“How am I meant to save the world if I cannot save myself?”
CHAPTER 15
Lysia didn’t have the answer to that question, even when she wished that she did, because she could see it was one that pained Nevar and played on his mind. After everything he had told her, and all she had felt in him through their link, she wasn’t sure he would ever be able to save himself, because he didn’t want to be saved.
He couldn’t see the good that remained locked deep within him, tempering the evil that now existed inside him too.
It had been that darkness, that dangerous, violent and unpredictable edge, that had drawn her to him when they had first met.
But it was this side of himself that had made her fall in love with him.
It was his fight against that darker nature, and his desire and battle to be good despite the evil he held within him, and it was how he never failed to place himself between her and danger, even though she was powerful enough to defend herself.
It was the fact that he had protected her from the angels who had tried to take her away.
That touched her most of all because she now understood how he felt about his demonic self, but that side of himself had come forth, ready for him to use it if he needed it to give him the strength to keep her safe from harm. He had fought it, but she had no doubt he would have embraced it if she had been in immediate danger.
He had come back for her too, after the others had upset him and he had left. Asmodeus had warned her that he wouldn’t return, and her heart had hurt on hearing that. She had left the group and he had come back to her. He had come back for her.
There was good in him.
He couldn’t see it but she could.
He was noble, and perhaps a little broken by the things he had done while despair had gripped him, and he was beautiful in his hunger to be good again and purge the evil.
If he could only see that side of himself as clearly as she could, the good part of him that still existed and knew right from wrong, felt remorse because of the things he had done and strived to change so he wouldn’t commit the same atrocities and mistakes. If he could see it, she felt sure he would believe he was worth saving.
He would finally find the strength to save himself.
She slipped her hand into his and linked their fingers, losing herself in the beautiful contrast of his inky black skin against her pale.
He hated this visible sign of the darkness within him and how it provided a constant reminder of his other form, but she couldn’t understand why. She had seen his horns and his fangs, his black wings with their violet shimmer, and the shadows that had swirled across his skin. She knew that if he embraced that side of himself and the strength it gave him, that his skin would change to all black, just as it did with the Hell’s angels.
She would still think him beautiful.
He had wanted to push her away by telling her everything he had done, choosing the most shocking and vivid language to paint a terrible picture of himself.
It had only pulled her closer to him.
It had only made her want to fight for him.
She knew his doubts and his fears, and they were unfounded. She wouldn’t let him deny her or push her away. His behaviour had hurt her a little after everything they had shared, but she refused to do as he wanted and give up on him. She would fight him every step of the way until he finally believed that someone in this world was capable of loving him and that she wasn’t going to hurt him, not as others had.
He could be as cruel as he wanted to be, could try to drive a wedge between them with his callous behaviour and coldness, but she would stand firm and not waver in her feelings for him. She would endure it because she knew deep inside he was doing it because everything that had happened to him had hurt him, leaving scars on his heart and his soul. She would find a way to show him that she was here for him and would kiss away those scars if she could. She would prove to him that they could be together and that it was okay. He had no reason to fear. She needed him as much as he needed her.
“Say something,” he croaked and his pain beat within her heart through the mark, calling to her.
“You’re wrong.”
He frowned.
She toyed with his fingers and ran the pads of hers over his short black claws. “You are worth saving, Nevar, and that is why Asmodeus and the others try.”
He laughed at that and it was her turn to frown at him.
“They only saved me because I’m your master and the Devil threatened them and told them to keep me safe.” He tried to take his hand from hers but she tightened her grip, until her nails dug into the back of his hand and she felt sure she was hurting him.
He relented, his hand going limp in hers, and she wanted to pick him up on his behaviour. Just because she had refused to release him, he now refused to hold her hand, leaving his as dead in her grip, as if he had cut it off. She wondered how Asmodeus had the patience to deal with him at times. Perhaps the dark angel didn’t know how to deal with him, and that was why he had been allowed to continue on his path with so much despair in his heart.
No one had said the right things to him.
She had zero experience of helping others, but she felt compelled to help him and wouldn’t allow her fear of making a fool of herself and messing things up deter her. Nevar needed her. He needed someone to share his burden and understand him. He needed someone on his side.
She placed her other hand over the one she held and stared down at it.
“Is that really true?” She felt his gaze shift to her, the intensity of it sending heat rippling through her veins and making her want to look at him. She would lose her nerve if she did. “Did they only try to help you after they had been ordered to do it?”
His eyes left her and he was silent for long seconds.
“No,” he whispered and she felt it had taken a lot of strength for him to admit that to her. “No… after I had tried to kill Asmodeus, they brought me to this island. They held me in a cage.”
She growled at that, flashing her fangs as they punched long from her gums, and her eyes changed as they leaped to him, needing to see his face and see he was speaking the truth and the others had caged him like an animal.
