Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 5) Page 8

  He took a deep breath, his broad honed chest expanding deliciously with it and shattering her serious thoughts, and then waved a hand over his head. The action was more like a command, the sort of click of fingers you gave to a dog to get its attention.

  Erin turned to see who he was signalling and found herself only a few inches from a pale, sharply dressed dark-haired man. His crisp black suit didn’t quite fit with the club, at odds with the scantily clad men and women. The man’s pale eyes slid down to her and his dusky lips curved into a sensual smile.

  Veiron’s arm closed over her chest and he dragged her back against him.

  “V,” he growled and the man’s icy gaze shifted up to him.

  The man called V offered him a toothy smile that revealed canines that were either fakes or real and she was about to add vampire to the list of supernatural creatures that existed. After everything she had witnessed in Hell, nothing surprised her anymore. Vampires were probably just another type of demon after all, and she had catalogued plenty of different breeds of that particular species while waiting in her cell for visitors. The man in front of her was a vampire and the man at her back was a fallen angel, and who knew what else lurked in the club?

  “Veiron. To what do I owe the pleasure? If the boss sees you here, she will not be pleased. You know her policy. No angels allowed, even if they are serving the right master.”

  “Choose your words more wisely, Villandry, or we shall come to blows.” Veiron’s arm tightened across her chest and the vampire looked down at her, all charm as he smiled.

  “I never thought mortal females would be your style. She’s pretty, I’ll grant you that, but last I recalled your tastes were a little more wicked... like mine.” Villandry raked his pale eyes over her and then curled his lip in disgust. “You know, I still haven’t forgiven you for storming into my home and nearly exposing me to sunlight.”

  “I apologised, didn’t I? It’s the most you’re going to get out of me, so get over it. It isn’t why I’m here. I have a business proposition. I need you to keep your ear to the ground and let me know if you hear about anything major leaving Hell in the next few days.”

  Erin frowned. Had they come to blows over a past lover? Erin didn’t like the thought of Veiron fighting for another woman. She tried to break free of his embrace but he tightened his grasp and held her firm, pinning her back against the solid heat of his front.

  “Sounds dangerous, and expensive.” Villandry signalled the bartender. A pretty thirty-something blonde woman came straight to him and set a martini glass filled with dark liquid down on the bar. He smiled at Erin, lifted the glass to his lips and drained it in one go. He set the empty glass back down on the bar. “I want her.”

  Veiron snarled and his grip on her shoulder tightened. “No fucking way.”

  “I admit, I had said that I wouldn’t date your cast offs again, but this one is mortal and I would make our few short hours together pleasurable.”

  “Please.” Erin resisted the temptation to hold onto Veiron’s arm across her chest for comfort and courage, glad now that she hadn’t managed to escape his hold. “I wouldn’t screw you if you were the last... thing... on Earth or in Hell. Sleazeball.”

  “Erin.” Her name was a low warning curling from Veiron’s lips and she leaned back against him, afraid that she had pushed the man opposite her too far. His eyes began to darken, the paleness swirling together with what looked like pure black under the flashing coloured lights. “She is tired. You could say she has been through Hell.”

  That was a poor joke. She rolled her eyes at it.

  The vampire still didn’t look pleased.

  “I am sure we can come to some agreement. I will keep my ears and eyes open and will have my men do the same. If anything comes here looking for a tasty little human and her escort, I will let you know.” Villandry waved to the woman serving behind the bar again.

  “Thank you.” Veiron managed to growl those words in a voice that said quite the opposite. He wasn’t grateful at all to the vampire and his death grip on her shoulder conveyed a deep desire to make the man pay in a very painful way for requesting her as his remuneration for services rendered. “Does Taylor still live in London with Wingless?”

  Who was Taylor and who was Wingless?

  Erin turned to look up at Veiron to ask him that question but her gaze caught on someone who chilled her more than the Devil.

  She shrank back into Veiron’s embrace, trying to avoid the man laughing and talking to two women across the room. People streamed between them but he would only have to glance her way at the right time and he would spot her just as she had spotted him. She had already gone through Hell. Couldn’t someone up there cut her a break? She hadn’t seen her ex in close to three years, since he had got drunk at her twenty-seventh birthday party and made a pass at Amelia, and four of her friends. Her sister had lousy luck with men but it looked stellar compared with Erin’s own run of worthless boyfriends.

  Her gaze shot over the heads of the crowd and found the pink neon sign for the women’s bathroom. Safety. She could hide there and clean up while Veiron finished his conversation with the vampire. He could come and get her when he was done and they could hightail it out of the club together.

  A larger group of people entered the club and began drifting through it towards her. It was her chance.

  “I’m going to use the bathroom,” she said it loud enough for Veiron to hear.

  He nodded and Erin made a break for it, merging with the group.

  She was halfway to the bathroom when someone grabbed her arm. Tightly. She thought it was Veiron changed his mind about her being alone in the club but the hand on her arm was too small. Erin slowly turned to find her ex, Adam, staring in horror at her clothes. His look only worsened when his dark eyes reached her face. She probably looked as though she had been caught in a volcanic blast and had starved while escaping.

