She swallowed when she reached the last shard of rock. It stuck out of his back above his right hip, as thick as her wrist and jagged, piercing him in several places at an upwards angle, as if he had slid onto it.
“How did this happen?” she murmured as she stroked the area around the wound, building up the courage to pull it out. It was going to hurt worse than the previous ones and she didn’t want to inflict that sort of pain on Asmodeus.
She focused on the area, funnelling her magic into his skin, numbing it to take at least some of the pain he would feel away.
“Weak,” he grumbled and her heart went out to him, not only because he hadn’t been strong enough to defeat the Devil for her sake, but because she knew that her helping him made him feel weak too, unable to take care of himself as he was used to. He had to learn to rely on others too and lean on them when the time was right. They both needed to learn that it wasn’t a crime to depend on someone.
Liora closed her eyes, curled her hand around the shard and yanked it out in one swift stroke.
Asmodeus arched forwards and roared.
Romulus and Remus snarled right behind her, closer than before.
Asmodeus barked something dark in his demonic tongue and the two hellhounds backed off, allowing Liora a moment to swallow her heart back down from her mouth.
He tightened his grip on the table and hauled himself up. There were deep wounds on the backs of his thighs too. She reached out to touch them, to heal them, and he moved beyond her, slowly working his way forwards.
Liora remained kneeling, shocked by the state of him and what he had endured.
Romulus and Remus followed him.
Asmodeus trudged to the end of the long table and grimaced as he settled himself on his black throne. Even with his wounds, he looked like a dark prince, noble and wild, and dangerous. Romulus and Remus went to him and laid at his feet on either side of the throne, completing the picture for her.
No. As he sat there with his muscular thighs spread and hands curled over the ornate ends of the arm rests, battered and bloodied, fresh from a fight, with that fire smouldering in his eyes, he was every bit a king and he knew it.
She could see the confidence in him at last. Here in this castle, in his domain, he was finally sure of himself and she had never seen anything as sexy as Asmodeus when he was sure of himself.
It was alluring and enticing.
He had seemed powerful to her in Paris but in this hellish realm, he was king and she had the damnedest urge to kneel at his feet and kiss her way up his thighs until her king knew the pleasures of a woman’s mouth on his flesh. She ached to show him carnal delight and see this confidence blossom into something more—the sexy self-assuredness of a man who had power and someone to share it with.
Liora got to her feet and approached him slowly, her magic still curling around her hands, itching to heal him because it was her heart’s true desire. He wearily lifted his right hand and raked the black hair from his face, his eyes closing as he leaned back into his throne.
Her desire to heal him increased when she noticed the reason why his voice was rougher than before.
Black bruising banded across the entire front of his throat. The Devil had crushed it.
Asmodeus opened his eyes and stared at her, and the sudden fear in them frightened her. She had never seen him so afraid and vulnerable. It made her want to lift his spirits somehow and reassure him that this would never happen again. He would heal and grow stronger, and if he crossed swords with the Devil again, he would defeat him.
She stopped before him and dropped her gaze to his bare chest and the wounds that peppered it.
“Let me heal you.” She wasn’t going to give him a choice but he would feel better about it if he thought that he was getting one.
He nodded, shifted on the seat and settled his arms back on the ornate ones of the throne, and curled his fingers over the ends. His grip on them tightened, his black claws digging into the stone. Bracing himself.
It would hurt, and she wished that she could do something so it wouldn’t, but she had only a fraction of her power left and she would need it all to seal the worst of his wounds.
She could distract him though, talk to him and take his mind off what she was doing.
Liora stepped between his knees and lowered her hands to his throat. First, she needed to make sure he could speak without hurting himself. Asmodeus closed his eyes, frowned, and then opened them again and looked up at her, straight into her eyes.
“Ready?” she whispered and he gave a curt nod.
She channelled her power through her hands, focusing on healing and soothing, on giving him relief from his pain. He grimaced, his handsome face distorting into a dark expression, and she silently apologised to him. She didn’t want to hurt him. She wanted to help him.
The bruising around his throat gradually faded and she could feel him healing, feel the flesh knitting back together beneath the surface and his body mending.
She drew her hands away, leaving her magic to continue working on that area as it faded, and moved on to his chest. Her head turned and fatigue crashed over her but she held on, refusing to succumb to the pressing need to sleep. Serenity had told her that healing immortals was a huge drain on her magic and Liora hadn’t believed her until now. She could feel her energy dropping faster than she had ever experienced before today and she had only healed a few of his wounds. She had to hold on until she had closed at least the major ones.
“You have a lot of stuff,” she said, trying to keep her voice light and airy so he didn’t see the toll that healing him was taking on her.
He didn’t take his eyes off hers. “The Devil used to bring me things during the times when he could leave Hell. Not all of the items are from him. Some are from Hell’s angel captains, and some are belongings of people and demons left in Hell after their deaths.”
She was glad his voice was back to its normal delicious gruff baritone.