He smiled, as if her reaction had pleased him, although she didn’t understand why it would, and curled his fingers around her hand, holding it again.
Was it because she had wanted to avenge him for the cruel way he had been treated? He had attempted to kill his master as an act of retribution and had almost killed Liora in the process, and she couldn’t approve of what he had done, but after everything he had been through because of Asmodeus, the male should have shown him more compassion.
Nevar thought himself evil, but he was nothing compared with the King of Demons.
“Liora saw what Asmodeus had done to me and demanded he help me, and she pledged to help me too.” He dropped his jade gaze to their hands and brushed his thumb along the length of hers, a flicker of a smile on his lips. He liked this. She liked it too. It was a simple sort of thing, but it gave her comfort and made her feel she wasn’t alone. He was with her, and she was with him. They were together. “It was after that the Devil revealed what I had done.”
“Awakened me,” she said and regret coloured his eyes and his feelings. “I am glad you did.”
His white eyebrows dipped low. “Why? Because of this?”
He held their hands up.
“Not only that.” She tried to stifle the pain in her heart but it was too strong as the memories came back to her.
“What’s wrong?” He placed his hand over hers, completing the tangle, his grip firm and speaking of his strength. Strength she wanted to draw into herself as hers began to crumble again. He squeezed her hand. “Tell me.”
She sighed and looked away, needing a moment to regain her composure. She stared at the white sand and the gentle rolling waves. The memories pressed down on her and she struggled against them, trying to keep them
at a distance so she would no longer experience the pain they brought whenever they played out in her mind.
“Lysia,” Nevar whispered softly and lifted his other hand to her face, gently cupping her cheek. “Speak to me.”
She glanced into his eyes, catching the concern in them and the tenderness.
“I remember everything.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and tightened her grip on his hand, needing the comfort now more than ever. He squeezed her hand and moved closer, placing his arm around her shoulders and tucking her against his bare chest. She closed her eyes and settled her head on his shoulder. “I dream of my past. I experience all of my deaths every time I sleep. I realised that at the bar where I met you. I slept so I could wait for you without wasting my strength, hoping you would return, and the nightmares came on repeat, fragmented but slowly coming together. I know I have died once already. Last night, when I slept in your arms, it all became clear. I saw it all.”
“What happened?”
“There was hell in this realm, a great battle between angels and the demons, and it drew me to it. I remember standing on a hill watching it… I remember feeling great sorrow in my heart… and the next thing I recall is the forces of Heaven and Hell joined to defeat me in a battle in that same location in this world, and then the Devil trapped me in Hell, but I wasn’t dormant.”
“What?” Nevar’s hand on her shoulder tightened and she felt his anger sweep through her. “What are you saying? I thought you were held in a sort of stasis.”
She shook her head and curled closer to him, needing his heat. She was cold, right down to her bones, had felt that way since waking after discovering what had been done to her and what Nevar had saved her from. She had done her best to shake it off, to continue as if it had never happened, not wanting to spoil this time she had on the island with him, but it haunted her.
“I was asleep… reliving my last death over and over again.” It terrified her. She had spent millennia constantly experiencing a replay of her death. Every blow that had broken bone and sliced flesh. Every face of every angel who had struck her. Every face of every demon who had sneered at her. “I don’t want to go back to a place where I will see that on endless repeat. There was no peace there, Nevar. There was only horror and pain… and I’m afraid I can’t escape my past to have the future I desire.”
He pulled her closer, wrapping both of his strong arms around her, and pressed a kiss to her hair. He inhaled slowly, his muscular chest expanding against her, and sighed, and she knew it was because she felt how he did—unable to escape the things that she had done in order to seize the future she truly wanted for herself.
“What happened to awaken you?” he murmured against her hair.
“I do not understand.”
He drew back and clutched her shoulders, holding her away from him, his expression more serious and grim than she had ever seen it. “Something must have happened between you seeing the battle and the forces of Heaven and Hell fighting you… because the woman sitting in front of me isn’t capable of destroying this world. You care too deeply and take pleasure from the smallest things, like the sun on your skin. You take more joy from this world than anyone else I know. I don’t think you would want to annihilate all that without a fucking good reason.”
He was right, and she didn’t want to destroy this world. In her memory of Thebes, before the great battle, she had delighted in how beautiful the stone had looked in the fading sunlight, and how intricately carved the statues were, and had been fascinated by how the mortals had gone about their lives in the shadow of the great city and their gods.
“I don’t remember what happened between the battle between the angels and the demons, and them fighting me.” That frightened her. She had thought nothing of it until Nevar had mentioned it. She had gone from feeling great sorrow to being filled with tremendous rage, fury that had controlled her.
