“Will you be alright?” The half-breed. Talking to him?
Emelia answered, “Go. I’ll be fine. We can take him to Rey’s place and then home.”
Home.
That single tiny feather danced in his mind, the shadows looming around it, kept at bay for now, but for how long?
He no longer had a home.
He was at the point of turning, had too many black feathers to be allowed entrance to his own realm again. They would hunt him down if he tried to return there. The Archangels didn’t tolerate the corrupted, even when they were Echelon.
And part of him no longer thought of it as home either.
The same Archangels who would want him dead now had lied to him, covering the truth about his half-breed origins so he would loyally serve them.
No, he had no home now.
Darkness engulfed him from the outside this time, and when it receded, they were in a room. The black walls were rough, chisel marks telling him that someone had transformed a cave into a room, one that had a few items of furniture scattered around it, including a large bed.
Just beyond that bed, a natural arch led into another area of the cave. Warm air came from that direction, carrying the scent of salt and other minerals.
Rey went to set him down on the bed and then pulled a face. “You should probably wash first. There’s a pool back there. The water has healing properties, a mixture of minerals, herbs and magic that combine to heal wounds quickly. Asteria got the concoction from the half-breed as a thank you present for not handing her over to the Devil or Heaven. You should rest in it for a time until you begin to heal. It does work wonders.”
He looked himself over with his good eye, at the blood that covered every inch of his body, darkest on his side where Zephyr had torn at him with his claws, and then at Rey, Asteria, and Emelia. They had all fared the same. The sight of Emelia stained with blood had the darkness pushing, but he pushed back, told himself that it wasn’t her blood.
Worry shone in her eyes as she looked at him.
Wolf nodded. He would bathe for her sake, to alleviate her fear, and hopefully she would bathe with him. He needed to be alone with her, to hold her and know that she was safe now. He needed to speak with her and tell her something.
“Asteria of the Second Legion,” a deep voice boomed from beyond the doorway that had been hacked into the rock behind him.
“Oh, fuck,” she muttered and preened her hair, puffing the tangled strands up as she flicked Rey a nervous glance. “How do I look?”
“Like a fallen angel just exploded all over you.” Rey grimaced and removed a piece of skin from her hair. “Now you’re perfect.”
“Won’t be a moment.” Asteria smiled, but Wolf could see the worry in it.
The cross mark on the inside of Wolf’s right wrist itched, burning low against his skin and warning him that Asteria was no longer the only demon in the vicinity.
“Put your wings away,” Emelia said, a vain attempt to distract him from the fact there were now four elite demons muscling their way into the room, forcing Asteria and Rey back into it.
The largest of them took stock of him and Emelia and curled his lip at Asteria and Rey. “What happened here?”
“Well… firstly, I am terribly sorry that we killed the last team of elite our dark lord sent.”
His thick black brows rose, the golden elliptical pupils in the centres of his obsidian irises glowing brighter as he stared at Asteria.
“Oooooh… you didn’t know.” She shrugged stiffly. “You were asking about the blood. Dead fallen angel is the chic accessory these days.”
She plucked more flesh from her armour and offered it to the demon. He regarded it with a disinterested look and shifted his gaze to Rey.
“Is this about Wolf?” Rey lowered his hand to his side, claws flexing as if he was itching to call his blade.
The demon shook his head.
“It concerns his brethren. Your brethren.” The male sneered at Rey, an edge to his eyes that said he still considered him a member of the Echelon and therefore the enemy. “Two more angels of your rank have entered Hell, and our dark lord requires your presence.”
Wolf didn’t like the sound of that.
Apparently, Rey didn’t either.
“Why?” Rey closed ranks with Asteria.
“Our dark lord wishes to discuss the war plan with you both.”
War plan? Sickness brewed in Wolf’s stomach. He had left a trail of carnage in his wake, from getting Emelia pulled back into Hell to getting his realm into a war.
Not his realm.
He tried hard to make that stick, but the thought of them having to battle the forces of Hell, the image of the males he had worked closely with for centuries fighting for their lives against a superior army, ate away at him, and he couldn’t deny he still felt something for that world.
He also felt sure the two Echelon commanders had come to Hell looking for him, not to start a war.
Rey looked over his shoulder at him. “The Echelon commanders could not have known that entering Hell would be considered an act of war. I will talk with the Devil and make him see that.”
“I will go with you.” He tried to move, but his left leg wobbled, and Emelia had to catch him.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, keeping him upright.
Rey shook his head. “Remain here. You need to rest and heal.”
Heal.
He looked at his battered left wing and then his right, seeking the one feather that formed the barrier between him and becoming a fallen angel. It was as small as it had looked, a tiny downy feather near his left elbow. He wasn’t sure he could heal from this.
“Come on.” Emelia tugged him away from the others. “I think I saw the pool back here.”
