Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) (36 page)

His hand came up to his chest and he didn’t dare hope she was speaking the truth and was actually able to do what she was saying.

Serenity came around her and peered down at the book, her hazel eyes scanning the pages. “This is a big spell. You will need help. I will help.”

Liora nodded and clutched her hand. “Thank you. We can do this. Blood magic… it will be dangerous but we can do it.”

Nevar caught the concern in Asmodeus’s eyes as he looked at Liora as she excitedly discussed everything with her cousin in French.

He pressed his palm to his master’s shoulder, drawing his focus to him. “If it looks as if it might hurt her, I will not let her do it.”

Asmodeus swallowed and nodded, and then the emotions in his golden eyes cleared and he straightened, rising to his full height. “Liora, Serenity and Taylor will all remain here. The rest of us will head to the plateau and intercept Lysia before she can reach the sphere of the Devil’s power.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Nevar drew a deep breath. In for five. Out for five. He fought for calm among the raging storm of his emotions, a violent clash between hope and fear. No matter what he saw, no matter how she appeared, she was his Lysia inside.

He pulled in another slow breath, filling his lungs up from the bottom, and exhaled.

Cast his hand out before him, forming a swirling black maelstrom that would take him to the plateau.

Stepped into the void with confidence in his heart.

Vowed to never give up.

Not to save the world.

He wouldn’t fight for the world.

He would fight for his whole world.

He would fight for her.

He would save her.

N
evar stepped out of the portal and onto the wide plateau that stood above the bottomless pit. The distant ring of screams instantly snapped his attention off to his right, away from the Devil’s fortress where it rose into the inky sky of Hell ahead of him, surrounded by a ring of boiling lava.

At the very edge of his vision, a battle raged. Fire blazed a trail across the darkness, shuttering everything else with its brightness. More screams came, flashes of white light flickering like the most violent of lightning storms as Heaven recalled the masses of the fallen. Pandemonium.

The apocalypse.

Fire reigned all across the furthest reaches that he could see. Hell was burning to ashes before his eyes. With each swathe of flames that burned the sky came more bright flashes, the dead angels disappearing at an alarming rate.

A fierce shiver went through him like a bolt of electricity and he pressed his hand to the breastplate of his black armour.

She was aware of him.

In the midst of the distant darkness, twin violet spots glowed, directed at him. Horizontal bands of orange rushed up from below towards those purple eyes and another burst of fire erupted from between jagged teeth, each larger than he was tall.

More white flashes punctured the darkness as screams echoed around the cavern of Hell and the ground shook as the beast advanced, emerging from the shadows as it approached a wide snaking river of lava.

His heart launched into his throat, the sight of her stealing his breath.

He hadn’t been prepared for her appearance after all.

She stood taller than he had anticipated, the clawed tips of her enormous black leathery wings almost scraping the ceiling of Hell in places. Her great talons ploughed the basalt with each hard step forwards, shaking the realm and causing cracks to splinter outwards from beneath her paws. She swiped with her long tail, cutting a path through the angels and Hell’s angels swarming around her, the barbed tip skewering several of them in the process and sending them back to Heaven.

Her crocodilian jaws opened again and her roar shook the hot air as she unleashed another devastating stream of fire, decimating her foes and taking out an entire legion of hunter angels with one blast.

She threw her head back and the six black curved horns that grew from above her eyes and her ears on either side of her head shone in the light of the fire as she directed it upwards, towards a contingent of Hell’s angels who had been coming down at her. They screamed as one as her flames tore through them, incinerating their wings and leaving them plummeting towards the ground.

Several angels made it through and attacked her, their blades bright arcs as they hacked at her scaly black body. She whimpered and veered right, trying to evade them as she snapped at them with her teeth and swung her right paw at them. He looked in the direction she was heading and growled through his fangs. The prison.

Within the sphere of the Devil’s power.

Nevar had seen enough.