He had been a very busy collector. He must have taken the items whenever he had come across them, scouring the land for them to bring back to his home.
“You’re like a magpie,” she said with a smile and glanced behind her at the Egyptian cat on the far cupboard. “Some of these items are hundreds or thousands of years old. How old are you?”
“Ancient,” he said and then grimaced as another of his wounds closed.
Liora moved on to the next, a particularly nasty gash down his left biceps. “Thousands of years old?”
He nodded.
She shifted her gaze from his incredible body to his face. It was hard to think that he was thousands of years old but had only just experienced his first kiss and had his first trip to the mortal realm and his first taste of food. She couldn’t believe all that, especially the kissing part. She also couldn’t resist finding out for sure whether her suspicion was correct.
“Have you ever kissed before?” She finished healing his arm and realised that only minor wounds remained. She would have to leave them or tend to them in a more conventional manner, or she was going to pass out.
“No.” That was a very blunt and brusque reply.
Liora held her smile inside and snuck a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “Would you like to do it again?”
His gaze darkened, his pupils gobbling up his gold and crimson irises. “Yes.”
She couldn’t contain her smile now. She liked his short, snappish replies and the way desire flared in his eyes as he looked at her lips.
She had never had a man look at her like that before, as if he wanted to devour her and possess her. It excited her.
Liora ran her hands over his thighs, earning a low growl for her efforts. She wanted to curl up on them and fall asleep until her magic had replenished itself, but she couldn’t. She had to find a way back to her world, far away from this one and the Devil. Right now, she didn’t have the strength to teleport out of Hell, and wasn’t even sure if it would work if she tried. She knew how
to teleport in her world but the rules were different here. This wasn’t her world and she would probably need to learn the trick to bending space in this realm before she could teleport.
“Can you take me home?” she said and knew from the way his eyes darkened that he didn’t like that request.
“No, not yet.” He leaned back again and stared up at her as she stepped back, trailing her hands off his thighs and coming to stand a few feet away from him. She frowned at him, taking in the number of injuries that remained on his body and how weak he had been when he had first returned through the portal.
He wasn’t in any condition to transport her out of this realm and neither was she.
“It is not safe right now,” he said and Romulus sat up beside him. Asmodeus stroked him between his ears, his gaze still locked on her. “Later.”
The intensity of his gaze on her and her awareness of him increased, until the world around her fell away and she was aware of only him and the feelings flowing through her, lighting up her blood like firecrackers and reigniting her desire.
Before her sat a powerful male, bloodstained and beaten because he desired to protect her, a dark and wicked angel capable of incredible evil and absolute good. A king of demons on his throne.
He was everything cruel and vicious, dangerous and deadly, and the tiny sensible part of her heart said that she should fear this man. She was in his world now, a land of shadows and terror, and he wasn’t going to let her go. He wanted to keep her here in his castle and that alone should scare her and make her want to leave.
Funny, but all she could think about was crawling onto his lap and satisfying her need for him.
“Will you kiss me again, Liora?” he husked and a hot shiver went through her, causing fire to pool in her belly. “I would like that.”
It was all the confirmation her remaining sensible part needed. He could take her home if he wanted to, but he was enjoying having her here in his castle, all to himself, away from her cousin and his twin.
Sensible Liora said to demand that he take her home.
Wicked Liora crushed that tiny voice, obliterating it.
This beautiful deadly male before her was such a contradiction, a mixture of innocence and experience. She liked the way he looked at her as if he wanted to devour her. She liked that he didn’t want to let her leave now that he had her in his home. She loved that he didn’t care about anyone, but he seemed to care about her.
She liked that she could tease him and he would find a way to compromise and please her.
He would do anything to keep her.
“Unlike you, I do need to eat when I’m in Hell. I’ll starve if you keep me here.”
He frowned and folded his arms across his chest, causing his muscles to bunch and tense in a way that stoked the fire in her belly, making it overflow into her veins again, heating her to a thousand degrees.
“I enjoyed my first experience of food. It was interesting. Sweet. I would like to eat more. I want to experience other food.”
“We can do that.” She was tempted to mention that he would have to leave Hell to procure said food and therefore he could take her with him, but resisted. She couldn’t resist teasing him a little more to get a reaction from him though. Proof of innocence, as it were. “I know what caffeine does to angels so we’ll keep away from that.”
His frown deepened. “What does it do?”
Liora motioned a rising action with her rigid right index finger, swinging it slowly upwards, and pointedly looked down at his black loincloth and the worn strips of armour covering it.
Asmodeus’s eyes went wide and a blush darkened his cheeks, visible even through the blood and grime. He looked down at his crotch and then up into her eyes.
“It will make me hard?”
Liora blushed worse than he was from the blunt way he said that when she had been too afraid to say it aloud. It wasn’t like her. Normally, she was forward and spoke her mind without blushing. She had been blushing like a maiden around Asmodeus though, as if she was the one verging on her first time.
“Get me food then… if you want me to stay here for a while.” She cursed under her breath as those words left her in a stuttering unsteady manner.
