Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set

by Heaton, Felicity

  The tiny patch of heat on her thumb slowly spread along the length of it and then crept over her hand.

  Veiron clashed with the Devil again and her father laughed, disappeared and reappeared right next to him. He grabbed Veiron by the throat, beat his shadowy wings, and shot downwards.

  “Veiron!” Erin ran forwards, her eyes glued to him, heart racing. He struggled against the Devil’s grip but didn’t escape it in time.

  He smashed into the ground and a huge shockwave shot out and knocked Erin flying. She tumbled through the air. She’d had just about enough of this. She had wings and it was about time they damn well came out.

  A hot blast swept across her shoulders and caressed her arms and she stopped short of hitting the wall of the fortress. Erin slowly looked behind her. Black shadows fluttered from her back, flowing out of her and forming wings.

  They disappeared and she dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch.

  Erin ran down the steps to the paved area of the courtyard and towards the huge ball of dust lingering in the air where Veiron and the Devil had hit. Veiron. He had to be all right. Would she know if he wasn’t? He was her servant after all.

  She sprinted into the dust cloud and waved her hand in front of her face to clear it. She couldn’t see a thing. She choked and covered her mouth and nose with her hands, trying to stop the dust from getting into her lungs.

  “Veiron?”

  Something growled and a huge dark shape loomed out of the dust cloud. Erin halted and then backed off a step, straight into something else.

  Hot hands settled on her shoulders.

  The dust swirled and cleared, revealing Veiron before her in his demonic form. His eyes blazed gold as they settled on her and then the man behind her. Blood soaked his left arm and part of his left dragon-like wing hung limp, the bone snapped midway down the outside. He growled again, bearing red sharp teeth.

  “Release her, coward,” he snarled and the Devil laughed from behind her.

  “Why would I do that?”

  Erin smelled blood. She looked down to see a trail of black running down her chest and panicked. Was she injured? No. She had cut herself before and her blood was red. She glanced at the Devil’s hand. Black blood covered it. He had injured Veiron but had harmed himself in the process, or had Veiron hurt him?

  Veiron growled, the dark sound echoing around the spires surrounding the courtyard.

  “Release her.” He lumbered towards them, immense and lethal, his heavy steps shaking the ground.

  The red blades on his spear gleamed wickedly, one of them drenched in black.

  He had cut the Devil.

  An idea struck her.

  Erin met Veiron’s golden gaze and held it, silently conveying her plan. He frowned, his black brow crinkling, and shook his head. She widened her eyes at him in a way she hoped conveyed it was an order and he had better do it. She was seventy percent certain that she would be able to manage her part in the plan.

  He grunted and then growled, flashing twin rows of vicious sharp red teeth. Erin took that as an agreement to go along with her insane idea and also a warning that he was already growing tired of her pulling rank. He could assert his authority over her later, in bed, when all this was over. Right now, she needed him to do exactly what she asked.

  Veiron twirled his spear, pointed it at the Devil, and then clutched it in both hands and drew it back towards him beside his head.

  Erin’s stomach fluttered.

  She hoped she had enough power to pull this off. She grabbed the Devil’s hands where they clutched her shoulders and focused on holding him there, her mind on using her power to stop him from teleporting.

  Veiron charged at her, hunkering down and shaking the black ground with each step.

  The Devil struggled behind her and she tried not to panic. So a huge black demonic angel was thundering towards her with a spear aimed at her chest. She trusted him, and she had wanted him to put everything into this attack and come at her full speed. She just hadn’t expected him to look so frightening. Her hands chilled.

  Oh, now was not the time for her power to flake out on her.

  “Release me,” the Devil hissed into her ear and she felt hazy from head to toe. Releasing him sounded good.

  No, it sounded bad. Completely against her plan.

  She held him tighter and her hands chilled another ten degrees. Veiron closed in. She caught the flicker of hesitation crossing his face and she nodded, trying to convince him to continue.

