She drew her hands away, leaving her magic to continue working on that area as it faded, and moved on to his chest. Her head turned and fatigue crashed over her but she held on, refusing to succumb to the pressing need to sleep. Serenity had told her that healing immortals was a huge drain on her magic and Liora hadn’t believed her until now. She could feel her energy dropping faster than she had ever experienced before today and she had only healed a few of his wounds. She had to hold on until she had closed at least the major ones.
“You have a lot of stuff,” she said, trying to keep her voice light and airy so he didn’t see the toll that healing him was taking on her.
He didn’t take his eyes off hers. “The Devil used to bring me things during the times when he could leave Hell. Not all of the items are from him. Some are from Hell’s angel captains, and some are belongings of people and demons left in Hell after their deaths.”
She was glad his voice was back to its normal delicious gruff baritone.
He had been a very busy collector. He must have taken the items whenever he had come across them, scouring the land for them to bring back to his home.
“You’re like a magpie,” she said with a smile and glanced behind her at the Egyptian cat on the far cupboard. “Some of these items are hundreds or thousands of years old. How old are you?”
“Ancient,” he said and then grimaced as another of his wounds closed.
Liora moved on to the next, a particularly nasty gash down his left biceps. “Thousands of years old?”
He nodded.
She shifted her gaze from his incredible body to his face. It was hard to think that he was thousands of years old but had only just experienced his first kiss and had his first trip to the mortal realm and his first taste of food. She couldn’t believe all that, especially the kissing part. She also couldn’t resist finding out for sure whether her suspicion was correct.
“Have you ever kissed before?” She finished healing his arm and realised that only minor wounds remained. She would have to leave them or tend to them in a more conventional manner, or she was going to pass out.
“No.” That was a very blunt and brusque reply.
Liora held her smile inside and snuck a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “Would you like to do it again?”
His gaze darkened, his pupils gobbling up his gold and crimson irises. “Yes.”
She couldn’t contain her smile now. She liked his short, snappish replies and the way desire flared in his eyes as he looked at her lips.
She had never had a man look at her like that before, as if he wanted to devour her and possess her. It excited her.
Liora ran her hands over his thighs, earning a low growl for her efforts. She wanted to curl up on them and fall asleep until her magic had replenished itself, but she couldn’t. She had to find a way back to her world, far away from this one and the Devil. Right now, she didn’t have the strength to teleport out of Hell, and wasn’t even sure if it would work if she tried. She knew how to teleport in her world but the rules were different here. This wasn’t her world and she would probably need to learn the trick to bending space in this realm before she could teleport.
“Can you take me home?” she said and knew from the way his eyes darkened that he didn’t like that request.
“No, not yet.” He leaned back again and stared up at her as she stepped back, trailing her hands off his thighs and coming to stand a few feet away from him. She frowned at him, taking in the number of injuries that remained on his body and how weak he had been when he had first returned through the portal.
He wasn’t in any condition to transport her out of this realm and neither was she.
“It is not safe right now,” he said and Romulus sat up beside him. Asmodeus stroked him between his ears, his gaze still locked on her. “Later.”
The intensity of his gaze on her and her awareness of him increased, until the world around her fell away and she was aware of only him and the feelings flowing through her, lighting up her blood like firecrackers and reigniting her desire.
Before her sat a powerful male, bloodstained and beaten because he desired to protect her, a dark and wicked angel capable of incredible evil and absolute good. A king of demons on his throne.
He was everything cruel and vicious, dangerous and deadly, and the tiny sensible part of her heart said that she should fear this man. She was in his world now, a land of shadows and terror, and he wasn’t going to let her go. He wanted to keep her here in his castle and that alone should scare her and make her want to leave.
Funny, but all she could think about was crawling onto his lap and satisfying her need for him.
“Will you kiss me again, Liora?” he husked and a hot shiver went through her, causing fire to pool in her belly. “I would like that.”
It was all the confirmation her remaining sensible part needed. He could take her home if he wanted to, but he was enjoying having her here in his castle, all to himself, away from her cousin and his twin.
Sensible Liora said to demand that he take her home.
Wicked Liora crushed that tiny voice, obliterating it.
This beautiful deadly male before her was such a contradiction, a mixture of innocence and experience. She liked the way he looked at her as if he wanted to devour her. She liked that he didn’t want to let her leave now that he had her in his home. She loved that he didn’t care about anyone, but he seemed to care about her.
She liked that she could tease him and he would find a way to compromise and please her.
He would do anything to keep her.
“Unlike you, I do need to eat when I’m in Hell. I’ll starve if you keep me here.”
He frowned and folded his arms across his chest, causing his muscles to bunch and tense in a way that stoked the fire in her belly, making it overflow into her veins again, heating her to a thousand degrees.
“I enjoyed my first experience of food. It was interesting. Sweet. I would like to eat more. I want to experience other food.”
“We can do that.” She was tempted to mention that he would have to leave Hell to procure said food and therefore he could take her with him, but resisted. She couldn’t resist teasing him a little more to get a reaction from him though. Proof of innocence, as it were. “I know what caffeine does to angels so we’ll keep away from that.”
