Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) (32 page)

“Don’t make me want to slap you. You make me want to slap you and I won’t let you meet Dante properly.”

His expression soured and he glanced at Dante. “Fine. The gates form a circle around Hell that stops all fallen angels from leaving. With them all intact, the princes cannot leave Hell. Whenever I defeat Apollyon or I spill the original angel’s blood in my realm, the gates are altered and I am granted passage. The princes can also pass through too. Why else would I have lost so many battles against Apollyon… a whole string of them over the last few millennia leading up to this point?”

Apollyon stood a little taller and pinned the Devil with blue swirling eyes filled with a burning desire to attack him. Erin hoped he managed to hold that urge in check. If her father was telling the truth, and for once he appeared to be, then they couldn’t risk her father accidentally defeating Apollyon and releasing the four princes.

“You lost because you can’t risk these princes going free,” Erin offered when her father looked as if he required an answer to his question and wouldn’t continue without one.

He clapped. She gave him the finger.

“We really must improve your manners, Daughter.”

Erin shrugged that one off. “I get them from you.”

He looked as if he wanted to bite her for that one, but settled for smoothing his black jacket down instead and sighing. “I had a duty to contain them, and they were contained until Nevar awakened the destroyer.”

His golden gaze slowly edged back to Lysia. “They will use you to destroy the gates. You are the only thing powerful enough to do such a thing. Once four gates fall, they will be able to use a fifth to leave this place and head out into the mortal realm. I would suggest you all do something about them before that happens.”

Erin mulled over everything he had said, frowning at him the whole time. He was powerful enough to fight the princes, but he couldn’t leave the bottomless pit, which was a reasonable excuse for him kicking back and letting her and her friends handle the situation that he could easily deal with.

What set her on edge and had alarm bells ringing in her head was his tone and how he sounded a little too much like he actually believed they could save Nevar, stop Lysia from awakening, and keep the princes trapped in Hell.

“What gives? You want us to fail so the gates will be opened and you can go free?” she said and couldn’t help adding, “Why haven’t you destroyed the gates before now and left? You disobeyed and left the pit to see me in the prison, so you can wander away from it now that you’re drawing close to fighting Apollyon again. You could just go around destroying the gates and set yourself free.”

The Devil shook his head. “It is not so easy. I would not be freed by the fall of only four gates. I would need to destroy all six hundred and sixty-six seals in order to free myself. Not just the gates, but the smaller seals buried in the ceiling and the ground and the walls. In doing so, I would destroy the world, so it seemed rather pointless to me, as my intention is not to end my existence and the existence of everything else with me.”

“Heaven would stop you before you could break them all anyway,” Apollyon said.

Her father nodded this time. “True. Hell is my prison, but I have made it my home, and I have no intention of allowing four self-proclaimed princes destroy it. I will tell you where they are hiding and you will put a stop to their plans.”

Erin smiled at that and the bite in his tone. “You’re getting soft in your old age.”

He returned her smile with a warm one of his own and approached her, taking the steps down to the paved area of the courtyard where she stood. “I think you have infected me with your sentimentalism. Now, I believe I am owed a moment with my grandson?”

She nodded, took Dante from Veiron, who reluctantly gave him up to her, and brought the boy to his grandfather.

The look on his face had her going against her better judgement, and he hadn’t been an almighty pain in her arse for once and had actually helped them.

She ignored Veiron’s warning scowl and held Dante out to the Devil.

Her father’s golden eyes widened and leaped up to meet hers, a touch of uncertainty in them.

“Try anything funny and I’ll kill you,” she said sweetly.

He nodded and carefully took Dante from her, cradling him gently in his arms and canting his head so they were face to face.

Dante opened his eyes and smiled up at the Devil.

Erin swore her father melted a little.

He tickled Dante’s nose and the boy wriggled and laughed, drawing a wide smile from her father.

“They mean to use Nevar to awaken the Great Destroyer,” he cooed down at her son in a singsong voice. “They can kill him but it won’t give them what they desire.”

