She gasped and stumbled backwards, the heel of her knee-high black stiletto boots snagging on the gap between one of the cobbles and almost sending her onto her backside. As it was, she flashed black lace-trimmed panties as she jerked to regain her balance, causing her red pleated tartan skirt to flip up at the front.
Wolf curled a lip at her manner of dress. What sort of female wore tartan-trimmed black corsets and stockings, heels that looked more like a weapon than footwear, and impossibly short skirts that had to expose her undergarments whenever she moved?
An image of Emelia dressed that way flashed into his mind, and he quickly shoved it out, not giving it a chance to affect him. While his white armour covered him from neck to toe, giving him modesty, he didn’t need to get a hard-on. No one would see it, but it would be as uncomfortable as hell.
What was Emelia doing now?
His focus drifted.
The Fifth Commander dragged it back.
“Run,” he gritted out, his face crumpling as he fought the urge to slay the demoness.
Fear tainted the air, stronger now, coming not only from the demoness. The Fifth Commander feared too.
He feared killing her?
She stood her ground, courage lighting her features as she faced the male, the small black horns that protruded from her fall of dark hair flaring slightly as she tipped her chin up.
“Asteria,” the Fifth Commander whispered.
A revelation struck Wolf like a thunderbolt.
The male knew this demoness.
Wolf focused on him, exerting some of his indomitable will on the male, stoking the hunger to destroy the demoness. She was not allowed to be on this plane. If the Fifth Commander didn’t cut her down now that Wolf had twined their gifts together to increase the power and influence of it, then Wolf would cut her down in his stead.
His mind filled with pleasing images of battling her and crushing her under his boot heel.
She shattered them.
“Rey.” She held her right hand out in front of her, her palm facing his comrade. Speaking to him with that name. “You don’t want to do this.”
The Fifth Commander closed his eyes, his jaw muscles clenched, and his wings trembled as he tightly gripped his wrist.
There was a pause.
And then the male shook his head.
Wolf narrowed his silver eyes on the angel.
Rey.
Someone had given him a name. Had he chosen it? Or had it been the demoness who was now breathing a sigh of relief, some of the fear washing from her blue eyes as her shoulders sagged, the tension draining from her?
Wolf moved a step closer.
Her spine stiffened and she sharply looked up to her right.
At him.
The colour drained from her face and her heartbeat accelerated.
He slowly shifted his gaze from her to the one she had called Rey, his eyes narrowing as they traversed the distance between them.
“Fifth Commander of the Echelon,” Wolf said in a deep commanding voice, one he normally reserved for demons and those who had irritated him because it got him the results he wanted.
More often than not, it was the sight of them looking ready to relieve themselves against their wishes.
The male straightened, inhaled hard and calmly released his right wrist. The mark glowed faintly, slowly darkening against his skin, and Wolf marvelled at the fact even his had settled, the desire to slay the demoness nothing more than background noise in his mind now.
Rey’s doing, or someone else’s?
Did someone want the demoness kept alive?
Only his superiors had such command over the Echelon gifts.
What reason would they have for wanting to stop him and the Fifth Commander from eradicating the one called Asteria?
Rey nodded and looked up at him. “Fourth Commander of the Echelon. What brings you here?”
Wolf ran an assessing glance over the people who had gathered to watch the furore, including the witch who had come out from the store beneath his boots to glare up at him with her hands planted against her hips, tugging at her drab black dress. More than one demon skulked in the shadows of the narrow alleys that branched off from the main cobbled avenue like streams from a river, feeding the hotchpotch buildings with customers.
What brought him here indeed?
It certainly wasn’t the demon-infested tavern that crawled up the wall of the cavern to his left, where several taller buildings tracked the curve of the end of the town.
He glared in that direction, sending a few of the weaker demons scurrying inside. Several of the larger males stood their ground, staring right back at him, their eyes beginning to glow the different colours of their breeds and their horns curling from behind their ears to follow the curves of them, growing larger and more pointed as aggression flared in them.
He turned his gaze on the female demon.
Curled his lip at her, unable to hide the disgust that crawled through him whenever he thought about the fact he was in the presence of one from the most fiendish and despicable of demon breeds and had clearly been issued a command not to do anything about it.
His gaze darted to the inside of his right wrist and then to the black cross on Rey’s. No urge to hunt and kill flowed through him. It wasn’t even background noise now. Someone had shut off their Echelon gift, meaning someone had declared this demoness was no danger to the mortal world.
Someone was up to something.
He blocked out the female and focused on Rey. “I relay a message. There is a male you must question in regard to your mission. He resides in the Rozengard coven.”
“I am aware. The reason I work with the demoness is to question said male.” Those words sounded distinctly like an excuse for being around her.
Did Rey know something about why the female had been struck from the list of demons they were allowed to slay?
Wolf sighed and ignored her. “I have no interest in your reasons for aligning yourself temporarily with a demon. You can explain them to the council when your mission is done and you return, after you have dealt with her once she is no longer useful.”
