“I do not think of it as a home.”
Liora frowned and looked across at him. He stood with his profile to her, his eyes drifting over the city, the sinking sun bringing out their colour but not warming them. They were cold and empty again. Where had his thoughts taken him?
The more she looked at him and thought about what he had said, the more she felt he was lonely but didn’t realise it. He had never left Hell and he refused to view his castle as his home.
Did he have no love and light in his life?
“So what are your friends like? Are they all bad-ass demons or are you mates with the Devil?”
Asmodeus’s gaze locked on a distant point and then flicked straight to her. “I have none.”
He had no friends.
He had no home.
What sort of lonely life was he leading in Hell? She was beginning to wonder how there was even a sliver of good in him. He had no reason to feel that or any positive emotions at all.
Liora placed her hand over his on the black metal railing and he looked down at them, his eyes slowly widening in that way that made her feel that there was something about Asmodeus that would surprise everyone who saw him if they knew about it.
He had always been alone.
No one had ever shown him compassion or care.
No one had ever touched him like this, as a friend would, offering comfort and support.
He was a clone of Apollyon, everything evil distilled into its purest and most vicious form, but he was a product of his environment too.
He had been starved of good and driven to do bad. He had never been given a chance to be anything else. The Devil had moulded him into this man before her and for some reason she wanted to be the one to show the world that they were wrong about Asmodeus, and he could be something more than they believed him to be.
“Do you have no companions at all?” She looked up into his eyes, her eyebrows furrowed and a tiny flicker of hope in her heart.
He lifted his gaze to lock with hers and his thumb brushed hers, causing her heart to leap and race.
He swallowed hard and hesitated, and she thought he wouldn’t answer as he averted his gaze, fixing it far below them at the base of the hill and the street there. His eyes tracked something, turning distant at the same time. She looked down and frowned when she saw an old woman walking two miniature poodles.
“I have Romulus and Remus,” he said in a gruff voice and she raised her eyes back to his. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “They are not quite like those canines. Hellhounds are larger, and live far longer.”
He had dogs. Companions. Hellhounds were an evil angel’s best friends.
“What are they like?” She couldn’t picture hellhounds at all. Images of Cerberus, the three-headed hound sprang into her mind. “Do they only have one head?”
He smiled and her heart lifted at the sight of it and the way the cold edge left his golden eyes. “Yes, they only have one head. They are black and very large, coming to stand with their shoulders around here.”
He held his hand palm down just above his hip and Liora’s gaze disobeyed her direct command and drifted across to the taut ripped muscles of his stomach and the sexy dip of his navel, and the dusting of dark hair that led her eyes downwards. Her pulse picked up again and it took all of her will to drag her gaze back to his hand.
It was trembling.
Her eyes shot up to his and he looked away again, but she caught the flicker of desire that still darkened his gaze.
“What do they look like? Are they hairy?” Curse her voice for shaking. She had been around men she felt attracted to before and had never reacted like this whenever they had flirted with her or shown their interest. She sidled closer to Asmodeus and butted her hand up against his to measure their height against her own body.
According to his measurements, these hellhounds would reach shoulder height on her if she included a modest addition for their heads.
“Hell is hot and rather filled with fire. Hair is not a good thing in that sort of environment. They are shorthaired and somewhat resemble a canine of this world… a Great Dane. Do you know of it?”
“Scooby Doo? You have demonic Scooby Doos?”
“Scooby Doo?” He frowned. “I am not familiar with this Scooby Doo.”
“He’s a cartoon… like moving drawings with sound.” She wasn’t sure he knew what a cartoon was. She doubted you could pick up satellite or cable in Hell. “But he’s brown. The right breed though…”
She measured Asmodeus’s guide height against her again.
“I’m guessing yours are bigger than our version.” She waved her hand around the height she imagined them to be.
“And broader… and they have red eyes.”
“I could have guessed.” She really could have. It didn’t surprise her at all. Even Asmodeus had red eyes whenever he was losing his temper.
When coupled with the way she could feel his power rising or ebbing with his emotions, she had a barometer for Asmodeus.
At least she could tell when he was about to unleash Hell on the poor unsuspecting population of Paris.
“And I can talk to them.”
That, she hadn’t guessed possible. “They talk?”
Asmodeus casually shrugged, causing his black wings to shift against his bare back. “They communicate with each other in their own language using telepathy, but I do not have that ability so I have taught them to understand me and I can understand their responses. They are clever creatures and picked up an understanding of the demonic language quickly.”
So he could communicate with his two hellhounds. Romulus and Remus. Who no doubt lived at the castle that wasn’t a home.
Something came back to her, something she had heard Apollyon say to Serenity when she had been listening in on them and Serenity had asked why Asmodeus had given him information he could use against the Devil.
Asmodeus was complicated.
Liora stared at him.
Complicated and gorgeous, and she wanted to unravel the mystery that he wore like a protective cloak.