What did he mean by it wouldn’t give them what they wanted? They wanted to leave Hell and if Lysia destroyed the gates, they would achieve that desire. Or wasn’t that what they truly desired?

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask when the Devil slid his golden gaze her way and the coldness in it stopped her dead.

“Go home, Daughter, and take Dante with you. Do not set foot in this realm again until I allow it. Remain with your family. Only Asmodeus and the Great Destroyer will face the princes.”

A chill went through her and her heart raced as her vision swirled in gory Technicolor through her mind.

Her father hadn’t only sensed her pain and heard her thoughts after she had awoken from that terrible vision. He had seen it too. Her power to dream the future came from him.

It dawned on her that it hadn’t been the angels she had met on the island in that vision. It had been the four fallen angels. They were the ones who would kill her and Dante.

“Sweet dreams, little Prince of Darkness. Until we meet again. I will not allow anything to happen to you or your mother. You have my word on that.” He closed his eyes, pressed a soft kiss to Dante’s forehead, and his power rose swiftly, driving everyone else to their knees.

Shadow wings tore through the Devil’s suit jacket and streamed from his back as his obsidian horns curled from above his ears, parting his black hair, and his ears grew pointed. His black nails transformed into long claws, but he held them away from her son, cradling him gently in his demonic hands. His skin paled and lips darkened, and fangs flashed between them as he spoke, each word shaking the ground and hurting even her ears.

“I will personally kill them for their insolence this time.”

N
evar knelt on the sharp pebbly black ground on the small flat strip of plateau high above a valley. Black charred tree trunks spotted the landscape far below him and a bright golden streak snaked across the bottom of the slope that plunged down into the basin.

He breathed hard, fighting to shut down the agony tearing through him, burning in the lacerations on his arms and thighs, and across his stomach. The three angels who had transported him to this bleaker-than-usual patch of Hell had ensured he was too weak to be a bother to them, taking to the task with glee.

Correction. Not angels. Whatever these fiends were, they weren’t angels.

They only wore the mask of an angel.

Their leader, the one with long white hair who had remained with Lysia when the others had taken him, stood at the edge of the plateau with his back to Nevar, his crisp white wings furled against his back.

The black-haired one sat on a boulder off to Nevar’s left, holding the end of the length of silver chain that wrapped around Nevar’s arms, pinning them behind him. Nevar hated him most out of the four. He reminded Nevar of Asmodeus and what that angel had done to him, trussing him up like a piece of meat with a similar chain and rendering him immobile and vulnerable. This chain drained his power and the cuts littering his body added to its effect. Combined with the fact he hadn’t fed properly in over a month, it left him useless and weak, unable to fight them.

Something about this land negated his ability to cast a portal too. He had tried several times to call one the moment he had realised that the angels had taken him to another part of Hell, not to Heaven, and had concluded they were not the same angels he had met on the island. The vortex had refused to appear, much to the amusement of his foes. It hadn’t taken them long to beat him into submission and get the chains on him. These angels were as powerful as the ones he had met on the island, if not more so.

He slid his gaze to the other two angels. They loitered together a short distance off to the right of him, discussing something in low whispered words.

In the demon tongue.

The scarlet-haired one seemed upset about something. Nevar had caught the pale-haired one, the largest of the group, calling him Leviathan. He wasn’t familiar with the name.

He had heard of one of them though. When the white-haired one had arrived in a bright pale burst of light, the sort that Heaven used to transport angels, the black-haired angel had called him Lord Astaroth.

Nevar had thought that name had been little more than mortal folklore, but then he had thought the same thing about other angelic names too. If the Astaroth standing before him, his head held high and an air of arrogance seeping from his every pore, was the same Astaroth from legend, then he was an extremely powerful foe.

And by the looks of him and his band of men, and the things Nevar had managed to catch when they had been deep in discussion after Astaroth had returned, he had a bone to pick with Heaven, and possibly Hell too.

