The Devil cooed soft words and held her closer. He clumsily petted her head, as though he didn’t know how to comfort. He probably didn’t. She couldn’t imagine the twisted bastard caring about anyone enough to worry about their welfare. He was incredibly gentle with her though. Could he sense that she was fragile and would break from the slightest touch? Erin grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut against the pain that tore through her, ripping down her arms like razor-sharp claws. The Devil cooed again.
He could coo all he damned well wanted but he would never ease the pain in her heart. He was the one who had done this to her and she had played right into his hands.
“What have you done to me?” Erin shivered, icy cold and fighting for air. “You’ve put something terrible inside me.”
“No... Erin. I have put nothing inside you. I have done nothing to you.” The Devil held her closer, wrapping her in his embrace, and wiped away her tears and the blood on her chin.
There was no comfort in his words and she didn’t believe them anyway. He must have done something to her, placed some vile creature inside her, because she could feel it lurking in her heart and slithering through her veins. Pure darkness. Pure evil.
The only thing that gave her comfort was that she was dying. When the Devil had abducted her, she had feared that she would die in Hell, surrounded by fire and darkness. Now she feared nothing.
“Shh, Erin. I will not let you die. I will never let you die.” He rocked with her and she frowned as her weakness began to leave her, strength returning slowly but not quickly enough to stop her from succumbing to the cold in her heart and the darkness conquering her mind.
Erin forced her eyes open and looked up at him. She croaked, “Because you need me alive to do your bidding?”
“No.” He smiled, warm, cruel and evil all at the same time. “For the same reason that I have searched for you for most of your life, dearest Erin.”
She shivered again, moaned and writhed as new pain tore through her, so hot this time that she felt as though her bones really would melt and her flesh would char. Darkness encroached and she fought it, afraid of what would happen if she succumbed to it.
She held the Devil’s gaze, battling to keep her eyes open. “Why?”
Her eyes slipped shut and she didn’t have the strength to open them again.
His voice drifted around her, soft and compassionate, strangely affectionate.
“Because you are my daughter.”
CHAPTER 27
A soft swishing sound was the first thing Erin grew aware of, shortly followed by heat on her skin that warmed her right down to her bones but did nothing to alleviate the ice in her veins and her heart. Other noises punctured the gentler one and shattered the numbing peace flowing through her, reawakening her pain and dragging her back up to consciousness.
“Erin!”
She frowned and tried to burrow into whatever was beneath her. It was hard and unyielding, but warm against her belly and breasts.
“Erin!”
Erin didn’t want to wake. She wanted to stay in the darkness, wanted to drift through her remaining days unaware of the world that awaited her so she didn’t have to feel the pain that came with it. It was hollow now and she wanted no part in it. She didn’t belong there.
Warm liquid rushed over her feet and up to her knees and then rolled back again, leaving her legs wet. The air cooled them and it was bliss. She sighed, welcoming the relief from the heat on her skin.
“Erin, wake up.”
Something shook her and the motion sent her spinning back to a time not so long ago when someone else had tried to rouse her like this. She hadn’t wanted to wake then either, but that time it had been because she had discovered that the man she had been falling in love with was a Hell’s angel.
Veiron.
Tears slipped down from the corner of her eyes and hissed as they hit whatever was beneath her.
She didn’t want to wake because this time it was a female voice calling her and she couldn’t face the questions and the pain, the heartache and the misery. It wasn’t the person she desperately wanted to wake to and see.
The soft hands on her shoulders shook her again, drawing her into full consciousness, so she was laying face down pretending to be asleep. If she pretended for long enough, would they leave her alone? She wanted to be alone if she couldn’t be with Veiron.
“Erin, please?”
How many times had she said that word to the Devil? It had no meaning now. She had struck it from her vocabulary and refused to respond to it. It was a powerless ineffectual word. Pathetic.
“Erin.” It was a male voice this time, stern and hard, and not voicing a question. It was a command for her to give up her act and face the world. She had never realised until now how similar Veiron and Marcus sounded. It brought new tears to her eyes.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Amelia must have seen her tears. She laid her hand on Erin’s shoulder. “You’re burning up. Where’s Veiron?”
Erin couldn’t bear to hear his name. She covered her head with her arms and wished everyone would go away. She needed to be alone. She didn’t know how to cope with everything. Not just what had happened to Veiron but what had happened to her too.
She felt different and it scared her, left her feeling weak and sick. She could feel the darkness flowing through her, just as the Devil had said she could, polluting her body. His evil in her veins. How was that even possible?
Unless.
Erin sucked in a steadying breath and pushed herself up. She was on the island but it wasn’t sand beneath her. It was glass. Scorched patches dotted her black trousers and it felt as though the back of her t-shirt was missing completely. A thick crust of blood covered the material across her chest.
She raised her head and looked into Amelia’s eyes, and then at her face, and then ran her gaze over all of her.
She had never noticed before now how different they were to each other. Amelia with her grey eyes, ample breasts and soft mouth that completed classical features. Erin had smaller breasts, was shorter, and had often been told she looked cheeky and like a bad fairy.
