“Eat.” That word was little more than a growl.
She didn’t trust the delicious-looking steak, potatoes and vegetables in front of her but she wasn’t about to tell the Devil where to stick them when she had already managed to royally piss him off. She took the fork in one hand and the steak knife in the other, and paused to stare at it.
“Do not even think about it.” The Devil casually slid into the chair opposite her. He crossed his legs at the knee and leaned back into his chair, his eyes amber again and a false sense of calm about him. She glanced at the three huge black-skinned demons protecting the door.
Erin cut into her steak. Eating the food was probably the wisest move she could make. Not only would it give the Devil a chance to get what looked to be a temper that surpassed everything she had heard about it under control but it would give her much-needed strength. If she was going to survive whatever ordeal lay ahead of her and get the heck out of Hell and this mess, she was going to need her strength.
She devoured the food, uncaring of the way she looked to the three creatures and man, if you could call the Devil a man, watching her.
It was delicious and strangely revitalising. Every mouthful she swallowed filled her stomach and sent heat flowing through her veins, urging her into taking another bite. Was there something in it?
That thought made her pause and she looked up from her plate to the Devil, meeting his gaze. “What sort of steak is this?”
He smiled. “I believe it was the last unicorn.”
Erin retched and covered her mouth, barely managing to keep the food down. “You’re kidding. Right? There’s no such thing as unicorns.”
“Not anymore, there isn’t.” His smile held and she could see the truth in his eyes. God. She was eating a horse. Not just a horse, but a mythical creature. Didn’t unicorns have amazing powers of healing or some rubbish like that? No wonder she felt so revitalised.
And sick.
Erin pushed her plate away.
“You are not finished.” The Devil frowned at the remains on her plate, leaned across the dark wooden table and pushed it back towards her.
Erin shoved it back at him and then smiled politely. “I really couldn’t eat another bite.”
His look darkened. “Sentimentality will be your failing. I find it disappointing to discover such feelings in you.”
She didn’t care if it turned out he was right or what he thought about her. She didn’t want to eat horse, let alone the last unicorn. The sick feeling in her stomach worsened, the food she had consumed sitting like lead in it now.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill it just for this meal?”
The Devil smiled. He had. She felt lousy. She was personally responsible for the extinction of a creature.
“I had to find a way to restore your strength. See, these idiots were not supposed to take you from your home until yesterday and it was supposed to be done during the day... and they were supposed to have brought you directly to me.”
That sounded like three strikes to Erin. The Devil’s golden gaze remained on her but her attention leapt to the three creatures standing in front of the cell door. The one who had taken her shifted foot to foot, a nervous edge about him now.
He looked down at his feet. The ground there burned bright orange and began to bubble. The creature took a leaping step forwards, straight into the path of the Devil. She hadn’t seen him move. He grabbed the large demon by the throat, swung himself up onto his back and took hold of his wings. The creature shrieked and snarled, and frantically tried to shake the Devil off his back. The two other creatures remained at the door, eyes forward, not watching the horror as it played out in front of them.
Erin didn’t want to watch either but she couldn’t take her eyes off the fight. The huge demon struggled but it was no use. The Devil planted his shiny leather shoes between the creature’s shoulder blades, held his leathery dark wings at their base where they attached to his immense body, and leaned back. The demon arched forwards and roared in pain as his wings tore from his back. Blood splattered onto the black floor of her cell, drenching and then soaking into the basalt.
The Devil landed on his feet and casually discarded the pair of wings.
The demon stumbled forwards, face contorted in pain, and tried to get away. It was no use. There was nowhere for him to run. The Devil stalked towards the creature, his expression a mask of darkness and his eyes glowing bright crimson, and grabbed him by one thick arm. He spun on the heel of his polished shoes, swung the demon towards the open wall of her cell and released him.
He screamed the whole way down. Erin covered her ears, closed her eyes, and curled up in her chair.
She had presumed the Devil would be a sadistic and vicious bastard, but he exceeded her expectations. The table knocked against her elbows and she peered up, afraid of what she might see. The Devil sat opposite her, blood splattered across his handsome face and coating his hands. He huffed, produced a deep red handkerchief from his breast pocket, and set about cleaning the blood off his face.
“Now, where were we?” he said and discarded the bloodied handkerchief.
He had missed a spot, a single red streak that cut across his sculpted left cheek, but she didn’t have the courage to mention it. All of her bravery had drained from her and she trembled in her seat, afraid that she would be the next one he pitched over the edge and into the abyss.
“You have lost your fire.” He frowned, black eyebrows pinching tightly, and then sighed and relaxed into his chair. “I apologise. I should have meted out his punishment in private. It was not my intention to startle you.”
Startle? She wasn’t startled. She was petrified.
Erin shook her head, unable to do anything else or speak.
The Devil smiled at her. “Now, I believe you asked why you are here?”
She nodded, heart pounding, fearing what he would say.
“The answer is very simple. It regards a game and your role in it.”
“A game?” She swallowed. What sort of sinister game was he talking about? He nodded and she found her courage. “What’s my role?”
