips against his.

She gasped into his mouth as he kissed her, throwing fuel onto the fire he had already ignited in her belly. She caught hold of his shoulders and kissed him back, her lips dancing desperately across his, hungry for more.

He broke away and smiled at her, one that had her heart fluttering in her chest. All the light in the world shone in his eyes and stole her troubles away. He seemed happy today. Because of what they had done or something else?

She felt at peace in this place, with him, as if the future didn’t exist and they would always be like this. Together and happy. She wanted that more than anything, and the look in his eyes spoke to her soul and said she wasn’t alone in her desire. He wanted it too. He was happy because he was here with her.

“Good morning,” he husked and rubbed the back of her neck, sending shivers sweeping down it to her shoulders, keeping her hunger for him at a low boil. “Or it might be evening. Never can tell in this fucking place.”

“It’s morning.”

He arched an eyebrow at that.

She glanced away and then back at him. “I can tell. I’m not sure how.”

“I never thought this place had a morning or evening… I just figured it was always the same. Perpetual night. Like Heaven is perpetual day.”

She hadn’t known that. “I only know what I feel. It feels like morning. I sensed power awakening in the west.”

“Power?” He frowned now. “You mean Asmodeus? We’re south of him.”

She shook her head. “No. Immense power. The Devil. He keeps hours based on the mortal realm. Even in my captivity I knew when he woke, signalled by a sharp rise in his power within the fortress, and I sensed when he moved away from the area, and when he slept.”

“That I definitely didn’t know. He sleeps?” The look on Nevar’s face told her that it had come as a shock to him.

“Of course he sleeps.” She couldn’t understand why that seemed like such a strange concept to him.

Nevar rested his back against the cave wall and stared out of the wide arched entrance off to his right. “But he’s an angel of Hell. Hell’s angels don’t need to sleep or eat in this realm.”

She could see why he would have presumed such a thing. “He isn’t a Hell’s angel… or an angel of Hell. He’s a true fallen angel.”

“True fallen?” Nevar looked back at her. “Isn’t that just a Hell’s angel?”

“No.” She didn’t think it was anyway. “A Hell’s angel is pledged to the Devil, a minion under his control. No one controls the Devil. He is a power in this realm… I mean… he was cast out but not stripped of his corrupted powers or pledged to another master.”

“Like Asmodeus.”

She shook her head again. “Asmodeus is the Devil’s servant. You are Asmodeus’s servant. The Devil has no master.”

“I get that,” Nevar said as his frown lifted. “So the bastard has to sleep… does he have to eat too?”

She shrugged. “That I do not know. But I heard rumours once, many millennia ago, that—”

A shiver bolted down her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

Nevar shot to his feet and his armour appeared, covering his shins, forearms, hips and chest. A black curved blade with a violet grip materialised in his right hand and he snagged her wrist with the other and pulled her up to him. Her shorts, top and sandals appeared on her body.

“We’re not alone,” she whispered and her claws extended.

He nodded. “Four of them.”

The angels.

She would know their signature anywhere after encountering them on the island and feeling their power encompassing her.

“Stay here.” He dropped a kiss on her brow. “I will see what they want.”

He released her and strode out of the cave. Lysia huffed and followed him, ignoring his order. She wasn’t going to let him face these four angels alone. He was stronger now because he had fed a little, but he hadn’t taken enough from her to restore all of his power.

She looked off to her left, beyond Nevar to the small flat clearing beside the cave. The hill rose above it and on the peak stood the four angels, all staring down at her and Nevar.

How had they found them?

The one with the long white hair worn with the top half tied back from his face and the rest left to hang down his back stepped forwards. He unfurled his wings of purest snow and beat them, lifting off the mound. He spread them wide and glided down to the plain, landing a few metres away from Nevar.

Nevar backed off a step, coming to shield her, and his black wings grew from his back. He was preparing for a battle.

“What do you want?” Nevar growled and called another black blade to his free hand.

The angel raised an eyebrow at it and then his ice blue eyes lifted back to Nevar’s face. He casually raised his left hand and the three other angels left their posts on the hill, coming to flank the male.

Was he acting as their leader?

The largest of the warriors, with his overlong pale hair and green eyes, landed off to the left of Mihail. The one with short red hair and golden eyes ringed with crimson landed at Mihail’s side, furling his scarlet wings against his back. The last one didn’t land. He hovered above the three, his black wings beating the hot air at her and his grey eyes locked on Nevar.

Each wore a grim look that held darkness in it, a shadow of menace that she found strange in angels of Heaven.

This close, with only a few metres separating them, she could make out that their black leather armour wasn’t identical. The engravings each angel bore were different, and inlaid with a colour that matched their wings and hair. She dragged her focus away from Mihail’s and the images of demons being defeated by men that were inlaid with dull white on it. This wasn’t the time to take her eyes off her enemy. These four angels had come here with a purpose and she wanted to know what it was, just as Nevar did.

“I will not ask again. What do you want?” Nevar eyed each male in turn and she did the same, calculating their strengths and searching for any weaknesses.

Mihail stepped forwards.

Nevar stepped backwards, keeping the distance between them steady.

The angel smiled. “I do not mean you harm.”

Nevar laughed at that and Mihail’s eyes darkened.

