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

“I do not know what she is.” He moved in front of her, blocking Asmodeus’s path and earning a glare for his chivalry. “But I have to get her out of this place before the boss loses her temper.”

He quickly snagged her wrist and pulled her with him, making a break for it. A hot jolt ran up his arm at the feel of her soft flesh giving beneath his bruising grip and she gasped, as if she had felt it too. He tugged her towards the door.

Asmodeus stepped into his path. “Is she demonic?”

Nevar growled. “I do not know.”

“I have never seen a demon like her.” The dark angel pressed his palm to Nevar’s breastplate, holding him in place, and peered around him. “She is powerful.”

He nodded. He could feel just how powerful she was now that he had his hand on her and it was far beyond the level that he had previously thought.

It sent him back to his initial thoughts about her.

“I do not think she is a demon.”

Asmodeus drew back and studied him. “If not a demon, then what is she?”

“I do not know.” Nevar rubbed his thumb across the inside of her wrist as she emerged from behind him, her free hand clutching the two pieces of silver material to hold her top up and her leathery wings curled around her shoulders in a protective way. He looked down at her. “What are you?”

“Born of Hell.” She looked certain about that, but he still wasn’t sure she was a demon.

There were other beings born of Hell that weren’t demon. Asmodeus was one of them. He was all that was evil in his angelic twin, Apollyon. The Devil had tortured Apollyon until he had lost all good and had then used his blood to create Asmodeus, his own powerful angel of destruction.

Nevar took the two lengths of material from her and tied them behind her neck, afraid he would lose his temper if the top fell down and exposed her to Asmodeus’s golden eyes. He wasn’t strong enough to fight his master right now, but he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

“Interesting, but we are leaving. Did you eat?” Asmodeus said and he shook his head.

“I was rather preoccupied. The boss of this place told me to make her leave.”

Asmodeus’s black eyebrows met in a hard frown and his gaze drilled into him. “Why you?”

Nevar shrugged but could see his master wouldn’t take it as an answer. He scrubbed his hand over the jagged back of his white hair and flicked a glance at the female. Her hazel eyes flitted between him and Asmodeus, the glimmer of curiosity back in them.

“Apparently, only I can understand the language she is speaking, although I do not know how.”

“I can understand her.” Those words leaving Asmodeus’s lips gave him pause. The angel had understood her when she had informed them she was born of Hell.

He looked back at Asmodeus. “How?”

Asmodeus lifted his huge black wings in a shrug. “I did not question it. I understand many languages. Hers is as old as the Earth.”

“It is still spoken?” Nevar said and the dark-haired male shook his head.

“I have not heard it in millennia.”

Nevar’s gaze drifted back down to her and she smiled, a beautiful one that struck him hard in his chest and knocked the wind from him. “How old are you?”

She looked little more than thirty to his eyes, but then he was beyond two thousand years old and didn’t appear much older than she did.

Her black eyebrows pinched together and she mimicked his master, lifting her slender pale shoulders and shifting the clawed tips of her wings. “I do not know. Ancient. I recall the birth of the King of Demons.”

Asmodeus choked. “Excuse me?”

She beamed at him. “I remember your creation, although I did not witness it.”

Nevar stared at her. “Just how old are you and how can you recall the birth of Asmodeus but not the battle you survived?”

Her hazel eyes turned troubled and she lowered her head, her smile falling away. “I do not know. It hurts when I try to remember it.”

Asmodeus moved closer, studying her in a manner Nevar didn’t like. He wanted the male’s eyes off her.

“Erin told me that when Heaven tampered with Veiron, he experienced great pain when attempting to recall events from his true past,” Asmodeus said and Nevar growled at the casual mention of his ward. His master knew that when he was weak and tired, just the sound of her name was enough to cause him pain, stirring all the terrible things he had done.

Things he hoped she never found out about.

Things he regretted with every drop of his blood.

Asmodeus slid him a warning look and then turned back to the female. “Perhaps Veiron can assist you in regaining your memories, and he may know of your species.”

