“I will not allow anything to happen to them. I swear it, Callum.” Snow held Abby closer to him, feeling her warmth but also how delicate she was. The babies would make an easy target for the angels, and he didn’t dare hope that these males and females were above killing innocents.
“I’m not sure if kissing angels will weaken them but can I give it a shot?” Chica said behind him and Andreu grumbled something dark in response. “I swear I’ll make it up to you.”
That got a better response from Javier’s younger brother.
Snow could understand his reluctance to let his female go around kissing strangers to weaken them, but she was one of the best weapons in their arsenal. Chica had drained the life out of him with just one kiss. If her ability worked on the angels, it could give them the advantage they needed.
They reached the double-height room at the bottom of the building and Kristina growled at the doors that led into the theatre.
Snow had sensed it too.
There were angels in the theatre, but they weren’t alone.
Snow passed Abby back to Callum and barrelled through the doors. He ducked as a blade whizzed towards him, grabbed the male’s wrist with one hand, and shoved upwards with the flat of his other one, slamming it into the angel’s forearm and snapping the bone.
The male bellowed in agony and Snow twisted the sword free of his grip and decapitated him in one fluid motion.
The heads of at least two dozen more angels turned towards him.
Elissa chose that moment to unleash an unholy blast of something black that tore through the angels closest to her and Luca, sending them flying through the air and smashing into the boxes that lined the sides of the theatre. Payne teleported after them, ending their lives with claw and fang.
Snow tossed his sword to Antoine and threw himself into the fight, tearing at the angels’ wings to weaken them.
Chica bounced around the room, appearing and disappearing, only remaining in one place long enough to use her wiles on the male angels and kiss them into a stupor. Unfortunately, the effect only lasted a few seconds.
Andreu joined forces with her, together with Javier and Lilah, working as a team to collect weapons from the stunned angels, kill them and then distribute the swords to the others in their group.
Kristina viciously tore through the angels who dared to approach Callum, and Snow stayed close to them, doing his best to protect both the werewolf and the vampire with their young.
More angels appeared to replace the fallen, one shimmering into existence right next to Snow.
Snow growled and attacked, not giving the brunet angel a chance to get his bearings or draw his weapon.
The angel defended, blocking every punch or kick that Snow levelled at him. The male’s fist smashed into Snow’s cheek and blood flooded his mouth, his teeth aching from the blow. He followed up with a second strike to the same place, knocking Snow off balance, and then caught him with a powerful uppercut.
Snow stumbled backwards into the first row of red-velvet seats and caught Payne’s worried look as he battled another of the new angels.
They were stronger than the others.
The brunet angel drew a white short blade from his waist and slashed at Snow with it, his cold blue eyes void of emotion as he fought.
Snow blocked the blade with his left forearm, the metal slicing into his flesh, and swung a right hook, landing it hard on the angel’s jaw.
Bone gave and shattered under the force of the blow but it didn’t slow the angel down. He attacked again, faster this time, and Snow had difficulty keeping up. He ducked, dodged, and did his best to evade each swing of the knife, but several attacks caught him, lacerating his bare chest and arms.
Antoine appeared behind the angel, his white blade cutting upwards through the air in a swift arc, and slashed through the angel’s pale wings, turning them crimson. The angel howled in pain and turned on Antoine. Victor came out of nowhere, landing a solid punch on the angel’s already broken jaw, sending him crashing backwards into Snow.
Snow grabbed him from behind, wrestling with him. It was going to take all of them fighting together to defeat these angels. They were powerful and this one alone had dealt Snow some serious injuries. He couldn’t afford to grow weak. People were depending on him and he would protect them.
He managed to snap the angel’s white wings and got his arm across the male’s throat, locking it in place by grasping his wrist with his other hand.
Snow ignored the burning cut on his forearm and pulled back, straining against the angel as he fought his hold, struggling to keep him contained. Antoine and Victor fought to keep the other angels at bay, buying him time to question the male.
“Why are you here?” Snow dreaded the answer to that question, part of him still clinging to the sliver of hope that Aurora wasn’t responsible for this attack on the theatre.
“It is justice,” the angel said, his voice cold. “We are saving human lives by doing this. To save the mortals… you all must die.”
Snow growled into his ear, his anger rising like a tide, consuming him and driving him deeper into his rage. “Don’t you care that there are babies here and you are taking so many of our lives? Are those lives not worth anything?”
“No.” The angel struggled again and elbowed Snow in the ribs, and Snow tightened his grip, cutting off the male’s air supply and choking him. When he began to weaken, Snow eased off so he could speak again. “You will all die. It has been decided.”
By Aurora. She had sentenced them all to death, not just him.
“No humans die in our shows… not for decades!” Antoine slashed at another angel with his blade, cutting across the female’s white armour, driving her back as she attempted to reach her comrade. “You have no good reason for doing this. We draw blood but we do not kill.”
