She feigned thinking, barely holding back her smile. The smile that had curved Asmodeus’s lips faded as seconds ticked by and his eyes darkened.
“Will you let me read all the books I want and help me translate the spells?”
He nodded. “Of course. We will make you the most powerful witch in the three realms.”
She liked the way he said that, as if he was imagining forging himself a queen to suit the King of Demons.
She guessed if she lived in a castle and was in a steady relationship with the king, she could consider herself his queen. It was certainly a step up from rogue demon hunting witch with a bad reputation amongst her kind for being rebellious, vicious and a bit wicked.
Her King of Demons was a perfect match for her and she had known it from the moment she had set eyes on him. He wasn’t the only one who had lost their heart in Paris.
“And you’ll see to my needs?” she said, her eyebrows rising expectantly.
His eyes darkened for a different reason, desire dilating his pupils. He growled, “All of your needs.”
She tapped her finger against her chin and wriggled her nose in thought, fighting the urge to give in to her desire to kiss him. He was too sexy for his own good when he growled things at her. Her gaze flicked to his ears. She really wanted to see those little horns of his again.
“Say yes,” he husked and she was powerless to resist his demand.
“Yes,” she whispered and he grasped the back of her neck, dropped his head and claimed her lips in a soul-searing kiss.
Liora leaned into him, clutching him to her and savouring every sweep and stroke of his lips against hers. In his arms like this, held close to him, she felt cherished and loved, and as if she had found her perfect man. She had found someone she could depend on and could lean on in times when she needed his strength, and she knew in her heart that Asmodeus felt the same.
She drew back and stared up into his mesmerising eyes, picking out every dancing fleck of black and amber amidst swirling gold. She loved it when he looked at her like that, as if she was the centre of his world. She reached up and twirled his black hair around her fingertips, and smiled wickedly.
“We had our first proper argument,” she said and he frowned at her, canting his head to one side at the same time. “You know what that means.”
He shook his head.
“Make up sex!” She waited but he didn’t choke.
His eyes darkened, his pupils devouring the gold fire.
Liora frowned, a touch of disappointment flowing through her. She had expected a more satisfying reaction. She grinned as an idea dawned on her, tiptoed and stroked her fingers through his wild black hair, settling them just behind his ears.
She brought her lips to his left ear and breathed into it, “I want to tug your sexy little horns while you fu—”
Asmodeus choked.
Growled.
Grabbed her.
Liora squealed as he twisted her into his arms, enfolding her in his black-feathered wings, and cast a swirling shadowy portal on the sand beneath them, sending them plummeting into Hell.
His curved obsidian horns sprouted beneath her fingers.
Warmth spread through her as he beat his wings and they glided towards his castle. Their castle.
Liora leaned in and kissed him, stroking his horns at the same time and earning a husky growl as her reward.
Not even fate could part them now.
They wouldn’t let it.
Together, they were stronger.
Together, they could take on the world.
Or at least save it from destruction.
Nothing would stand in the way of their forever.
The wicked King of Demons.
And his witch queen.
The End
Her Avenging Angel
Once a proud angel of Heaven, Nevar is now a servant of Hell, bound to a new master—the King of Demons. Consumed by darkness and driven to seek revenge, he set in motion a series of events that awakened the Great Destroyer, a force that will bring about the apocalypse. Now, he is the creature’s master and the fate of our world rests in the hands of an angel with only darkness in his heart.
Lost in the mortal realm without any recollection of how she came to be there, Lysia is only aware that she has survived a great battle. When she stumbles into a demon bar, she finds more than a chance to discover what happened to her—she finds a dark and deadly angel warrior who stirs fire in her veins and awakens soul-searing passion she cannot deny.
With the mounting threat of the Great Destroyer, the forces of Heaven and Hell against him, and a band of dangerous angels intent on capturing Lysia on his heels, can Nevar protect the beautiful woman who is light to his darkness and find the strength to save the world?
Table of Contents for HER AVENGING ANGEL
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
CHAPTER 1
It had been twenty-seven days, give or take a few, since Nevar’s master had bothered to show up for his duty and relieve him, taking his place outside the crystal chamber in which the Great Destroyer slumbered, deep in the bowels of the Devil’s fortress in Hell.
A destroyer that Nevar had awoken by spilling Asmodeus’s and Liora’s blood in the very chamber he now guarded, and had become the creature’s master, much to the annoyance of the Devil.
Twenty-seven days of mind-numbing silence and boredom.
Nevar was going out of his head.
Or at least more out of it than normal.
He was feeling honest enough with himself today to admit that he might have been out of his head before the guard duty had started, but doing such a thing was dangerous.
The darkness within him spread tendrils outwards, filling his mind with vicious hissed words that goaded him into finding Asmodeus, the wretched angel who had turned him into a monster, and satisfying his soul-deep hunger to make the bastard pay.