“Excuse me if I find that difficult to believe after our last encounter.” Nevar shifted his grip on his two blades and shuffled his feet further apart. “Where’s Lysander?”

Lysia hadn’t failed to notice that he wasn’t present. Had the four angels not made it out of Hell after all? Asmodeus and Apollyon had said they were taken by the light, just as Lysander had been. What reason could they have for being here without him though? He had announced himself as their leader. What sort of leader allowed his men to go off on a mission without him?

“Lysander is busy making preparations,” Mihail said.

“Preparations for what?” Nevar’s question hung in the acrid heavy air between them.

The angel didn’t look inclined to answer it.

She frowned at the four angels, studying them hard while they gave Nevar their full attention.

What sort of angels had such tattoos? Some of them were of dragons and beasts, and unholy things. Others were of skeletons. Some were angelic symbols. Others written in the demon tongue. Some were glyphs, protective charms that were ancient and beautiful, from all different lands of the mortal world.

And others still were in a language she now recognised as English.

She stared hard at the letters that curved beneath the navel of the angel with the short red hair, spanning hip to hip, trying to understand them. Just as she deciphered the word they spelled, she felt his golden gaze slide her way. Her eyes darted up to meet his.

His full lips tilted into a wicked smile and he stroked the letters that declared ‘VICTORY’, a suggestive glint in his eyes.

Lysia looked away from him.

These were not angels as she knew them.

They had a wickedness about them, a shadow in their aura that spoke of a darker edge to their souls.

“It has been decided that you will come with us,” Mihail said and, for a heartbeat, Lysia thought he was talking to her but his gaze was firmly fixed on Nevar. “Heaven desires to speak with you. It has an offer to lay on the table.”

Nevar laughed again. “I do not think so. Heaven has nothing it can offer me.”

The angel shifted a step closer, towering taller than Nevar. “It has much to offer you. Do you not desire things which only Heaven can give to you?”

Mihail raked his cold gaze over Nevar’s black armour and then his body. It lingered on Nevar’s hands and he shook his head.

“So much darkness,” Mihail said, his eyes on the black skin that covered Nevar’s arms to his elbows, and she felt Nevar falter, sensed his momentary slip in strength through their link before his grip on his swords tightened again and he stood a little straighter, tilting his chin up.

The angel meant to play on his weaknesses, just as she had wanted to seek out and play on theirs. They were wicked indeed.

“Do you long for it to be gone?” Mihail canted his head and smiled. “It can be gone. Heaven will grant that if you come with us. They only desire to speak with you as the creature’s master and find a way to avert the apocalypse she will bring about.”

Nevar stared at the angel in silence, his jade gaze never leaving his, and Lysia could feel that he wanted to take the angel’s offer. She pressed her hand to her heart, to the mark beneath her skin. Heaven was offering Nevar a chance to purge some of the evil that lived inside him and part of her wanted him to take that offer, to seize that which he desired above all else, while another part silently begged him to refuse and stay with her.

“I see.” Mihail’s deep voice gained an edge as sharp as the white sword that appeared in his left hand. His eyes brightened, white swirling among the pale blue like a snow storm, and he brought his other hand up and pointed at her. “Then we shall take the creature and perhaps you will be more cooperative.”

The angel with wild short black hair and silvery eyes swooped from his position above them, a long black spear materialising in his grasp.

Nevar spread his obsidian wings wide to shield her and kicked upwards, coming to meet the angel and blocking his blow with his two blades. The metallic ring of their weapons clashing reverberated in the hot air and Nevar pushed both of his swords upwards, cutting in twin arcs that drove the angel away from him.

Nevar growled, beat his wings and launched himself at Mihail, his shoulder barrelling into the angel’s exposed stomach and knocking him backwards. Nevar didn’t stop. He kept sprinting forwards, heading for the hill. He slammed Mihail into it, the force of the impact shaking rocks loose and sending them tumbling down the slope.

Lysia extended her claws and snarled through her fangs as the biggest of the angels turned his attention on her and the other two went after Nevar. The angel’s pale green eyes swirled darker as his power rose and twin blades shaped like sickles appeared in his hands.

He spread his pale jade wings.

He meant to launch himself at her.

Lysia flicked her left hand forwards and sent him flying through the air with a blast of telekinetic power. He shot towards the hill and crashed into it close to Nevar and Mihail where they fought, creating a deep impact crater. Basalt showered down on the immense pale-haired angel, burying him in the mountain.

The black-haired one turned cold silver eyes on her and beat his wings, shooting towards her.

She held her right hand out, her palm facing him, and halted him in mid-air with her power. He snarled in frustration and fought her hold, edging his spear around to point towards her. Sweat broke out across his brow, the exertion etched on his dark face. His power rose, coming to press against hers, and she focused harder, forming a stronger grip on him with her own power.

The smaller rocks strewn across the plain and down the hill began to rise, drawn upwards by the force of her telekinesis as she battled the angel, struggling to maintain her hold on him.

A strained grin curved his lips.

Lysia’s eyes widened as she felt the presence beside her and turned towards the scarlet-haired angel just as he slammed into her side, sending her flying towards the cave. She struck the edge of the entrance and grunted as pain exploded across her side, searing her bones. Her hold on the black-haired angel shattered and she breathed hard as she tried to push herself up and shut down her pain at the same time.