“No,” Nevar barked, a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of heading to the island where Erin lived. “You said yourself that we have a mission that needs our focus. We shall escort the female away from this place and then continue that mission.”

“You are leaving me?” she snapped and shot between him and Asmodeus. Her power rose so swiftly that Nevar’s knees almost buckled under the sudden pressure of it on his body. Her eyes darkened, blazing violet and her pupils stretched thin in the centres of her irises. “I will not let you leave me again.”

She snarled and claws curled from her fingertips, as black as night, and the tips of her sleek dark hair fluttered as if a breeze played with them.

Asmodeus’s left eyebrow shot up and then he grinned at Nevar, flashing his short fangs. “It would appear you have an admirer.”

His smile dropped from his face when she turned on him.

“What are you?” he said and Nevar knew he had seen her eyes too.

He had never seen eyes like them.

They matched the colour of his, and Asmodeus’s, when he lost his temper, but her pupils were elliptical.

“It is time we found out.” Because Nevar had the dreadful feeling that her origins were more than merely born of Hell. “But we will not ask Veiron. We shall seek the advice of another.”

Their presence wouldn’t go down well, but it was the only choice he had and his only shot at discovering what the female was without taking her to Veiron.

And Erin.

But not because he feared seeing his ward and seeing the pity in her eyes.

The female’s power began to lower, the weight of it lifting from his shoulders. She was dangerous and he wouldn’t take her to Veiron for that reason. He wouldn’t place Erin in danger, or her infant son. He would protect her. Them.

Asmodeus looked over the female’s head to him. “Where are we taking her?”

Nevar stared straight back at him.

“To the half-demon. Taylor.”

L
ysia stared up at the huge white building that stretched wide in front of her, dotted with rectangles, some of which shone yellow while others were dark. The third row of them on the section of building before her were all yellow, as if a fire burned within.

Nevar tugged on her wrist, pulling her along the path towards the building and a broad dark door up some steps beneath a columned porch. The King of Demons followed behind her and she could feel his shrewd gaze on her. It hadn’t left her since they had departed the place that Nevar had informed her was called Cloud Nine. The wily king did not trust her, although she didn’t know why.

Perhaps because she felt attached to his servant?

It hadn’t taken her more than a few seconds to realise that Nevar was just that—the sole servant of the King of Demons, bound to him by contract. Asmodeus had been the one who had turned Nevar demonic, and it seemed her warrior desired to make him pay for that. Because he believed it would bring back the good in him?

She felt sorry for him, because she knew deep inside her that on some level, unconscious to him, he truly believed that, and it wouldn’t work.

Even if he slayed the King of Demons, it wouldn’t free him from the darker side of his soul.

She looked down at his hand on her wrist, at the black fingers tipped with claws. He despised what had happened to him and yet half of his arms and up to his knees was darkness, a sign that he was merging with another form. One locked within him? She had heard tales that the King of Demons could wear another form, one closer to the dark beast the Devil held hidden beneath his charming façade. Nevar had such a form too, but he had given it free reign, allowing both forms to become blurred and altered.

Why had he done such a thing when he wanted the evil gone from his soul?

By allowing it, he had made it impossible for him to purge that evil.

She lifted her other hand and stroked the line of his fingers, from his knuckles to the points of his black claws. He looked down at her, his jade eyes fixed on his hand too, watching her. His black skin was smooth beneath the pads of her fingers and warm too, not as rough or cold as she had expected. He held such heat and strength, and countered it with softness that she could only surmise came from his angelic side.

He flitted between violent and aggressive, and gentle and tender with her.

Asmodeus moved past him, his enormous glossy black wings furled against his bare back, and knocked on the dark door.

In the club, the black-haired male had declared her an admirer of Nevar’s and had spoken it with a mocking edge to his voice, one that had made her feel he believed no one could admire his servant.

She did.

He was strong, whether he felt it or not. She could see his strength in his eyes and it came not from his body but his heart. It was born of the gentle side of him, the one that battled the darkness and craved the light.

The door swung open and Lysia looked there.