Nevar closed his eyes and practiced his breathing, filling his lungs from the bottom up and counting slowly to five on each long inhale through his nose and five again on each exhale out of his mouth. Liora had taught him it as a method of regaining control of himself and quashing his darker urges whenever they came upon him. It had been step one in his rehabilitation programme—taking control. He was still working on step two—taking responsibility.
He drew another deep breath and shut out the coaxing voice and the other one that liked to mock him.
Once a proud guardian angel serving Heaven and the protector of Erin.
Now a loathsome creature forced into a contract with an evil angel, filled with darkness and an endless unstoppable hunger for violence, and cursed with an unquenchable thirst for blood.
Euphoria addict.
Recovering alcoholic.
The worst part was that he couldn’t even bring himself to lay the blame squarely on Asmodeus’s shoulders. Some of it kept slipping off and landing back on his. He had been the one who had sought the sorceress and asked her to inscribe the spell on his shoulders that gave him control over his wings, and more control over his own body, making it difficult for Asmodeus to command him and force his compliance.
He had been the one to repay that sorceress by ful
filling the dark urge to kill her.
And she had repaid him by cursing him with her dying breath to feel an overpowering, never-ending craving for blood.
He had been the one who had sought a way of escaping the haunting memories of all the mortals and angels he had brutally slain whenever the darkness growing within him had seized control.
That escape had come in the form of sweet oblivion, delivered to him by Euphoria, a potent cocktail of alcohol, demon toxin and blood designed with enslaving mortals in mind and giving them a high that would make them forget every wicked thing they did while temporarily under its influence.
Demon toxin was fatal to angels.
When it had only made him high, giving him the beautiful escape he had craved and couldn’t find in alcohol alone, he had realised that he was no longer an angel.
And he had thrown himself head first into a downward spiral of Euphoria, screwing every demon female who offered it to him in exchange for sex. In hurling himself into that addiction, he had blurred the line between the evil and the good within him. He had embraced the darkness and bore the evidence of it on his body in the form of permanent claws and black skin up to his elbows and his knees, a sliver of his other side shining through.
Oh how the mighty had fallen.
He hadn’t quite hit rock bottom at that point though. No. He had stepped a little closer to rock bottom when Veiron, a Hell’s angel now married to Nevar’s former ward, Erin, had found him in a grotty bathroom banging a demon in exchange for a fix, and had taken it upon himself to save him. When Nevar had found himself pinned to the floor of that bathroom, in a pool of the demon bitch’s blood, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from licking it off the grimy tiles.
He had finally hit rock bottom when he had decided to discover Asmodeus’s weakness and exploit it, and had abducted the woman his master had been falling in love with, Liora, and handed the witch over to the Devil. No questions asked.
And then when Asmodeus had been about to save her from the very chamber at Nevar’s back, he had snuck in like a shadow and tried to kill the bastard.
Liora had attempted to shield Asmodeus. Nevar had skewered both of them on the sword.
Their combined blood spilling in the chamber and soaking into the crystal had been the key to unlocking the prison of the Great Destroyer, and because his hand had spilled it, Nevar was now the creature’s master.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Liora would be proud of him.
Seven months of rehab and he had finally admitted that Asmodeus had started the ball rolling when he had forced a contract between them, but Nevar had kept on pushing the damn thing until it had picked up enough speed to do some real damage.
Damage being a nice way of saying that he had probably brought about the end of the world.
Nevar tipped his head back and stared into the darkness. Golden light from the two torches on the wall behind him, one either side of the broad door, held by gilded dragon bones, flickered across the ceiling. How many times had he lost himself in following the shifting ribbons of light? It was up there with his other favourite form of entertainment.
He turned around to face the huge black stone door.
His jade gaze slowly took in every inch of the carved surface that was now imprinted on his memory. It depicted dragons roaming the landscape of Hell in the upper portion of the door and a monster far larger than they were ravaging lands in the central section. That gigantic beast devoured mortal, demon and angel alike.
He ran his fingers over the beast to the figure of an angel being crushed under its front left foot and then drifted them back up to the other figure it clutched in the claws of its right.
The Great Destroyer.
He wasn’t sure what would happen when it finally rose from its slumber, or what his role was when it emerged, but he was sure it would be a hell of a lot more interesting than his current situation.
Would it be such a bad thing if it awakened?
The thought of standing guard in the cramped black antechamber for decades, centuries or more was an unwelcome one. He would rather the world went to Hell now than he be put through another month of loitering outside the chamber, alone and bored.
And tired.
Unlike his master, Hell wasn’t his home, and when an angel wasn’t in their natural environment, they had to eat and sleep.
