He didn’t want her to feel as though she had to prove herself, and she didn’t.
She wasn’t ashamed of her demon blood and she never would be, not when Einar loved her for who she was, regardless of where she had come from.
Heaven could see her how they wanted, but if it put an end to Einar’s pain and meant they could be together as they had been before, she would go along with their game.
“I’ll do whatever it takes, because I love you, and I know in my heart how important your duty is to you, because my duty is important to me too.” She lifted her hand and stroked his cheek as his eyes searched hers, the beautiful golden flakes in them shifting slowly, swirling against the dark brown of his irises. There was pain brewing in his eyes, hurt that she could feel inside her. She wanted to vanquish it for him. “If someone took that away, I would be lost.”
“I am lost,” Einar whispered and hung his head, a deep sigh shifting his broad shoulders.
It hurt her to see her angel so forlorn and vulnerable. She cupped his cheek, smoothed her palm over it, and smiled when he looked at her through his lashes.
“You’re not lost.” She smiled up into his eyes. “You’re still the same hunter I first met. Wings or no wings, you will never change. You’re still the man I fell in love with.”
One she would love forever.
He frowned when she sidled up to him and stroked her hands over his chest, savouring the feel of the hard compact muscles hidden beneath his black shirt. His dark gaze followed them and then met hers when she brushed her fingers up his neck and cupped his jaw.
If she could give him back his wings simply by continuing to hunt demons, she would do it every second of every day, never resting until he had regained them. She would do that for him because he loved her and had sacrificed so much to be with her.
She tiptoed and pressed her lips to his. He slanted his head and captured her mouth with his, his tongue stroking the seam of her lips and teasing her tongue into joining in. She closed her eyes and kissed him.
She would do it because she loved him.
Nothing would ever change that.
Not what others thought about them or how forbidden their relationship was. None of it mattered to her. All that mattered was that she was in love with him, and he was in love with her.
Where they had come from didn’t mean anything.
It was where they were going to that counted.
And they would keep going forwards, hunting side by side, protecting the city and winning Einar’s wings back one bad guy at a time.
Together.
The End
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The angel was back.
Rook stood on the precipice of a spire of black rock, heat causing the dark cragged and forbidding lands around him to shimmer as it rose up from the fiery rivers that snaked like lightning in all directions across the obsidian earth below him, illuminating the endless cavern of Hell.
He stared at the shadowy horizon in the direction of the Devil’s fortress, not seeing the towering spikes of basalt that formed it. Not seeing anything. His gaze was turned inwards, focused on the strange sensation that swirled inside him whenever the angel set foot in Hell and dared to leave the plateau that overlooked the bottomless pit.
Rook had noticed it during their second encounter, when he had spotted the black-haired and obsidian-winged angel scouting lands he had no right surveying. It was one thing for Heaven to have a contingent of angels posted on the plateau, where a silvery pool recorded the history of the mortal realm.
It was another thing entirely for one of his breed to venture out over the lands, flying where he didn’t belong, trampling all over the Devil’s territory.
Three times since then, Rook had dispatched the First Battalion to drive the male back into the area above the Devil’s fortress.
Three times since then, the angel had gone quietly, retreating not just to the plateau but to a portal he could open between Hell and the mortal realm.
Which meant he was powerful.
Was that the reason Rook could sense him?
His eyes slipped shut and he inhaled slowly, filled his lungs with the sweet air of Hell and exhaled it all again, centring himself at the same time. The sensation grew stronger, swirled more violently inside him. Not in his gut, but behind the breastplate of his scarlet-edged black armour.
As he focused on it, it grew stronger still, setting him on edge. He shunned the unsettling emotion, refusing to let the angel rattle him again.
One time, the last time the angel had entered Hell, the commander of the First Battalion had been discussing business with their master and Rook had led the men in his stead, flying to meet the dark angel head on.
He had been determined to drive the male out of Hell just as his commander could, proving himself worthy of his position as his second, both to his commander and to the Devil. Rumours had it that the commander was falling out of favour for some reason, and Rook was damned if another would take his place as leader of the First Battalion when he had been working for centuries towards seizing control of the elite legion of angels under the Devil’s command.
When he had found the intruder, the male had dared to speak to him, addressing him directly and calmly despite the threat of facing a hundred of Hell’s most powerful angels.
He had mentioned a witch and something about helping her.
It had given Rook pause, and in turn that had left him cold, and furious. He had driven the angel out of Hell, pursuing him right to the plateau to ensure he left, because no creature of Heaven could sway him from his path.
The fiend had been trying to lure him from Hell. Rook was sure of it.
He just wasn’t sure why the male wanted him to leave the realm of shadows and fire that was his home, his entire world. His left hand fell to the red-edged obsidian vambrace that protected his right forearm and he clutched it as a different feeling rolled through him, one that always left him off balance for some reason, had him questioning things that in turn made him uncertain of himself and the realm he loved so much.
