Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 5) Page 17

  He beat his crimson wings and shot higher with her. Erin looked down as the ground fell away and her eyes widened.

  “He’s following,” she shouted over the wind and Veiron swore again.

  She looked at his hands on her waist and the city below her. The exact same view she had seen in her nightmare only London had been burning and it had been the other angel holding her, flying with her, not Veiron.

  What did that mean?

  Had they already done something to change that future into this one?

  Veiron set her down on the same rooftop as the other angel had in her nightmare and she trembled, shaking down to her bones, and scoured the sky. She tried to remember what had happened. The man had wanted her to go with him and Veiron had appeared behind him, high in the air and coming down fast to attack the man.

  “Veiron!” Erin sprinted for him where he stood in the middle of the flat black roof and he turned towards her.

  Giving his back to the angel who appeared behind him, silver-blue wings bright in the crisp moonlight, his sword flashing as he raised it above his head.

  Erin reacted on instinct.

  She ran at Veiron, grabbed his arm and pulled him behind her, placing herself where he had been. The angel’s sword came at her and her heart stopped, eyes as round as the full moon suspended above her. Before it could strike her down, Veiron’s red curved blade was there, blocking its path to her.

  “I should have put you down when I had the chance,” Veiron snarled and shot past her, clashing with the angel in mid-air.

  This was all wrong.

  The angel knocked Veiron aside and then kicked him hard in the chest, sending him crashing into the roof. He tumbled across it, wings bending at angles that made Erin flinch, and hit the low wall near the edge.

  “Veiron,” Erin whispered and raced towards him.

  The angel followed, landing hard on the roof and stalking towards her. She wouldn’t let him attack Veiron again. Veiron pushed himself off the black tar and growled, shaking his head as though trying to clear it.

  Erin had to protect him until he was able to fight again.

  She did the only thing she could.

  She picked up Veiron’s double-ended black and red spear and faced the angel.

  The man halted and stared at the weapon in her hands and then at her, a frown drawing his pale eyebrows together, confusion in his jade irises.

  Erin braced her feet shoulder width apart, a warrior’s stance that Veiron had taken many times in her presence, and held the short staff in both hands. It was heavy. Incredibly so. She wasn’t sure how Veiron could wield it so easily. The broadsword weighed nothing compared to this weapon.

  “You will fight me, Erin?” the man said, voice as cold and emotionless as it had been in her nightmare.

  She nodded. “I will if you try to harm him.”

  This didn’t seem to make sense to the angel. He frowned again.

  “You would choose to side with evil over good?” His fingers flexed around his sword, the action causing the muscles in his toned arms to ripple. He drew a deep breath, raising the rich blue chest plate of his armour. The moon glinted off the silver edging.

  “I’m not siding with good or evil. I’m siding with Veiron over you.” She held her ground. A shuffling noise behind her signalled that Veiron had found his feet as much as the black glare the angel directed over her shoulder.

  “I came to assist you,” the angel said, calm and sweet now. He had clearly spent a lot of time practising his charming voice, the one designed to make mortals comply with his every command and believe in him.

  It didn’t work on Erin.

  He frowned again. “Step aside and I will slay the Hell’s angel.”

  Erin shook her head. The staff in her hands suddenly shot outwards, until it was four times its original length. The red blades at either end gleamed wickedly. She looked down and saw Veiron’s hand on it, close to hers, and relief burned through her.

  He stepped up behind her, until their bodies touched.

  “How about I slay you?” Veiron said, all darkness and menace, a black promise that she knew he would keep if she let him. He would fight this angel, not because he was a threat to himself but because he was a threat to her.

  “You had your chance when we were in the street and I had not noticed you.” The angel lowered his weapon and turned his attention back to her. He actually smiled. “I mean you no harm, Erin. I am here to protect you. I am your guardian angel.”

  “You keep saying that but I don’t believe it.” Erin straightened and tipped her chin up, anger pouring like acid through her veins now. “If you are my guardian angel, where were you when I was taken to Hell?”

  He flinched as though she had slapped him and recoiled. “I would not set foot in that realm, not even if my master commanded it. I was given orders to wait. It had been foreseen that the demon would seek to rescue you and would succeed, and that I would be granted this opportunity to take you into custody.”

  Custody. That was a strange word to use. Just as she had felt there was something wrong about him in her dreams, she felt it again now.

  “Take me into custody?” She tightened her grip on Veiron’s weapon. “By force, I presume?”

  “If necessary.”

  “Do not listen to him, Erin.” Veiron banded his free arm across her chest. “He speaks foul words.”

  “Quiet, Demon,” the angel snarled, as vicious and dark as Veiron had ever been. He smiled again when he returned his attention to her. “I am your guardian, Erin. I only desire to protect you.”

  “You will have to get through me first.” Veiron tensed and tried to take the weapon from her but she gripped it harder, refusing to let him fight. He growled but she didn’t heed it.

  “Easier done than said.” The angel smirked at him. “I have orders to kill you anyway. Heaven desires you dead. You and those you have collaborated with. The female and Marcus.”

  Female? Amelia?

  Erin was the one to growl this time. “You stay away from my sister!”