“It is true,” Victor weighed in and ducked the wild swing of the male angel he was fighting. He kicked the male between the legs and he crumpled into a heap on the black stage floor. “We use human performers who do this sort of thing for a living. We meet them and they form a natural connection to us, and then we place them under thrall and perform.”
“But they fear,” the angel in Snow’s grip said and Snow growled when he tried to struggle again.
“Only because the vampire makes the audience feel that emotion, a flicker they sense and then the thrall feels pleasure again,” Antoine growled and thrust his blade through the female angel, skewering her on it, straight through her chest. She clutched the blade, her eyes wide, and then slumped and slid off the sword, leaving blood streaking the white surface.
“We have orders. We will eliminate you for killing humans.” The angel was grasping at straws now and it only served to piss Snow off even more. They wanted to kill them and it seemed that no matter what evidence his family gave them, the angels weren’t going to stop until they were all dead, the babies included.
“You want us dead for doing what comes naturally to us?” Antoine sounded as incredulous as he looked as he turned on the angel, his blue eyes veering towards crimson. He tossed a dark look at Snow. “Kill the bastard.”
“It would be my pleasure.” Snow snapped the angel’s neck, feeling a little better as bone crunched and the male fell lifeless to the floor.
Antoine scooped up a sword and tossed it to him. He caught it and fell back towards Callum with Antoine, ushering them onto the black stage where they had more room to fight. Sera joined them, helping Kristina deal with any angel who tried to get to her babies and their father.
Payne and Elissa fought across the stage, combining their attacks to dispose of as many of the weaker angels as they could, leaving only the stronger ones behind. Luca remained close to them at all times, the scruffy sandy-haired boy’s eyes shining vivid blue and gold, a sign of his incubus nature. He grasped a small white blade in his hand and was attacking the legs and hips of any angel who dared to come near his makeshift parents.
Lilah and Javier fell
back, edging towards Snow and the others. He moved forwards to help them when he saw the gash on Lilah’s upper arm and smelled the blood on her. Javier flicked him a grateful look and fought harder, keeping the attacking angels away from his mate.
Snow fought a fair-haired female, his sword clashing with hers, searching for a weakness he could exploit. Another shiver bolted down his spine, warning him that more angels had arrived.
Among them was a familiar scent.
Snow’s lips peeled back off his fangs and he pinned the black-haired male with a murderous glare at the same time as he cut the female angel down, driving the blade into her shoulder and diagonally across her chest, straight through her heart.
Aurora’s master stood on the stage ahead of him, dressed in his white armour, a long blade gripped in his hand. His cold amethyst eyes met Snow’s blazing crimson ones.
Snow roared and attacked.
CHAPTER 20
Aurora fidgeted on her seat in the waiting room, growing more impatient with each minute that ticked past without anyone calling her in. She stroked the longest feathers of her black wings, preening them and making them glossy.
Other angels milled around the pale room, discussing matters that ranged from the current wars that ravaged the mortal world, and the uprising of demons in one of the smaller realms in Hell against one of the larger ones, to more mundane things like what stupid thing one of their human wards had done.
She tapped her fingers against her knees. What was taking them so long? They had demanded she returned immediately and gave her verdict, and now they were keeping her waiting.
Her thoughts drifted away from the angels around her to Snow. He would be surprised when she returned to him.
She wanted to see him again and missed him already. This time when she returned to him, she was going to stay in his world, with him. They would never part again.
Aurora couldn’t wait any longer. She turned her gaze inwards and towards Snow.
The theatre shimmered into existence before her and then her vision swept through the layers of the building, seeking her target. Her eyes slowly widened as she saw blood in the hallway on the level where the owners’ quarters were and her heartbeat accelerated.
She dove faster towards Snow, panic making the world blur past in streaks of white, black and red.
So much blood.
Her vision halted when she could see into the main theatre and horror crashed through her, threatening to still her heart in her chest.
Angels were at war in Vampirerotique.
Aurora shut down the connection, the sudden switch between the mortal world and her angelic one jarring her senses and sending a sharp spike of pain through her mind. She burst from her seat and shouldered open the door to her superiors’ office.
The four male angels turned from their perusal of a set of maps spread over a circular white desk and faced her, surprise in their multi-hued eyes.
“Is there a reason for this intrusion?” The tallest of the angels frowned at her, his black hair drawn back into a tight ponytail and his purple-to-blue eyes narrowing.
Unlike the other angels in her realm, these four wore golden armour and had beautiful golden wings furled against their backs. They were the elite of the angelic realm and barging in on them had probably sentenced her to a few weeks in captivity as punishment for disrespecting them, but she didn’t care.
“I was told you wanted to meet with me and I came back to file my verdict… and was kept waiting… and now I turn my gaze upon my ward and he is… angels are attacking him.” She still couldn’t believe that, and saying the words aloud made her heart thump harder, pumping fury like acid through her veins, making her want to disappear from this world and go straight to Vampirerotique to aid Snow and his family. She needed to know what was happening though, and why.