He ran towards the edge of the plateau, beating his black wings as he picked up speed, and sensed the others following him, bringing up the rear.

Nevar launched from the edge of the plateau and dropped into the valley, his wings pinned against his back until the last moment, when the ground came up at him and he spread them and shot across the terrain. He had to keep low. If he could fly beneath the angels attacking her, she might not see him until he was close enough to reach her.

He beat his wings and swung up at an angle on his right, avoiding an outcrop of rocks, and levelled off again, flying so low he could reach down and drag his claws across the ground if he wanted to.

Those claws altered as he unleashed his other form, calling all of his strength to the fore. He would need it if he was going to save her.

The inky darkness swept over his skin, turning it all the colour of night, and he ground his teeth as his horns pushed, cracking through his skull to flare back from behind his ears. His claws became thick talons and his wings gained a violet shimmer as he flew over patches of lava, swaying left and right to remain over solid ground and avoid the intense heat of the pools.

Asmodeus caught up with him, in the midst of his own transformation, his skin already obsidian and his horns curving through his black hair. His eyes flashed violet and the golden edge of his armour darkened to black before shining purple. Asmodeus looked across at him, nodded, and banked left, heading away from him and towards the prison.

Apollyon followed him, his broad black wings beating the air and his dark ponytail streaming behind him as he gained speed to keep up with Asmodeus as he shot towards the prison.

Amelia and Marcus remained behind Nevar with Einar.

The great beast unleashed another ear-splitting roar and swatted a group of angels from the division of death away from her left side, sending them flying through the air and crashing into the ground, throwing a long streak of black dust up into the air.

She turned towards them and Nevar gave a growl of his own when he saw the blood streaming down her front and leaking from deep wounds on her hindquarters.

He beat his wings and shot beneath a legion of Hell’s angels hovering at a safe distance, all of them in their black demonic forms, their glowing red eyes locked on Lysia.

Waiting to attack her.

Nevar wouldn’t let it happen. He was here now. No one would touch her.

He brought his right leg down, swiftly kicked off the ground to change direction without losing speed and shot upwards. He flapped his wings and stared up at her head over a hundred feet above him. She was far bigger than he had ever dreamed possible but it wasn’t going to deter him. He would reach her.

Her violet gaze swung his way, the elliptical pupil flaring for a moment before thinning again.

“Lysia,” he called above the noise of a thousand wing beats, the sound of angels preparing another wave of attack. “Look at me, Lysia. I am here. I am alive.”

She reared back and swung her left paw at him. He pinned his wings back and dropped beneath her blow and unfurled them again, giving one hard flap to bring him shooting higher on her defenceless side. She snarled and snapped at him, and he beat his wings and shot backwards, beyond the reach of her fangs.

“Lysia!” He stopped right in front of her, at eyelevel to her, and held his hands out. “Recognise me.”

She stilled.

His hope soared.

Fiery cracks appeared between the broad black plates across her chest, a dull glow at first but rapidly becoming fierce white. She arched her head back on her long neck and the light rushed up her throat. Not good.

The moment she opened her jaws, Nevar dropped, his wings tucked hard against his back to streamline himself. Heat chased him downwards. He wouldn’t make it.

He desperately threw a portal beneath him and fell into it, reappearing in the air above her.

She shrieked and the spikes down her back shimmered violet.

He had the distinct impression he had just pissed her off even more.

“Lysia. Listen to—”

He grunted as six guardian angels barrelled into him and quickly called his black blades to his hands. A bright blue orb exploded below him and his breath hitched until he saw it was Amelia defending Lysia, driving back the wave of angels coming at her from all directions. More blinding bursts of blue light lit the darkness, coming faster as Marcus joined the fight.

Nevar wrestled with the angels, trying to break free so he could gain enough distance to take them down.

Pain exploded across his back and he shot downwards with the angels. He crashed into the basalt and tumbled across it, his wings twisting beneath him, taking the brunt of the damage from Lysia’s blow.