  The roughly chopped lengths of his dark hair hung over one side of his face as he gave her another once over and his grip on her arm tightened when he reached her bandaged feet.

  “What on Earth happened to you?”

  Erin wasn’t sure how to explain everything she had just been through without sounding as though she was crazy and she didn’t feel the need to explain herself to him anyway. She had called Villandry a sleazeball but he wasn’t a patch on this man.

  “Get your hand off me.” Erin tried to twist free of his grasp.

  He dug his fingers in even harder. “No, Erin. I want to know what happened. Christ, your face... your legs... where did you pick up all those bruises and cuts?”

  “Seriously, Adam, get your damn hand off me!” It came out louder than she had intended and several people nearby stopped to look at them.

  Adam pulled on her arm when she struggled and she clawed at his hand, trying to prise it off her. He was hurting her.

  A deep growl curled out over the music.

  The entire room froze.

  CHAPTER 8

  Veiron needed to work on his impulse control.

  He knew it, and so did the hundred people who had stopped dead and turned to stare at him when he had unleashed an ungodly snarl in Erin’s direction.

  Villandry made a grab for his arm to stop him but Veiron easily shook the vampire off and stalked across the rapidly draining club to the man who had dared lay his filthy hands on Erin and upset her.

  Erin paled as he approached, her amber eyes going impossibly wide. The human male with his hand on her seemed frozen in time, his fingers locked around Erin’s slender wrist and his back to Veiron.

  Big mistake.

  The man should have remained cognitive enough to get his fucking hands off Erin and get the hell out of Dodge with the rest of the mortals in the club crowd.

  Veiron came up behind him and politely tapped him on the shoulder.

  The mortal male turned slowly and looked up at him.

  “I think it would be best if you did as she asked and remove
d your hand from her arm before I remove it for you... and I mean that literally. I’ll give you one second to take your hand off her or I’ll chop the damn thing off.” Veiron grinned down at the little man, showing him that he was serious. He might have reined in his temper enough to speak to the flea without going nuclear on his arse but the tethers holding his rage at bay were beginning to twist and snap.

  He didn’t want to lose it, not when it would reveal himself to Erin and place her in danger by alerting any of his kind nearby to his location.

  The man released Erin’s arm but didn’t back down. He did the one thing in the situation that was guaranteed to push the button on the detonator of Veiron’s anger.

  He squared up to Veiron.

  “Did you do this to her?” the man positively growled the words and Veiron frowned down at him. One of the tethers on his rage pinged and snapped. Three more and this man was dead. “What sort of sick fuck beats a woman?”

  Veiron’s blood boiled. He might be a Hell’s angel but he would never hurt Erin. He would never lay a finger on her in that way. He snarled. Erin looked as though she wanted to say something to defuse the situation but it was too late.

  Ping. Ping. Ping. And his rage was free.

  Veiron growled, locked his hand around the mortal’s throat, turned with him, and drove him across the room until his back slammed into the curved black bar.

  He bent over the man, tightening his hold on his puny neck, and lowered his face so all the man could see was the fury blazing in his now red eyes. Veiron growled low in his throat again, the feral sound rumbling through him, and felt his teeth shift to sharp crimson points and the skin around his eyes begin to blacken. The voice of reason at the back of his head screamed on repeat that he needed to calm the fuck down. The voice of pure primal rage obliterated it.

  This man would pay.

  The mortal panted beneath him, skin blanched and eyes staring in wild terror into Veiron’s red ones. His heart hammered, a jittery beat that made Veiron’s smile widen. He should fear. By the time Veiron finished with him, he would be pissing his pants.

  Veiron shoved the man down into the tacky bar top, forcing him to bend backwards at a harsh angle. The mortal rallied and swung a punch at Veiron’s shoulder. Veiron felt nothing. He grasped the man’s wrist, twisted it until he screamed, and snarled in satisfaction.

  “You ever... touch her again... it will be the last... thing you do. Do you... understand?” It was hard to form sentences when his head was pounding, blood rushing like a torrent through his ears, and he was trying to fight his desire to change completely and rip the man to shreds with his bare hands and trying to retain a little sanity so Erin didn’t see him for what he was.

  She couldn’t see his face from where she stood, couldn’t see what this man did when he stared into Veiron’s fiery red eyes and saw the darkness around them and his sharp red teeth.

  The lights above the bar dimmed, the area around him darkening as his rage began to slip beyond his control. Veiron sneered, flashing his fangs at the petrified mortal, relishing the gasp he released and the way his heart skipped several beats.

  “Please don’t kill me.” Those words were jittery, quiet, a plea that spoke to his sane side and said that he should be satisfied now. He had the mortal quaking. Let him go.

  No.

  Veiron squeezed his throat harder, feeling bones creak and muscle bruise. The mortal choked and gasped, wheezed as he tried to breathe.

  “Veiron?” Erin’s soft voice reached out to him.

  No.

  He shook away the part of him that felt soothed by her voice and growled in the man’s face.

  “Veiron!” The sharper female voice and the cool hand that firmly grabbed his shoulder had him shutting down his anger in an instant because he knew what was coming next and he couldn’t allow Erin to see his face as it was now.