Asmodeus nodded. “I will feed you and take care of your needs.”
Liora bit her lower lip and tried not to jump on that one, but she failed dramatically. “All of my needs?”
He blushed again but quickly recovered. His golden gaze darkened with desire and she shivered under the intensity of it.
“All of them,” he growled and swiftly stood and closed the gap between them.
He brushed the knuckles of his right hand across her face, tunnelled his fingers into her chestnut hair and grasped it tightly. Liora gasped when he tugged her head backwards and banded his other arm around her, holding her immobile and powerless. His hungry gaze fell to her lips. He growled again, a husky feral sound that thrilled her, dropped his head and kissed her hard, devouring her mouth and dominating her. She melted into him, helpless against the force of his kiss and the pleasure that swept through her in response.
Liora ran her palms down his bare chest and pressed her short nails into his pectorals. He growled into her mouth and kissed her harder, his tongue tangling with hers, stoking her own passion until she battled him for dominance and could think only of satisfying her incredible need for her powerful wicked angel.
Asmodeus tightened his grip on her long hair and snarled as he deepened the kiss, taking all of her, driving her into submission. She went willingly, allowing him to master her and take the lead, letting him pour out his passion and feeling it flow over her.
This was the passion she had felt locked within him.
Passion she had awakened.
Passion she would unleash.
CHAPTER 9
All Liora wanted to do was keep kissing Asmodeus until her lips went numb and every inch of her tingled, but the longer he kissed her, clutching her possessively against his chest, the more she could taste ash and blood.
His blood.
Liora reluctantly pressed her palms against the rock-hard muscles of his chest and eased him back, breaking the kiss. He growled and tried to pull her back to him, but she sighed and stood her ground, barely.
Asmodeus drew back, righting her in the process and setting her back on her feet, and narrowed his gaze on her. He wasn’t pleased. Maybe she could do something about that.
She walked her fingers over his dirty chest. “I don’t suppose you have water in Hell?”
The fire that had been dying in his irises sparked right back up into an inferno and the corners of his lips tilted into a wicked smile.
“There is a pool in which I regularly bathe, sheltered by rocks. It is akin to what you mortals think of as natural hot baths.” His grip on her loosened and he looked her over, a frown marring his handsome face. No doubt she looked like a mess too now, spotted with blood from his wounds. His gaze roamed back up to devour her lips and then ventured onwards, meeting hers. “You wish to bathe?”
She nodded and then let out a wicked smile of her own. “I wish to bathe you.”
His heart slammed against her palms and his pupils expanded, blotting out the colour in his eyes and turning them dark with passion that she was surprised he managed to wrestle into submission. There was a fleeting moment where he looked as if he was on the verge of tugging her back against him and kissing her again, and then he was taking another step backwards, beyond her reach.
Asmodeus stared hard at her for long seconds, his breathing coming quicker and quicker, and then tipped his chin up, squared his jaw and exhaled. The picture of calm and confidence once more, he threw his hand out behind him, casting one of his portals there.
Romulus and Remus got to their paws and panted. Remus’s ear flopped and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, hooking on his black fangs.
Asmodeus petted Romulus and then righted Remus’s ear for him, and gave them both a grave look. “Protect
the castle while I am gone.”
“Will they understand you if you speak in English to them?” Liora studied the two hellhounds. Asmodeus had mentioned that they could speak telepathically to each other. She would love to find a spell that would allow her to talk with them. She was sure they would have countless stories to tell her and would dish up the dirt on their master.
“They will learn.” Asmodeus caught both hellhounds under their jaws, cupping them in his dirty palms and tipping their heads up so their eyes locked on him.
He spoke in the dark tongue of his world and Romulus and Remus began panting again. Liora took that as a yes, because Asmodeus grabbed her around the wrist and pulled her into the portal.
There was a horrible rush of cold darkness over her skin that made her shiver and made her magic tremble in her veins, and then she was standing at the edge of the black plain she had seen stretching below the castle. Steaming pools dotted the cragged ground before her, at least seven of them and all of them different in temperature and depth judging by how some were boiling viciously and black as tar. A rocky jagged wall curved around the pools, shielding them from view on one side. The open side faced the fortress and the plain. Beyond the wall was a rough, hilly landscape that rose almost as high as the spire of rock upon which the castle stood.
Liora looked over her shoulder at it. From a distance, it was magnificent and imposing, a black bastion that had a horror movie vibe that could make even the bravest demon think twice about dropping in for a visit.
Now that she was on the ground, she could see that it wasn’t as flat as she had imagined it from above. She frowned at the regular lines scored into the black basalt, intersecting each other, and paced the length of one of the rectangles they formed. Liora looked back up at the fortress.
“It’s a quarry,” she whispered.
“I needed stone from a local source.” Asmodeus’s voice was so close to her shoulder that she jumped at the sound of it and looked over at him. His golden eyes roamed the fortress above them, a hint of pride in their beautiful depths.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 85