He didn’t fight her as she helped him through the arch and across the uneven ground towards the sunken steaming pool, or as she stripped off his clothing. He couldn’t get his mind away from what was happening, not even as he forced his wings away and stepped into the water.
It was warm, instantly soothing his tired body as he sank into it and surprising him as the expected sting of his cuts didn’t come. The water certainly had magical properties just as Rey had said. He could feel it going to work, could feel the smaller wounds on his legs and stomach healing, rapidly stitching back together.
He tried to keep his mind on bathing and healing, but he couldn’t stop it from wandering. He would find a way to save the two idiots who had come after him, sure they were the Second and Third Commanders. Rey would find a way to stop the war before it began, and if he couldn’t, then Wolf would fight on Heaven’s side in order to make amends for what he had done. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to fight Rey.
He scooped up some water and grimaced as he carefully washed the left side of his face. The pain of the claw marks and his swollen eye gradually subsided, and he kept washing it, encouraging it to heal and hoping he wouldn’t be left with a scar on that side.
Not because he worried that Emelia wouldn’t like him with more scars.
But because he didn’t want her to be constantly reminded of the dragon and what she had been through and he knew she would be if he was left with scars across his face from Zephyr’s claws.
Emelia finished removing her clothes and stole his focus as she stepped into the pool, sinking beneath the water opposite him.
Sweet mercy, she was a joy to watch as she bathed, the sight of her soothing his battered heart.
For a moment, he had been sure he had lost her, that she would belong to the dragon and be stolen from his grasp forever.
But here she was, carefully washing the blood and grime away, her green eyes holding a glimmer of the relief he could feel in her. Because the dragon was dead. Slain by her own fair hand.
She had subjected herself to a bond to save him, but not in the way he had imagined. Instead of becoming the slave of the dragon, she had risen up and fought him, using the strength the bond had grante
d her to take him down.
His brave, cunning Emelia.
He wanted to kiss her again and hear her whisper that she loved him, wanted to tell her how much he loved her too.
He shifted towards her.
She held her hand up and glared at him.
He stilled, unsure what he had done to deserve such a killing look.
“I want a word with you… and you had better answer honestly,” she snapped, the darkness in her tone feeling more dangerous to him than the shadows that had tried to pull him into the abyss.
He nodded. Might have swallowed hard.
“You know a blonde angel?”
He frowned at the fire blazing in her eyes and the anger he could sense surging through her. “I do. She is a healer.”
“A healer?” she scoffed. “According to her, she’s your Echelon baby maker.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
Emelia folded her arms across her chest. “She says she was destined for you, or some shit, and you’re meant for her, and that she was all over you the other day, kissing you while you were naked… before you came to me.”
“Now hold on.” He held his hands up beside him. “Wait.”
Because he needed a moment to get this straight in his head before he said it or he was liable to mess everything up.
“She is only my healer,” he said and wrestled with how to put things delicately, in a way that wouldn’t make Emelia cleave him in two. She wanted honesty. The truth. He wanted to give her that, but he also didn’t want to upset her. “It is… Emelia… She did kiss me.”
Her green eyes went wide. “What the actual fuck?”
She shot to her feet, gloriously naked and terribly distracting. He tried to keep his focus on her face and off her body, sure she wouldn’t appreciate him admiring her when she was furious with him.
“Listen to me. She kissed me. I made her leave and told her to forget it because it was not going to happen. I had no idea she had gotten it into her head that we were going to become something.” And if he had known she would go after Emelia to turn her against him, he might have done a lot more than just making her leave. “I do not care about her. I love you.”
She stopped advancing on him.
Stood staring down at him, so close that he could skim his fingers up her bare calf beneath the water if he was brave enough.
“You love me?” she whispered, conflict shining in her eyes.
He had told her the truth, and she still wanted to be mad at him. Females were far too complicated. It was little wonder males were always messing up.
He nodded. “I heard what you said to me, Emelia. I love you too.”
“Good.” Her tone hardened once more. “But if that bitch comes near you again, I’m going to rip her wings off.”
He flinched, a cold shiver running down the ridges of scar tissue on his back.
Her face softened, worry lighting her eyes as she glanced at his shoulders. “Sorry… do they hurt?”
He shook his head. “Not now they are away.”
Although, he could feel his left one mending, experienced it as a weird unsettled sensation in his side that he was finding hard to push to the back of his mind.
“Were you scared?” She shuffled a little closer, offering a beautiful distraction that kept the pain at bay.
“No.” He tilted his head back, gazing up at her, using the luxury of time to go back over everything that had happened in the last few hours, from the moment she had stormed into that cave looking like the warrior she was. He caught her wrist and pulled her down onto his lap, wrapped his arms around her, and held her. “But I was terrified when you…”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
She pressed her cheek to his, looped her arms around his shoulders, and sighed against his skin. “I’m sorry. It was the only way to get what I wanted.”
