He arched an eyebrow at her tone and the way her eyes were changing again, turning black as her pupils blazed gold and thinned into vertical slits. Her black horns even flared a little.
“And do you think all angels fit the image the Devil has drilled into your head?” he countered.
Another mistake.
She responded by looking him up and down in a way that only made his blood burn hotter for some reason, especially when her eyes lingered on his hips and chest.
It became an inferno in his veins when she stepped up to him, tiptoed and whispered into his ear, “Your halo is a little bent.”
She turned and walked away before he could muster a retort, her words swimming in his head.
“What do you mean by that?” he barked after her.
She just raised her right hand above her shoulder and saluted him with her middle finger.
He bit out a low growl of frustration and went after her, trying to push what she had said out of his mind. She was messing with him. That was all.
So why couldn’t he stop pondering it?
His halo was bent?
Was she insinuating that he was a bit wicked like her?
He laughed at that. Far from it. He had never set a foot out of place, followed orders to the letter and was devoted to his duty.
He had never had a wicked thought in his life.
He could practically taste the lie in that as he stared at her, watching her walking away from him, her pert backside swaying side to side beneath that infernal pleated skirt that revealed more than it concealed, swishing back and forth to give him glimpses of lace-trimmed black panties.
Rey had the sinking feeling that the demoness was affecting him.
Dear lord, she was.
Because he had just called himself by the very name she had given him.
He clenched his fists and vowed that as soon as they had questioned the members of the Rozengard coven, they were going their separate ways and he would never see her again.
He was Fifth Commander of the Echelon.
An angel, one of the elite, an eradicator of demons.
She was one of those demons, a breed of creature he lived to hunt and destroy.
It was time he remembered that.
CHAPTER 5
The angel was so easy to rile, it was almost boring. Still, Asteria did love the way his eyes flashed gold fire at her whenever she ruffled his feathers. She bounced ahead of him, leading the way towards the dull brown and white building ahead of them at the end of one of the main roads of the town, enjoying the way his eyes kept drifting back to her. He was doing his best to ignore her, to keep those stunning peridot eyes off her, but he was failing dismally.
She knew whenever his attempts failed and his eyes landed back on her. A brief flare of heat would chase through her, one that a part of her she was doing her best to ignore whispered came from more than just the fact he was an angel. She’d had run ins with his kind before, and their presence always set off a low burning in her blood. This sensation was different though. It ran deeper, blazed hotter, making her too aware of him where he trailed behind her, all glower and gruff as he stared at her back.
Maybe it was an Echelon thing.
She had never crossed paths with one from that elite clique of arseholes.
Most demons who strayed into their paths didn’t live to tell the tale. She was honestly surprised that she had, especially considering the way he looked at her from time to time, a glint in his eyes as his right hand twitched at his side, telling her that he wanted to call that fiery blade he possessed to cut her into little bitty pieces with it.
Or he could just call his Echelon gift and burn her with nothing more than a touch.
What was stopping him from doing his duty and killing her?
Asteria didn’t want to search for the answer to that question too hard. Something warned her that she wouldn’t like it.
Or maybe she would and that was why she feared it so much.
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at him, catching him studying the hotchpotch of white flat-roofed buildings around them. His pale green-yellow eyes twinkled with warmth as he nodded at a few witches, spoke with them in a kind manner and gave them each a smile as they chatted and some even flirted with him.
By the Devil, he really did ooze goodness.
There wasn’t a drop of darkness in him.
Although, something was different about him today. She could still sense the light in him, but it no longer affected her as it had in Fort William. She didn’t feel a pressing urge to vomit whenever he was near her. No. The pressing urges she experienced now were far more unsettling.
She had crossed paths with many angels from the usual ranks of Heaven, had even been responsible for the demise of one or two in her lifetime. All of them had made her want to fight and protect herself. Rey didn’t. It set her on edge, because the less he triggered her demon instincts that screamed he was a danger to her and that he was good, all light and shiny, the less resistance she had against him, and the more she felt the full effect of being around him.
The more she wanted to tangle with him, and not in the fighting sense of the word.
His blond eyebrows dipped, his firm broad mouth settling in a stern line, and his gaze slowly edged back to her.
Asteria faced front again, shaking off the odd sensations that ran through her whenever she dared to look at him. She labelled them as disgust. She despised him. That damn little voice whispered again, calling them other names.
Desire. Lust.
Whenever she teased him sexually, it fired her up, caused heat to pool low in her abdomen and her blood to burn at the image of whatever she had taunted him with actually happening. The thought of the heels of her boots digging into the firm globes of his backside as he thrust into her, acting like spurs for her stallion, had her trembling with a need to see if the bastard might take her up on it and make that fantasy real.
No chance.
His green eyes had told her that straight.
