They moved off as one, scouting the corridor ahead.
Liora followed them, allowing them to lead her deeper into the castle and up a set of stone steps to the next floor.
It was a whole different world.
The stairs ended in a large rectangular room filled with ornately carved black stone furniture. Shelves lined most of the walls, crammed with books, some of which were tomes and many of which looked extremely old and worn. Long low cupboards filled the gaps between them on the wall to her left.
She rounded the large rectangular table in the middle of the room, drawn to the cupboards and the incredible array of knickknacks on top of them. None of them seemed to go together. Everything on the main table at her back was the same, and on the smaller tables dotted around the expansive room and the mantelpiece of the huge fireplace behind her. It was a bizarre and colourful collection of random items, and many of them were antiques, dating back thousands of years if she had to guess.
On the cupboard before her was a small black and gold statue of an Egyptian cat that she knew was a goddess, a very simple candlestick that looked as if it had been fashioned from ivory, and countless other things, including coloured glass bottles, cutlery, shells, dolls and toys. She picked up an old, worn brown bear. One of its eyes was missing and the left arm was about to fall off.
Liora moved on to the bookcase that stood between the cupboard and the next one, and ran her fingers over the spines of the books. He had so many of them. She plucked one that had been bound in green scaly leather from the shelf and leafed through it. She didn’t know the language written on the crinkled paper. The ink was faded too, almost impossible to make out in places. Elaborate and beautiful illustrations filled some of the fragile pages. One of them was of a dragon.
She ghosted her fingers over the lifelike image and then closed the book and set it back on the shelf.
Further along, she paused again, her fingers resting on the spine of a large tome. Power. It flowed through her fingertips and up her arm, gifting her with some of its strength. Liora grabbed the black leather-bound book from the shelf and flipped it open. Familiar writing greeted her. A spell book.
She closed it and held it to her chest, and looked at the others around it. She touched them each in turn, feeling the power they contained. Some of that power felt familiar to her, but others were different, new and exciting. She wanted to tear each book from the shelf, curl up beside the fireplace and devour them. She could learn so much from these books. Ancient spells that had been lost in her world.
Remus whined behind her and she looked back at him. He wagged his tail and she took the hint. She set the book back on the shelf. When Asmodeus returned, she would ask him if she could read them. Maybe he could help her with them. Her grasp of languages wasn’t exactly extensive and something told her that not every witch would write in the ones she knew. Asmodeus was old, probably as ancient as these tomes. He might be able to speak the languages and help her decipher them.
The hellhound moved off to play with Romulus. The way the other canine snapped at his heels and Remus bent his head made Liora feel that Romulus was the older of the twins. The leader of their small pack.
Liora moved on to the next cupboard and frowned at the collection of items crammed on every inch of the black surface.
The more she looked at the items, the more she felt that Asmodeus had tried to make his castle a home by filling it with things that a normal person would have in theirs.
The books, the statues, toys and dolls.
The pictures in front of her.
The frames were a mishmash of modern and antique, in colours ranging from blue and white through to solid silver. Many of the old photographs and pictures they contained didn’t fit the frames, and some of them looked like photos taken from people’s wallets. Two or three of the frames just contained the sample picture that had come with them.
Liora touched the silver frame closest to her, staring at the small wonky faded photograph of a seascape it contained.
A sense of sorrow rose up within her and the longer she stared at the picture, the stronger it grew.
Asmodeus had tried so hard to make this place feel like a home, yet he had said it wasn’t his home. He didn’t feel that it was. He was filling it with things that weren’t his, a bizarre collection of broken, faded, worn items.
More than ever, she felt he was missing something.
Companionship.
He tried to fill the void within him with these objects and with his hellhounds, but he still felt alone.
She had seen it in his eyes at times and could sense it in him.
He struggled to be around her during those instances, turned uncertain and awkward, and it was normally then that she had a sense of hope or positive feelings inside him. Warm feelings. Good feelings.
She felt sorry for him when he struggled with himself and his emotions, so unsure of himself and afraid of what he was experiencing, driven to fight it because he feared it made him weak and he would pay in blood if the Devil knew he harboured good within him.
Liora had only known him a short time, but there had been many instances when she had felt that he was trying to be normal and that he wanted to be like others. He wanted to be good, even though it wasn’t in his makeup. The Devil had distilled evil in his blood and moulded him into a violent, cruel man.
She had felt that evil and darkness in him when they had first met, an aura of danger and malice that had warned her away. The good in him had been so small, barely noticeable. Now, the good in him was something she could sense with ease, and she knew it was growing, nurtured by however he felt about her and how hard he was trying to change.
For her?
She wasn’t sure.
Was it just exposure to her world and the people in it that was changing him, or was he changing himself because of the desire that zinged between them whenever they were together?
He wanted her, just as he had told her after he had protected her from the Hell’s angel and had turned on his own kind, and he was willing to go against everyone, his master included, to have her.
He had saved her when she had fallen into Hell, taking the impact and shielding her in his arms.
He had gone off to face his master and had ordered his hellhounds to protect her and keep her safe in his absence.
He cared about her.
She cared about him too.
He didn’t need to change in order for her to feel something for him. She desired him as he was and could see the good in him, and she wanted to be with him. Screw convention and what everyone else thought about him. She wanted him.
Liora turned away from the cupboard and frowned at the long rectangular stone table that stretched across the room before her.
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.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 84