She wouldn’t stop until she knew the truth of Asmodeus.
Until she knew the real him.
The one he was fighting to hide from her.
CHAPTER 3
Asmodeus was on edge. He stared out over the darkening city of Paris, his senses stretching around him, mapping everything that moved and was therefore potentially a threat to the female beside him.
He didn’t like the mortal world.
Already one male had attempted to harm her and others in this area kept glancing her way, and he did not trust any of them.
In Hell, no one would have dared try to harm her while she was with him. He had half a mind to cast a portal and take her down to his castle and keep her there, only the other half of his mind wasn’t sure why he felt such a fierce need to protect her.
She was a witch and could most likely take care of herself, without his assistance.
Asmodeus idly rubbed his left cheek. Her strike had caught him off guard and had stung for long seconds afterwards, while she had thrown verbal barbs at him that had confirmed he had done something wrong.
His gaze lost focus as he replayed what had happened, trying to understand what he had done wrong and why she had been angry with him.
He turned his back on the city and watched the mortals milling around the square instead, snapping photographs of the white domed church on the mount above him or pictures of the city at sunset behind him. They interacted with each other, using a series of facial expressions and touches, neither of which he truly understood or could decipher.
Even here, the mortal world was a bombardment of scents, sights, tastes and sounds, and feelings.
He had never felt so out of place and unnerved, and unsure of himself.
He didn’t know how to function in this world and found it impossible to behave as expected of a mortal because he wasn’t one. He didn’t understand how they worke
d.
He didn’t understand how Liora worked.
Men glanced her way as they passed, disgusting eyes lingering on her shapely form without her knowing, possessing curves that were not theirs to study.
He scowled at them all, feeling a growing urge to lift his glamour and reveal his true appearance to them in order to scare them away. The only reason he wasn’t surrendering to that wicked desire was because he had already frightened Liora with his violent behaviour near the tower.
He had only been trying to protect her.
Asmodeus rested his elbows on the black railing behind him, tilted his head right back and stared at the colourful cloud-strewn sky, trying to figure out why he had received a hard slap as payment for protecting her from the male.
He wanted to understand this world and the protocols, and somehow find a way to learn the right reactions to situations.
He didn’t want to scare her away.
His senses shifted entirely to her, locked and focused, feeling her close beside him, her power wrapping around him like warm arms. She had felt soft and light when he had carried her, warm against his flesh. She had stared at him until he had been intensely aware of her gaze on his face.
On his lips.
He had wanted to kiss her.
He still wanted to even though she was full of light and purity, and she was so warm and friendly, filled with beautiful concern about everyone. Even strangers.
Even him.
He had never witnessed such good in anyone before.
It left him feeling there really was no good in him and made him wish more than ever that there were.
He had told her that he was evil and she had seen the darkness in him, the violence he was quick to embrace and the cruelty, but she had remained with him, asking him to take her somewhere else, somewhere quieter.
He had expected her to leave and she had wanted him to stay.
He didn’t understand her at all.
Asmodeus raised his left hand above him, stretched his fingers out with his palm facing the sky, and stared at it.
He had told her that he had no friends and she had held this hand, squeezing it against the railing and showing him compassion. Why?
There was no room for friendship in his life. It was a weakness. Good was a weakness. Affection was a sin. Compassion and care were flaws.
So why did he want to feel these things?
He didn’t. He clenched his teeth and his fingernails transformed into sharp black claws and his fangs lengthened. He had no weakness. No soft emotions to leave him open to attack. No vulnerabilities.
He felt Liora’s gaze on him and ignored her, struggling with his feelings and trying to subdue them again. He was wasting time here. He should take her down to the Devil and be done with it. All he was doing was worsening the punishment his master would deal when he returned with her, and he would return with her. The Devil would see to that.
He was weak.
Vulnerable.
Unable to fight his master’s orders.
The Devil had absolute power over him and eventually he would tire of waiting and command him to return, and Asmodeus would not be strong enough to fight that order.
“How long have you had Romulus and Remus?” Liora’s tone was soft and soothing, calming the growing tempest within him until it subsided and he forgot his fear and lowered his gaze to her.
New fear grew in its place.
He had never talked about himself to anyone before. No one had ever wanted to know about him, but she was genuinely interested and for some reason he was finding it hard to deny her. It was strange to talk to her about his life. Strange and dangerous.
It left him feeling uncertain and more on edge than the males who loitered in the square and were potentially a threat to her.
If she knew the things he had done and the person he was, she wouldn’t want to know about him anymore.
“Several centuries.” He kept his response short and before she could ask another question, he changed tactics on her. “Have you been a witch all your life?”
This was new to him too. He had never wanted to know about anyone before, but he wanted to know all about her.
She nodded, her chestnut waves bouncing against her shoulders. “Ever since I was born. I’ve lived with a coven the whole time.”