  “Your sister?” The angel turned his smile on her, genuine amusement in his jade eyes. “My, we have been deluding ourselves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t listen to him, Erin. Amelia is your sister, but she is a reincarnated angel. The original angel. Heaven and Hell sought her blood to seal the other realm. It is all a vicious game. She survived with the help of Marcus, and myself and others.” Veiron’s words weren’t a comfort.

  “And now you are all wanted men. I will fulfil my orders, Demon, starting with you.” The angel launched himself at them, his sword a bright silver arc.

  Veiron snatched the spear from her and attacked, evading the angel’s strike and knocking him backwards. They clashed again, harder this time, each slashing and snarling with effort, taking their fight high into the night sky. Erin couldn’t watch but she couldn’t take her eyes away either. Her heart lodged in her throat and a strange sensation settled in her fingertips, heat prickling there.

  The angel beat his wings, slammed into Veiron and sent him careening backwards through the air.

  Erin’s heart beat harder.

  Her hands grew hotter.

  The heat stole into her veins, until her arms were burning, boiling, and her head felt fuzzy. Her vision blurred but focused as the angel struck at Veiron, cutting across his obsidian chest plate and catching his arm. The smell of his blood hit her, the sight of it spilling down his arm and the smug look on the angel’s handsome face causing rage to coil in her chest.

  “I told you,” Erin said and breathed hard, struggling to contain the heat blazing out of control within her. “If you harmed him... I would kill you... bitch.”

  The angel looked at her, the expression on his face saying he was going to laugh at her threat. His smile faded. Veiron looked at her too.

  Erin felt dizzy.

  She looked down and her eyes shot wide, her heart leaping high into her throa
t. Dark red flames licked up her arms and fluttered over her hands. She swiped at them, trying to put them out, afraid they would burn her, and then calmed.

  Not burn her.

  They hadn’t in her dream.

  She had used them as a weapon.

  Her weapon.

  Erin screamed and launched her hands forwards, towards the angel where he hovered ten metres above her. A dazzling crimson ball of fire blasted from between her palms and shot towards him. White light filled her vision, shooting down from the starry sky, and the world exploded so brightly it blinded her.

  The light faded. Erin’s head spun and she shivered, so cold that her bones ached and her fingers were stiff.

  “Erin?” Veiron’s deep baritone soothed her ears and warmed her from the inside out.

  She slowly opened her eyes to find him above her, looking down at her, concern in his red eyes. Fear too. She scrambled up in his arms, her backside hit the flat roof and she threw a glance around, searching for the angel. Gone. The sky was black and still, the moon bright and drowning out the stars so they were faint. The city lights cut upwards around the building, glowing orange, and the sound of cars and people rose from below.

  “What happened?” she said and swallowed to ease her dry throat. She thought back. Veiron had fought the angel. The angel had hurt Veiron. She had lost her temper and somehow called some sort of fire that she had used to blast the angel away. “Is he dead?”

  Veiron shook his head. “He called a pathway to Heaven before you hit him with... whatever that was. What was that, Erin?”

  “I don’t know.” She sat up and stared at her hands, trying to call the flames again and failing. “A power?”

  She looked over her shoulder at Veiron. He frowned, red eyebrows pinched tightly above narrowed eyes that were focused on her hands. He took hold of them, turning them over, inspecting them. Her fingers warmed in his.

  “Amelia can produce blue balls similar to that which you made.” He sounded distant. Thinking aloud. It comforted her that Amelia had a power like she did and she clung to that as the explanation she desired.

  “So I’m like her? An angel?” It sounded incredible and too good to be true.

  Veiron reinforced that feeling. He shook his head. “I don’t know what you are, Erin, but you’re not like Amelia. Amelia is the reincarnation of the original angel. Only one was created before Heaven realised its mistake and created my kind instead, granting us less power and less freedom.”

  “So what am I?” Her voice shook and she cursed it for making her sound weak. She trembled inside, afraid of what was happening to her. “If I’m not like Amelia, what am I?”

  “I don’t know.” Veiron rested his palm against her cheek, the soft look in his eyes conveying how much he wished he had answers for her. His hand was hot against her, calming her and soothing her pounding heart as much as the tenderness in his gaze and the knowledge that he wanted to help her. “You’re something else... but we’ll find out, I promise you. Was this what you did in your vision that scared you?”

  Erin wished he wouldn’t call her dreams and nightmares that. It made her recall what had happened in the second nightmare. She didn’t want to have to watch Veiron dying before her eyes and be unable to do anything to stop it from happening. The whole scenario this evening had been similar to the first nightmare but all wrong, with the world different and the angel and Veiron’s roles reversed. She hoped that meant that the second one would be different too now.

  She nodded and he wrapped his arms around her. Erin leaned her head against the cold black armour protecting his chest and sighed. “The Devil hurt you and I wanted to stop him. I was so angry... consumed by rage... it was instinct.”

  “Just as it was earlier?”