  The woman hauled him to face her and his gaze flicked to Erin where she stood a few feet behind her. She looked horrified. Veiron cast his eyes down at the floor, not wanting to see in hers that she already thought he was a monster.

  A demon.

  “Do I need to remind you of my club’s rules?” the blonde in front of him snapped and swept the short strands of hair from her face with a defiant flick.

  Her dark gaze locked with his.

  Veiron shook his head and released his stranglehold on the piece of shit human male. The last thing he wanted to do was piss off the boss. She was fine when she was in a good mood, but when she lost her temper, her true appearance shifted over her skin, all scales and ugliness, and she could tear even the strongest angel a new one.

  The man spluttered and coughed, and wheezed.

  Veiron strode across the club, grabbed Erin’s hand, turned towards the doors and growled at the man on his way past. The human’s knees gave out and he crashed to the floor. Erin stumbled along behind Veiron. He knew his pace was too quick for her when her feet were sore from trekking through Hell but he needed fresh cold night air in his lungs to quell the heat of his rage.

  “We have to leave.” Veiron shoved the double doors open. A few mortals and demons in their human forms milled around in the alley outside the club. They all backed away when they set eyes on him, giving him space. Probably the wisest thing they had done in their short or long lives.

  He didn’t slow until he was three streets away from Cloud Nine. Each breath of cool fresh air soothed a little more of his anger and brought with it painful awareness of what he had done.

  He had lost it.

  He had exposed them both because of his inability to keep a lid on his temper where this woman was concerned.

  His focus shifted to Erin. She felt shocked on his senses and he could hear her heart racing, and feel her hand trembling in his.

  “I’m sorry.” Those were the words he had always found hardest to say but they came so easily tonight. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered and then her voice grew stronger. “He deserved it.”

  “Who was he?” Part of Veiron feared the answer to that question. He had a feeling he knew what that man had once been to Erin and the thought that he had been allowed to touch her, to taste her and do everything with her that Veiron denied himself, had his chest burning and blood heating to a rolling boil.

  Erin was his.

  Erin was not his.

  She was just a mission. As soon as he got her safely to her sister, he was gone. Goodbye. Sayonara. Have a great life. Erin was a complication that he didn’t need. She made him weak when he needed to be strong and keep a level head. He hadn’t spent the past few centuries plotting his revenge only to throw it away now that he was so close to seeing all his plans come to fruition.

  “I went out with him a few years ago. It wasn’t my greatest hour. I dumped him after he hit on my sister and friends at my twenty-seventh birthday night out.”

  He felt her shrug, as though it was nothing, but he heard the truth in her heart and the glimmer of her emotions that he could sense. The man had hurt her. He had betrayed her trust and her love.

  Veiron wanted to kill him.

  He kept his face turned away from Erin so she couldn’t see the change as it came over him, turning his eyes red and teeth crimson and sharp.

  “We need to get off the street,” he said but it came out as more of a snarl and Erin’s hand tensed in his. He cleared his throat, reined his anger in, and tried to sound more normal. “I know a place where we might find sanctuary.”

  Veiron stopped and looked down at Erin’s feet and her bare legs. She was shivering again and it wasn’t out of fear this time. The night was cold against his chest and back too. Sharing body heat sounded like a reasonable way of keeping warm.

  “Come on,” he said and crouched with his back to her.

  Erin climbed up onto him, her soft body pressing into his back and her thighs against his hips. Devil, she did feel good right there, snuggled close to him. She settled her arms on h
is shoulders as he straightened, his hands under her thighs, supporting her.

  Veiron blew out his breath at the feel of her fingers sweeping across his shoulders and then down them. They paused and he kept walking, concentrating on the action to purge his desire to absorb the warmth and softness of her caress. If he didn’t focus, his wings were likely to erupt from his back and knock her flying.

  Not the way he wanted her to see them for the first time.

  Her fingers drifted over his biceps and then followed the sweeping curves of his tattoos to his back. She held onto him with her left hand and traced the tattoo on his right shoulder blade with her other one.

  “They’re very beautiful,” she whispered, voice soft but not from her concentrating on his tattoos and being absorbed in following the design with her fingers.

  There was desire in that voice, hunger in her tone that made him wonder if she was thinking about running something other than her fingers over his back.

  Just the thought of her sweeping her tongue over his tattoos had him hardening painfully in his tight black jeans.

  “Thank you,” he uttered, distracted by his thoughts and how good she felt against him.

  He fought the urge to turn down the next dark alley, drag her around to his front, pin her to the wall and scratch the itch he had for her.

  If he could just scratch that itch, that dark hunger to know her taste and her body, he was sure that he could get her out of his mind and get it back on his real mission.

  Wasn’t going to happen.

  Veiron plodded on, hands burning where they touched her bare legs so close to her bottom, mind racing as she continued to swirl her fingers around every curl and along every spike of his tattooed right shoulder.

  A shiver raced across his back and it had nothing to do with Erin’s touch this time.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  Time to run again.

  He pounded the pavement with Erin clutching his shoulders, her rapid pulse thumping in his mind, whispering her fear to him.