The male exchanged a glance with the other three and then turned his gaze back on her. “Your master came to us and said he had spoken with you, and you had declared all at the theatre must die. He offered to lead the team in your stead, carrying out your execution order.”
Her knees weakened, shaking beneath her and threatening to give out. Her ears rang and she felt as though someone had just punched the wind out of her lungs and rattled her senseless.
He had done what?
Aurora trembled, her head spinning, unable to comprehend everything her superior had just told her and fighting to find her voice.
“I gave no such order.” She forced the words out and frowned at the four males. Her panic overwhelmed her and she couldn’t hold back the tide of her emotions. “I didn’t order any damn execution!”
The male tensed and his eyes darkened. The other three looked equally as horrified by her outburst.
“You desired the vampire to live?” The blond short-haired one at the back raised an eyebrow, as if he couldn’t believe her. The brunet and silver-haired males on either side of him looked equally confused by her decision.
“I have seen the good in him.” Aurora stepped forwards, gathering her courage, intent on issuing the verdict she had come here to give them. “He is capable of redeeming himself given time. My verdict is that Snow can be saved and he is not a threat to humankind.”
The black-haired male closest to her folded his arms across his chest, his handsome face turning pensive. “Then we have a problem. Your master believes you said otherwise.”
She knew why the bastard was doing it too. “I admit that he had an altercation with the vampire, but Snow only sought to avenge acts committed by my master that he believed were wrong. It has to be the reason my master came to you and lied about my decision.”
Aurora drew in a shaky breath to steady herself. Everything rested on her keeping her head and convincing these angels to assist her. She could save everyone at Vampirerotique if she could make them listen to reason.
“Please. Call off the team.”
They exchanged another look and the blond male spoke. “We will consider it.”
Aurora growled in frustration, her temper and fear getting the better of her. Consider it? How dare they. She needed to get to Snow before it was too late and her master killed him.
“Why has he done this?” She turned on the black-haired one again.
It was the silver-haired one who responded. “I admit… it is a clever trick. I had not anticipated he would find this loophole.”
“Loophole?” She didn’t know what the hell they were talking about and she didn’t have time for them to send her in circles.
“We shall have to congratulate him upon his return,” the brunet said, his deep voice laced with amusement.
It dawned on her that they were stalling her.
They had no intention of calling off the team. They wanted Snow to die and her master to succeed.
“Damn you all to—” Aurora cried out as sharp white-hot pain blazed across her side.
She pressed her hand to it, struggling for air, the unexpected pain making stars wink across her vision. Her hand became wet and she pulled it away from her body and shook at the sight of the blood coating her fingers.
Her head shot up and she stared at the males.
“What is this?” she gasped, her side burning and blood saturating her dress, sticking the white material to her skin.
The blond at the back smiled coldly and viciously. “You are bound to the loathsome creature. Your master’s sword will carry out the duty given to him millennia ago.”
Aurora swallowed reflexively, her ears ringing again as those words swam around her mind, cutting through the debilitating pain.
She was bound in more than one way to Snow. Not only destined to bear his sins.
If he died, she would too.
She couldn’t believe it.
The black-haired angel leaned his backside against the edge of the white desk, his golden wings curling around his shoulders, the tips of them grazing his boots. “You should have died the night you allowed the vampire to live. You were supposed
to take his place as an equivalent exchange to maintain the balance.”
What the hell?
She stared at him in disbelief.
The silver-haired male behind him folded his arms across his chest, his expression turning stern and dark. “We tasked your master with carrying out your execution, but we did not give him a deadline, and he abused that.”
“And now he has found a loophole.” The blond smirked.
She hated them all. Her master and these males. Her master had wanted her to judge Snow as beyond salvation, sentencing Snow to the death he so desperately sought, unaware that she would also die. Why?
She was damn well going to beat the reason out of him.
She wouldn’t let Snow die.
“If you don’t call off your men, I will kill them all,” she snarled and disappeared, willing herself back to the London theatre.
Aurora appeared in the thick of the battle between the angels and the residents of Vampirerotique.
She grabbed one of the fallen white blades and shoved her way through the fight, defending herself against any vampire who tried to harm her and attacking any angel who dared to get in her way. Her side blazed, stealing her focus as her blood continued to leak from the vicious wound, slowly weakening her. She had to find Snow.
An unholy roar shook the theatre and a wave of anger swept over her.
Snow.
She fought to reach him and broke through the throng of angels and vampires, into an open space on the strip of red carpet between the stalls and the stage. She immediately wished she hadn’t.
Snow slashed at her with the sword clenched in his hand and she fumbled with her own, blocking his strike. His blade hit hers with force that sent her stumbling backwards into another vampire.
“You,” Snow snarled and her eyes widened when she felt the pain in him and saw the hurt in his eyes.
He thought she had ordered this.
“Snow, wait,” she said but he struck again and she barely managed to block this time. Her side ached, the pain blistering her skin, stealing her strength and making her dizzy. She was no match for him when she was bleeding out.
Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) Page 26
