Screw waiting for him to ask her. She was going with him whether he liked it or not.
She straightened and locked eyes with him, shoving her fears away and embracing her love for him.
“You swore to me… Asmodeus. You said you would never leave me… I won’t let you leave me.” She was beginning to ramble but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stop herself even if she tried. Her mouth was in control now, voicing everything in her heart. “I know we’ve had our ups and downs, and I haven’t been the best girlfriend a wicked angel could want… and I wish I could take back what I said… but I can only try to make things better…”
“Liora,” Asmodeus interjected, but she couldn’t stop her mouth from running.
“I swear that things will be different. That whole thing with Nevar just shocked me and caught me off guard, and now that I look back… well, he’s sort of an arsehole. I mean, he still wants to kill you even though you said that you’d help him…”
Asmodeus grabbed her upper arms and frowned at her. “Liora—”
“We said that we’d help him.” She spoke over him and he growled at her. She told herself to shut up, that he wanted her to be quiet for five seconds and let him speak. Her mouth didn’t get the message. She had to keep speaking. She had to get everything out in the open and apologise and make him see that he was wrong about her. She could deal with everything that lay ahead for them, including moving to Hell. “That’s another reason I can’t let you leave. You hear me? I know I said some bad shit and I’m sorry… I’m sorry about what I said. I shouldn’t have said—”
Asmodeus snarled, tugged her against him and kissed her hard. Liora’s eyes shot wide and then fell to half-mast and she melted under the heat of his kiss, forgetting everything she had been about to say and savouring how good it felt to have his lips on hers again. It reassured her, soothing her hurt and chasing her fears away.
He tightened his grip on her arms and kissed her harder, his mouth claiming hers and his tongue thrusting past her lips. She tackled it with her own and pressed her palms against his chest, digging her fingers into his warm flesh. He groaned and shifted one hand to her backside, cupped her right cheek and clutched it as he devoured her. Liora moaned and tilted her head back, giving herself over to him. She flicked her tongue over one of his short fangs and he grunted, growled and yanked her closer, until every hard inch of his body pressed into hers and she burned for him.
She whined when he pushed her back, breaking contact between them.
“I will have to remember that kissing you is the most effective way to shut you up.” The corners of his kiss-swollen lips curved into a wicked smile. “Will you listen to me now, little mortal?”
She nodded dumbly, trying to get her faculties in order, her head still spinning from the kiss.
If he was going to kiss her like that every time her mouth started running and she couldn’t stop it, she might just let it happen more often.
Wait.
He was talking about the future?
Asmodeus sighed, his broad chest expanding deliciously with it and tempting her into running her short nails down it, and then brushed his knuckles across her left cheek. He stared down into her eyes, an earnest and beautiful look in his golden ones.
“I must go to Hell… and I know how you must feel about that realm and you must think I am evil now that you have seen what I am capable of—”
Liora grabbed him around the back of his neck, pulled him down to her and shut him up with a fierce kiss. He wasn’t evil. There was darkness in him, and it did outweigh the good, but that didn’t make him evil.
She pushed him back and frowned up at him. “I told you… I don’t think you’re evil. Now what were you saying about going to Hell?”
He huffed. “I must go. I cannot ignore my master’s order. After everything you have been through because of me—no, I swear to you, Liora, I will never let anything happen to you ever again. I will protect you. I will do better. I will be a good man for you… the only man that you need.”
Liora smiled. “I know you will, Asmodeus… but if this is how you feel… why have you been so quiet and distant, so troubled?”
His gaze shifted back to the water and the sunset. “I was thinking about our situation and trying to find a suitable solution.”
“And what did you come up with?” Liora sidled closer, keeping her gaze on his noble profile, waiting for him to tell her that he would take her to Hell with him.
“I will not force you to come with me to Hell. I will petition the Devil and see that he grants me leave so I may visit you.”
Her heart fell.
Asmodeus frowned and turned his golden gaze on her. “Your emotions changed abruptly. Why? Do you not wish me to visit you?”
Silly male. He always looked for the negative and never the positive.
He moved to face her, lifted his hand as if to touch her cheek and then lowered it back to his side. “I only desire to keep you safe and happy. It is all I have ever desired. I am trying to do what is right for you, Liora… to find a way that we can be together still.”
She dropped her gaze to his bare feet and hers, hating the tiny distance between them. She wanted to be in his arms again. She wanted to tell him that he was a fool. She wanted to tell him that he was breaking her heart.
“I’ll hardly see you,” she said to their feet.
Asmodeus fell quiet and she could sense his struggle, knew without looking that he was staring at their feet too, his handsome face locked in a pensive expression as he tried to find a solution that would please her.
“You said you wanted me to be happy and safe. I won’t be happy if I only see you once in a blue moon, Asmodeus.” She looked up at him and his gaze shifted back to hers. “You made a promise to me and now you have to keep it.”
