Awakened by a Demoness (7 page)

He didn’t want to kill her.

So what had him on the verge of doing it?

Prickles ran through her as her senses blared a warning so loud it was deafening, and she sharply looked to her right, up at the roof of one of the stores.

Another angel stood there, a male with a thick head of onyx hair and startling silver eyes. This one wore armour from neck to toe that reminded her of the knights of old in fairy tales the mortals told. The white plates were edged with gold and shaped like muscles over his torso, and the vambraces around his forearms and greaves around his shins were decorated with images she couldn’t quite make out at this distance.

A distance she was more than happy to maintain between them.

He turned his silver eyes from her to Rey, and they narrowed as they crossed the distance between them.

“Fifth Commander of the Echelon,” he said in a deep commanding voice, and Rey straightened, inhaled hard and calmly released his right wrist, finally in control of himself.

Rey nodded as he looked up at the other angel. “Fourth Commander of the Echelon. What brings you here?”

Said Fourth Commander curled his lip at her, disgust written across every line of his face, and then blocked her out as he focused on Rey. “I relay a message. There is a male you must question in regards to your mission. He resides in the Rozengard coven.”

“I am aware. The reason I work with the demoness is to question said male.” Rey sounded awfully like he had just made an excuse for being around her. Giving the angel a reason not to slay her on the spot?

The black-haired buffoon merely sighed and ignored her. “I have no interest in your reasons for aligning yourself temporarily with a demon. You can explain them to the council when your mission is done and you return, after you have dealt with her once she is no longer useful.”

“I’ll fucking deal with you, how about that?” She strode towards him but halted when Rey held his hand up to her, and the Fourth Commander glared at her, his eyes flashing gold but also with something else. Something that made her reconsider threatening him.

While Rey was as good and noble as he appeared, this one had darkness in him in the form of a temper, a hunger for violence that reminded her of the Devil.

Prodding the big black bear was not a good idea.

She edged back, settling for glaring at him.

He curled his lip and turned away from her again, resettling his focus on Rey. “I will be out of contact for a short time. If the council ask where I have gone, I am heading south on personal business.”

With that, he disappeared.

Asteria frowned. Rey mirrored her.

“Heading south?” she said and he looked across at her, a troubled edge to his eyes. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

Because she wasn’t sure she could believe it if it did.

He nodded, his expression turning grave. “He has been troubled by something recently, and though he has tried to put it out of his mind, it seems it has finally won and he can no longer deny his need to deal with it… and I do not know why I am telling you any of this. It has nothing to do with you. Keep your nose out of our business, Demon.”

She let that one slide, because she knew why he was telling her. He was concerned about his friend, and rightly so.

The Fourth Commander of the Echelon was going to Hell.

Only foolish angels ventured there, where they were weakened and experienced pain that only made them even more vulnerable. What had possessed the angel so fiercely that he couldn’t let it go? She wanted to ask Rey, but the hardness in his eyes warned her to hold her tongue.

With a long weary sigh, he folded his white wings against his back and closed his eyes. She watched as those feathered fiends slowly shrank and then disappeared into his back, and her eyebrows rose as Rey huffed and turned in a circle, trying to peer over his shoulder at his ruined shirt.

The back hung in tatters that revealed delicious glimpses of golden skin and hard muscle, and something she found disturbingly sexy.

Two long thick ridges of scar tissue that blazed vertical lines down his shoulder blades around an inch either side of his spine.

Her mouth watered, hungry to press her lips along those lines, teasing his skin. If his wing scars were anything like hers, they would be sensitive, the slightest touch sending a trembling heat through him. By the Devil, she wanted to crank his gears by licking them.

Rey only made the hunger sweeping through her worse as he huffed, reached over his back with his right hand, and pulled his ruined black t-shirt off over his head, revealing far too much of his glorious physique. He tossed her a warning scowl but she couldn’t tear her eyes off him.

He was just too damn gorgeous.

Too damn alluring.