The moment he stopped rolling, he pressed his hands into the dirt and shoved himself up, his blades at the ready to deal with the guardian angels.

Einar beat him to them, taking on all six with a single silver sword, his tawny wings tucked against his back as he fought with skill that awed Nevar. He would thank him later, when Lysia was back in his arms and safe again. He wasn’t sure how he was meant to get her to transform back, but he would find a way. He kicked off and grunted with each beat of his wings that sent fire arcing along his bones.

Lysia swung a meaty paw at the Hell’s angels now attacking her. Nevar snarled and flew harder, setting his sights on them. He had to drive them away before he could try to get through to her again.

Golden light shone in the left side of his vision and he briefly looked there. It lit the area around the prison and screams rent the air from that direction. Apollyon. He could feel his master there too.

Focus on Lysia, not me. Reach her. We will hold back the reinforcements.

Nevar was tempted to snap back at Asmodeus that he was focused on Lysia but he did as his master instructed and turned his gaze back to her. Apollyon and Asmodeus were fighting to hold back Heaven and Hell’s reinforcements. Amelia, Marcus, and Einar were taking down the current wave of several legions from both sides. They were all fighting to give him this chance, risking their lives for Lysia. He hoped he could make her see that.

She wasn’t alone.

The world wasn’t against her.

They were with her.

He swung his black blade at the first Hell’s angel, catching him across the patch of exposed skin between his obsidian back plate and the strips protecting his hips. The immense black-skinned demonic angel turned on him, his eyes glowing crimson, and bared his sharp red teeth.

Nevar swung again and the male blocked him with one red blade and drove the other one he held at him. Nevar shoved with his first blade, knocking the angel off balance, and slashed with his second one, clashing with the red one aimed at him. Sparks showered as they struck each other and Nevar pressed forwards, beating his wings to drive the demonic angel backwards.

His senses pricked and he twisted towards the demonic angel behind him, swinging wildly with his left blade to block the sneak attack. His sword struck the red blade of the black spear the demonic angel wielded but didn’t block it completely. It bounced off his blade, scraped over his vambrace and sliced into his biceps.

Lysia roared and turned furious violet eyes on him and the Hell’s angels. She launched her right paw at them, her huge black talons cutting through the air. It struck the first angel and she curled her talons around him and crushed him in her fist. Blood rained down from her closed paw.

The nostrils on her beak flared and she bared her black fangs as she dropped the first dead angel and swung again.

Nevar dodged her blow and her paw slammed into the angel who had cut him, sending the male careening like a rocket to the ground and crashing into a low black hill.

“Lysia,” Nevar shouted and turned towards her as she reared again, rising up onto her hind legs and beating her wings.

Wind blasted against him and he furiously flapped his wings to keep from being thrown away from her as he called a portal. He let a gust send him into it and reappeared behind her, safe from the gale.

The Hell’s angels didn’t fare so well. They tumbled through the air and slammed into other angels, creating a swirling mass of them as they collided and struggled to maintain flight. His side didn’t fare much better. Amelia and Marcus made an awkward landing and Einar ended up hurled into a group of five hunter angels, who all glared at him, evidently unimpressed that their kin was fighting against them.

More bursts of golden light exploded in the distance, followed by bright flashes of paler light as Heaven reclaimed the dead.

Lysia kept beating her wings, driving the angels away from her. When they were almost as distant as the immense grim long building of the prison, she slammed back down onto all fours and lumbered onwards.

Nevar flew in front of her and she pulled her head back, snarling at him.

“Lysia… you cannot go that way. I will not let you.” He spread his arms and his wings, uncertain whether she even understood him as she was now. He could feel the fury in her, the deep rage, and the hunger for violence.

Smoke curled from between her fangs.

Nevar prepared to teleport, his heart thundering against his chest and his hands shaking against the hilts of his blades. If she unleashed her fire on him at this distance, he wasn’t sure he would be able to escape it, but he had to stand his ground. He wouldn’t run from her.