The trouble was, those questions were fleeting, slipped through his fingers like smoke before they had fully formed, leaving him with a head full of muddled thoughts that had no meaning.
He focused to purge the sensation before it took hold, needing his mind in the present and sharp as a blade with the angel in his territory. He couldn’t allow the tangled flow of questions and indistinct thoughts to strip him of his awareness today, weakening him.
The angel was coming.
To lure him through the portal he could create and into the mortal realm? For what reason?
To kill him?
It wouldn’t be the first time that an angel of Heaven had lured one serving the Devil away from this realm to kill them, forcing them to return to Heaven.
Rook had no interest in dying, so he certainly had no interest in the angel or anything he had to say.
The bastard was persistent though.
He had returned quicker this time, and seemed to be heading swiftly in his direction, as if he knew where he stood. Impossible. Hell was vast, blurred into shadows as far as the eye could see, no matter how far he flew. It was filled with angels like him too, ones who served the Devil, and countless demons. There was no way the dark angel could single him out in the web of signatures. It was impossible.
Yet when he opened his eyes, a speck formed o
n the horizon, a glint of gold in a sea of red and black.
Rook rolled his head, stretching his neck, and flexed his fingers as he lowered his hands to his hips. He rested his left hand on the black hilt of the scarlet blade hanging at his waist and extended his crimson wings to ensure his feathers were lined up perfectly and they were ready for when he needed them. He casually furled them against his back as the angel drew closer.
His heart beat harder, muscles coiling beneath his skin as he waited.
For a moment, the black-haired male looked as if he would fly straight past him and then he diverted course, banking to his right and descending towards a flat section of the hill that rose up to Rook’s left.
The male landed gracefully, swept his hair back into his ponytail, neatening it, and gave a few more beats of his wings before allowing them to settle against his back. He turned towards Rook, lifted his head and pinned him with bright blue eyes that glowed against the darkness of Hell.
Rook refused to move from his spire of rock.
He glared down at the male, his fingers tightening against the hilt of his sword. “Not learned your lesson yet?”
The male regarded him silently, no trace of emotion crossing his features.
Rook growled through his fangs at him as all of his teeth sharpened and turned crimson in response to the anger that blazed in his veins.
The angel was trespassing, should at least have the decency to harbour even the smallest flicker of fear or doubt in his eyes. The way the angel treated Hell as if he was allowed to roam it freely, without consequence, had riled Rook the moment he had met him centuries ago. It had only irritated him more each time he had seen the angel after that.
Coupled with the fact this angel seemed able to withstand the Devil’s voice, even went as far as challenging his master at times, throwing curses back at him, the male really pissed him off.
Rook rolled his shoulders and didn’t hold back the rage pouring through his veins. He let it flow over him and carry him away, stoked it as he narrowed his now-crimson eyes on the male. The angel dared to stand before him, to linger in his presence without fear. Worse than that, he dared to do it unarmed. The bastard was taunting him and Rook wasn’t going to stand for it.
The male thought himself powerful, believed himself able to handle Rook without a weapon to aid him.
Rook was going to show him what a mistake all his beliefs were.
He felt it as his bones lengthened in response to the hunger to eradicate the angel that was rapidly becoming his nemesis, to free himself of the irritation of the male so he could return his focus to claiming command of the First Battalion. He growled through his all-sharp teeth again as a shadow swept over his skin, turning it black, and he continued to grow, the angel appearing to move further away as he transformed into his demonic form.
As the crimson rolled down Rook’s feathers like blood to drip from their tips, leaving them black, the angel reacted at last.
A flicker of something that looked like remorse danced across his eyes as they shifted to Rook’s wings, as he watched the feathers fall away to reveal the dark dragon-like form they concealed.
Rook spread those wings and bared his fangs at the male as he drew the weapon hanging from his waist. It transformed as he swept his hand over it, going from a short crimson blade to a mighty broadsword.
The angel’s eyes leaped to it as Rook wrapped his other hand around the hilt and brought it down before him, a hunger to relieve the angel of his head rushing through him.
That remorse lingered in their blue depths.
Rook snarled again.
Fear should be the only emotion the angel was feeling. Sheer terror that his life was about to end now that Rook stood before him in his demonic guise, a form that granted him more power than he commanded in his angelic one.
When another emotion joined the remorse in the angel’s eyes, Rook launched from the spire of rock with such force it shattered, a sound like the crack of lightning echoing around Hell as he shot towards the angel, determined to end him.
Because no one pitied him.
He was strong. He beat his wings. He had worked his way through the ranks of the Devil’s angels. He beat them harder. He had commanded the Second Battalion, led them in wars against Heaven and in the mortal world. He beat them harder still. He was second in command in the First Battalion, close to his goal of leading the most fearsome legion in Hell.
