Awakened by a Demoness (4 page)

One seemed rather intent on seeing all of her tattoo, and that desire drew his gaze back to her legs. He couldn’t see her right one from this angle, with her slightly in front of him on the raised stone platform beyond the steps to his right, but he could catch the red tips of the swirls that arced over her right hip to the small of her back.

The black cross on his wrist burned. He idly rubbed his thumb over it, trying to soothe the mark. He knew there was a demon present, it didn’t have to keep reminding him. He wasn’t here to hunt her though. He was here on a mission.

A mission he was ignoring while he tried to figure out a demon of all creatures.

He pushed away from the wall and turned to leave.

“Can you do me a little favour?” The demoness’s voice curled above the crowd, soft and gentle, a flirtatious edge to her English. “I need some info.”

That arrested his steps and he frowned as he listened hard, struggling to hear her over the noise of the chatter of those in the busy square and the music. What was she up to?

He turned his head slightly towards his right, enough that he could see her out of the corner of his eye.

“Have you seen a female in town… a young woman,” she said.

His blood dropped a degree.

She couldn’t be.

“She’s a friend. Around five-seven, with short brown hair and matching brown eyes. I’ve heard she runs with a coven… one called Cruyssen, I think.”

He spat out a curse, his only vice.

Cruyssen
.

He had the sinking feeling that his mission had just become a lot more complicated at the critical moment, and that he knew the reason the demoness was in town.

She was after the half-breed too.

Asteria didn’t like the way the angel was eyeing her. She wanted to say that she doubted he would attack her in such a public place, but angels were a pain in the arse like that and didn’t normally give a fuck about pulling innocents into their battles if it meant another demon bit the dust.

She kept an eye on him as she drank her tankard of brew, enjoying the buzz that tripped through her with each sip.

When the males loitering around her feet began to look as if they were losing interest, she flashed them another flirty smile and flicked her black hair over her shoulder, revealing her cleavage and pulling them back under her spell. They weren’t difficult to manipulate. It wasn’t even taking all of her wiles to keep them firmly under her control and thinking they had a shot with her.

As if.

She shuddered at just the thought. None of the fae and immortals below her were worthy of her attention. They certainly weren’t the type of male she would bang.

Her eyes betrayed her and slid towards the angel where he casually leaned against a stone building to her left, stunning pale green eyes scanning the busy square. He folded his muscular arms across his broad chest, causing his black t-shirt to stretch tight, and frowned as he blinked. When his eyes opened again, they were locked on her. She shivered, a hot bolt of lightning zinging through her bones.

She pulled down a breath to steady herself and glared at him for good measure, until he looked away from her.

She had a problem with him.

Mostly based on the fact he was too bloody handsome.

The sort of handsome that had her eyes gravitating towards him all the time and seemed to turn the sensible part of her brain to mush because she kept forgetting that he wasn’t just eye candy.

He was angelic eye candy.

He was all good, and bright, and holier-than-thou and shit that got her back up. But by the Devil, he was gorgeous.

She didn’t have to work hard to imagine just how chiselled and perfect his body was beneath the damned clothes that concealed it. If the toned sinewy muscles of his bare arms were anything to go by, the delicious corded perfection of his deltoids and those bulging biceps, and sexy toned forearms, then he was a god beneath the irritating black t-shirt and jeans.

She wanted to tear them off him to see if she was right.

With her teeth.

She could just imagine how he would react to that too, and what sort of punishment would await her if anyone back home found out she had banged an angel.

Although, if she screwed him and he fell from grace, she would probably get a promotion and a hefty reward from the Devil. He liked to reward that sort of thing. Another fallen angel for his ranks would certainly go a long way towards scrubbing the black stain off her name.

She shook her head, dislodging that idea.

She had been stupid enough to approach the angel when she had spotted him across the square, placing herself in grave danger. Seducing him to the dark side was not going to happen. She wasn’t even sure why she had confronted him. She wasn’t the sort to do something so reckless, not under normal circumstances. The sight of the angel had panicked her though, and she put it down to fear of what her dark lord would do to her if she failed this mission. That fear had made her attempt to drive the angel off her turf.

She was still surprised he hadn’t killed her.

Asteria dragged her eyes away from him, dropped them back to her drooling band of idiots, and smiled at all of them.

“So, about this coven,” she said and they all spoke at once, a cacophony that made her want to scream as she tried to understand what they were rushing to tell her.

She picked out a few juicy titbits about the coven she was meant to locate, the most annoying one being that they had moved on and were travelling south.

Damn it.

Another hot shiver tripped through her and she tensed in response to the feel of the angel’s eyes on her again. She tried to ignore him, but it wasn’t long before her eyes had gravitated back to him.

Why had she confronted him, placing herself in the firing line of his wrath?

It had been an urge at the time and she had followed it, but now that she was questioning it, she wasn’t sure what the urge had really been or where it had come from. She had set eyes on him, had known instinctively that he was an angel, and the next thing she had known, she had been storming across the square towards him, her best you-know-you-want-this strut in place.

She had flirted with him.

What the ever living Hell was wrong with her?

Flirted
.

She had convinced herself that it had been to rile him and get his back up, because irritating an angel had been fun, but there was a part of her that had to work pretty damn hard to pretend that some of it hadn’t been real. She hadn’t really flirted with him. She hadn’t really imagined just how hot it might be to lure him over to the dark side. She
really
hadn’t lost herself in a fantasy about just how incredible he might be as a lover, with all that power and strength, and his wicked good looks.

It had all been an act on her part.

Totally an act.

Those stunning peridot eyes slid her way again, sending white-hot lightning arcing through her as they landed on her, and she couldn’t drag her gaze away from his.

She felt weak.

Trembled.