He knew that, but the vision of her placing herself at the mercy of that male, binding herself to him, still haunted him.
“I am glad he is dead.” Although he wished he had been the one to deal the killing blow, he was happy she had been the one to do it in the end.
She had found her strength and her self-belief, conquered her fear, and found the closure she had needed.
“I am too.” She nuzzled his cheek and pressed a kiss to it. “And I’m glad I reached you in time. I was terrified I was going to lose you.”
He was still terrified he was going to lose her, didn’t want to tell her what he had learned, but he needed to be honest with her. He needed to know she could still love him knowing where he had come from.
“Will you heal?” That beautiful look of concern in her eyes warmed his soul, keeping the darkness from it.
“I am not sure. Perhaps not fully. I have never heard of an angel regaining white feathers after they had turned black.” Although, he had never researched it. He only had his lessons to go by, and they had always stated that once an angel had black feathers, they always had black feathers, no matter how much good they did after gaining them. He sighed, closed his eyes and sank deeper against the edge of the pool. “There is darkness in me. Darkness I never tried to conquer and control. Now I fear that darkness has a stronger hold over me and I will not be able to shake it. I fear…”
That he would fall.
“It won’t happen… and even if it did, I wouldn’t go anywhere. I’ll still be right here for you.” Emelia gently smoothed her palms along his jaw and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, soothing the pain that had been building inside him, stealing it all away again. “We’ll get through this. Somehow. We’ll get through it and find a way to… not fix things… but maybe we can make it easier on you. Somehow. Reduce the risk. Maybe Rey would know something, or Asteria. We can speak with them.”
She wasn’t sure, sounded as uncertain as he felt as he held her, all his fears colliding inside him to drag him down into the mire of dark thoughts. He clung to what she had said, speaking of them as if they would always be together now, no matter what happened. He wanted that, but she needed to know the truth about him, because if he didn’t tell her, it would eat away at him, and would eventually destroy what they had.
“Emelia, there is something else I need to tell you. Echelon… we are… according to Rey and Asteria, we are born of a union between an angel and a demon.” He held his breath as he leaned back and studied her face, waiting for her to react to that news and sure it was going to be like a dagger in his heart.
She blinked. “And?”
Not quite what he had expected.
He stroked her sides, using the feel of her and the fact she hadn’t pulled away to calm his nerves. “And I know after what you have been through in this realm, that it must be difficult for you to… That you must… I will understand if—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips, crushing them and cutting him off. “I’m going to make you rewind to the part where I just saved your arse and told you that I love you and that I want to be with you. I don’t care where you came from, Wolf. Gaining strength so I could kill him wasn’t the only reason I took Zephyr’s blood. I sort of liked the sound of forever with the man I do love.”
He searched her eyes. “Forever?”
Was that his voice, so breathless and filled with hope?
She nodded, skimmed her hands over his shoulders and framed his face with her palms, carefully on his left cheek as she avoided the worst of his healing claw marks. Her green eyes locked with his, overflowing with so much love and warmth that his heart filled with them too.
Her thumbs brushed his cheeks. “I figured out the answer to my problem when I looked at Loke and Anais.”
“Your problem?” He wasn’t following her.
“How to become immortal like you.” She looked so serious, and as if she wanted to box him for being an idiot and not understanding what she was saying.
He got it now. She wanted to be immortal so she could be with him, without fear that time might separate them. He had to admi
t, he had been trying to figure out a way to make that happen too, because he wanted forever with her.
“You are immortal now?” He looked her over, focusing all his senses on her.
She was stronger, he could feel that, but he wouldn’t be sure of her immortality until he saw she wasn’t aging.
She nodded. “Anais is immortal because of her bond with Loke. I don’t think the effects of that bond expire when one party dies because I still feel stronger.”
So she was immortal, and she wanted to be with him forever.
Everything had felt as if it was falling apart around him, but now it felt as if everything was coming together.
He couldn’t share a bond with Emelia, but they could share forever.
She stroked his cheeks, her eyes flitting over his wounds, worry creasing her brow. “Are you alright?”
Wolf nodded, pulled her flush against him, and breathed against her lips.
“I am now.”
Because everything he had ever wanted was right here in his arms.
And he had just realised something.
Home was where his heart was.
With her.
The End
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Read on for a preview of the next story in the highly addictive Eternal Mates paranormal romance series, Seduced by a Demon King
Seduced by a Demon King - Preview
Tegan’s battle plan was sound.
A simple feint. Trick the eye. A stroke of genius.
With a dash of the fates smiling upon him, he might escape this prison tonight.
This castle had been his cage for a thousand years, since the night his brother had been murdered, the throne beneath him a shackle that held him fast, unbreakable except through death.
Avenged by an Angel Page 36