The area began to empty, the single males dwindling in number and the couples moving away into darker corners. Asmodeus tried not to look at them as they embraced or kissed.
Liora ran her fingers along the metal railing and her arm brushed his, sending a thousand volts jolting up it and through his body. His gaze whipped around to her and found her looking out at the city, not at him. He could have sworn she had been watching him a second ago.
“Are you as powerful as Serenity… or less powerful?” He couldn’t resist turning her earlier question against her, or staring at her. The streetlights illuminated her face, softening her features further. Her beauty entranced him.
She smiled, rosy lips curling slowly into it, and a light entered her eyes, a twinkle that he knew he had put there. He had never made anyone smile like that before and he found he liked it and wanted to make it happen again. He just wasn’t sure how. He had zero experience of being amusing or entertaining, unless you were the Devil. He could entertain his master no end by torturing demons for his viewing pleasure.
Asmodeus didn’t think that would entertain or amuse Liora.
“More powerful,” she echoed his earlier words and he found himself smiling at her.
Liora turned to face him, her left arm remaining leaning against the black railing, and held her right hand out in front of her.
She snapped her fingers and a glowing black rose made of light appeared in her hand.
She held it out to him and when he went to take it, she evaded his hand and brushed the soft warm petals over his bare chest. His heart thudded hard and the smile that had been working its way onto his lips dropped away. The air around him sizzled and the awareness of Liora he felt at times came back full force, flowing through him like electricity, coursing through his blood and making him hot all over.
Liora looked up at him, the action of tilting her head back causing her lips to part invitingly.
Asmodeus swallowed and fought the dark instinct to claim those lips and devour them.
Unless she wanted him to kiss her.
Was that possible? He had studied the couples in the area, and how they courted with smiles and laughter, and light touches that seem designed to arouse and excite the interest of their partner.
He wanted to kiss her.
No good would come of it though. It would only increase his desire to keep her from the Devil and fight his master’s orders, and it would only cut him when he failed and delivered her to that wretched male.
The black rose disappeared and her hand settled against his bare chest. It was shaking. She was nervous too, afraid of whatever this was that zinged between them whenever they were close.
Asmodeus raised his hand to cover hers and froze when a shiver bolted down his spine, hot and fierce, and the ground trembled.
“Conceal yourself,” he barked and she stared blankly at him. He cursed and cast a veil over her, and pushed her behind him at the same time, shielding her with his body and his black wings in case his spell failed.
A bright orange spot formed on the pale stone slabs before him and then forked outwards into a glowing fault line. The ground trembled again and the fiery line cracked open, becoming a fissure. Steam and smoke rose from it and the mortals in the area screamed and ran.
Liora shook beneath his hand that clutched her wrist but he could feel her power rising, growing in the face of her fear.
A Hell’s angel burst from the earth and beat his crimson wings. He drifted down to stand a few metres from Asmodeus and furled his feathered wings against his back. Whenever they travelled to the mortal realm, Hell’s angels preferred to use an angelic appearance, looking human for the most
part. The dark-haired male’s red-edged obsidian armour gleamed in the light from the fiery streak at his feet.
Asmodeus had never liked the colour of their armour pieces. It was the only reason he hadn’t defeated one and stolen the breastplate and black plate that covered their upper torso or the vambraces that shielded them from wrist to elbow.
“Report,” the male said, voice gravelly and thick as the smoke billowing behind him.
Asmodeus straightened to his full height, his anger spiking over being spoken to without a shred of respect. He bared his fangs at the fallen angel and unleashed a fraction of his power, enough that the male would feel it bearing down on him but not so much that he would harm Liora.
“I meant to say… our master would like a progress report, King of Demons.” The fallen angel pressed his left hand to his black breastplate and lowered his head.
“Tell him that I have not yet located the female.”
The male lifted his gaze to him and a wary edge entered it. Asmodeus prepared himself, sensing the male was about to make a grave mistake and insist that he had found the female and demand he take her to the Devil.
The Hell’s angel slowly lowered his left hand to his side and a short black rod tipped with two curved red blades the length of his forearm appeared in his grasp.
A declaration of war.
The fallen angel’s eyes flashed red and the skin around them turned black.
He meant to take Liora to the Devil.
Asmodeus would not allow this male or any other to lay a single claw on her.
Asmodeus’s claws and fangs extended, his eyes blazed crimson and he snarled as he called his golden blade to his right hand. He released Liora, gave a powerful beat of his wings that tore a shriek from her, and shot towards the male. The man didn’t have a chance to block him.
He swung in an upwards diagonal arc with his curved sword and sliced straight through the male’s sword arm. It dropped and before it could hit the pavement, Asmodeus had spun around behind the male and decapitated him.
He came to a halt with his blade extended out at his side, blood rolling down its length and dripping to the ground, and breathed hard.
Her Wicked Angel Page 4