In the middle of it was organised chaos.
Scraps of parchment mingled with pencil stubs, crayons, pastels and paints. There was a hotchpotch collection of scraggly paintbrushes that had seen better days in a stained glass jar.
Next to them was a large black bulging folder held closed by an elastic strap around the middle.
A portfolio?
Liora’s heart thumped as she reached for it. She was going too far now, probing too much, but she wanted to see this side of Asmodeus. She had wanted the truth about him, and she had heard that an artist’s work was often a reflection of their mood and inner self.
She wanted to see beyond the veil of darkness he wore like a shield to the man beneath.
Romulus and Remus whined as she drew the portfolio across the table to her and slipped the elastic off. She glanced at them where they sat beside her, their red eyes almost level with hers.
“I just want a peek. Don’t tell him, okay?” she whispered, her fingers paused at their devious work.
The hellhounds settled, lying at her feet, and she took it as them giving her their consent.
Liora’s heart set off at a pace again, spreading prickly heat through her veins. She shouldn’t do this. What if Apollyon was right and there was only darkness in Asmodeus?
Asmodeus had told her that he took pleasure from inflicting pain, inciting fear and being cruel. His drawings were likely to be a reflection of that and his environment, images of demons and mutilations, of torture and bloodshed.
She hesitated, afraid of what she would find now, unsure whether she had the strength to look inside Asmodeus’s soul through his drawings.
Liora took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and flipped the portfolio open.
She sucked down another breath and quickly opened her eyes, settling them straight on the first sheet of paper.
Her eyebrows shot up.
It was Romulus and Remus, sleeping curled together beside a fireplace that she recognised.
Liora lifted her gaze from the charcoal drawing to the ornate black fireplace opposite her. Her eyes drifted left, towards the end of the table. A tall-backed black throne stood there, close to the fireplace.
Asmodeus had sat there and drawn his faithful friends.
She looked back down at the picture. It was good, done with a skilled hand and far better than she had expected. He had talent. Then again, he had probably been drawing for thousands of years. He’d had time to hone what natural talent he might have had, especially if what Apollyon had said was true and he didn’t need to sleep when in this realm.
Liora carefully eased the drawing aside to slowly reveal the one beneath, taking her time in case it was a gross image and one she didn’t want to see.
It was another painting of his hellhounds, done in shades of grey. Beneath it was another one and then another. Were they all of Romulus and Remus?
She skipped forwards and paused once again, her breath leaving her.
Before her was a beautiful colourful painting.
A lush green landscape with rolling hills, a sparkling river that snaked through the scene, and a rustic stone bridge. The detail was amazing and she could see that he had taken great pains to create something close to real, even though he only had second-hand equipment.
He had never left Hell yet he had drawn a picture of the mortal world.
Liora moved to the next picture. It was a bustling square in what appeared to be a European city, with elegant pale stone buildings, packed cafés with colourful parasols, a beautiful white marble fountain with a statue of a nude powerful male in the centre, and a stretching blue sky.
Liora quickly shifted it aside so she could see the next painting and then the next. It was scene after beautiful vivid scene. From pirate ships on wild seas populated by mermaids embracing sailors in the frothy dark waves, to ancient ruins deep in the rainforest with a jaguar prowling through them, to frosty forbidding and desolate mountains, and all manner of scenes with people in them.
Festivals and celebrations, all of them buzzing with life and bursting with colour.
The more she saw, the more she felt how deeply Asmodeus had longed to see the mortal world, so much so that he had painted it so he could see it whenever he wanted. Because he couldn’t see it for real?
Was it that he had never left Hell before meeting her or that he had never been allowed to leave Hell?
Liora traced her fingers over a painting of Paris from the air, a scene that she had seen from his arms.
How had he truly felt when he had seen this image with his own eyes?
When she had asked him whether he liked the view, he had told her that it felt alien to him and colourful, and had made her feel that he didn’t like it. She wanted to ask him whether he had really felt that way or whether he had been excited to see it, but she feared how he would react if he knew she had been snooping at his private things.
She carefully stacked all of the pictures, closed the hard black cover over them and snapped the elastic strap into place.
Liora stroked her hand over the portfolio, staring at it, lost deep in her thoughts of Asmodeus. Complicated was definitely an understatement.
She turned away, went back to the books on witchcraft, and selected the one she knew she could read. She set it down on the long stone table and thumbed through it. Her coven would kill for this book and probably go to war for the others Asmodeus owned.
Romulus and Remus perked up. They whined and she looked down at them. Both of them had their ears pricked, as if they were listening to something.
“What is it?” she whispered, afraid it really was an intruder this time.
Black smoke swirled at the end of the room and the hellhounds rose to their paws before her, their focus locked on the shifting shadowy ribbons.
