She sighed. Her heart ached for him as she thought about everything they had been through. Asmodeus had struggled throughout it all, fighting his instincts and battling to overcome the darkness within his soul, doing his best to learn quickly about her world and how things worked here, and to accept others into his life, all so he could be a good man for her.
All so she would love him.
He didn’t need to change for that to happen. She loved him with every fibre of her being, every drop of blood in her body and every ounce of her soul.
“Liora?” Asmodeus whispered, his eyebrows furrowing. He dropped his gaze to her arms, released her and hastily brushed his fingers over her skin, over the points where his claws had dug into her. Remorse filled his eyes. “I did not mean to harm you.”
Liora caught his right wrist and shifted her hand to his, capturing it and holding it, stopping him from fussing over a few cuts that had barely stung. If anyone was hurting, it was Asmodeus, and it was because of her.
She raised her other hand to his face and cupped his jaw, and he instantly leaned into her touch, closing his eyes and sighing out his breath.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispered and he looked down at her, a beautiful flicker of relief in his eyes that spoke to her heart and made her want to kiss him.
Nevar growled and Asmodeus cast him a black look. Liora turned her head, looked over her shoulder at Nevar, and then shifted to face him.
His eyes were half-purple and narrowed on Asmodeus. He bared his fangs and curled long black clawed fingers around the bars of his prison.
“We must be able to do something for him. What does he need?” She pitied the angel as he muttered things to himself, his skin paling, the effect of her magic already fading and letting the fever take hold of him again.
Asmodeus came up beside her, his right wing tickling the backs of her legs. “He needs Euphoria.”
“That won’t break his addiction though.” It would only make it worse, giving it a new, firmer grip on him.
Asmodeus stared at the angel for long, tense minutes in which Nevar growled at him, constantly flashing fangs, his steady gaze turning purple and filling with dark, violent thoughts that she could almost hear. He still wanted to kill Asmodeus.
Asmodeus would want to kill him in return if she told him what she had realised, that he was the one who had been watching her and who had taken her from him, delivering her to the Devil. She glanced up at Asmodeus, studying his noble profile. He was beautiful when lost in thought, seeking an answer that would please her.
His amber gaze slid to her and his expression softened, affection filling it and warming her. She liked it when he looked at her like that, as if she was his whole world and the only thing that mattered to him.
“It is possible he could wean himself off on normal, non-demon blood.” Asmodeus didn’t sound particularly sure but at least he had found a potential solution to Nevar’s terrible addiction.
“How did you awaken the darkness within him?” she said and he frowned at his feet. “I won’t be angry with you.”
“I formed a contract between us, forcibly. I spilled his blood and gave him mine, mingling them in a wound I had placed on his chest.”
Liora gazed down at Nevar. He had looked wild in the crystal room, verging on demonic, with his arms and legs covered in black skin. He had fangs like Asmodeus now. She glanced up at Asmodeus.
“Did the contract change his appearance?”
He nodded. “As the darkness within him took hold and the contract between us strengthened, his appearance altered.”
“Altered to mirror his master’s?” She held his gaze and he didn’t look away. He nodded again but it was smaller this time, speaking of the wariness she could see in his eyes. He didn’t want her to question him about this, but she needed to know. She wanted to know all of Asmodeus. The good and the bad. The angelic and the demonic. “So… there is a side of you like this?”
“My true appearance is closer to the Devil’s… I am darkness incarnate, as he is. I…” He raised his right hand with his palm facing upwards and stared at it. It began to change, his black claws growing thicker and longer, sharper. The darkness bled from them onto his skin, turning it to the colour of night, and crept up his fingers and over his hand to his wrist. Like Nevar’s hands were. Asmodeus closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I do not want you to see me like that… ever.”
“Why not?” Liora moved closer to him and touched his black hand, marvelling at how rough his claws were beneath her touch but how smooth his skin was. She had expected it to be as rough as the basalt of Hell.
“Because you would think me a monster too.” He took his hand away and she caught it before he could completely withdraw, holding it gently in both of hers.
She had called Nevar a monster. It was understandable that Asmodeus would think she would view him as the same if she saw what he had called his true appearance.
“You would think me evil.” He slipped his hand free of hers and turned his face to one side, away from her.
“I don’t think Veiron evil and he’s gone big and black and completely weird a few times since I’ve known him.” She paused and frowned at Asmodeus. “Do you turn like him?”
“No… I am… different.”
“Different how? I want to know.” She held his gaze when he looked at her, showing him that she was telling the truth and wasn’t saying these things just to make him feel better. She really did want to see him in his true form.
“Different… like this…” Asmodeus closed his eyes and she tensed when black shadows loomed around his feet and fluttered there, striking at the sand like vipers. They avoided her and she knew it was because of Asmodeus’s feelings for her. He didn’t want to harm her.
Asmodeus drew in a deep breath, his bare chest expanding with it, and the shadows swirled up his legs and danced around his clawed fingers. They settled onto his skin, turning it black, and flowed up his arms.
His black trousers disappeared, replaced by his greaves and boots, and his loincloth and the strips of armour around his hips. One of his greaves had a long slash in it that hadn’t been there before. Had he been fighting again?