“We need to find out somehow, so we can avoid it.” He took hold of her hand and stood, pulling her onto her feet with him. “We need to find a way to see your past… but you’re not an angel, so you couldn’t control the pool in Hell… but maybe I could or someone else, Asmodeus maybe, he is older than everyone else and powerful. He might be able to do it.”
“Or we need to see the future and that way we can avoid it.”
He stared at her with wide eyes. “The future.”
She nodded.
His jaw clenched and his eyes turned steely, edged with violet, a reflection of the dark hungers springing to life inside him, trickling through their link.
Lysia had a terrible feeling he was about to suggest something dangerous.
The right corner of his mouth tugged into a wicked smile that flashed the tip of his fang.
“There is a pool in Heaven that records it.”
CHAPTER 16
Lysia threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with such frantic passion that Nevar was powerless to resist sliding his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him and kissing her back. He growled as he seized control of the kiss, claiming her mouth and driving her into submission. One hand left her waist and tangled in the messy knot of her black hair, pinning her against him and ensuring she didn’t break away before he was ready to let her go.
She moaned, the soft breathless sound drenched with the desire she poured into the kiss.
His little destroyer was no longer the meek and tentative creature she had been with him last night on the beach. She was confident and courageous, battling him for dominance as he kissed her.
She was enthralling.
And up to something.
He dropped both hands to her hips and set her away from him.
It took her a moment to open her eyes, but when she did, he knew he had been right.
“Don’t,” she whispered and he frowned at her.
“Don’t what?”
She swallowed hard and pressed her palms against his bare chest. The mark on it, her mark, tingled in response to her touch and pulsed with the hunger and desire racing through his veins. An echo of the passion that lit hers up too.
“Don’t go to Heaven…”
His frown melted away on hearing the fearful note in her voice. It laced her feelings too and shone in her eyes.
“But we need to see what will happen in the future. I have to see it so I can keep you safe.”
She dropped her gaze to his chest. “But they will fight you… there are too many angels there… if you go, then they will—”
He pressed a finger to her lips to silence her and she looked up at him again. “I will not go alone.”
She lifted her right hand, gently circled his wrist with it, and lowered his hand away from her mouth. “I will go with you.”
“No,” he barked, the thought of her going to Heaven with him rousing a dark beast within his heart that demanded he protect her. “I might as well just deliver you to them gift wrapped.”
She cocked her head at that one.
“It means I should just hand you over to them. It’s what they want and it is not going to happen. You have to stay here with the others. They will protect you.”
She shook her head. “There has to be another way. What if we tell the others about your plan and see what they have to say?”
Nevar considered that. There was a chance that Asmodeus or Apollyon might know of a better way to find out what the future held for them. He needed to speak with everyone anyway and tell them what Lysia had told him.
She had been in mortal form before her last awakening, enjoying the world. It had been a war between angels and demons that had awoken her as the destroyer. Heaven and Hell were still messing with the world. He had always imagined that the Great Destroyer would rise in response to a war between men, roused by the violence and bloodshed, or had been ordered to bring about the apocalypse by her master. He hadn’t even contemplated that it would happen as a result of angels and demons battling in the mortal realm.
He shouldn’t hav
e been surprised though.
Now that he knew what had happened to her, he couldn’t help thinking how typical it was of the two realms to war between themselves, uncaring of how it affected the mortal realm. It had only been Lysia awakening as the Great Destroyer and threatening to end their realms too that had brought them together to stop her, ending their own war.
It was the same now.
When they had discovered that his actions had awakened her from her slumber, both Heaven and Hell had pledged their angels to the cause of containing her. They wanted to send her back to sleep.
Both sides were probably coming up with a plan to do just that right now.
Nevar wouldn’t let it happen.
In her current form, Lysia wasn’t a threat to anyone, just as she hadn’t been a threat to the world the last time she had been free in it either. Something had triggered a change in her, one that had set her on the path of war against the angels and demons, and mankind.
He just needed to find out what that trigger had been, or what it would be this time.
But she was right and rushing to Heaven was a suicide mission, one that had been tempting at the time he had thought of it but was now looking less appealing. He had fought angels in Heaven before and barely survived, thanks to his darker side emerging and gifting him with its strength. He had been stronger at the time too, not weakened by addiction and hunger. He was in no position to head to Heaven right now, when they were on high alert. Lysander and the other angels would have informed their superiors of what had happened here on the island and what they had discovered. The fortress of Heaven would have immediately issued orders to protect the walls and all points of entry. Flying into it now would mean flying through legions of angels.
There had to be another way.
He just didn’t know what that way was.
He could risk taking her to Hell and attempting to see the past in the pool there, but that route would also mean a battle. Heaven controlled the pool and it was often protected by angels from the division of death. If Heaven and Hell were working together, there was a chance both angels and Hell’s angels would be protecting it now, aware that he would want to view it.
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