A tawny-haired large male stood in the opening.

An angel.

She shrank behind Nevar, pressing her free hand to the back plate of his armour, between the two vertical slots where his wings should be. He had hidden them back at the club, forcing them away with a trace of disgust colouring his eyes. He despised them too.

He hated much, and she could sympathise. She hated many things too.

At the top of that list were angels.

She bared her fangs at the male in warning. If he dared to attack, she would kill him. She wouldn’t allow him near her or Nevar.

“Einar will not hurt you.” Nevar gave an expectant look to the angel. “Will you, Einar?”

The big male shrugged thickly hewn shoulders beneath his tight black t-shirt. “Not unless she gives me a reason to hurt her.”

She growled at that.

His full lips quirked at the corners and an amused glimmer shone in his rich brown eyes. “It was a joke.”

“Not a very funny one,” Nevar said and walked forwards.

She stayed put, refusing to move, even when Nevar stopped and tugged on her wrist. She unleashed a fraction of her power, enough to keep her bare feet rooted to the spot.

“He means me harm,” she whispered when Nevar looked over his wide shoulders at her.

He sighed and smiled, melting her insides. He was gorgeous when he smiled and it reached his jade eyes, brightening them and chasing away the shadows. “He won’t hurt you. If he does, I will kill him. Okay?”

She considered that and then nodded. “Okay.”

Einar turned to Asmodeus. “Did your boy just threaten to kill me?”

Asmodeus grinned wickedly. “It has become apparent that he has a possessive streak.”

The tawny-haired male shifted his dark eyes back to her. “Who is she anyway?”

When she stepped out from behind Nevar, his eyes widened just as Asmodeus’s had on first seeing her wings. She wasn’t sure why they all looked at them that way, as if they had never seen such a thing. She felt certain there were other females in Hell who had wings.

She knew of one female who definitely did.

“Why do you all stare so? The original angel had wings and none stared at her.”

All three men turned stunned gazes on her.

It was the angel who spoke. “What the hell did she just say?”

Neither Asmodeus nor Nevar acknowledged him.

Nevar turned back to face her and dipped his head, bringing his eyes down to level with hers. “You know Amelia?”

Amelia?

She shook her head. “I know no such female.”

“Amelia is the original angel,” Nevar said and she shook her head again.

“She is not called Amelia.” Lysia searched her memories for the name of the original angel, the one who had provided much amusement for the Devil over the millennia. “I do not recall her name but it was not Amelia. I recall that she died. Was another born?”

He nodded. “She survived this time, with the help of the Hell’s angel and the angel of Heaven.”

“Interesting. What else has happened?” She wanted to know. The world had changed from how she remembered it and the balance of power had changed with it.

“Maybe you should all come inside and tell me why you both can understand her and I can’t,” Einar said and she glared at him. He shot one back at her and shifted into the shadows inside the building.

Asmodeus followed him inside and she trailed along behind Nevar.

“What is the last thing you can remember before the battle?” he said in a low voice that she felt was meant for her ears only.

She racked her brain, working forwards from the furthest point she could recall until she reached the memories that hurt her head.

A beautiful scene played out in her mind, golden sand stretching as far as the eye could see, broken only by the wide dark swath of the Nile and the palms that dotted its banks. Beyond it stood the most incredible thing she had seen.

“Thebes.”

Nevar stopped dead and she bumped into his back. He looked over his shoulder, his jade eyes filled with incredulity.

“You remember Thebes?”

She nodded.

“Not Thebes like a ruin… like it is today… but like a city?”

She nodded again. “I recall the people coming and going, and how they would speak of their lives. I spent the whole day basking in the sun and watching them, learning about them.”

“You understood their language?” He turned back to face her. “As you understand mine?”

“I understand all languages… but I cannot speak them.”

He stared at her as if he hadn’t understood her and she was on the verge of repeating herself, afraid that he might have lost the talent to hear her words in a language he knew, when he moved closer, coming to tower over her, his expression holding a cold edge that she didn’t like, one that unsettled her.