“I am trying to keep it.” The sharp edge to his tone echoed the turbulent emotions colouring his eyes, making the amber and black flakes dance among the gold. “I will do my best to visit you as often as I can. I wish there were another way… but I have run all the scenarios and this is the best solution.”
She shook her head and he frowned at her.
“There is another scenario where we can be together.”
Asmodeus tipped his head back, growled in frustration, and then looked back down into her eyes. “I cannot live in this realm. I do not want to part from you for a minute… not a second… but I must.”
“No,” Liora said and slipped her right hand into his left one, holding it gently. “Not you living here, Asmodeus. I’m talking about me living in Hell.”
“Liora,” he started, his shock rippling through the point where they touched, and then sighed and opened his mouth to speak again.
He was going to protest and shoot down her suggestion.
She brushed her palms over his bare chest, skimmed them across his broad shoulders and then up his neck. She buried her fingers into the shorter hair at the back of his head and lured him down to her, marvelling that such a powerful male could be so compliant in her hands, bending easily to her will.
When he was close, she tiptoed and swept her lips across his. He didn’t respond at first and his body remained rigid and tense beneath her hands. Liora closed her eyes and kept kissing him, refusing to give in and not wanting him to speak until she had melted his resolve and had won.
He snaked his arms around her waist, pulled her flush against him and deepened their kiss, claiming her mouth fully and making her melt inside.
A second later, he broke away and pressed his forehead to hers.
“I thought I had lost you,” he whispered, husky and gruff, his hands clutching her sides.
“I’m right here,” Liora murmured and tipped her head up, bringing their noses together. “Not going anywhere. Not letting you go anywhere either.”
His hands trembled against her waist and then flexed and steadied, as if he had fought his overwhelming emotions and had won, finding solid ground again. He shifted one, b
rushing his fingers across the point on her stomach where Nevar’s sword had punched through her.
Liora realised that he wasn’t just talking about her leaving him because of things he had done or them being separated because of his orders to remain in Hell. He had thought she was going to die.
“I thought I had lost you too.” She stroked the pale scar on his chest, directly over his heart, her throat closing and tears threatening to line her lashes again.
Remembering that cold terrifying moment chilled her blood and sent a shiver through her. She had been so afraid that Nevar had been about to strike Asmodeus down and that she would lose him forever. She had wanted to save him.
When Nevar’s sword had gone right through her, she had been afraid for other reasons, feeling her life slipping away and the world growing hazy.
She had thought that fate was going to keep separating them no matter what they did and that they would never have the ending she wanted for them. Now it was trying to separate them again, taking Asmodeus back to Hell and leaving her alone in the mortal realm.
She wouldn’t let that happen and she finally felt as if Asmodeus wouldn’t let it happen either.
They would never be alone again. They would always have each other.
Liora pulled Asmodeus down to her and kissed him hard, a slave to her emotions. They were raw, fierce and demanding, pushing her to feel him in her arms and his lips on hers, to know his touch and that it was real.
They were alive and together, and nothing would change that.
They would have their happily forever after now.
Asmodeus broke the kiss and pressed his cheek to hers, his warm breath tickling her throat.
“Will you stay with me, Liora?” he whispered into her ear and she shivered in response, clutched his head and nodded.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” she murmured against his cheek and softly kissed it. “Someone has to help you with Nevar, and your duties, and the hellhounds, and then there’s rebuilding our castle. I can really help with that. Magic is very good for lifting heavy objects—”
Asmodeus shot backwards, grasping her hips and holding her at arm’s length. “Our castle?”
She couldn’t help but smile at the wonderfully startled edge to his golden eyes and the way the flakes in them swirled, betraying the emotions she could feel in him. She had made him happy at last.
“Our castle.” Her smile broadened when the corners of his lips tilted upwards. “I did tell you that I was adopting your hellhounds and that I was going to help you with Nevar, and technically I am one of the guardians of this… whatever it is… that Nevar woke up.”
She didn’t want to think about that part. Whatever it was that was stirring beneath the Devil’s fortress, they could deal with it. The Devil had promised to aid them. Heaven had sent a message via Apollyon to say they would have all the angels they needed when the time came. Everyone on the island had agreed they would fight.
Three realms working as one. Together, they would stop the Great Destroyer.
“You will come to Hell with me. You will stay with me,” Asmodeus said, his luscious deep baritone sending a hot shiver through her. There was a command in those words. An order that she was all too happy to obey. It felt good to see him finding his confidence again. There truly was nothing sexier than Asmodeus when he was king. “I will not leave you behind.”