Asmodeus never seemed to take that into account, or perhaps he did. Perhaps his wretched master was in his fortress halfway across Hell laughing about the fact that he was here starving to death and about ready to gnaw his arm off. Nevar resisted the urge to sink his fangs into his lower lip. It wouldn’t appease his hunger or do him any good. He couldn’t survive on his own blood. He had been living for the past seven months on regular doses of Asmodeus’s blood.
Saliva pooled in his mouth at just the thought of sinking his fangs into his master’s arm and sucking down his rich, thick blood.
Wonderful. Asmodeus and Liora’s fantastic rehab plan had now turned him into some sort of Pavlov’s dog, salivating at only the idea of being allowed to drink from his master.
He sighed again and traced his fingers down the ridged back of the beast carved on the door.
Maybe there was a reason Asmodeus had left him here alone for almost a full month.
Liora had told Nevar that now he had been weaned off demon blood, the next step was to wean him off blood entirely.
It would be typical of the bastard angel to decide the best way to do that was to ditch him here at the chamber and leave him for a month, knowing he was under orders not to leave it unguarded.
Did Liora know what her male was doing? He doubted the pretty little witch would approve of such a move.
Whenever Nevar had been at their fortress, watching her and Asmodeus attempting to rebuild it, she had stuffed him full of mortal food, telling him that he needed to keep his strength up. Of course, Asmodeus glared at him whenever the witch fussed over him, and Nevar had repaid him by drinking up her attention and coaxing her into giving him more of it, stealing it away from Asmodeus.
The mark on his chest pulsed, fire flashing over it, and his fingers tensed against the hindquarters of the beast on the door.
He growled and mentally commanded the breastplate and back plate of his violet-edged black armour to disappear, revealing his bare chest. Purple light traced over the circular mark directly over his heart. The size of his palm, it depicted a serpentine beast with a reptilian head armed with sharp fangs and six curved horns. Wings followed the sweeping arc of its scaly body and its barbed tail. In the centre of the mark, clutched in the dragon’s claws, was a perfect replica of Liora’s pentagram—the one he had destroyed.
The dragon’s wings shifted and he ground his teeth against the fiery pain that blazed like lightning across his pectorals in response. He pressed his hand to the mark, breathing through the agony, using the same technique he employed when trying to retain control.
The beast settled and his heart settled with it, slowing back to a normal rhythm.
It wasn’t the first time the mark had shifted. It moved from time to time, as if it was as restless as he was.
Nevar kept his hand over the mark and placed his other one on the carving on the door that was a perfect match. The Great Destroyer.
Would it be such a bad thing if it awakened?
He could fight it or control it or something as its master.
It would beat the hell out of guard duty.
Nevar shoved the heavy stone door open and entered the bright crystal chamber. The jagged walls were brightest, blinding white that reminded him of Heaven and stung his eyes. They adjusted gradually, allowing him to see more of the room. In the centre stood a raised oblong dais of pure clear crystal. To the left of it on the floor of the chamber was a dull patch where he had spilled Asmodeus’s and Liora’s blood and it had soaked into the crystal.
He moved deeper into the room and came to stand over that spot, l
ooking down at it and his booted feet.
Red still swirled within the layers of crystal.
It was further from the surface now. He had made a habit of entering the chamber each day to see if the blood was sinking deeper into the crystal and always ended up wondering if it was heading towards a certain point far beyond his vision, slowly working its way down each crack and layer to the Great Destroyer.
The Devil had been his usual cryptic self when Nevar and Asmodeus had asked him for more details about the destroyer, giving answers that provided no illumination. Nevar still didn’t know if the destroyer was actually beneath all the layers of crystal below him, or whether it was linked to this place from one far away that only the Devil knew about.
Nevar sat on the raised slab, swung his legs up and lay down on it, staring at the glowing ceiling.
Light danced across the crystal shards, reflecting rainbow colours like an aurora. Whenever he grew restless, he came to this spot and lay for a while. It was peaceful and soothing, and a much-needed distraction from his heavy thoughts.
Whenever he was in this room, he felt different. He could never put his finger on the why of it though. The only way he could explain it was that he no longer felt alone. There was a presence in this room that calmed him and filled a hole in his chest, one that gnawed at him when he was beyond the chamber walls.
His eyes slipped shut and he forced them open again, stifling a yawn at the same time.
Nevar rested his hands on his chest, over the mark there, and tried to track the brighter spots of light as they slowly danced over the crystals like fireflies. His eyelids drooped again, heavier this time. He struggled to lift them and drowsily stared at the ceiling as it spun out of focus, blurring and whirling together.
His eyes closed.
Pain skittered across his chest.
Nevar frowned and rubbed the mark. Damned thing.
He grimaced and then opened his eyes. The crystal chamber came back into focus. He had fallen asleep.
“Fuck,” he growled and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the dais, and quickly looked off to his left, expecting Asmodeus to be there in the doorway, glowering.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 112