  “Release me!”

  It did sound good, and with a several-hundred-pound demon charging her, she was inclined to do just that and get the hell out of his way.

  Veiron’s blade touched her chest.

  Fiery darkness engulfed her.

  A black roar deafened her and she reappeared before she had intended, hitting the ground hard. The earth bucked and shook beneath her, cracking in places to reveal boiling lava. She pushed onto her feet and leapt as the slab beneath her slid down at one end and tipped up at the other. It sank into the lava and Erin ran, ducking to avoid the shards of rock breaking off the spires of black above her and leaping over the bubbling pools of fire erupting from beneath the broken paving.

  Had Veiron done it?

  Erin chanced a glance towards where she had left him and her heart stopped.

  The Devil stood with the blade of Veiron’s spear sticking into his black-blood-soaked chest, holding the shaft of it in his left hand and Veiron by his neck in his right. He roared again and threw Veiron down the steps in front of him. Veiron tumbled down them, changing back into his mortal appearance as he did so, his wings twisting beneath him and then disappearing. Erin shook her head. This was not happening. She wouldn’t let her vision come true.

  Her black shadowy wings erupted from her back and she shakily beat them, almost flying across the courtyard. It was more like hopping and flying and hopping again but she didn’t quite trust her wings yet. They had disappeared on her once already and she didn’t want to fly too high and end up plummeting into one of the lava pools now dotting the courtyard.

  The Devil pulled Veiron’s spear from his chest, held it in both hands and aimed it at Veiron’s back. Veiron didn’t move. He remained face down on the ground, his eyes closed.

  Erin hopped, flew, hopped and focused her power on her hands again. Her wings disappeared mid-flight and she lashed out with her power as she dropped towards the ground. Twin golden orbs shot towards the Devil. The first smacked into his left hand, knocking the spear from his grasp and sending it spinning through the air, and the second slammed into his chest, sending him flying into the towering doors of his fortress. He hit them hard, the boom from his impact echoing around the courtyard.

  She ran to Veiron and pulled him up off the ground, struggling with his weight and finding it hard to keep a grip on his slippery bloodied shoulders. He groaned and relief washed over her, replacing the chill in her blood with heat that even her power couldn’t contend with.

  A droning thumping noise filled her ears and Erin froze with her hands against Veiron’s shoulders. That didn’t sound good. Veiron moved at last, pressing his palms into the cracked black slabs beneath him and pushing himself up.

  “Time we were leaving,” he growled and swayed as he stood.

  “What? No. We’re so close, Veiron. We can’t leave now.” She pointed towards the Devil where he was slowly pulling himself up onto his feet. “We can take him.”

  Veiron caught her shoulders and turned her in the opposite direction. “But we can’t take them.”

  Black shapes filled the dark distance.

  Hell’s angels.

  The Devil had called for reinforcements.

  There had to be hundreds of them. Veiron was right, there was no way they could defeat the Devil and a large part of his army at the same time, but she refused to give up. They had injured him. They could finish him off before his angels reached them and swooped in to protect him.

  Erin look
ed back over her shoulder at the Devil. He waved a hand over himself and the blood and dirt disappeared, his suit fixing itself and leaving him perfect again. A black patch appeared on his red shirt. He frowned, touched it, and grimaced. His eyes glowed and the black blood disappeared. It didn’t reappear this time. A pleased expression crossed his darkly handsome face.

  “We have to leave, Erin... I hate it as much as you do but I won’t risk you or our baby.” Veiron grabbed her around the waist and went to toss her gently over his shoulder, but stopped and held her pressed to his front instead.

  She growled in frustration. She hadn’t missed this part of Veiron. She wrapped her legs around him and kicked his backside, and rained her fists down on his shoulders, but he didn’t put her down. He tightened his grip on her and began walking away from the Devil.