“Leave no one behind. A good motto to live by,” she whispered, slipped her hands over his forearms, and caught his elbows. She drew him back to her, her gaze falling down the slope of his nose to his wicked mouth. “Now, does that mean we just moved past the casual boyfriend-girlfriend status and you’re asking me to move in with you? Because I didn’t hear that question leaving your lips and I know guys like you don’t like commitment. It’s cool. I can always make a little house of my own in Hell and just drop by to visit your castle from time to time.”
Asmodeus grinned, slid his arms around her waist and tugged her hard against his body.
“I do not fear commitment. I have been committed to you since the moment you placed me under your spell and stole my heart in Paris, little witch. These are strange words for me to say, but I believe I will like the result.” He raised one arm, smoothed his hand along her jaw, and tilted her head back.
She stared into his eyes, caught in them and breathless, struck silent by how they swirled with his emotions, drawing her deeper into them and making the world fall away until all she knew was her beautiful wicked angel.
He had said she had placed him under her spell. She was firmly under his and had been for what felt like a long time, and she hoped it never broke.
He took his hand from her face and a black rose appeared in his fingers. He tipped it towards her, his expression solemn and serious. “I do not have much to offer you… a broken castle… a black heart… two hellhounds who will drive you crazy… but I swear to provide for you and protect you. I will do all in my power to make your life with me comfortable and as normal as possible. Will you move in with me, Liora?”
She feigned thinking, barely holding back her smile. The smile that had curved Asmodeus’s lips faded as seconds ticked by and his eyes darkened.
“Will you let me read all the books I want and help me translate the spells?”
He nodded. “Of course. We will make you the most powerful witch in the three realms.”
She liked the way he said that, as if he was imagining forging himself a queen to suit the King of Demons.
She guessed if she lived in a castle and was in a steady relationship with the king, she could consider herself his queen. It was certainly a step up from rogue demon hunting witch with a bad reputation amongst her kind for being rebellious, vicious and a bit wicked.
Her King of Demons was a perfect match for her and she had known it from the moment she had set eyes on him. He wasn’t the only one who had lost their heart in Paris.
“And you’ll see to my needs?” she said, her eyebrows rising expectantly.
His eyes darkened for a different reason, desire dilating his pupils. He growled, “All of your needs.”
She tapped her finger against her chin and wriggled her nose in thought, fighting the urge to give in to her desire to kiss him. He was too sexy for his own good when he growled things at her. Her gaze flicked to his ears. She really wanted to see those little horns of his again.
“Say yes,” he husked and she was powerless to resist his demand.
“Yes,” she whispered and he grasped the back of her neck, dropped his head and claimed her lips in a soul-searing kiss.
Liora leaned into him, clutching him to her and savouring every sweep and stroke of his lips against hers. In his arms like this, held close to him, she felt cherished and loved, and as if she had found her perfect man. She had found someone she could depend on and could lean on in times when she needed his strength, and she knew in her heart that Asmodeus felt the same.
She drew back and stared up into his mesmerising eyes, picking out every dancing fleck of black and amber amidst swirling gold. She loved it when he looked at her like that, as if she was the centre of his world. She reached up and twirled his black hair around her fingertips, and smiled wickedly.
“We had our first proper argument,” she said and he frowned at her, canting his head to one side at the same time. “You know what that means.”
He shook his head.
“Make up sex!” She waited but he didn’t choke.
His eyes darkened, his pupils devouring the gold fire.
Liora frowned, a touch of disappointment flowing through her. She had expected a more satisfying reaction. She grinned as an idea dawned on her, tiptoed and stroked her fingers through his wild black hair, settling them just behind his ears.
She brought her lips to his left ear and breathed into it, “I want to tug your sexy little horns while you fu—”
Asmodeus choked.
Growled.
Grabbed her.
Liora squealed as he twisted her into his arms, enfolding her in his black-feathered wings, and cast a swirling shadowy portal on the sand beneath them, sending them plummeting into Hell.
His curved obsidian horns sprouted beneath her fingers.
Warmth spread through her as he beat his wings and they glided towards his castle. Their castle.
Liora leaned in and kissed him, stroking his horns at the same time and earning a husky growl as her reward.
Not even fate could part them now.
They wouldn’t let it.
Together, they were stronger.
Together, they could take on the world.
Or at least save it from destruction.
Nothing would stand in the way of their forever.
The wicked King of Demons.
And his witch queen.
The End
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Read on for a preview of the next story in the highly addictive Her Angel: Eternal Warriors paranormal romance series, Her Avenging Angel
Her Avenging Angel - Preview
It had been twenty-seven days, give or take a few, since Nevar’s master had bothered to show up for his duty and relieve him, taking his place outside the crystal chamber in which the Great Destroyer slumbered, deep in the bowels of the Devil’s fortress in Hell.
A destroyer that Nevar had awoken by spilling Asmodeus’s and Liora’s blood in the very chamber he now guarded, and had become the creature’s master, much to the annoyance of the Devil.
Her Wicked Angel Page 38