“I’ll fucking deal with you, how about that?” She strode towards him, all spit and fire, her pupils starting to glow gold.
She slammed to a halt when Wolf turned his glare on her and unleashed a fraction of his power, and the black need to spill her blood crashed over him, filling him with an urge to obey it regardless of the consequences.
He didn’t give a damn if she was whitelisted.
She was a demon and he would kill her if she dared to step any closer to him.
Rey held his hand up and blocked her path to Wolf.
Protecting her?
She edged back, settling for glaring at Wolf.
How many of her kind inhabited Hell?
She was weak in this world, her power diminished. He could easily best her here, but it would be a different outcome if he met her or one of her kind in Hell. He would be the weak one, wouldn’t stand a chance against a single demon of the Devil’s ranks.
But he still had to go.
He had put it off long enough, had formulated a plan and would see it through now that an excuse for heading into that dangerous and dark realm had materialised.
A reason his meeting with the Second Archangel had revealed to him.
Sable.
It was a good excuse to venture into Hell. His superiors wouldn’t be surprised that he had disappeared, that he would enter Hell in order to track down the half-breed and make another attempt at retrieving her for the Echelon.
He always saw his missions through.
He curled his lip and turned away from the demoness again as thoughts crowded his mind, doubts and fears jangling his nerves, tinged with excitement. It was the perfect excuse, and if he got into trouble for doing it, he wouldn’t care, because it would mean he was safely back in his world and he had been to Hell.
He had taken his first step towards
avenging Emelia.
It was a struggle to resettle his focus on Rey and hide his churning emotions from the male. “I will be out of contact for a short time. If the council ask where I have gone, I am heading south on personal business.”
With that, he disappeared.
CHAPTER 14
It took all of Wolf’s focus to teleport quietly through the bridge he had formed between the fae town and Hell. Other Echelon could silently teleport with ease, but it was affected by their mood.
Which meant, more often than not, Wolf teleported in a flash of thunder and lightning that shook his destination, announcing his arrival.
Drawing attention to himself like that when he wasn’t sure where in the vast realm of Hell he was going to land would be a death sentence. He only knew how to form the bridge between him and Hell. He didn’t know the topology of the realm first-hand. He had studied maps of the realm held in the Echelon library, cobbled together from information given by various species the former Echelon had met during their lifetimes.
None of the Echelon had been crazy enough to venture there themselves.
Wolf realised why when he landed in a bleak black valley roofed by a drab grey sky.
Pain hit him like a tidal wave, rocked him to his knees on the loose gravelly ground, and had him close to vomiting. He leaned forwards, braced his hands against the dirt, and tried to breathe through it, sure it would pass given time.
It only grew worse.
Tightness formed in his breast and his muscles knotted, spasming so hard as pain wracked him that they felt as if they might crush his bones.
His eyes watered and he blinked hard, struggling to clear his vision so he could check he was alone. His normally sharp senses were scattered and dulled, the agony that crashed over him in increasingly strong waves making it impossible to detect whether anyone was nearby.
He scanned the endless dark lands, a vast plain that stretched to mountains in all directions, and swallowed hard on repeat as he fought to keep from retching.
He was alone, as far as he could tell.
The realm was darker than anticipated and he couldn’t see clearly beyond a few hundred feet.
The urge to roll onto his side and lie on the ground was strong, almost overpowering, but he pushed back against it and the earth. He slowly eased up onto his knees, inch by agonising inch, until he was upright at last, sitting in the middle of a featureless valley in a realm where he didn’t belong.
He sat there, time drifting past him as he sucked down increasingly deeper breaths, fighting to master his own body. His muscles gradually relaxed, but they felt weak, watery beneath his skin, and they ached. If he tried to move, he would fall.
So he remained on his knees, just breathing, battling to lock down the pain that still ran rampant through him, had him wanting to lean over and vomit from time to time.
He catalogued his body’s reaction to the realm, using the study to give his mind something to focus on other than the fact he was a damned sitting duck in a world where most of the beings would kill him on sight.
If someone found him, he wouldn’t have the strength to fight them.
He didn’t even have the strength to teleport back out of Hell.
The debilitating pain coupled with the intense drain on his powers left him far weaker than he had anticipated. He fought another wave of nausea and tried to muster enough strength to stop his hands from shaking against the armour protecting his thighs. The rattling sound was loud in the still air, was probably carrying for miles and could easily alert anyone in the vicinity to his presence.
He drew a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and moved his arms. A grunt burst from his lips as his muscles screamed in protest but he kept going, gradually shifting them so his hands fell from his thighs to the dirt beside his hips. Better.
But now he wanted to vomit again.
Pain blinded him, darkness encroaching at the corners of his vision.
No.
He couldn’t pass out. Not here. He stopped battling the effects of Hell and sagged, letting all the fight flow out of him so his muscles loosened and he was just sitting there again, breathing.