He drew his sword back, his gaze focused on the angel’s neck.
He would prove it to this angel, right here and right now, and the last feeling the male would know was pity and remorse for questioning his strength.
He swung and he swung hard, his aim true, and grinned as his blade closed in on the angel’s throat.
“Rook.”
That word, uttered in a calm way that was such a contrast to the maelstrom of emotion whirling inside him, halted him in the air as surely as a sword through his heart might have. He stared down at his chest, sure he would find a blade piercing it as pain shot outwards from it, had his hands trembling and broadsword rattling just inches from the angel.
“What the fuck?” he snarled and beat his wings, shot backwards away from the angel to regroup and get the sudden flood of feelings that poured through him under control.
They swirled and collided, all of them birthed by hearing this angel utter his name. He understood none of them, not where they came from or what they meant.
Rook swept his blade down by this side and growled as he realised the angel was playing him for a fool. It was all a trick. An elaborate one. The bastard wanted to lure him into a trap of some kind. How many others like him had this angel killed and returned to Heaven, taking their free will from them?
He served the Devil because he wanted to serve him.
This realm was his home, his entire world.
The hilt of his sword clanked against his armour as he instinctively reached for his forearm in response to that and the niggling sensation that something else had been his entire world once.
Heaven?
He shunned that thought. Even if somewhere else had been his entire world once, Hell was that place for him now. Nothing would change that.
“I know you.” The angel took a step towards him, the fires of Hell reflecting off the gold edges of his black armour that moulded to his upper chest, forearms and shins, and the pointed strips that protected his hips. “I know you, Rook. It was long ago, many centuries now. I thought you dead… foolish, I see that now. Or perhaps you did die… a part of you died and it led to you serving this place.”
Rook spread his wings and beat them again, not to move away from the angel but to hold his position in the air above him. He wouldn’t run from this male, wouldn’t allow his poisonous words to taint his heart and dissolve his strength. They were all lies, designed to weaken him.
“Any angel could discover my name,” he spat and narrowed his crimson eyes on the male. “Do not think yourself clever in your approach to attempting to be my downfall.”
“Downfall?” The male’s lips curled slightly, a rueful edge to his smile. “Your downfall is not me, and it is not now. It happened all those centuries ago… the night you chose to serve this wretched realm.”
Rook growled at that, flashing his fangs. “You know nothing of me… your realm is the wretched one, and your kind are foul fiends, determined to place my kind in Heaven’s shackles again.”
“I do not want to kill you, Rook.” The male shook his head, a slight frown furrowing his brow. “It would defeat the purpose of my being here.”
There was a glimmer of something in the male’s blue eyes that said he had considered killing him at some point though. For what reason? And why hadn’t he gone through with that plan?
“Why are you here then?” Rook let his demonic form fade away to conserve his strength. It was taxing to use it, wore him out even when he was in Hell, a place that was his home. His entire world. His fingers twitched with a need that he sup
pressed. “If not to taunt me and lure me to a place you can murder me?”
“I needed to speak with you.”
Him in particular?
“So speak, and then leave.” He swept his hand back up his blade to shorten it, but kept it out, gripped at his side in case he needed it.
He tried to deny the curiosity growing inside him, but its grip on him was as fierce as his on his sword, and he found himself wanting to hear what had brought the angel into Hell and to him.
“The witch—”
“Again with this witch?” Rook cut him off and glared at the male as he tried to comprehend why the angel kept bringing up a witch. His free hand twitched. He ignored it.
“She needs your help, Rook.” The male took another step forwards, closer to him, and tilted his head back, causing his ponytail to slip from the shoulder of his black armour.
Armour that so closely matched his own. Strange how an angel who served Heaven could be given such dark armour and wings. It hardly seemed fitting. All the angels who worked near the pool were of this male’s kind though. Rook had only seen one mediator, angels with white wings, in his time. That male had come with this one a few months ago, and Rook had watched them until the Devil had grown furious and had ordered him away from them.
“You help her. I am not interested.” He went to turn away as a pressing need to leave built inside him.
The Devil exerting his will on him.
He felt it as a tug in his chest, one that had him wanting to move to a distance and call on his legion. He didn’t need to call to them. They were already coming. He could feel it in his blood. Soon, this angel would be facing the strongest battalion serving Hell.
This time, Rook wouldn’t let the angel flee.
“I cannot find her.” The angel shifted his foot forwards, looking as if he might risk another step, and then clenched his fists at his sides and loosed a black curse. “Listen to me, Rook. She needs you. Only you can find her. I believe that.”
Rook chuckled at that. “You believe it? I am expected to go along with your beliefs? I don’t think so. I recommend you leave now.”
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