Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) Read online

  She had to save him though, before it was too late and the darkness consumed the part of her that knew him, obliterating all that was good in her.

  She held her hand out as her claws lengthened and darkness bled from them and into her skin. Her fingers thickened, her knuckles enlarging as her hand began to transform. She focused all of her will on Asmodeus and hit him with a telekinetic blast that sent him shooting into the shadowy distance, back the way they had come.

  The darkness reached her elbows and she cried out as her wrist cracked and her hand stretched longer, flaring wider at the same time. White light shot across her sensitive vision and she roared as she realised the four angels had teleported.

  She crashed onto the plateau and dug her hands into the black basalt, fighting her transformation. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to destroy everything. Everyone. Their faces flickered through her mind and she kept picturing them and saying their names as pain tore her apart and pieced her back together.

  Her leg bones snapped and distorted, her bare toes becoming talons as a tail grew from the base of her spine, ripping through her shorts. She screamed as her wings grew larger and black spikes burst down her spine as it stretched and her ribcage expanded beneath her black skin. Her cheekbones and jaw cracked as they reformed themselves, elongating into a long beaked reptilian jaw.

  Black scales rippled over her skin and she roared as she grew, her paws crushing the rocks beneath her and becoming so large that she could barely stand on the plateau. Her tail whipped, the massive pointed barb smashing a section of the hill and sending it thundering down into the valley.

  Her hair twisted tighter and hardened, becoming six curved horns.

  She rose onto her powerful hind legs and beat her wings, holding herself steady. Smoke billowed from the lava below as each beat sent wind blasting across the valley.

  The world would pay for what it had taken from her.

  The faces in her mind winked out of existence one by one. She clung fiercest to Nevar’s, determined not to surrender it and her knowledge of him, but the darkness was too strong, the rage too fierce. It burned away everything she knew and all that she felt, leaving only fury behind.

  A dark urge to destroy everything.

  She curled her talons into fists and bright orange glowed in the cracks between her scales. Heat burned in her chest, an inferno she would unleash upon this land. She would destroy everything.

  She roared and released a devastating stream of fire that blasted the land below her, igniting the dead trees and melting the basalt, turning it back into lava.

  The hill crumbled beneath her as she kicked off, lifting into the air with each heavy hard beat of her black wings.

  Her violet gaze scanned the land, seeking her first target. The gate stood on the far side of the valley, carved into a sheer cliff face. She bared all her razor-sharp fangs and flew towards it. She would destroy everything.

  Why?

  She did not know.

  She knew only infinite rage and an endless hunger for violence.

  A hunger she felt sure would never be assuaged.

  A patch of blood stained the ground below her. Spilled from an angel. She looked at it for a moment, feeling nothing, and then flew onwards.

  Ahead of her, a legion of Hell’s angels emerged from a swirling black vortex that stretched more than two hundred metres across.

  She grinned and flew harder, the thought of destroying the puny army of the Devil too tempting to resist.

  All who stood between her and the gates would die.

  She would lay waste to this realm and gain her freedom.

  And then she would lay waste to the mortal realm.

  And after that, she would destroy Heaven.

  She gathered all of the fire that burned in her veins, drawing it to her chest, and opened her mouth and unleashed it in a stream at the first wave of Hell’s angels. They screamed as it incinerated them and she roared in victory.

  The first of many.

  There was no future for this world.

  She would burn it all to ashes.

  All would die.

  CHAPTER 26

  Pain echoed in his chest like a deep throbbing heartbeat, slow but steady, a heavy drumming that he found soothing for some reason, as if something else lived within him, encased behind his ribs, safe and secure there. A constant part of him. Forever.

  Time unravelled behind his closed lids, twisting into reverse, filling his mind with images that flowed backwards. Darkness gave way to blinding light and that gave way to a vision of fear painted across the beautiful face of a woman. She flew backwards, distancing herself from him, and he looked down at his chest, seeing black armour and a white blade penetrating it. Agony joined the pain in his chest, a fiercer roar that overshadowed the quiet constant beat.

  His heart shattered, not physically as the sword slid free of it, repairing the organ and then the point emerged from his armour, sealing the hole in it. It shattered because of an emotional blow, a wound so severe that nothing could heal it, a devastating fracture brought about by nothing more than knowledge.

  Awareness that the beauty who had looked upon him with fear in her striking violet eyes would no longer be a part of him when he woke from the slumber of death that awaited him.

  Awareness that she would witness that death and be torn from him, transformed by it into something she feared and thrust into a state that terrified her.

  A state of loneliness.

  The organ in his chest ruptured because of that knowledge alone.

  And it shattered because he knew he would never see her again.

  He had failed her.

  Time continued to run backwards, reaching a point when he had been filled with a desire to spare her pain but clung to hope that he could still have forever with her, the future they both wanted with a hunger that consumed them.

  The passing of seconds slowed to a crawl, the white-haired angel before him beginning to lose his smile before it came back and he moved forwards rather than in reverse.

  Time sped now and he could only watch as the white sword punched into his chest, slicing clean through his heart, and could only look at the beauty as she raced towards him, her leathery wings beating furiously as she reached for him.

