Darkness swept through her, feeding on her fear and her pain, growing in strength until it began to feel good, drugging her with how strong she felt. The sickness that came with it as it writhed beneath her skin took the edge off how powerful she felt though and kept her grounded.
She forced her thoughts back to Veiron. Heaven would send him after her again. He was the perfect man for the task of capturing and eliminating her. She would never hurt him. The Devil wanted her too though. What if he came for her first?
Her power pushed again, heating her hands and causing her chest to burn. Her stomach turned and twisted, boiling and churning. She swallowed her need to throw up and clutched herself. Ribbons of crimson curled around her fingers and danced up her arms, gradually turning black.
It was as though something rotten festered inside her and it was going to kill her.
If Veiron didn’t kill her first.
CHAPTER 30
Veiron could find no rest. He paced the small courtyard garden in the white fortress of Heaven, trying to find beauty in the towering white tree that speared upwards and spread silvery leaves to form a canopy above the square. Since returning to Heaven three days ago after his failed mission, his mind had been constantly on his target.
Erin.
She confused him.
The things she had said, the way she had looked at him, and the fact that she had protected him even though he had come to capture her, none of it made any sense. Neither did his reactions to her. He had felt her pain as though it was his own, and she had affected him in strange ways by merely looking into his eyes. A power of hers?
He had felt hot, flushed all over and burning inside.
Plagued by her, he had flown to the mortal realm, intent on seeing her again. They had moved, leaving the island barren of life and him with no trail to follow. Every instinct said to head down there again, to double check and ensure that she really was gone.
Was it desire to see if she was there driving him or a darker urge?
He had rested on the island. Tired from his flight, he had fallen asleep on the shore, warmed by the sun.
He had dreamed of her.
That dream still heated his blood to boiling point.
It had been everything wicked and darkly erotic, but it had felt familiar at the same time. He had seen himself biting her, sinking the sharp teeth of a demon into her throat in the very place where he had seen a mark. His wings had been crimson and had covered her, shielded her from the world as they had made love, keeping her to himself. Her moans had been breathless as she had ridden him, his cock sliding in and out of her hot sheath, his own groans as desperate and lost as hers. Each thrust had cranked his temperature up another ten degrees, but it had been the sight of her so lost in her passion, writhing and moaning, her bare body beautiful and covered in glistening moisture that had truly done him in.
That image of her stayed with him, was there whenever he closed his eyes, playing on repeat until he burned for her.
Had she been telling the truth and they had once been lovers?
Or was the dream merely that, a dream, a figment of his overwrought mind brought about by the things she had said?
She had planted the seeds into his imagination and it had grown them, turning them into something sensual and erotic, into something that had never happened.
Veiron pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
He needed to speak with someone about it and the things that she had said, but he didn’t want to go to his superiors and Nevar had disappeared shortly after they had given their report.
His superiors wanted him to return to the mortal realm and continue his mission. He had tried to question them about his past life but they had refused to answer, stating that it was not of consequence and that he would do best to focus on his mission. He didn’t want to focus on his mission. He wanted to know how the Devil’s daughter had known his name and whether everything she had told him was the truth.
He sighed and stalked out of the courtyard, drifting through the white corridors, heading towards the main entrance of the fortress. Perhaps another flight would clear his mind and give him the peace he needed. He would fly a while and then return to look for Nevar.
Veiron pushed the double doors of the fortress open and squinted at the brightness that assaulted him. He waited for his eyes to stop stinging and then opened them.
Instead of the pristine white grass and beautiful gardens of Heaven, he stood amidst lakes of boiling lava and spires of black rock.
Panic washed over him quickly followed by calm as he called his swords to him, grasping one in each hand. How was it possible that he had gone from Heaven to Hell in the space of a heartbeat?
“Veiron?” a soft female voice called to him, a voice that he recognised, and he wheeled to face the owner of it.
Erin stood before him, her smile dazzling and amber eyes bright and entrancing. She wore nothing more than a tiny black tank and shorts. Something was different about her.
The strip of colour in her black hair. It was lilac now. It had been red before. Had she changed it?
He palmed his swords and realised he was missing one. He looked down and frowned at the broadsword in his right hand, causing something to jingle as he did so. He raised his free hand and touched the back of his head and tensed. His hair was long, tied with some sort of leather thong that had bells on it.
He looked himself over. Rather than his blue armour, he wore black jeans and heavy boots, and no top.
“We should keep moving,” Erin said and hobbled past him. His gaze slid down her slender bare legs to her feet. They were swathed in black.
His t-shirt.
He had bound her feet with it and she had touched his back.
He flinched against the pain that stabbed his skull and clutched his head with one hand, squeezing his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, the scene was different and Erin was gone. He sat before a fire in the middle of a jungle and he wasn’t alone. The abomination and the traitor were with him.
Tears shone in her grey eyes as she stared across the fire at him.