The pain receded a little, enough that the darkness disappeared and he could focus again.
Had he been a fool to think he could master this if he had enough exposure to it?
He tilted his head slightly and looked down at his right hand, at the Echelon mark that glowed faintly through the sections of his white armour. He was strong. One of the strongest angels in existence. He could bear this pain. Maybe not overcome it, but he could bear it enough that he could move.
Could fight.
He could learn to cope with it so it was no longer a weakness.
He focused on his body again, felt a glimmer of his powers, and took it as a sign that he was right. With enough exposure, he could grow accustomed to this realm. He could use his powers here and be strong enough that he could slay a dragon.
For a beautiful female.
His Emelia.
Just thinking about her eased the pain and poured strength into his muscles, and he seized on it.
He focused on his apartment and forced a teleport. His entire body shook as the bridge between him and his destination formed, his strength fading so rapidly that he feared it would give out before he could complete it and leave Hell. He had to return, and not only because he needed to see Emelia again.
Now that some of his power and strength had returned, fire arced down his spine in a constant rolling wave, a command from his superiors that reinforced his strength so it held steady as the bridge completed.
Pale light engulfed him, and he had never been so relieved to be summoned.
He landed in a heap on the white marble floor of his superiors’ office instead of his home.
“What do you think you were doing?” the Second Archangel bellowed.
Wolf gasped as power surged through him, the suddenness of it making his head spin. It was as if a floodgate had been opened and all he could do was weather it as he knelt on the floor, his ears ringing. The pain that had wracked him faded under the onslaught, and his strength returned as his body purged the effects of Hell.
Gold metal boots appeared in his vision.
He slowly lifted his head, tracking up the seven-foot height of the Second Archangel. The blond glared down at him, his eyes more gold than amber-to-silver now, revealing his displeasure. His pale golden wings arched high above his head, furled against his armour, shifting as he bent over and grasped Wolf by the neck of his breastplate and hauled him onto his feet.
Wolf’s legs threatened to give out under his sudden weight, but he locked his knees, gritted his teeth against the ache in his bones, and refused to fall.
“You know what he is like.” A familiar deep voice drawled the words, a lazy edge to it that the owner used as a ruse to disarm angels, making them believe he cared little about what was happening, when in fact he was charting everything, remembering it all and mentally weighing up the angels in the process.
Deeming them worthy or unworthy.
Angels had lost their lives by underestimating the First Archangel.
Wolf wasn’t going to be one of them.
The black-haired male liked to tease him, using it as a way of finding faults in his armour, exposing the softer parts of him that could be manipulated in order to force him to do whatever the male bid.
He didn’t even take his purple-to-blue eyes off the maps spread across the large circular white table in the middle of the room as he casually commented, “We gave him a mission.”
The Second Archangel huffed as he shoved Wolf away from him and looked over his shoulder at the First Archangel. “I did not expect such behaviour as a consequence, though.”
“We were not to know the female had mated with a demon. This consequence could not have been foreseen.” The First Archangel did look up now, his long black ponytail slipping from the shoulder of his golden armour as he straightened. His mul
tihued eyes narrowed on Wolf, piercing him and leaving him feeling as if the male was seeking answers from his soul.
Or was demanding an admission of guilt.
“It is true,” Wolf said without hesitation, aware that if he wanted his superiors to believe he had wanted to go to Hell in order to seek Sable, he had to speak the truth. “I did venture into Hell in order to test the limits of my abilities and the effect it would have on me.”
“And what were the results of this experiment?” The First Archangel moved around the table, casually shifting some of the pieces of parchment on it to reveal a crudely drawn map.
The same one Wolf had studied in the Echelon library.
Had the male known all along that he had been intending to go to Hell against the Second Archangel’s wishes?
“The effects of Hell were far worse than I had expected.” Another truth, one that still irked him.
He hadn’t quite believed the stories about Hell and how it stripped angels of their powers, part of him feeling they were only cautionary tales told to the young and foolish in order to keep them away from that dangerous place.
The Second Archangel scoffed. “It gets worse the longer you are in it.”
“You have been there?” Wolf couldn’t quite believe that.
The blond nodded, his expression grim. “And I have the scars to prove it.”
Wolf bit back the questions that rose to crowd his mind and clamour for attention as both males eyed him. The First Archangel’s purple-to-blue gaze narrowed, shrewd and calculating as he stared at him in silence, idly walking his fingers across the map he pinned to the table, traversing realms Wolf wanted to explore.
Where had he landed in Hell?
“I was young, and you are strong. It is possible in time you could come to cope with the curse,” the Second Archangel said, and for a heart-stopping moment, hope bloomed. The male cut it down. “I will not condone you entering Hell again, though.”
Wolf frowned at him.
The First Archangel spoke before he could demand the male change his mind. “Now, now… with the right intelligence, it is possible he could limit his exposure to the curse and complete his mission.”
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