Liora’s eyes widened as a leg appeared through the portal, covered in blood and laced with dark gashes. A hand followed it, groping forwards as if looking for support, equally caked with blood.
Her heart stopped dead.
Asmodeus.
He stepped through the portal, stumbled into the table and grasped it. The black ribbons behind him dissipated and he slumped, barely remaining upright.
Romulus and Remus trotted forwards, lowering their heads and pinning their ears back as they moved, whining to each other.
Liora rushed behind them, cursing her ankle when it slowed her down. “What happened?”
Asmodeus growled and looked up at her through the wild black lengths of his hair, his eyes glowing crimson. Dirt and blood covered almost every inch of him. He rolled his shoulder, grimaced, and reached under his left arm with his right hand, supporting all of his weight on his left. She gasped when he roared, his face twisting in agony, and his hand came away coated in fresh blood. He opened his fingers and a three-inch black dagger-like shard fell from it, clattering on the table.
“Asmodeus,” she whispered and swallowed hard when he moved around the table ahead of her and she saw the state of his back and his legs. More of those spikes of black rock stuck out of his skin, rivers of blood leaking from the wounds.
The two hellhounds followed him and she followed them, rounding the table.
“Asmodeus… tell me what happened,” she said in a firmer tone, losing her patience. He was a mess. He had gone to the Devil to report and he had come back like this, and something told her she was lucky he had come back at all.
He paused, wavered on his feet and slammed his left hand onto the stone table, leaning heavily on it. A grunt left him. His black wings shrank into his back and disappeared, revealing the full extent of his injuries. Magic spiralled lazily around her hands, brought forth by her concern and her deep desire to heal him. It would use what little power she had managed to regain, but she owed him. He had been hurt because of her. She knew it.
“I failed. I was not strong enough,” he husked, his voice raspy and thick, gravelly. She could barely make out the words. “I could not defeat him.”
He had fought for her.
Liora shoved past Romulus and Remus, earning a dark growl from both of them, and laid her hand against an injured spot on Asmodeus’s right shoulder.
“Asmodeus,” she whispered and he looked over his shoulder at her, pain in his red eyes.
She had never had a man fight for her before. Even in the battlefield against demons, the male witches of her coven had always let her handle herself, never moving to protect her as they would some of the other females.
Asmodeus had been fighting for her since the moment they had met, and it touched her deeply, leaving her feeling shaken for the first time in decades. Her heart whispered that he was a man she could depend upon, could lean on when she needed strength and count on to protect her.
She didn’t have to stand alone anymore.
She could trust someone to have her back and keep her safe.
Her hands shook and her heart ached, a deep dull throb in her chest.
The last time she had relied on anyone like that was back when she was a child. She had depended on her parents, and they had died, and she hadn’t depended on anyone since then. Part of her wanted to give Asmodeus that trust and that duty, but the rest of her feared that by doing so, she would give all of herself to him and be left with nothing. She would weaken herself by relying on him so much.
He swallowed hard and his gaze narrowed, the pain in it increasing, causing golden flickers to break through the red until his irises burned like fire.
Liora steadied her breathing and fought for the words, words she found difficult to voice because they had meaning. They resonated with echoes of her past, of a time she didn’t want to remember, and threatened to bring back all the pain. She had long ago given up saying things that allowed another to see a part of her she hid behind bravado and fearlessness.
Asmodeus deserved to hear them though. He deserved to see that what he had done had touched her because no one had fought to protect her in what felt like forever.
“You didn’t fail me. I’m safe because of you… because you fought for my sake. Let me heal you.”
He snarled, flashing vicious fangs, and shoved away from her. He only made it a few stumbling steps before he quickly grasped the table again. She gasped when his knees gave out and he hit the floor hard. He leaned forwards, his left hand clutching the edge of the table and his right one pressing into the black tiles beneath him.
Liora raced to him and kneeled behind him, placing both of her hands on his back. “Asmodeus, please.”
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t push her away either. She took it as a sign that he was willing to allow her to help him.
She sat back and looked him over, inspecting the full length of his back. She wasn’t sure where to begin. It was going to hurt like hell no matter which splinter of black rock she chose to remove first. She decided to begin at his shoulders, where the wounds didn’t look as deep. He growled with each sliver of rock she removed, his big body tensing as she tugged, wriggled and eased each one out of his flesh and then quickly used her magic to stem the flow of blood from the hole.
His claws extended, black sharp points digging into the stone beneath him and the table top, scratching the hard surfaces and leaving vicious grooves.
Liora moved down his back, flinching with each splinter she carefully removed, unsure whether it was better to pull them out quicker or slower. Either way seemed to pain him greatly and unsettled his hellhounds. They growled each time he did, snarling close behind her, their breath hot on the back of her neck.
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 ag
ain 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.
Her Wicked Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 6) Page 11