  Erin looked up at him and nodded. He was right. The angel had threatened those that she loved, had hurt Veiron, and a boiling abyss of rage had opened within her heart, all of it directed at the disgusting creature that had dared ignore her warning. Cold wind buffeted her, chilling her skin through her clothes, freezing her heart. She cuddled closer to Veiron, afraid of what it all meant and where her power came from.

  Veiron rubbed her back, holding her against him, and pressed his lips to her forehead. He sighed.

  “I will do all in my power to find out where your newfound abilities come from, Erin. It could just be that you have some power like your sister. It would make sense. You share genes, DNA, scientific shit. It’s possible.” He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself now rather than her but she appreciated it all the same.

  Erin wrapped her arms around his neck and curled up on his lap, clinging to the one thing that felt solid in her world right now.

  “I want to see my sister,” she whispered against his throat and he stood with her, one arm behind her back and the other hooked under her knees.

  “You will soon, Erin. I swear to you. We’ll arrange a meeting place and leave immediately. We’ll find out what’s happening and I won’t let anything happen to you. I will keep you safe.” He pressed his forehead against hers and she nodded, believing every word he said.

  Veiron spread his wings and flew with her. Erin looked over his shoulder at the place where he had fought the angel. At the place where she had unleashed a fireball straight out of her nightmares and tried to kill a man because he had harmed Veiron.

  If she wasn’t an angel like her sister, what was she?

  CHAPTER 16

  The hot sun on his back did nothing to improve Veiron’s mood. Ever since the fight on the rooftop three nights ago, Erin had been quiet and brooding. Her smiles were false and she was keeping her distance from him. She had slept in his arms each night but they had only made love once, the same night as she had used a power neither of them knew anything about. He wished he had answers for the questions she refused to voice. He had explained things to Einar and Taylor but neither of them had been any help. Einar did share his opinion though. Whatever Erin was, she wasn’t like her sister.

  As far as he knew, Amelia hadn’t exhibited any powers before dying and reawakening as an immortal, an angel.

  Erin had been having visions for her whole life, and now she could use a devastating power that was on par with her sister’s one. All without dying.

  If it plagued him, he knew it plagued her a thousand times worse. She had little knowledge of his world, was only just becoming accustomed to there being a Heaven and Hell, angels and demons. He wanted to find the answers to her questions, wanted to convince her to speak to him about it rather than brood in silence, stewing over what had happened and trying to keep it all to herself. He was sure that by speaking to him about it, she would feel better. He could at least say something that might inspire more positive feelings in her heart.

  “Not long now,” he said and drew her closer. She bounced against him in time with the speedboat.

  Her mood had brightened since the plane had set down and they had disembarked with their two black holdalls and headed for the dock. Her amber eyes shone as she looked up at him, a glimmer of excitement in them that warmed his heart and gave him some relief. Perhaps she would get over her fear in time, and in the arms of her sister.

  Veiron had failed to soothe her. He hated that almost as much as he hated the divide that had grown between them.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to the Maldives,” she said, sounding as excited as any of the other mortals occupying the speedboat with them. Three other couples in total. One of them newlyweds.

  According to the passports that Einar had arranged, he and Erin were also newly hitched.

  That and the fact that Wingless had also booked them into the resort as freshly married and on their honeymoon didn’t amuse Veiron in the slightest.

  Erin leaned into his side, her black linen shirt blending into his tight t-shirt. They were the odd couple in the boat. The other six occupants were all wearing minimal clothing, as though it was optional, and all of it brightly coloured.

  He and
Erin were head to toe in black and both of them still wore their boots. No sandals for him. He had noticed a pair in Erin’s luggage though and had smiled to himself. After everything that she had been through, she needed a vacation. He hoped that she found some peace on the island, with her sister.

  He wasn’t sure if he was staying or leaving on the next flight.

  When he handed Erin over to Amelia and Marcus, his mission was finished. He had no reason to remain. She would be safe. He could return to nursing his need for revenge.

  Couldn’t he?

  Veiron didn’t think he could. He didn’t want to leave Erin’s side, not while she still had so much to deal with.

  Not ever.

  Veiron stared down into the dark calm sea below them. Erin moved away and he felt her eyes on him.

  “You look as though you’re trying to see back into Hell.” She whispered it so quietly he barely caught it.

  He smiled. “Maybe I am.”

  A pause.

  “Why would you want to do that?” she said and he couldn’t miss the darkness in her usually light voice. He glanced up from the water to find her scowling down at it. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I hate it down there... I hate everything about it. I want nothing to do with the wretched horrible place... I thought I was going to die surrounded by that stench and all that evil.”

  Veiron’s frown intensified with each word she said, every one of them cutting at his heart, forming another wound in it that bled and wouldn’t stop.

  All. That. Evil.

  Evil like him?

  “There’s nothing good in that place...” She lifted her head, smiled and touched his cheek. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Veiron grunted and turned away from her to stare at his boots. Her hand fell from his face and she shifted away from him. He ignored her as she prattled on about the island, his focus on his battered boots. Boots that had trekked through Hell to save the beautiful woman beside him.

  From all that evil.

  Nothing good in that place.

  Nothing good. All evil.

  He fisted his hands and then opened them and settled them on his knees, gripping them so tightly his knuckles bleached.