It was being away from Hell. It messed with her powers and left her vulnerable, and that was why he affected her so badly. Here, he was stronger than she was, a threat to her. She didn’t need an angel sniffing around when she was on such an important mission, one where her life was on the line, and he was doing just that. The bastard was listening in on her conversation.

She was starting to feel that the Devil had left out some details, like the fact there was a fucking Echelon after the same target and now tall-blond-and-holy was going to be chasing her tail.

Asteria scowled at him and flipped him the bird.

He arched a pale eyebrow at that and sighed.

He annoyed the hell out of her. He was so damned haughty and self-righteous, just like all the angels. She could feel it from here. He was dripping with goodness and it sickened her. That was it. That was why she found it impossible to keep her eyes off him and ignore him. He affected her because he was sickeningly good... and hot.

He was undeniably hot.

Incredibly hot.

She glared at him and both of his eyebrows rose high on his forehead, a confused look entering his eyes before they emptied of emotion again.

Angels shouldn’t be hot.

Okay, the Devil was a fallen angel and he was a beautiful bastard, but for some reason, it rubbed her the wrong way with this guy. It made her skin itchy, but at the same time it filled her with a twisted need.

She was awfully tempted to try and break his shiny metaphorical halo in half and stick it up his arse, but she was equally tempted to seduce the bastard.

Maybe it would knock him down a peg or three.

Asteria dismissed it. Her dark lord might love a present of a corrupted angel, but there was a tiny part of her that wasn’t sure pleasing him would be the reason she did it. She refused to look too closely at that part, afraid of what she might find.

“Do you know where the Cruyssen coven were heading?” She smiled sweetly at a young scrawny cat shifter and leaned over, giving him a view of her cleavage as she stroked her hand under his chin.

His eyes slid shut as she lightly raked her claws through the messy scruff on his jaw and he practically purred.

The sensation of the angel’s eyes on her grew fiercer, as if he was glaring at her now. She ignored the bastard and kept with her stroking, until the cat shifter was putty in her hands.

“London… t-the fae town near it,” he stammered and looked wounded when she removed her hand and leaned back, turning her attention on the nymph male as he cleared his throat.

Out of all the men gathered at her feet, he was the most tempting, his thick black hair and vivid cerulean eyes setting off his natural good looks. His ripped bare torso didn’t hurt either, giving her something nice to look at as she smiled down at him.

Not as nice as the angel.

Asteria shoved that voice out of her head and kept her focus on the nymph. “You know where this town is?”

He nodded. “At a mansion in the countryside. I can take you there.”

Tempting, but she didn’t need an escort.

Her gaze flicked to the angel again. Although, if he was going to tail her, an escort might be useful. She shook that thought away and shifted her focus back to her boys. She was strong enough to deal with her Echelon friend and she preferred to roll alone.

The sensation of his eyes on her disappeared and the instinct that constantly warned her of danger faded. She resisted the temptation to look to her left and see whether he was still watching her.

“It’s popular with witches,” the wolf shifter put in, his eagerness pleasing her as he stepped closer. She did love the way he panted over her, hunger in his brown eyes. She leaned over and tunnelled her fingers through his mousy hair, clutched it and pulled him closer still. “It’s run by the Rozengard coven.”

“Another coven?” She frowned down at him as she patted him on the head, brushed her palm over his hair and down the side of his face to under his chin. She tipped it up and gripped his jaw.

“A male one. Look for loose white shirts and brown trousers. Their uniform.” He looked as if he wanted a treat for being such a good boy.

She pressed a kiss to her other fingers and touched them to his lips. The poor male almost fainted. Such easy prey.

She slipped into flirting on autopilot with them as she mulled over everything they had told her, flashing them teasing smiles. The angel might be a problem.

Her gaze sought him.

He was gone.

She scanned the throng in the square, covering every inch of it, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Asteria smiled as she realised he had left before he had heard the best part from her informants, one that had given her a solid lead in the form of the Rozengard coven.

This was going to be easier than she had expected.

The new fae town was quieter than the one he had left in Fort William, situated in a cavern beneath a country estate outside London. He strolled through it, scanning the faces of everyone in the witches’ district. This fae town stood apart from the others he had visited around the world, the districts bearing huge ornate arched signs across the street at their entrances and each looking slightly different from the others.

The witches’ district was near the main entrance of the cavern, below the steps that led down from the tunnel into it, and consisted of square flat-roofed white-washed buildings of different heights tightly packed together. Narrow cobbled arteries ran between them, and on the main shopping streets, the colourful canvas canopies that reached out from each store almost touched in the centre of the road.

To the right of the witches’ district was one he would be sure to avoid unless absolutely necessary. This fae town had a demons’ district, made up of single storey buildings constructed of black wooden beams with white plaster in the space between them, and crooked tiled roofs. Smoke curled lazily from many of the chimneys, drifting high into the air and dissipating near the jagged roof of the cavern.

He lifted his gaze from the people moving along the busy street in the witches’ district and pinned it on the far end of the cavern, where it curved. Tall buildings hugged that curve, each a different colour, banners hanging from their walls. One of the buildings, a crimson four-storey monstrosity with balconies on almost every window, housed succubi.

Whenever he visited this town, he kept his distance from them. He wasn’t interested in the wares they peddled, or falling foul of their abilities to lure a man into their beds against his will, making him feel he wanted it.

On the left of the bordello was a blue building bearing long cerulean and silver banners streaming down its front. It belonged to a tiger shifter pride, one who kept to themselves for the most part. To the right of the bordello was a dull grey building belonging to a clan of ogres. He wouldn’t be surprised if the succubi used their charms on the ogres. The poor males were not blessed with beauty, meaning few females outside of their own species were interested in them.