The gold on his armour melted into pure obsidian and then blazed violet, matching Nevar’s.
The black feathers of his wings gained a purple shimmer in the sunlight, reflecting brightly.
His black hair fluttered against the breeze and shifted backwards, and small obsidian horns curled from behind his ears.
He opened his eyes, fixing his swirling purple gaze on her. He snarled, flashing his fangs, and all of his teeth sharpened. The darkness reached his chest and exploded outwards, turning his skin into the colour of the night.
Nevar growled and attacked the cage.
Asmodeus roared at him and the angel shrank back into the corner, huddling there. A male put firmly in his place by his master.
“I knew it.” The deep male voice came from behind Asmodeus and Liora looked across at Apollyon as he stared at Asmodeus, a grim edge to his blue eyes. “You contracted with him.”
Asmodeus nodded, drew in another deep breath, and the transformation reversed, leaving his skin as golden as his eyes. Liora mourned the loss of his little horns. They were sort of sexy and she had wanted to tiptoe and stroke them.
If she told Asmodeus that, he would probably choke on something.
His gaze flickered to her, the wary edge back in it, and then away to Apollyon.
“We were discussing Nevar’s rehabilitation.” Asmodeus furled his black wings against his back and it was weird hearing him talking to Apollyon in a civil tone, and doubly weird when Apollyon responded in kind.
“I think it will be long and troublesome. Have you come up with any possible solutions?”
Asmodeus nodded again. “Blood. It is possible that given blood of a non-demonic source over a period of months that Nevar will be able to overcome his addiction.”
“But that would
leave him addicted to blood, right?” Liora hadn’t thought about it earlier when Asmodeus had suggested it but if they gave Nevar blood for months on end, they were only shifting his addiction from Euphoria to something else, and probably making him more dangerous to mortals.
He was hungry for a fix of demon toxin and blood right now.
Making him hungry for mortal blood sounded very bad to her.
“We will make sure that he is weaned off blood too.” Apollyon sounded confident enough and she felt better knowing that it wasn’t just Asmodeus who would be handling Nevar’s trip to rehab.
Liora touched the marks on her throat and then looked down at her wrist. “So he needs regular doses, right?”
Asmodeus’s fingers curled around her wrist. “Not of your blood, little mortal. Witch blood will only get him addicted to the power that flows within your veins.”
She blushed at the flash of a memory. Asmodeus biting her. Tasting her. He knew first-hand the power in her blood and she wanted him to know it again.
He frowned at her and lifted his free hand as if to touch her face. She cleared her throat and glanced away, but caught the wicked tilt of his lips. He was on to her. He knew she was thinking naughty things.
She coughed again and tried to sound as if her mind was on the important business of rehabilitating Nevar and wasn’t replaying Asmodeus biting her on repeat.
“But we need to start feeding him now, to help him through the withdrawal.”
“If you insist we begin now, it will be my blood he will have. Technically, I am not demonic, and it is possible that my blood would be the best choice, given that I am his master.” Asmodeus released her and crouched beside the cage.
Nevar hissed at him and pressed back into the corner, trying to get away.
The second Asmodeus placed his arm through the bars, Nevar changed abruptly. He lunged forwards, grabbed Asmodeus’s wrist and pulled, slamming Asmodeus against the bars of the cage.
Nevar viciously sank his fangs into Asmodeus’s arm, clutching it with both hands, and curled his claws around, pressing them into his flesh and ripping at his skin. Asmodeus grunted and gritted his teeth, wincing as Nevar drank, making wet greedy sucking noises and cutting at Asmodeus with his claws.
Asmodeus paled.
“Stop,” Liora snapped and Asmodeus ignored her. She slammed her hands against the bars of the cage near Nevar. “Stop!”
Nevar blinked and looked around himself, an air of confusion in his green eyes. They widened and he released Asmodeus’s arm and shot backwards. Asmodeus stumbled to his feet and she ducked beneath his arm and caught hold of him, steadying him as he spread his wings and fought to remain standing.
Nevar stared at her, blood saturating his face and his hands. He kept blinking, staring, breathing faster and faster, and she could sense the panic rising within him, bringing fear and anger in its wake.
He snarled and launched himself at the bars, slashing at Asmodeus with his black claws. “What did you do to me this time?”
Liora held on to Asmodeus, pressing one hand against his chest and one against his back, holding him upright but struggling beneath his weight.
“Asmodeus did nothing bad to you,” she said and Apollyon came to her, taking hold of his twin for her. “You needed blood to help you fight your addiction and that was all he gave to you.”
Asmodeus found his balance at last and some of the colour returned to his skin.
Nevar spat onto the sand beneath his cage. “You taste disgusting.”
“Why thank you,” Asmodeus snarled, lifted his arm to his face and licked the cuts, cleaning the blood away.
Liora couldn’t miss the blatant hunger in Nevar’s green-to-purple eyes as he watched Asmodeus.
He wasn’t satisfied even though he had called Asmodeus’s blood disgusting. He lusted after more.