  “No!” Erin threw another fireball at the Devil and he didn’t even raise a hand to deflect it this time. It shot upwards before it reached him. He smiled at her. Erin glared at him. “This isn’t over... I swear to you... I will kill you.”

  CHAPTER 39

  A bright white light chased the darkness back and Hell disappeared. The scent of saltwater filled Erin’s lungs and she caught a glimpse of a tropical island before it too disappeared, replaced by a jungle, and then a mountain, and then another island.

  Veiron set her down and she threw up again. On his boots.

  He growled, stepped back and shook his feet one by one.

  “Why did you do that?” Erin straightened and frowned up at him.

  “We couldn’t take them all on, Erin, and you know it. Now is not the time for our revenge.” He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek, his palm warm against her face and comforting. “Can you teleport us back to the island we left from?”

  Erin wanted to teleport them back to Hell but the worry in Veiron’s dark eyes stopped her from going through with it. She wanted to end this but Veiron was right. They weren’t strong enough to take on a legion of Hell’s angels and the Devil at the same time, not without risking their baby, but one day they would be and she would come good on her threat. She would kill the Devil and help end this game.

  Erin looked down at her stomach and touched it. It was hard to believe that she was pregnant.

  Veiron settled his hand over hers and she looked up into his eyes.

  “What if he comes out looking different?” she whispered, ashamed to voice her fears but needing Veiron to reassure her.

  “So what if he does.” He smiled softly and stroked her cheek with his other hand. “Nothing will change our love for him.”

  She frowned. “But can we really raise a child together when we’re constantly in danger? Do you really want to do this with me?”

  Veiron sighed and cupped her cheek. “Of course I want to do this with you, Sweetheart. We’ll take it one day at a time and I won’t let anything bad happen to either of you. I love you, no matter what the future has in store for us. I will always love you and our child.”

  Tears filled Erin’s eyes and she sniffed them back. Her warrior with the heart of a poet. He always knew the right thing to say to melt her. She leaned into his touch and closed her eyes. Nothing would stop them from loving their child. They would protect him from anything, from everything. The world. Heaven. Hell. They would raise him surrounded by love and compassion, and devotion, and he would know good things, positive things, and not just darkness.

  “I’ll do my best to be a good father... I just don’t have a clue what that entails.” He chuckled and she looked at him again, smiling along with him.

  “I don’t have a clue about being a parent either, but I know a great man who can teach you about being a great father, and I’m sure he would like to meet you.” She placed her hand over his and held it against her cheek, her heart warming as she thought about the couple who had raised her with Amelia. They were her real family. Her father would love Veiron for his protective streak. Her mother would have loved him too. “We can learn together... and hopefully we can give him a good life.”

  “We will give him a good life, Erin. He will have a life full of love and he will never come to harm, because I will protect you both.”

  Erin smiled. “I’ll protect you both too.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to try to wear the trousers in this relationship?” He grinned, dipped his head, and pressed a brief, hard kiss to her lips, leaving her breathless and unable to tell him that she was going to do just that. “Now... it’s time we were getting out of here, don’t you think, Mrs Veiron?”

  “You’re going to have to make that official, Mister.” She giggled, stepped up to him, tiptoed and wrapped her arms around his neck. The darkness swept over them and receded to reveal the small makeshift shelters of the island.

  Apollyon sat on the white sand near the circle of rocks that acted as the fireplace.

  Erin tensed, waiting for him to explode at her for what she had done.

  “I am glad to see you both well.” He eased onto his feet with only a few grimaces. A deep cut on his thigh pulled and split open again, spilling blood down his dirty leg.

  “I’m sorry I sent you away,” she said and he shook his head and smiled. “How did you know the Devil had visited me in my cell?”

  “My doppelganger... Asmodeus... told me.” Apollyon prodded the cut on his thigh and frowned.

  “Why would he do such a thing?” She couldn’t believe that Apollyon’s evil twin would want to help her, but then he had tried to convince her to leave her cell with him. Maybe he hadn’t intended to take her to the Devil after all.