“Samael.” Astaroth’s deep voice swept across the land like darkness and he turned on the black-haired angel, his pale blue eyes cold but simmering with fire in their depths. “I asked you to keep our guest in check.”

“He is in check.” Samael tugged hard on the chain looped around Nevar’s arms and he struggled to stop himself from falling on his side.

“If he is in check, why do I feel him glaring at me?” Astaroth curled his lip at Nevar, revealing the pointed tip of a canine. “Turn him around or something. He irritates me.”

Nevar growled, the feral sound rumbling up his throat before he could stop it, and Astaroth’s cold blue eyes narrowed on him.

“Threatening me?” Astaroth laughed and turned fully to face him. He stalked towards Nevar, an imposing figure in his jet-black tooled leather armour, and spread his white wings.

The angel came to tower over him, forcing Nevar to tip his head back and look up at the bastard to keep an eye on him.

“No,” Nevar rasped, forcing each word past his bruised and battered throat. “Just wondering if you stole Mihail’s face or he stole yours.”

Astaroth lunged, slipped his fingers down the neck of Nevar’s black breastplate and hauled him off the ground, bringing them face-to-face.

“Do not speak that name in my presence.” Astaroth snarled, flashing sharp fangs, and hurled Nevar aside.

He crashed hard into the ground near Samael, who levelled a kick at his stomach and sent him tumbling across the sharp black rocks. Nevar grunted and gasped for air, his lungs burning with each strained inhalation. The son of a bitch laughed, stood and stepped onto his back, pinning him face down on the pebbles. They cut into him and he refused to give the angel the satisfaction of seeing his pain.

Nevar schooled his features, concealing both the physical agony caused by having his battered body shoved against the sharp stones and crushed beneath the angel’s weight, and the emotional pain caused by finding himself at the feet of a stronger power again.

“What do you want with me?” Nevar slid his gaze to his left, towards Astaroth where he approached him, his icy eyes filled with sadistic pleasure. Nevar bit his tongue to hold back his growl, unwilling to allow these angels to hear his anger or his agony. They wanted him to react. They wanted to see him suffer. He wanted them to go to hell.

Astaroth paused by his head, looming over him, and smiled coldly. “You are a weakness we mean to exploit.”

Nevar couldn’t miss the irony in that one. He had done the very same thing to Asmodeus, seeking his weakness and discovering it in Liora in order to punish him. He was as bad as these four males, and he could see the error of his ways now that it was too late to correct his mistakes.

Part of his heart refused to regret what he had done, because it had brought him Lysia, a woman he would do anything to protect.

“What do you want with Lysia?” he spat out, unable to keep the dark edge from his voice as he glared up at Astaroth. “Why do you need a weakness of hers?”

Astaroth shifted his right foot and Nevar refused to flinch away. This male could do whatever he wanted to him and he wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing his pain or his fear. The only thing he cared about now was Lysia and stopping their plans for her.

Astaroth furled his white wings against his back and ran his hands down their lengths, preening them. He took pride in those wings. They would be the first thing Nevar tore from him.

“We mean to awaken her.”

A chill went through Nevar and he looked from Astaroth to the other two who had come to stand behind him, flanking him.

They meant to kill him in front of her.

“Why lure her here?” Darkness stirred within him, trickling through his veins right now but he knew it would soon become a flood that surged, obliterating everything in its path, and he would welcome it when it came. He would do whatever it took to protect Lysia from these fiends. “Why didn’t you just kill me when you came to take me away?”

He cursed himself for falling for that one, but each of the four were a perfect replica of the angels he had met on the island. Or perhaps those angels were a perfect replica of these ones. Nevar’s gut said that the Devil hadn’t created these angels, not as he had Asmodeus. These had been made by Heaven and cast out by that realm, and replaced by better versions.

It would explain Astaroth’s problem with hearing the name Mihail, and why these four seemed bent on awakening the destroyer. They wanted Heaven and Hell to pay for what it had done. He could understand that, could even sympathise a little, but he wasn’t about to step back and let them carry out their plans.