She had to be losing her fucking mind if she was considering sleeping with an angel anyway.
She flicked another glance over her shoulder, bit back a gasp when her eyes met his, and quickly looked away again as fire flashed through her, making her nipples hard beneath her corset.
The Devil damn him to Hell.
“Quit staring, Rey,” she bit out and shuddered for effect. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
He huffed. “Believe me, I am not looking at you in any way other than as a potential threat, Asteria.”
She shuddered again, this one all too real and born of pleasure as her name rolled off his tongue in his gruff, deep voice. Sin. This angel was built for it whether he knew it or not.
She glanced again, cursed him in her head in the demon tongue as she caught something new in his eyes, something startling, before he masked it by turning his attention elsewhere.
Amusement.
The stuck up angel was teasing her and enjoying it.
The slightly mortified edge his eyes had gained said that horrified him. Why? Were all angels so damned stiff that they didn’t have fun?
She spun to face him and stopped in his path, and he was so busy diligently keeping his eyes off her that he collided with her. She shivered, a hot and achy one, as his hard body pressed against hers for a second, knocking her back, before he leaped away like a frightened cat to stand at a two metre distance from her.
Glowering at her again.
She planted her hands on her hips and glared right back at him. “I didn’t walk into you, Jackass, so don’t give me that look.”
Her body continued to tremble from the brief contact, tiny aftershocks of heat rippling through her. What the hell would he do to her if he did take that stick out of his fine backside and succumb to her charms? She wasn’t sure she could handle a male like him. In fact, she felt pretty damn certain she would melt into a puddle on the floor.
He looked close to
unleashing his pearly white wings to threaten her, so she twirled the coloured stripe in her hair around her finger. His eyes darted there, he dragged them away again, and the unruly little critters went right back to her fingers, remaining locked on them this time. She slowed her movements, deliberately twisting the gold-to-red stripe around her index finger, brushing it occasionally with her thumb.
Those beautiful greens lost their sharp edge, his pupils dilating to darken them as he watched her fingers. She could almost hear his thoughts. Would her hair feel soft in his fist as he grabbed it and tugged her head back for a forbidden wicked kiss?
By the Devil, she wanted to know just how his profane mouth would feel on hers as he did such a thing.
Asteria took a step towards him, smiled when he didn’t bolt, was too busy staring at her fingers as they worked their magic on him, holding him firmly under her spell.
She edged another step closer, and another, until she was only a metre from him, could feel his power radiating from him, washing over her and colliding with hers. Only this time, the light he unconsciously emitted didn’t rub her the wrong way. It didn’t bother her at all. She risked a glance at his right wrist, frowned as she noticed the cross on the inside of it that marked him as an Echelon wasn’t glowing.
It should have been burning, blazing with light because of her proximity, but there wasn’t even a faint glow about it. It was pitch black.
“Asteria,” he murmured and swallowed hard. His lips parted, blond eyebrows dropping low above those hungry green eyes, and she waited with bated breath, so eager to hear what he was going to say that she made the mistake of moving closer. Bright light burst from the corner of her left eye and he flashed his teeth at her. “Get away from me.”
At first, she thought he was threatening her, a fear that had her leaping back a good two metres, but then her eyes widened as he grasped his right wrist and let out a low growl of frustration as he clutched it, his face contorting.
“What’s wrong?” she said and his eyes darted up to her, narrowed into dark slits that quickly burned gold.
Huge feathered white wings erupted from his back, tearing through his black t-shirt, and she gasped as she stumbled backwards, her fear turning to panic.
“Run,” he whispered, and she wanted to do just that, wanted to take the out he was giving to her, but something kept her feet pinned to the cobbles within striking distance of him.
The fear in his gold eyes.
He honestly didn’t want to hurt her.
The quiet voice she liked to think of her as her survival instinct rose to a scream in her mind, compelling her to flee, not only to save herself but to spare him. She tried to move, but nothing happened. It was as if her feet had been glued to the ground. She was powerless before him, could only swallow hard and pray to every god she knew that her life wasn’t about to end here. She had dodged a bullet with the Devil, and it had filled her with a strong desire to live. So why the hell wasn’t she hauling arse across the town?
“Asteria,” Rey whispered, his handsome face crumpling as he struggled with his right hand, as if he had no control over it.
Most of the street had stopped to stare, and most of them were looking at Rey as he stood opposite her, stunning white wings arching high above his shoulders.
“Rey.” She held her right hand out in front of her, her palm facing him. “You don’t want to do this.”
It was more a question than a statement to convince him to put his pearly white wings away and stop looking at her as if he was going to burn her to ashes at any second.
He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth so hard his jaw muscles popped beneath his tanned smooth skin, and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
He didn’t want to kill her.
So what had him on the verge of doing it?