And she had amber eyes.
Like her father.
Her stomach turned and she swallowed against her desire to be sick.
“Where is Veiron?” Marcus said and she hated him for saying those words.
She couldn’t look at Amelia, not now that she had realised that the Devil hadn’t been lying to her, but Amelia had. There was no way the two of them could be siblings. Her entire life had been a lie.
She looked up at Marcus. He still wore his silver armour and blood had dried against his skin, flaking in places to reveal deep lacerations. He had his half-feather half-leather wings furled against his back and his twin curved silver blades hung at his hips.
“The angels took him… they… a sword… through his heart.” It killed her to say those words and Marcus’s pale blue eyes gradually widened with each one she spoke, until his expression turned to one of concern and then sorrow. No. Damn it. She wouldn’t believe that look. “Christ, Marcus… tell me he’s alive. He’s immortal… they can’t have killed him!”
He sighed, his broad chest heaving with it, shifting his silver breastplate. “I am sorry, Erin.”
“No.” Tears stung her eyes and her hands heated, skin so hot that her bones blistered. Claws scraped under her skin again and tiny horns shifted over her skull. Her fingernails ached and gums hurt. “I won’t believe you. I won’t!”
She looked to Amelia and found the same look of pity on her face, and then moved on, searching Einar’s next and then Taylor’s. Unshed tears lined Taylor’s blue eyes. Curse the half-demon for believing Marcus. He was lying. Veiron wasn’t dead.
Her strength fell away when she met the sombre blue eyes of Apollyon.
“I am afraid that even angels can die,” he said, voice deep and cold, and she hated him for it.
She shook her head.
“He can’t be de
ad.”
And she couldn’t be the Devil’s daughter.
She pinched herself and when that didn’t work, she clawed at her arm, desperate to wake up. It was just a vision. She would wake in Veiron’s arms and tell him everything that she had seen and they would never go to Hell again. He would be safe and they would be happy together.
He wouldn’t die.
He didn’t want to die.
Marcus bent, carefully gathered her into his arms, and carried her up the white shore towards the villa he shared with Amelia.
“What happened to you, Erin?” Amelia whispered and Erin refused to look at her or acknowledge that question. She didn’t want to tell anyone because doing so would be admitting she was the spawn of Satan and that was something she didn’t want to believe, even when the evidence crawled beneath her flesh and flowed in her blood.
She tried to push out of Marcus’s arms but he was too strong for her, his grip as unrelenting as the Devil’s had been.
When he set her down on the deck, she immediately paced away from him and Amelia, needing the space. Her eyes kept shifting across to her own villa, the one she had shared with Veiron, and she fought back her tears. Was he really gone? Now, when she needed him so much? He was the only one who would understand what she was going through. He was the only one who could understand.
She couldn’t breathe.
The thought that she might never see Veiron again cut at her, tearing through flesh and bone, cleaving her heart open.
Erin ignored everyone as they tried to comfort her. The only one who didn’t was Apollyon. His gaze tracked her back and forth across the wooden deck and she could see in his eyes that he was wise to her. He knew that something wasn’t right about her now and that it wasn’t just grief over Veiron’s death.
She wasn’t the same as she had been before heading into Hell.
She kept her eyes downcast, a need to escape his knowing stare steadily building within her. The early morning sun was warm as it lit the ocean and a strip of the beach. She wanted to walk in that sun, feeling it soothing her and restoring her hope.
Marcus slid the door to the villa open and went inside. When he came out again, he was wearing his shorts, his wings hidden. Einar and Taylor stood off to one side, Einar comforting his lover, and Erin frowned at her. How could she give up hope so easily? There was no evidence to prove that Veiron was dead. He might have survived and they might only be questioning him in Heaven, detaining him.
Couldn’t someone go to see if he was there, injured but alive?
She looked at Apollyon and then instantly looked away again when his gaze locked with hers. She couldn’t ask him anyway. Heaven wanted him dead too. What had happened to her so-called guardian angel? Had he returned to Heaven? Could he tell her if Veiron still lived?
“We need to move,” Amelia said, shattering the heavy silence.
Erin turned on her and then everyone else as they voiced their agreement.
“We can’t leave.” Erin’s pulse spiked and black desires flooded her heart, urges that she refused to acknowledge. She didn’t want to fight her friends. Violence wasn’t her style. She was an artist, for God’s sake. They were all lovers, not fighters. “I don’t want to leave. If we leave then Veiron won’t be able to find me.”
Amelia gave her a look filled with pity. “That is exactly my reason for suggesting we leave this island.”
“No. I refuse to leave. Veiron will come back. I know he will.” Erin backed off a step when Amelia moved towards her, her hand outstretched as if to comfort her.
Amelia lowered her hand and sighed. “I know you’re hurting, but we can’t stay here. Please, Erin. We must all leave this place before something terrible happens.”
Erin shook her head. “You can leave but I’m staying.”
“I won’t leave without you, and I wasn’t giving you a choice. We’re leaving. Marcus will carry Einar and I’ll carry you, and Apollyon can carry Taylor.”