  “He is complicated.” Apollyon shrugged. “There is some good in him.”

  Veiron released her and crossed the sand to Apollyon. He crouched and held his hand out over the wound and the blood slowed to a trickle as it healed.

  “How can you still heal?” Erin said and Veiron looked up at her, his expression blank.

  “I don’t know. I just can.” He healed another of the deeper cuts on Apollyon’s stomach and then moved to one on his arm. He paused and looked back at her again. “Can you heal?”

  Erin shrugged.

  “Try.” He pointed to a cut on his own bloodied arm. “Maybe it’s an ability I picked up off you when we exchanged vows rather than one Heaven gave me.”

  She didn’t need to try. She already knew that was what had happened.

  “He healed himself.” Erin cursed her father. “That was why he looked so smug. He bloody healed himself while we were distracted by his men flying towards us.”

  She held her hand out over Veiron’s arm and focused. The wound instantly closed. Erin healed a deeper cut on his side, and her head felt light. She pressed her hand to it and Veiron took hold of her arm.

  “You need to rest,” he said and she nodded. He was right again.

  Veiron helped her sit on the sand but she felt worse and stood again, pacing a short distance towards the water and then back again.

  “Are you unwell?” Concern laced Apollyon’s deep voice and he held out his hand to her. A dewy bottle of water appeared in his grasp.

  Erin took it, twisted the cap off and swallowed a mouthful. The icy liquid instantly cooled her insides but she held her sigh inside when she caught Veiron’s black look. He had once wondered if he could produce water for her if he concentrated enough and hadn’t been sure it would taste good even if he managed it. Apollyon hadn’t seemed to concentrate at all. One moment his hand had been empty, and the next perfectly tasty water had been in it, leaving Veiron looking as though he might kill the dark angel for being able to provide for her when he couldn’t.

  “Thank you,” Erin said to Apollyon and offered the water to Veiron. He snatched it, gulped it down and then crushed the bottle in his fist.

  Apollyon raised a single dark eyebrow at his behaviour and then returned his attention to Erin. “Are you feeling better?”

  She shrugged. “I’m peachy... a day in the life of being pregnant, I guess. I have months of t
his to look forward to. I’m not even sure how many. God, do you think demonic pregnancies have the same span as a mortal one?”

  Apollyon frowned at her. “Pregnant?”

  Veiron slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. She glanced up at his face to find all trace of darkness gone. He positively glowed with pride. Erin bit back the temptation to bring up that he hadn’t looked so sure it was his in Hell, or looked so comfortable with the prospect of becoming the father of a boy who had the potential to be more powerful than both of them combined.

  Apollyon’s blue eyes flicked between her and Veiron, he opened his mouth and then just shifted his broad shoulders.

  “Stranger things have happened.” He paused and cocked his head to one side, and his eyes turned unfocused and glassy.

  Erin raised an eyebrow and whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Veiron, “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s on a call,” Veiron said and lowered his head, pressing a kiss to her brow.

  “A call?”

  “Telepathic communication,” Apollyon said. “Sorry about that. Marcus and Amelia are safe and on their way back here. They ended up somewhere in the Sahara.”

  “I can do that.” Erin leaned into Veiron’s side, remembering the conversation she’d had with her father and how surprised she had been. “When we were on the beach just before the Hell’s angels came and took me, I spoke to the Devil in my head. Do you think I could do the same with you now that you’re my servant?”

  Veiron frowned. “Less of the servant talk, Missy... but I imagine we will be able to speak telepathically now that we’re bonded.”

  Erin liked the sound of that, but not as much as she liked the thought of winding Veiron up about their new master and servant status.

  “Besides, you are my servant. That means you have to obey me now because I’m your master.” She grinned at him, meeting his scowl and not backing down.

  “You’re a little too comfortable ordering me around already... if you’re not careful, I’ll show you who’s boss.”