Prickles ran through her as her senses blared a warning so loud it was deafening, and she sharply looked to her right, up at the roof of one of the stores.
Another angel stood there, a male with a thick head of onyx hair and startling silver eyes. This one wore armour from neck to toe that reminded her of the knights of old in fairy tales the mortals told. The white plates were edged with gold and shaped like muscles over his torso, and the vambraces around his forearms and greaves around his shins were decorated with images she couldn’t quite make out at this distance.
A distance she was more than happy to maintain between them.
He turned his silver eyes from her to Rey, and they narrowed as they crossed the distance between them.
“Fifth Commander of the Echelon,” he said in a deep commanding voice, and Rey straightened, inhaled hard and calmly released his right wrist, finally in control of himself.
Rey nodded as he looked up at the other angel. “Fourth Commander of the Echelon. What brings you here?”
Said Fourth Commander curled his lip at her, disgust written across every line of his face, and then blocked her out as he focused on Rey. “I relay a message. There is a male you must question in regards to your mission. He resides in the Rozengard coven.”
“I am aware. The reason I work with the demoness is to question said male.” Rey sounded awfully like he had just made an excuse for being around her. Giving the angel a reason not to slay her on the spot?
The black-haired buffoon merely 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 but halted when Rey held his hand up to her, and the Fourth Commander glared at her, his eyes flashing gold but also with something else. Something that made her reconsider threatening him.
While Rey was as good and noble as he appeared, this one had darkness in him in the form of a temper, a hunger for violence that reminded her of the Devil.
Prodding the big black bear was not a good idea.
She edged back, settling for glaring at him.
He curled his lip and turned away from her again, resettling his focus on Rey. “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.
Asteria frowned. Rey mirrored her.
“Heading south?” she said and he looked across at her, a troubled edge to his eyes. “Does that mean what I think it does?”
Because she wasn’t sure she could believe it if it did.
He nodded, his expression turning grave. “He has been troubled by something recently, and though he has tried to put it out of his mind, it seems it has finally won and he can no longer deny his need to deal with it… and I do not know why I am telling you any of this. It has nothing to do with you. Keep your nose out of our business, Demon.”
She let that one slide, because she knew why he was telling her. He was concerned about his friend, and rightly so.
The Fourth Commander of the Echelon was going to Hell.
Only foolish angels ventured there, where they were weakened and experienced pain that only made them even more vulnerable. What had possessed the angel so fiercely that he couldn’t let it go? She wanted to ask Rey, but the hardness in his eyes warned her to hold her tongue.
With a long weary sigh, he folded his white wings against his back and closed his eyes. She watched as those feathered fiends slowly shrank and then disappeared into his back, and her eyebrows rose as Rey huffed and turned in a circle, trying to peer over his shoulder at his ruined shirt.
The back hung in tatters that revealed delicious glimpses of golden skin and hard muscle, and something she found disturbingly sexy.
Two long thick ridges of scar tissue that blazed vertical lines down his shoulder blades around an inch either side of his spine.
Her mouth watered, hungry to press her lips along those lines, teasing his skin. If his wing scars
were anything like hers, they would be sensitive, the slightest touch sending a trembling heat through him. By the Devil, she wanted to crank his gears by licking them.
Rey only made the hunger sweeping through her worse as he huffed, reached over his back with his right hand, and pulled his ruined black t-shirt off over his head, revealing far too much of his glorious physique. He tossed her a warning scowl but she couldn’t tear her eyes off him.
He was just too damn gorgeous.
Too damn alluring.
He stood seven feet tall, golden skin stretched taut over honed muscles that made her quiver inside, trembling with a need to reach out and touch him to see whether his skin would be soft and smooth while his muscles would be as hard as stone.
He rolled his shoulders, an irritated look settling on his handsome features that she barely noticed as she perused him at her leisure, eyes taking a holiday as they roamed across the broad square slabs of his pectorals and then down the sexy deep valley between them to the rolling hills of his abdomen. Eight of them, forming an image of masculine perfection. Her hunger grew fiercer as she eyed the wicked curve of muscle that arched over his hips and led her eyes down to the light dusting of blond hair that trailed a path she wanted to follow with her lips into the waistband of his black jeans.
“Demon,” he barked, the warning in his tone lost on her as she fantasised about what sort of weapon he was concealing down there.
He could slay her with it any day of the week.
“Look away,” he snapped.
“I’m trying. Seriously, I am… but fucking God almighty… you are incredible.” She somehow found enough strength to force her eyes up off the breathtaking display of masculinity and met his, and was that a little colour on his cheeks? Was her big burly angel blushing?
He averted his eyes, but the action only emphasised his body because it caused his shoulders to twist slightly and every muscle on his torso popped to attention.
Asteria trembled. “Damn you, put some clothes on.”
Awakened by a Demoness Page 5