Everyone nodded.
Erin didn’t. She squared up to Amelia, staring deep into her grey eyes, challenging her. The darkness writhed frantically beneath her skin. Excited by the prospect of violence? That sickened her and she wouldn’t give in to the urge. She wouldn’t. She just needed to give Amelia a piece of her mind.
“Who made you the leader, anyway? What do you know about leading anything? Jack shit, that’s what. So get the hell out of my face about leaving. Go if you want to, but I refuse to leave. I won’t give up on him!”
Her heart pounded, blood thundering in her veins and heating to boiling point. Her fingers burned and she didn’t need to look down to know that her power was leaking from her in deep crimson curls of flame. It caressed her fingertips and licked up her forearms, and for the first time, it felt comforting to feel it there, blazing within her, on her side.
She could protect herself. She didn’t need Amelia to do it for her, or anyone here.
“Amelia, just give her some time,” Einar said, always the voice of reason. She thanked him for it and for standing against Amelia with her. Would he be on her side if he knew the dirty truth about her though? She doubted it. If her secret got out, none of them would remain with her. They would want her gone and she would be alone.
Was this how Veiron felt when amongst those other than his own kind?
It was a cold, debilitating sort of feeling.
“We don’t have time.” Amelia went to grab her arm.
Erin slapped her hand away so hard that Amelia lost her balance and crashed onto the wooden deck. Was she stronger too now? Amelia looked up at her, disbelief shining in her grey eyes.
“Leave me the fuck alone.” Erin towered over her, holding her gaze, unflinching. “And you can drop the big sister act already.”
She stormed down the steps onto the beach, needing the space before she exploded and caused more harm. Her hands were hot, skin burning all over, itching with a need to unleash her power, and she feared she would lose it and succumb to the darkness inside her if she stayed around Amelia and the others.
Erin slowed when she passed the next villa. She kicked her boots off and removed her socks, leaving them on the shore, and headed further down the sand. When she reached the water, she straightened her course and followed the path she had taken with Veiron. Her heart ached but her tears no longer came. Anger burned in her, rage over what Amelia had said. She wanted them away from this island so Veiron couldn’t find her. Amelia had never liked him, had always tried to prise them apart, and she had found an opportunity to do just that. She was trying to separate them and Erin hated her for it. Amelia wasn’t doing it to protect her. She was doing it because it was what she had wanted from the moment she had seen Erin with Veiron.
The heat in Erin’s veins slowly subsided, draining from her chest and then down her arms with each step she took, until it finally bled from her fingers, leaving her calm and then numb. She drifted along the shore, the warm water lapping over her bare feet, unsure where she was going and knowing that at some point she would run out of beach and have to turn back.
She wished she had wings like Amelia. If she did, she would fly up to Heaven and see for herself whether Veiron was dead or alive. Either way it would end the torment of not knowing. Apollyon had only said that angels could die. A fact she had already known. It was possible that Veiron had survived and needed her help.
As the sun rose higher, the villas on the island came to life, people opening the doors and heading out onto the decks and the beach. Erin walked to the strip of rocks that speared out into the ocean and sat on a large flat one, staring back along the shore towards the villa where the others awaited her and beyond it to the one she had shared with Veiron.
A couple came out onto the deck of the villa nearest her and glanced her way. Erin looked down at her chest and the dried blood there. If people saw her like this, they would ask questions. She removed her tattered black top to reveal her bikini and frowned. There was no blood on her chest, but there was a
scar between her breasts, a single vertical line, as though the sword that had pierced Veiron’s chest had pierced hers too.
Erin touched it, her thoughts with him and everything that had happened. It all seemed like a terrible nightmare when it had once been the sweetest dream. It was so hard to process the events and revelations of the past twenty-four hours. They threatened to overwhelm her whenever she tried, made her want to bury her face in her knees and hide there until the world no longer existed.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them to her chest. Her hair fluttered forwards in the cool morning breeze that blew against her back and she frowned and raised one hand, catching the strands that made up the coloured stripe down one side of her black bob. It was supposed to be lilac.
Now it was scarlet.
As red as Veiron’s hair.
Had the Devil changed it during her awakening? Had he done so to torment her with what she had lost?
She hated him. She hated everyone right now and she wasn’t sure if that feeling would pass. The darkness that flowed in her veins fed on her feelings, growing stronger whenever she felt something negative and making it difficult to let go of that emotion. She could feel it burning inside her, corrupting her, changing her. The Devil had called her compassionate and that it was a weakness and her sentimentality would be her failing. She felt as though the poison now flowing in her veins had already killed that side of her.
Families began to fill the beach, playing in the water and laughing with each other. Couples strolled along it, smiling and talking. All people who didn’t deserve to get dragged into the fight she could feel was coming.
Perhaps her compassion wasn’t dead after all, but merely numbed by everything that had happened and the changes to her that had taken place. Erin tried to shut out the darkness, the memories of the scrape of horns beneath her skin and the feeling that she held another form within her, just as Veiron did.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 60