His smile widened, turning cruel and evil.
“You are bait.”
She frowned. “Bait for who?”
Who did she know that the Devil was interested in luring down to Hell?
He waved a hand and a shimmering image appeared behind him. A tropical island. The image zoomed in to the white shore and a woman there.
A shiver cascaded over Erin’s skin and icy fingers squeezed her heart.
Her silver hair reflected the bright sunlight and that part of her didn’t make sense to Erin, but she knew her without a doubt. She would recognise this woman anywhere, had spent the past few months worried about her because she hadn’t been in touch since then, and her calls had been infrequent since a year before that.
Her sister.
Erin’s throat closed and her eyes filled with tears of relief that her sister was safe even while the claws seizing her heart tightened their grip.
“Amelia.”
CHAPTER 2
Veiron stalked through the dense humid jungle, cutting a path through the bracken with his broadsword. Marcus had better have a damn good reason for dragging him out to such a hellish place just to speak to him. Veiron growled when another insect stuck him with its pointy end and slapped his hand down hard on it, killing it and leaving a small red spot on his tanned skin. What had happened to the good old days of meeting on a nice sunny and remote island? He didn’t like it in the jungle as it was and this one was high on his list of areas to avoid.
There was a gate to Hell here.
He had spent the past year and a half avoiding the gates to Hell, unwilling to get himself caught by making such a rookie mistake. The Devil wasn’t happy about Veiron’s rebellion and wanted him to pay in blood for disobeying him by assisting Amelia and Marcus in their fight against the eternal game that Heaven and Hell was playing with her, and them all.
>
Amelia was the current reincarnation of the original angel. The only female angel in existence. God had given her too much power and the Devil had tampered with her creation so her soul had been born in Hell. She had led men to sin and to war with each other. God had killed her but angels were immortal. Her death had only triggered her reincarnation.
That reincarnation saw her born in the mortal realm as a human. Under normal circumstances, Heaven and Hell allowed her to live her life as a mortal and die as one. Things changed when the planets came into alignment. Then, the two realms proved just how sick and vicious they could be.
Heaven sent Apollyon, the great destroyer and one of the angels of the Apocalypse, to kill her and awaken her in her angel form. Then, it was all hands on deck in a race to be the first to get their mitts on her. Heaven won most of the time, using Marcus to capture the errant female angel and bring her to the altar in Heaven where she would be sacrificed, her blood used to seal Hell for centuries.
Veiron had won a few times.
For him and Marcus, it didn’t matter who the victor was. They both died whenever she did because her death reset the game. Veiron was reborn as a guardian angel along with Marcus, only he was destined to fall into dispute with Heaven and to fall into Hell shortly following that.
He never had a choice.
Neither did Marcus.
Both of them were pawns in the game. Heaven and Hell forced them, and other angels like Apollyon, to do their bidding against their will.
At least Marcus and the others forgot everything that happened to them when they were reborn. Veiron generally had a few centuries of peace as an angel, oblivious of everything he had done in his past lives, before he fell and pledged himself in service of the Devil.
When that happened, he remembered everything. He remembered killing the female angel and spilling her blood, and dying himself, or the countless times Marcus had been the victor and Veiron had dropped dead somewhere. He didn’t want to remember the terrible things he had done and how he’d had no choice other than to do them. He didn’t want to remember that it was going to happen all over again because Heaven had agreed with Hell that the terms of their eternal game would include him being the Devil’s pawn.
He hated Heaven for that, but not as much as he despised Hell.
Veiron hacked at the undergrowth, tempted to blast it out of his way with his power to unleash some of his rage. He couldn’t risk it though. It was dangerous at the best of times to use his power. The Devil could use it to pinpoint his location and send his army of angels after him. At the worst of times, like the one he was currently experiencing, it would be a grand mistake. This close to the gate, the Devil would easily sense him if he used even the barest slither of his power. Fuck, he couldn’t even use his wings or his spear to get him to his destination. He was reduced to wading through a hot, sweaty, disgusting jungle using a mortal weapon.
Veiron snarled.
Marcus had better have a damn good reason for dragging him out here into the middle of nowhere.
The sun began to sink lower, the dense jungle around him darkening. He checked the GPS device Marcus had mailed to his hotel in Rio de Janeiro. Still miles to go. Veiron huffed and tucked the small dark grey device back into the pocket of his black jeans. His feet ached.
He grunted.
Flying would be sweet right about now.
Another insect bit him and Veiron barely stopped himself from taking his sword to it. So what if he lost an arm? It would be worth it to stop the little fuckers from feasting on his blood. They were getting worse with each minute.
He paused and raised his arm, glaring at the mosquito. It flew away before he could flick it off him. He hoped the fucker got sick from drinking his demonic blood.
Veiron growled and stalked on, trying to rein in his temper. Even that would get him noticed if he wasn’t careful. All it took was his eyes to change, revealing his demonic side, and he would pop up on the Devil’s radar.
He wasn’t sure how much more of this lying low crap he could take. The past eighteen or so months had been torture and he was close to hauling arse down into the bottomless pit in Hell and having it out with the Devil face to face.