  He reached for her.

  He didn’t want to die.

  He wanted to live with her.

  He stretched his hand out as his vision dimmed, the light fading as darkness encroached, coming to devour him with sharp teeth and swallow him whole.

  Light burst back across his eyelids and he shot awake, his hand stretched above him.

  Not towards the beauty but towards a black ceiling.

  He frowned and gasped at air, sucking great mouthfuls down into his burning lungs. The pain in his chest continued its steady throb in the background of a fiercer ache, an agony that burned him to ashes.

  He lowered his hand to his bare chest, pressed his fingertips to the material covering it, and curled his fingers into it, clutching the spot above his heart.

  Where was he?

  This wasn’t Heaven.

  This was Hell.

  Wasn’t he dead?

  His head swam and the room spun violently with it, the black blurring together. A streak of bronze, crimson and cream appeared in the haze and he tried to focus on it. It shimmered and distorted, together with the noise in his ears that began to hush the constant drumming of pain in his chest.

  “Nevar?”

  The soft feminine voice curled around him, warming his bones but not easing the ache in his heart. This was not the beauty he had wanted to see on waking, yet he felt glad to see her as she slowly came into focus. Her hazel eyes brightened but the concern in them didn’t fade as she approached him. She sat beside him, smoothing her scarlet short-sleeved top over the waist of her black jeans and fidgeting a little with it, as if she wasn’t sure what to do.

  Or she was nervous. Why?

  His chest heaved with
each laboured breath beneath his hand and he struggled to comprehend his surroundings. While the female had come into focus for him, they refused to do the same, remaining a black swirling blur.

  She lightly pressed a hand to his forehead and drowsiness ran through him, a warm sedation that made his limbs feel heavy. His hand fell from his chest and struck his thighs, resting on the material covering him.

  “Asmodeus,” she called and he frowned.

  He knew that name. The name of his master.

  He shook his head in an attempt to clear it and she caught his cheeks, murmuring softly to him.

  “Try to keep still. We weren’t sure how you would be when you came around. You look a little groggy.” She leaned in closer, peering into his eyes one at a time. “How are you feeling?”

  Asmodeus entered, a hazy blur of cream and black and gold. He came into focus as he moved closer and the grim edge to his expression awakened a barrage of memories. He had been there. He had been with the beauty.

  His female.

  Nevar. His name was Nevar. He had died. Hadn’t he?

  “He does not look good,” Asmodeus said, a glimmer of concern in his golden gaze. “Do you remember us?”

  Nevar nodded.

  “Master.” He shifted his gaze from Asmodeus to the woman. “Witch. Liora.”

  He forced his hand up to his chest and splayed his fingers across it. “Nevar. In Hell.”

  He looked down at his body and it came rushing back. Black skin covered him, not just up to his forearms as it normally did. It covered all of him. His claws pressed into the bandages around his chest. Blood stained the cream material, crusty and near black. Old.

  How long had he been sleeping?

  He managed to lift his gaze back to Asmodeus.

  His master read the silent question in his eyes. “Almost three days. We were not sure what would happen or if you would ever wake up.”

  “I died.” He needed to put that one out there, because he had felt the blade pierce his heart and burn it away with some sort of light. He had felt death’s cold embrace.

  He had expected to wake in Heaven.

  Asmodeus nodded. “You did not disappear on dying though. When… when Lysia hurled me away from her, and was… in the midst of… her transformation, I returned unnoticed and retrieved your body.”

  “Wait… no. Lysia.” Nevar shook his head, unable to bring himself to believe what Asmodeus was saying.

  His master cast him a solemn look before dropping his gaze to his feet. “She witnessed your death as the fallen angels desired, Nevar. She is… not as she was.”

  Meaning she had awoken to her true purpose. She had become the creature he had often studied on the door panel, an immense dragon with six horns.

  “How did I come back?” Nevar looked from Asmodeus to Liora, and then down at himself. He still wore his other form but it slowly began to fade as he focused on himself, seeking control over it. The shadows swept outwards from the spot above his heart, leaving pale skin behind, and didn’t stop until they had reached just above his elbows.

  “We all discussed that and we think it has something to do with your contract with Asmodeus and how it came about. You have his blood in your body, connecting you to him and this realm. You did die, and you were reborn, but as his servant and within this realm.” Liora reached across and placed her hand over his on his chest. “I’m glad you came back to us.”

  He was too. He shifted his black hand, capturing hers, and gently held it. He still remembered everything and still had the strength his contract with Asmodeus gave to him, power beyond that which he had ever had when serving Heaven. He was grateful for that. For once, he was glad that he had made a contract with Asmodeus. He had feared death and forgetting everyone, and being reborn in Heaven with no recollection of his friends, and Lysia.

  The bed beneath him shook and dust rained down from the ceiling.

  “What is happening?” He looked to Asmodeus for the answer.