“I can’t leave her there, Veiron,” Amelia whispered. “Marcus won’t let me go and I’m afraid that if he goes alone, he won’t come back... or he won’t be able to find Erin. Please... I know I’m asking a lot of you but I need someone strong who knows Hell and won’t rouse suspicion. I need her back.”
Veiron’s mind reeled and the ache in his head worsened. She was asking him to go to Hell because he knew it and wouldn’t rouse suspicion? She wanted him to find Erin for her?
He reached around and ran a hand down his long ponytail, and then flicked a glance down at the broadsword resting beside him. What was happening? It all felt so familiar, as though he had lived these moments before.
Like a memory.
He roared against the pain that exploded behind his eyes and clutched his head with both hands, gritting his teeth.
The sound of battle erupted around him and he found himself running, pushing forwards. He flicked his eyes open and quickly took in his new surroundings. Hell again and the midst of a battle involving angels from the division of death. Their glossy black wings and the gold edging around their obsidian armour reflected the fiery pools of lava in the cracked basalt ground.
Veiron flexed his fingers and found a black rod in it, tipped at both ends with a crimson blade. He glanced at his black and scarlet armour, and then at the angels. They were coming for him. They weren’t on his side. He ran forwards and turned his head in that direction.
Erin was there, held with her back against the Devil’s chest, his arm across her front, restraining her.
She was reaching for him.
Veiron instinctively reached for her.
Sharp pain lanced his chest and he looked down to see the tip of a golden blade protruding from his breastplate and blood spilling down his bare stomach.
He looked back at Erin and collapsed to his knees.<
br />
She still reached for him.
His mouth moved but his ears rang, the noise so loud that he didn’t hear what he said. She spoke too, her expression soft, full of love and affection.
Love that she had mentioned.
She had said that his final words had been to tell her that he loved her.
The buzzing in his skull increased, the pain so intense that his vision wavered. Darkness loomed up and then closed in on him, and Veiron fought it. A desperate urge to reach Erin consumed him and he tried to stand.
Angels descended on him and a bright light engulfed them all.
When the light receded, he found himself standing in the middle of the garden between the white fortress and the holding cells in Heaven. His head ached, throbbing madly.
How had he got here?
He looked around him, gaze tracking some of the angels that passed him, and tried to remember. The last thing he recalled was exiting the fortress. The ache in his head worsened. He closed his eyes and images flickered through his mind, disjointed fragments of moments that felt so familiar. Each time he remembered one, it disappeared. What was wrong with him? Was he sick?
He spun around, feeling disorientated as the beautiful pale gardens of Heaven switched to the harsh black landscape of Hell and back again.
What was happening to him?
He caught a snippet of something that stayed with him—an image of Erin reaching for him and he for her.
That image evoked an intense need to see her again and he couldn’t ignore it.
She had infected his mind somehow and he wouldn’t be well again until he had completed his mission.
Veiron beat his silver-blue wings and flew over the huge white wall that protected the realm of Heaven. He twisted in the air and shot downwards, the wind buffeting him and the clouds leaving a fine layer of moisture on his bare skin and his blue armour.
He would find his target and he would capture her.
He would succeed this time.
Veiron folded his wings back and picked up speed, zooming down through the clouds, back towards the island. His gut said that he would find her there this time and it wasn’t wrong. As the small green island came into view below him, surrounded by clear jewel-like blue waters, he felt her presence on it. She wasn’t alone. Others were on the island with her but there was a chance that they wouldn’t be close to her when he arrived.
Could he swoop down, snatch her and make off with her before anyone noticed? He doubted it. She would fight him if he tried to take her. She hadn’t wanted to fight him before but every instinct he had said that she would fight him if he tried to separate her from her friends.
Veiron spread his wings to slow his descent and scoured the island. He found what he was looking for sitting on a small spit of rock on the opposite side of the island to everyone else. When he drew close to her, she looked up and showed no sign of moving.
He landed near her on the beach and strolled along it, curious now, wanting to see what she would do. Would she attack when he was close enough or run away? Would she call for her friends or fight him alone?
He stepped up onto the rocks and she did none of those things.
She got to her feet and faced him, her short black dress fluttering in the warm afternoon breeze. Her skin had lost its colour, far paler now than it had been before, and there were dark circles beneath her haunted amber eyes. Was she sick?
“You took longer than I expected,” she said, soft voice calm and not a trace of fear touching it. If anything, he would have said she was angry with him for not coming for her sooner, but her expression remained emotionless. “Have you thought about what I said?”
Veiron stopped, one foot on the higher rock in front of him, and frowned at her. She had been waiting for him.
“We had to go away. Amelia wanted to speak to Apollyon and Lukas about everything. I wanted to stay but Marcus insisted I go too. Did I miss you while I was gone?” She didn’t wait for his reply. “I suppose I must have. I was sure you would come back for me. Have you remembered anything?”
His frown hardened. Had she known he would see things while in Heaven? Had she orchestrated the whole thing, placing those seeds in his head just as he had feared? Her amber eyes probed his and she sighed.