His frown deepened. “What does it do?”
Liora motioned a rising action with her rigid right index finger, swinging it slowly upwards, and pointedly looked down at his black loincloth and the worn strips of armour covering it.
Asmodeus’s eyes went wide and a blush darkened his cheeks, visible even through the blood and grime. He looked down at his crotch and then up into her eyes.
“It will make me hard?”
Liora blushed worse than he was from the blunt way he said that when she had been too afraid to say it aloud. It wasn’t like her. Normally, she was forward and spoke her mind without blushing. She had been blushing like a maiden around Asmodeus though, as if she was the one verging on her first time.
“Get me food then… if you want me to stay here for a while.” She cursed under her breath as those words left her in a stuttering unsteady manner.
Asmodeus nodded. “I will feed you and take care of your needs.”
Liora bit her lower lip and tried not to jump on that one, but she failed dramatically. “All of my needs?”
He blushed again but quickly recovered. His golden gaze darkened with desire and she shivered under the intensity of it.
“All of them,” he growled and swiftly stood and closed the gap between them.
He brushed the knuckles of his right hand across her face, tunnelled his fingers into her chestnut hair and grasped it tightly. Liora gasped when he tugged her head backwards and banded his other arm around her, holding her immobile and powerless. His hungry gaze fell to her lips. He growled again, a husky feral sound that thrilled her, dropped his head and kissed her hard, devouring
her mouth and dominating her. She melted into him, helpless against the force of his kiss and the pleasure that swept through her in response.
Liora ran her palms down his bare chest and pressed her short nails into his pectorals. He growled into her mouth and kissed her harder, his tongue tangling with hers, stoking her own passion until she battled him for dominance and could think only of satisfying her incredible need for her powerful wicked angel.
Asmodeus tightened his grip on her long hair and snarled as he deepened the kiss, taking all of her, driving her into submission. She went willingly, allowing him to master her and take the lead, letting him pour out his passion and feeling it flow over her.
This was the passion she had felt locked within him.
Passion she had awakened.
Passion she would unleash.
CHAPTER 9
All Liora wanted to do was keep kissing Asmodeus until her lips went numb and every inch of her tingled, but the longer he kissed her, clutching her possessively against his chest, the more she could taste ash and blood.
His blood.
Liora reluctantly pressed her palms against the rock-hard muscles of his chest and eased him back, breaking the kiss. He growled and tried to pull her back to him, but she sighed and stood her ground, barely.
Asmodeus drew back, righting her in the process and setting her back on her feet, and narrowed his gaze on her. He wasn’t pleased. Maybe she could do something about that.
She walked her fingers over his dirty chest. “I don’t suppose you have water in Hell?”
The fire that had been dying in his irises sparked right back up into an inferno and the corners of his lips tilted into a wicked smile.
“There is a pool in which I regularly bathe, sheltered by rocks. It is akin to what you mortals think of as natural hot baths.” His grip on her loosened and he looked her over, a frown marring his handsome face. No doubt she looked like a mess too now, spotted with blood from his wounds. His gaze roamed back up to devour her lips and then ventured onwards, meeting hers. “You wish to bathe?”
She nodded and then let out a wicked smile of her own. “I wish to bathe you.”
His heart slammed against her palms and his pupils expanded, blotting out the colour in his eyes and turning them dark with passion that she was surprised he managed to wrestle into submission. There was a fleeting moment where he looked as if he was on the verge of tugging her back against him and kissing her again, and then he was taking another step backwards, beyond her reach.
Asmodeus stared hard at her for long seconds, his breathing coming quicker and quicker, and then tipped his chin up, squared his jaw and exhaled. The picture of calm and confidence once more, he threw his hand out behind him, casting one of his portals there.
Romulus and Remus got to their paws and panted. Remus’s ear flopped and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, hooking on his black fangs.
Asmodeus petted Romulus and then righted Remus’s ear for him, and gave them both a grave look. “Protect the castle while I am gone.”
“Will they understand you if you speak in English to them?” Liora studied the two hellhounds. Asmodeus had mentioned that they could speak telepathically to each other. She would love to find a spell that would allow her to talk with them. She was sure they would have countless stories to tell her and would dish up the dirt on their master.
“They will learn.” Asmodeus caught both hellhounds under their jaws, cupping them in his dirty palms and tipping their heads up so their eyes locked on him.
He spoke in the dark tongue of his world and Romulus and Remus began panting again. Liora took that as a yes, because Asmodeus grabbed her around the wrist and pulled her into the portal.
There was a horrible rush of cold darkness over her skin that made her shiver and made her magic tremble in her veins, and then she was standing at the edge of the black plain she had seen stretching below the castle. Steaming pools dotted the cragged ground before her, at least seven of them and all of them different in temperature and depth judging by how some were boiling viciously and black as tar. A rocky jagged wall curved around the pools, shielding them from view on one side. The open side faced the fortress and the plain. Beyond the wall was a rough, hilly landscape that rose almost as high as the spire of rock upon which the castle stood.