He stood seven feet tall, golden skin stretched taut over honed muscles that made her quiver inside, trembling with a need to reach out and touch him to see whether his skin would be soft and smooth while his muscles would be as hard as stone.

He rolled his shoulders, an irritated look settling on his handsome features that she barely noticed as she perused him at her leisure, eyes taking a holiday as they roamed across the broad square slabs of his pectorals and then down the sexy deep valley between them to the rolling hills of his abdomen. Eight of them, forming an image of masculine perfection. Her hunger grew fiercer as she eyed the wicked curve of muscle that arched over his hips and led her eyes down to the light dusting of blond hair that trailed a path she wanted to follow with her lips into the waistband of his black jeans.

“Demon,” he barked, the warning in his tone lost on her as she fantasised about what sort of weapon he was concealing down there.

He could slay her with it any day of the week.

“Look away,” he snapped.

“I’m trying. Seriously, I am… but fucking God almighty… you are incredible.” She somehow found enough strength to force her eyes up off the breathtaking display of masculinity and met his, and was that a little colour on his cheeks? Was her big burly angel blushing?

He averted his eyes, but the action only emphasised his body because it caused his shoulders to twist slightly and every muscle on his torso popped to attention.

Asteria trembled. “Damn you, put some clothes on.”

She couldn’t believe she had actually said that.

She wasn’t normally one to tell a guy to cover up when he was pressing all the right buttons in her. Normally, she made them get even more naked, and satisfied whatever urges struck her until they were both boneless and sated.

Normally, the object of her lust wasn’t a damned angel, and she wasn’t on a mission that was life or death.

“I have a witch to question.” She tried to sound forceful and resolute, but her words came out distant and weak as her eyes caught on Rey’s mouth-watering body again and she lost herself in the way his muscles bunched and flexed as he tossed his wrecked t-shirt into a nearby bin and produced another one in his hand.

She almost let out a whimper of displeasure as he pulled the new black t-shirt on over his head, covering all that perfection and stealing it from view.

He stormed past her, leaving her reeling in the street, struggling to get her head back on straight. He was an angel. She was not going to do this with an angel, letting him get under her skin. She had learned her lessons about leaving her heart unguarded and had vowed that no one would ever get close to her again, and so far she had managed that.

Until Rey.

Asteria looked over her shoulder at him as he stalked away from her, long legs eating up the distance to the coven building, and slowly turned to face that direction.

Something about him had thrown her off her game.

She followed him in a daze as she tried to pull her shit together and extinguish the twisted desire he had ignited within her. She wasn’t interested in anything to do with him. She was just using him to get to the half-breed. As soon as the little female was in her grasp, she was done with him and she would return to Hell and never see him again.

She strode after him and caught up with him at the coven door. Several males dressed in drab brown pants that were laced over the crotch and flouncy white shirts that resembled something Mr Darcy would have worn loitered outside of the ugly brown and white building they called home.

She wasn’t in the mood, but she turned on the charm anyway, flashing smiles and a little cleavage in their direction.

“I’m looking for a guy called Alyx.”

She was fairly certain he had probably been born Alex and had changed the ‘e’ to a ‘y’ to sound more mysterious. It was the sort of rubbish witches did to make themselves more impressive and to fit the image many of their patrons had of them. The name Alyx was bound to sell more seduction and love potions than the name Alex.

A couple of the guys looked disappointed she wasn’t there looking for them, but one of them was kind enough to point towards the left side of the first floor.

“In the library probably.”

She thanked him with another smile and a patented saucy wink, and swept into the building with Rey on her heels. Or at least, she had thought he would be on her heels and eager to get down to questioning her lead. She looked back and found him glaring at the three witches, a look in his eyes she found far too pleasing. He looked as if he was mentally dismembering them.

Asteria cleared her throat.

Rey looked to his left towards her, issued another flesh-peeling glare at the three males, and then followed her up the steps and into the building.