Nevar flicked her a look of revulsion and then huddled back into his corner, muttering in the demon tongue. Asmodeus frowned at him and she was tempted to ask what Nevar was saying, but he didn’t look as if he would tell her.
He placed his arm around her shoulders and led her away from the cage, leaving Nevar mumbling to himself, guarded by the hellhounds.
“What happened to your armour?” She pointed at the greave with a slash in it and then looked up into Asmodeus’s eyes.
“Dragon,” he said and she smiled. “The Devil sent it to deal with me when I came to take you back from him. I did tell you that I could defeat it.”
He had, and she was glad that she hadn’t been around while he had been battling the enormous beast. She didn’t want to see him fighting such a dangerous creature. Her magic was threatening to take control of her right now, when she was only imagining it happening. If she ever saw Asmodeus locked in such a battle, his life on the line, she would completely lose control and become a slave to her power, stopping at nothing to protect him. There was a chance she would destroy everything in her path.
“Some people would like to see you,” he said and she nodded, pushing her dark thoughts away and taking a deep breath to bring her magic back under her control.
She wanted to see them too.
He paused halfway to the group, released her and looked out to sea.
Liora could feel him pulling away and distancing himself, and it left her cold inside.
She caught hold of his left wrist and he tried to twist free but she held on to it, refusing to let him go. She stared down at the bloody welts on his arm and tried to search for the right words, the ones that would make everything better.
Nevar had sliced into Asmodeus’s flesh with his claws and the bite wound was ragged, as if he had buried his fangs in Asmodeus several times while feeding.
“Do they hurt?” She lifted her gaze to his.
He looked uneasy. “No.”
Liora smiled sadly. He was being guarded again. It upset her but she understood why he wasn’t willing to drop his guard around her right now. He still couldn’t decide whether she was going to leave him or not and she was doing a terrible job of showing him that she was sorry about what she had said and that she should never have said it in the first place, and that she wanted to be with him still.
She kept hold of his hand. “They must sting at least.”
Liora placed her other hand over the wounds and focused on her power, calling it forth. It swirled purple and red around her fingertips and she channelled it into his arm, healing the slashes and deep punctures. He shook beneath her hands and she could sense his uncertainty.
When the wounds had healed, she lifted his arm and pressed gentle kisses to every red mark that remained, lavishing them with affection. His trembling ceased and uncertainty became something else.
Liora drew back and gazed up into his dark amber eyes, the hunger in them calling her to action, demanding she give him what he wanted.
She tiptoed to kiss him and he hesitated and then pulled away from her, breaking free of her grip.
He looked beyond her to the camp, down into her eyes, opened his mouth and then turned and walked away.
Liora blinked, numb and cold, shaking inside.
She stared after him as he walked towards the sea, his hands in the pockets of the black linen trousers he now wore and his wings shrinking into his back.
She wanted to go to him and tell him again that she was sorry, to apologise properly this time and not dance around it, but she held back, resisting the urge to follow him. It wasn’t just the things she had said that were making him draw away from her again. He was thinking about what he had done to Nevar too and struggling with his feelings, and he needed space. If she went to him now, she would be pushing him again and that was the last thing she wanted to do. She wanted to make him feel better, not make him feel crowded and cornered.
He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky.
Serenity rushed over to her, dragging her attention away from Asmodeus. She hugged her cousin and closed her eyes, drawing comfort from Serenity’s warm embr
ace. It lifted her heart.
Her cousin led her to the group gathering around the fire and Liora glanced back at her angel.
She would give him five minutes.
Then she would introduce him to something new.
Make up sex.
The ground trembled beneath her feet.
Fiery streaks appeared on the white sand close to Asmodeus and Nevar.
CHAPTER 25
Asmodeus called one of his curved blades to him the moment the first tremor shook the sand and was racing for Liora when a jagged fault line cut across his path, shooting thirty feet wide in less than a heartbeat. The water to his right hissed as the fiery line rocketed into the sea, sending salty steam up into the air.
Something growled off to his left.
His head whipped that way, causing the longer lengths of his black hair to caress his brow.
Nevar was halfway to demonic and hurling himself against the bars of his cage, his gaze fixed with deadly intent on something ahead of him, towards the camp.
Asmodeus’s golden eyes leaped there and caught on the three Hell’s angels standing before the cage in their true forms, their leathery wings furled against their immense black bodies and their eyes glowing crimson. The leader of the group bared red sharp teeth at Nevar and motioned to his comrades, grunting dark words in the demon tongue.
They meant to take him.
Asmodeus leaped over the fault line before him as it widened, unwilling to wait for the Devil’s men to appear. They were coming for him too. He had to reach Nevar and drive the Hell’s angels away before they could take him down to Hell. He had put the male in the cage and had commanded Serenity to place her most powerful enchantment on it so he couldn’t escape, and had kept him there in a weakened state. Nevar was in no condition to fight and, as much as he wanted the angel to pay for what he had done to Liora, he couldn’t stand by and let the Hell’s angels take him. He had made a vow to see to Nevar’s rehabilitation and to help him. He meant to keep that vow.
He never broke his word.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 108