  “Lysia,” Asmodeus said, the grimness not leaving his expression. “She has already destroyed three gates. Every gate she destroys has an impact on the mortal realm, causing great devastation around the area where that gate to Hell exists. An earthquake has levelled much of the area around Chennai in India, causing a tidal wave that has wreaked destruction across many countries. The forces of Heaven and Hell are trying to stop her before she can bring down the next gate, both to end the devastation in the mortal realm, and to contain the four angels who planned all of this. If the fourth gate falls, they will fly free of Hell.”

  All turned against her. No one was on her side.

  She was alone.

  “No.” Nevar swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I have to go to her. She will be scared and confused… hurting… and now they want to kill her or sentence her to a fate worse than death by imprisoning her with nightmares of her defeat? I will not let that happen.”

  He stood and his knees gave out. Asmodeus was before him in a flash, catching him before he hit the floor and carefully settling him back on the bed.

  “You are in no condition to fight.” Liora took hold of his arm, as if that would stop him from attempting to rise again.

  She could unleash every spell at her disposal on him and he wouldn’t stop. He would reach Lysia.

  “I do not care. I have to see her,” Nevar snapped and tried to stand again but Asmodeus planted his hands on his shoulders and pinned his backside to the bed. He didn’t have the strength to force Asmodeus to release him, and his master wasn’t even using much of his strength to hold him in place. Despair went through him, twisting his insides and pulling a snarl from his lips. “She has to see me… she needs to see me.”

  “She will see you,” Asmodeus whispered and loosened his grip on Nevar’s shoulders. “But she does not remember any of us. There is no recognition in her eyes when she looks upon us. We tried… but you might succeed where we have failed.”

  Nevar clutched his chest and knew that the mark that had been on it was gone now. How could he make her remember him? When he had come around, he hadn’t remembered who he was or who anyone else was. He had merely existed.

  His memories had been all that he had together with tangled emotions that had felt distant and unreal, not really a part of him.

  Was that how Lysia felt?

  He didn’t believe how he had felt in those moments when he had been unconscious and witnessing a replay of his death had anything to do with that process of death and rebirth. The loss of his sense of self and his knowledge of those he set eyes on had stemmed from his connection with Lysia. She suffered as he had and that was why she hadn’t recognised Asmodeus and the others. She had forgotten them.

  Or those memories had been locked away, trapped beyond her reach.

  Nevar had to hope that was the case and that somehow he could get through to her and restore those memories for her.

  “I will find a way,” he whispered and then spoke with more conviction. “I swear I will get through to her and I will stop this.”

  Asmodeus nodded. “You will need your strength if you are going to survive until you can get through to her.”

  He offered his arm and Nevar realised that there was something different about his master. Asmodeus wore vambraces with a rampant dragon on them and had chest armour. The pointed slats of armour around his hips were shiny and new too.

  He stared up at his master, knowing there was only one explanation for what he was witnessing.

  Asmodeus lifted his broad shoulders in an easy shrug that didn’t hide the discomfort in his eyes. “My master decided I needed full armour again.”

  It must have grated on Asmodeus’s pride to have the Devil restore it so easily when he had been without it for so long, left vulnerable at the whim of his master. It had taken the end of days for the Devil to care enough to restore the pieces Asmodeus had lost throughout the centuries in his service.

  Asmodeus tugged at the round edge of the collar and pulled a
face. “It is more stifling and restrictive than I remember.”

  Nevar nodded in agreement. He had often found armour to be a hindrance, especially when not in combat. He never had fathomed how some angels managed to sleep in it.

  “Now you look even more like Apollyon.” Nevar couldn’t resist slipping that one out quietly.

  Asmodeus bared his fangs on a growl. “I can kill you again, if you wish? We know you will come back now.”

  Liora stood and stepped between them.

  “Now, now, boys. Lysia needs us.” She looked over her shoulder at Asmodeus. “If you kill him now, it will be days until he wakes up again. Kill him for it later.”

  Nevar stared at her, unable to believe she had just said such a thing to Asmodeus, practically condoning his killing him. She knew that her lover would take it as permission.

  “I am joking,” Liora said and when his expression didn’t change from one of horror, she looked back at Asmodeus, and adopted a firm tone. “It was a joke. Don’t you even think about killing him. I’m banning all attempts to kill Nevar. You were doing so well at getting along.”

  Asmodeus huffed and placed his hands on Liora’s shoulders, over her crimson gypsy-style top. “Very well. I will not kill him. May I maim him a little?”

  “No,” she snapped and her dark angel’s face fell and he sighed again. “Now be nice and give him something to eat.”

  The gold-edged black vambrace around Asmodeus’s right forearm disappeared.

  Saliva pooled in Nevar’s mouth and he stared at the smooth flesh on the inside of Asmodeus’s forearm, his hunger rising as his fangs slowly descended. He needed blood and wouldn’t deny himself this time. It would give him the strength to fight for Lysia and protect her.

  “I took blood from Lysia.” Those words slipped like a confession from his lips as his gaze darted to Liora, his green eyes meeting her hazel ones. She smiled softly and he lowered his focus to his bare knees, realising he wore only his black loincloth. His gaze sought his armour. It rested on a chair near the foot of the bed in the black-walled room. “Only a little… I was afraid to take more. I just wanted to feel the connection between me and Lysia strengthen again.”