“What was that all about?” she said in as light a tone as she could manage while that persistent little voice that had latched onto her desire for him whispered that he had been jealous of the attention she had given the males.

Tough titty for him then, because the means of getting information out of their lead that she had mentioned involved more than a wink and a smile.

And it was so wrong that part of her was actually looking forward to it now, couldn’t wait to find Alyx and start flirting with him, because it was like an experiment and she was aching to know the results.

Would her flirting with Alyx make the gruff and glowering angel jealous?

She bounded up the wooden staircase on the right of the hallway and along the corridor at the top, heading back on herself towards the front of the building. A grand wooden door on the right at the end of the hall was open and she poked her head around the corner, peering into it.

A young fairly-handsome male sat at a long oak desk, lit by a series of lamps, his head bent and dark eyes fixed on an open book in front of him.

“Alyx, I presume?” she said just as Rey caught up with her and the witch looked up, his dark eyebrows pinching as he settled his eyes on her and then Rey where he had appeared behind her in the doorway.

“Depends who’s asking.” The witch went back to his book and pushed his spectacles up his nose, his frown staying as he read another passage.

“Well… obviously I am.” She sashayed into the room, rounded the table and shoved the stack of books near him aside. He frowned at that and then at her, until she hopped up and sat on the table to his right where the books had been, flashing a lot of stocking as her plaid skirt rode up. “And obviously you’re Alyx. So, let’s cut to the chase, Handsome.”

He looked up at her with a question in his eyes, one they screamed loud and clear. She thought he was handsome?

In a geek-chic sort of way, with his glasses and dark hair that had been ploughed to death by his fingers while he had been studying whatever was in the no doubt boring book. She removed all distractions by leaning over, getting her cleavage nice and close to his face, and carefully closing said book.

His cheeks darkened, but his eyes did too. He might be awkward, but he definitely wanted her.

“So Alyx.” She twirled her hair around her left index finger, choosing the all-black side this time as she used her right hand to prop herself up on the desk as she leaned closer to him again. His eyes followed her fingers and she brushed her thumb over the tips of her hair, and then swept those tips across her lips, drawing his gaze there. “Maybe you can help me?”

He nodded, never taking his eyes off her mouth.

The intensity of Rey’s gaze on her increased and she did her best to ignore him as he moved around the room, coming to flank the witch. When he moved into the edge of her vision, he began pawing at the books on the cases that filled the entire wall behind Alyx and in front of her. She didn’t need to see Rey to be aware of him. His presence was a constant hot shiver across her skin. Was it the same for him?

She must have glanced at Rey, because Alyx looked towards him. She crossed her legs, flashing a little more thigh and drawing the witch’s focus back to her. His dark eyes lingered on her stockings and he drew down a deep breath.

Asteria released her hair, slowly reached towards him and cupped his jaw in her left hand. She smiled as she lifted his head and his eyes drifted up to meet hers.

“I’m looking for a friend. I heard she runs with the Cruyssen coven. She’s petite, but a firecracker. Has brown hair and matching brown eyes. A guy back in the Fort William fae town said she was heading this way and you’d be the one to ask… since you’re like the boss or something here.”

He swallowed again. “I-I’m not the boss… but I’m in charge of welcoming them.”

She stroked her fingers along the line of his jaw. A little weak for her liking. She preferred strong, square jaws. Her gaze darted to Rey again, to that wicked hard line of his jaw that screamed masculine. Alyx noticed and tried to follow her gaze. She stopped him by applying a little pressure to his jaw, keeping his focus on her.

“Maybe you know her then?” She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. “It really would help me out. Really.”

Asteria leaned closer, until their faces were only inches apart, and dropped her voice to a low sultry whisper.

“Really… I would be so grateful if you could tell me when you expect them to arrive.”

Alyx edged towards her, eyelids dropping to half-mast as his gaze focused on her mouth. “They called earlier… said they were arriving tomorrow as they were travelling through the night… should be here around noon… but she might be earlier.”