Liora looked over her shoulder at it. From a distance, it was magnificent and imposing, a black bastion that had a horror movie vibe that could make even the bravest demon think twice about dropping in for a visit.
Now that she was on the ground, she could see that it wasn’t as flat as she had imagined it from above. She frowned at the regular lines scored into the black basalt, intersecting each other, and paced the length of one of the rectangles they formed. Liora looked back up at the fortress.
“It’s a quarry,” she whispered.
“I needed stone from a local source.” Asmodeus’s voice was so close to her shoulder that she jumped at the sound of it and looked over at him. His golden eyes roamed the fortress above them, a hint of pride in their beautiful depths.
Her eyes widened. “You built it?”
He looked down at her, his expression turning perplexed. “Of course.”
“No ‘of course’. I figured you had an army of demon slaves build it for you.” She really had. It hadn’t once crossed her mind that Asmodeus might have constructed this fortress.
Alone.
Always alone.
Even a project of this magnitude was handled alone. It must have taken him centuries to carve each stone and place it, gradually building up the incredible towers and the walls of his home.
“Things are rarely as people figure.” He turned away from her.
She supposed he was right. Everyone figured Asmodeus was evil incarnate and she could certainly prove them wrong about that now.
Liora bit her tongue before she could ask where he had slept while building it. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. He had probably worked tirelessly, toiling non-stop, to build the castle towering above them. His home. A place designed to keep others out. Did he want to be alone or did he want company but found Hell lacking in the variety he desired?
He certainly seemed to be embracing the thought of having her stay with him in his immense empty fortress.
“It is only safe to bathe in one of the pools. Come.” He grasped her wrist and tugged her with him, leading her through the narrow strips of lumpy black ground between the rocky-edged bubbling pools towards the largest one at the back. It steamed gently, mist curling and rising, dancing across its placid surface, and was paler than the others too, a milky quality to the water.
“Is it really safe?” She eyed it suspiciously. It did look a little more inviting than she had imagined water would in this inhospitable land, but she still couldn’t bring herself to trust it.
“It is safe, Liora. I would never allow anything to happen to you.” Asmodeus released her hand, bent at the edge of the pool with effort and a serious grimace that she pretended not to see, and ran his hand through the water. He rose to stand before her and held up his hand, a smile teasing his lips. “See, it has not melted off my fingers or done me any harm. Come.”
He held his hand out with his palm facing her and she sucked down a breath for courage and then pressed her fingers against his wet ones. Nothing happened other than a jolt of electricity shocking every nerve along her arm as they touched. Asmodeus’s eyes darkened again and her pulse picked up, nerves kicking it into overdrive.
If she bathed him as she had said she wanted to then she wasn’t going to stop there. Once she laid her hands on the delicious six-foot-plus of sexy before her, she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to take things to the next level. Once she pushed him over that ledge, there would be no coming back. He wouldn’t settle for just a taste of her. She knew that. He would want all of her and she would be powerless to deny him.
“You’re sure people can’t see us here?” She cast a glance around at the hill
s above and the plain behind her.
“The only people in Hell are in the Devil’s prisons… but demons do not come here, and nor do Hell’s angels. We are alone, Liora.”
And he liked it. She could hear it in his voice and the way it dropped to a sultry growl. He had her all to himself and he was in his element, and there would be no stopping him now. He wanted her. She shivered at the thought of him touching her, teasing her flesh with his warm tongue and scraping fangs over her breasts, her thighs. Her belly fluttered and heated.
“You think wicked things,” Asmodeus drawled in a gruff, thick voice heavy with hunger and passion.
She nodded and bit her lower lip. She thought very wicked things indeed, and now that she had him all to herself and he was in his element, there would be no stopping her.
Liora stepped towards him and trailed her fingers down his bare chest and over the hard ridges of his stomach. She lingered close to his navel before running her fingertips over the waist of the armour that protected his hips.
“You can’t bathe in this,” she whispered, shocked by how breathless she sounded. “It’ll get rusty.”
His lips quirked again and fire filled his eyes, hunger that echoed within her. He captured her hands, held them a moment, and then moved them away from his waist.
Liora stepped back so she could fully admire him as he stripped off the metal armour around his hips, revealing the black loincloth he wore beneath. If she had sounded breathless before, she could barely speak now. He stole her voice as he moved, his powerful cut muscles bunching and relaxing, enticing her to stop him so she could trail her lips over each and every one of them and moan her approval. He bent and removed the armour that protected his shins, and then his black leather boots.
He placed them carefully near the pool and she bit back a smile. He valued what little armour he had and she could understand why. He had already lost vital pieces of it, leaving him exposed and vulnerable. If she could, she would hire the best blacksmiths in the world to craft armour of his liking and give it to him so he felt complete again.
Asmodeus turned his back to her and all rational thought fled at the sight of his delicious backside wonderfully cupped by tight black material. Liora wanted to rip it off with her teeth.
Her Wicked Angel Page 12