What a bloody way to go.
The Devil would take him down before he could even step within forty metres of him. His master didn’t tolerate insubordination and helping the enemy was probably punishable by an eternity of torture.
Veiron’s death would be endless.
The light faded. Veiron stopped, sheathed his broadsword in the case strapped to his back, and rifled around in his small black backpack. He shoved past his folded up leather jacket and grabbed the flashlight. He clicked the button. It didn’t come on.
Just great. Stuck in the middle of Hell on Earth, being eaten alive by bugs, in the dark. He shook the Maglite and looked down at it as he clicked the button again. It came on, blinding him, and he swung it away. White spots winked over his vision.
Veiron sighed and leaned back against a tree, resting there with the torch pointed at the floor. He tipped his chin up and looked through the canopy to the inky sky beyond. It was alive with stars. The only times he had seen this many were when he had visited the island where Marcus and Amelia had remained hidden until recently.
Heaven didn’t have night. It was perpetual daylight there. Hell had a roof over it.
This was the one reason that he envied the mortals. They were able to see such beauty on a grand scale if they only looked up.
Well, this and alcohol. Heaven forbade such substances in its environs. Hell made a wicked form of liquor that could burn the roof off the top of a man’s mouth and leave them unable to taste anything for a week. It wasn’t quite the same as mortal-made alcohol. Mortals knew how to live it up. A million different flavours and none of them designed to knock you dead after one shot.
He could use a shot of something right about now.
Veiron untied his long flame-red hair, raked his fingers through the sweat-soaked strands, and then tied it back into a ponytail, the bells on the end of his leather thong jingling as he did so. His black t-shirt and jeans were equally damp and uncomfortable, and his army boots felt as though someone had poured a bucket of water into each one.
Why the Devil had Marcus chosen such a horrible fucking place as a meeting point?
He was going to wring the angel’s scrawny bloody neck when he eventually found him.
Veiron drew his sword from his back, clutching it in his right hand and the torch in his left, and trudged on. Nocturnal creatures of all sizes crossed his path during the trek, took one look at him and scattered into the jungle. Wise animals. His stomach grumbled, as though he needed the reminder that he hadn’t eaten in too long. He doubled his pace, crashing through the undergrowth, uncaring that the sound of his movements carried for miles through the night.
Anyone around here looking for trouble was welcome to come and try him on for size. The mood he was in right now, he would slaughter them.
The GPS device bleeped, signalling that he was close. He checked it again, juggling it and his flashlight. Very close. A few hundred metres now. He shoved it away and trekked onwards, and clicked his torch off when an orange glow cut through the trees ahead.
The undergrowth thinned and a small clearing came into view. Marcus sat on a log, the fire in front of him and his bare back to Veiron, exposing the elaborate blue-grey wings engraved on his shoulder blades. Veiron grinned.
He crept forwards, his sword ready to strike. This would teach the former angel for making him come out here into this godforsaken jungle. Marcus would probably jump higher than Heaven when Veiron tapped him on the shoulder with the sword. His grin widened.
Something cold pressed against his throat and he froze.
His dark eyes slid to his left.
Amelia stood there, dressed head to toe in black combat gear, her small dagger held to his Adam’s apple. She smiled and her grey eyes brightened, but the fatigue and worry he cou
ld see in them didn’t lift. The past year and a half had been difficult for her. It had been difficult for them all. He had never seen her so on edge before though. Had someone found them and tried to kill her?
Both Heaven and Hell had been quiet since Marcus had fallen and joined with Amelia, allowing her to become his new master, endowing him with the same silvery unusual wings that she had, a mixture of feathers on top and leathery dragon-like membrane on the bottom half, and the same incredible powers.
“Been training?” He pushed her arm away, removing the blade from his throat.
Marcus didn’t look back at him. He prodded the fire with a charred stick. “We heard you coming from miles away. Subtlety is not your forte, is it?”
Veiron shrugged and slid his broadsword into the sheath on his back.
He walked into the clearing, dumped his backpack on the leafy ground and undid the leather straps that ran under his arms and held the sword case against his back. He let it drop to the ground next to his backpack and sat on a tree stump near the fire. Small insects drifted too close to the flames and fizzled out of existence. He faced that sort of end if the Devil ever got his hands on him.
“So... what the fuck am I doing in the middle of the Amazon, close to a gate that spells certain doom for me?” Veiron looked from Marcus, with his silver-blue eyes and stoic expression, to Amelia, deciding she was the easier target and the reason Marcus had requested his presence judging by the feelings she wasn’t bothering to mask.
She sat down on the log opposite him, her black clothes blending into the darkness beyond her but her silver hair making her stand out. It was up tonight, tied back in a tight ponytail like his. She looked as though she was enjoying the humidity of the rainforest as much as he was, so why had she chosen this as the location for their latest meeting?
Marcus wore similar black fatigues on his lower half, his own black shirt laying over the log to his left. His bare muscular chest bore the scars of a recent battle and there was a thin dark line cutting across his jaw.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Complete Series Box Set Page 34