“I take it that’s a no. I wish you would say something.”
“I have come to capture you and complete my mission. You will not fight me and stop this from happening?” He studied her expression, watching for a sign that she was lying or was out to trick him.
She shook her head and only honesty touched her voice. “I would never fight you, Veiron. You can take me in.”
She held her hands out to him, wrists together, and smiled.
He frowned at her odd gesture. Perhaps it was a human one that he wasn’t familiar with. He stepped up onto the rock and grabbed both of her slender wrists in one hand. Fire flashed across his skin and pierced his skull. He flinched and released her, images of her flickering through his mind so quickly that he felt sick.
“Veiron, what’s wrong?” She touched his face, her palms gently cupping his cheeks, warming his skin.
The pain faded as though her caress had soothed it away and he slowly opened his eyes and looked down into hers. Concern blazed in them, the emotion so intense that it stole his breath. There was love in her eyes too and the sight of it evoked images of him in Hell, desperate to save her but unable to because he was dying.
Veiron growled in frustration, swept her into his arms so fiercely that her head knocked against his breastplate, and beat his wings. He flew upwards hard and fast, determined to feel the wind on his face, feel it flowing over his silver-blue feathers, smoothing out his jumbled feelings.
“Veiron?” she whispered and he ignored her. He had captured his target and he would take her to Heaven, and he would be done with her and her trickery. “Why don’t you remember me?”
There was such hurt in those words. He couldn’t stop himself from looking down at her. No tears lined her eyes this time but her pain shone in them. Not a lie.
“Why can’t you remember what we shared?”
“Because I had never met you before the other day and none of what you say is real.”
Her pain increased and she looked away from him. Her hair fluttered and danced in the wind, obscuring her face so he couldn’t read her expression. She curled closer to him and shivered. The air was growing colder. A shocking desire to pull her nearer to him and share his body heat with her drove through him. He pushed it away.
“I love you.” She didn’t look at him and the wind made her voice quiet, but he still heard her. A strange spark heated his chest, a mixture of warm feelings and terrible pain. She faced him again. “You were the only one who ever understood me and what I was going through.”
He stopped dead and beat his silver-blue wings to keep himself stationary, staring at her all the while. It didn’t seem like an act to make him lower his guard.
“You can’t believe what Heaven told you, Veiron. They’re playing you. It’s all a stupid game to them and to Hell. We’re just pawns.” She looked up into his eyes, seized his shoulders, gripping them tightly, and pulled herself closer to him. “Don’t trust them. They’ve done something to you. Heaven is just going to use you to capture me and then it will let you fall again, just as it always does.”
Veiron glared at her. Heaven would do no such thing. Angels fell of their own accord, not because their master decided it. He wished he could push her away but he couldn’t without dropping her. He could ignore her and shut out her lies though. As soon as he was in Heaven, he would be safe again, rid of her toxic words that cast a veil of doubt over everything that he knew.
He beat his wings and flew upwards again, intent on reaching Heaven and blocking her out.
She wriggled in his arms and looped hers around his neck, pulling herself up so she was eye level with him.
“Curse you,” she said and then slanted her head and meshed her lips
with his.
Veiron halted and tried to evade her but she held him firm, kissing him. A spark of recognition and a sense of familiarity shot through him followed by a flood of images. He saw them together on a beach, walking hand in hand under the moonlight, and then she was standing on a bed, smiling and holding her arms out to him.
Veiron managed to break away from her and breathed hard, head splitting in two as he tried to make sense of the fragmented images. He licked his lips and tasted blood. Had she bitten him?
His gaze fell to her mouth. A red streak marred her lower lip and the temptingly soft pink flesh around it was swollen. It must have split when he had grabbed her on the beach and she had banged her face on his armour.
The taste of her was so familiar.
Veiron’s eyes dropped to her neck. Teeth marks. He had seen himself biting her in the throes of passion, lost in her and in love with her. The pain splitting his skull open burned more fiercely and he almost clutched it. Erin’s grip on him tightening brought him back to his senses and he kept hold of her instead. He breathed hard, battling the encroaching darkness, barely holding on to consciousness. Why did he almost pass out whenever images of her flooded his mind? Why did they disappear as quickly as they had come, but didn’t disappear completely? He felt he had lost some but could still remember others.
“I cannot take this,” he whispered and stared down into her eyes. “I do not want to remember things that are not true.”
She softly stroked his cheek and the pain in his head eased again, as though her touch was magic. “They are true.”
She caressed the marks on her throat.
“You bit me while we were making love, Veiron… you saved me from Hell… you saved me so many times… but I failed to save you. You died and it was all my fault.” Her voice hitched on the last few words and he wanted to tell her that whatever had happened to him it wasn’t her fault. If he had died as he had seen in those images and as she had said he had, then he had died for her. It had been his choice, because he had wanted to save her and had been willing to sacrifice himself to do so.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 63