He readied his sword.
The demon didn’t give him a chance to use it.
The enormous male spoke in the demon tongue, each word piercing his ears like white-hot needles and slithering through him like oily darkness, warning him away from the female.
She had not lied.
She was a queen of demons.
But she was Echelon too.
“This is not over.” He spat the words at the demon and teleported just as the male swung at him.
He reappeared on the balcony of his apartment in Echelon headquarters, surrounded by the vast white city known as Heaven in the mortal tongue. He looked down on the human world, seeing back through the layers of the building to the room where he had been just a second before.
It wasn’t Sable or the demon who was the focus of his gaze, though.
It was Emelia.
He watched her as she shrank away from the group, still holding herself, entranced by her beauty and angered by her suffering.
He would find a way to slay her dragon for her.
He would bring the wrath of Heaven down upon all of Hell.
CHAPTER 2
Electricity still charged the air, causing prickles across Emelia’s skin. She shivered and rubbed at her left arm, the one Linda clutched as she marched her down the pale corridors of Archangel HQ, leading her away from the room where the angel had appeared.
An angel.
The imposing black-haired male hadn’t seemed much like an angel when his mood had turned, when he had demanded she tell him what had happened to her. Her throat closed, stomach twisting and heart beginning to pound faster as memories crowded her mind. She tried to shake them loose, bit back the cry that wanted to burst from her lips as they pressed harder, starting to take shape despite her best efforts to deny them.
As a hazy figure formed, the silhouette of a male whose hunger for violence had exceeded that which the angel had shown to her, she breathed harder, fought to shove him out before he could rise to torment her once again.
Linda flicked her a glance, a well-practiced worry shining in her deep brown eyes, one that made Emelia want to lash out at the psychiatrist. A hunger of her own rose inside her, a powerful and consuming urge to tell Linda exactly where to stick that look and to push her away, to shove and hit her until she left her alone.
She just wanted to be alone.
She didn’t want to talk.
Talking did nothing. She had spent hours on that couch in Linda’s office. Talking. It hadn’t changed a single thing. It wasn’t fixing anything. She was still broken, weakened by what had happened. Talking to the shrink only reminded her that she was weak, that she hadn’t been strong enough to protect herself.
So she didn’t want to pore over every damned thing that had happened to her.
Things the angel must have seen somehow.
The shivers wracking her deepened, causing her limbs to tremble and her feet to stumble. She wrenched away from Linda on a frustrated growl as the woman threw her another concerned look, one that veiled what she was really thinking behind that placid, oh-so-professional exterior.
She was the same as everyone else at Archangel.
Emelia knew it.
They talked about her behind her back, cast her glances when they thought she wasn’t watching, ones that questioned her sanity and held a hefty dose of pity. A dose Emelia found impossible to swallow.
“Emelia.” Linda’s soft voice, so calm and gentle, only increased the need to turn and smack her away, to rail at her until she left her alone.
It never worked.
If she lashed out, it only gave Linda more cause to push her into another session.
So Emelia drew down a secret breath to steady herself, to still her turbulent mind and whirling emotions, and even out her pulse.
Because Linda wasn’t the only one who could construct a veil to conceal what she was really feeling.
It hadn’t taken Emelia long after returning, after being subjected daily to hours of probing and poking from Linda on that wretched brown leather recliner in that infernal magnolia room, with its perfectly positioned flowers and scents meant to soothe, to realise that she needed to construct walls.
Ones that no one could penetrate.
Her mind flashed back to the angel.
The way his silver eyes had held hers, how that golden fire had flashed in them, and his fierce reaction still shook her. The room had visibly darkened, as if his anger had been sucking all the light from it, and despite how desperately she had wanted to look away, she hadn’t been able to wrench her eyes from his.
She hadn’t been able to move when he had demanded to know what had happened to her.
When he had vowed to slay the dragon who had harmed her.
A chill rushed through her.
Not fear.
Not this time.
This was something else.
It shook her harder than how fierce he had appeared, more like a dark warrior than the image she’d had in her head of angels.
He had wanted to go to war for her.
Everyone at Archangel wanted to smother her and the other women who had returned from Hell, where they had been snatched from the battlefield in the war between the Third Realm of the demons and the Fifth Realm and taken to the dragon lands. Handed out by the dragon chief like a commodity, given to his warriors to use as they saw fit.
A colder shiver skated down her spine and she clenched her fists against it. The heat of her anger soon burned it away as it blazed like an eternal flame inside her, one she knew would never die. It would only ever fade to a flicker under the onslaught of her memories, was quick to rage back to a roar whenever those vile images released her from their hold.
Whenever that happened, did she look as fierce as the angel had?
Archangel wanted to lock her away, to cage her in a new prison, treating her as a fragile thing that might break at any moment.
Making her fragile.
Weak.
The angel?
His fury had been real, explosive, and thrilling in a way. She believed him when he had growled that he wanted to slay the dragon who had abused her. She ached for that to happen.
She had been close to shattering the hold her fear had had on her, to find her courage and her voice with it to tell him that she craved vengeance, needed closure, wasn’t sure she could last another day without knowing that dragon was dead.
But then Sable’s demon king, Thorne, had appeared and had driven the angel away, and all the hope that had been building within Emelia had instantly flooded out of her, leaving her cold and empty, and her legs weak beneath her.
She had wanted to curse the towering demon male, had wanted to pound her clenched fists against his broad, thickly muscled bare chest, to claw and hit him and scream at him for making the angel leave.
Sable, her commander and a woman Emelia had been close to from the moment she had moved south to the London headquarters of Archangel half a decade ago, had mistaken Emelia’s shaking for fear and had summoned Linda.
Her friend meant well, but Emelia cursed her in her mind.
She didn’t need another round with the shrink, didn’t need someone fussing over her right now. She needed to fight. She needed to punish the man who had hurt her, had been cruel and vicious to her.
Had stolen a piece of her, stripping away her strength and confidence to leave her a shadow of herself.
She glanced at a window they passed as Linda calmly talked to her, leading her towards her office on a lower floor of the sprawling building.
She didn’t recognise her reflection.
That wasn’t the face of the Emelia who had bravely ventured into Hell to fight in a war between demons. It wasn’t the face of the Emelia who had been bold and courageous, had taken down countless foes to protect her teammates and the immortals who had been on her side. It wasn’t the face of the woman who had been on track to secure a position commanding her own squadron.
&nb
sp; When she looked into those dull green eyes staring back at her, she saw a weak, timid, frightened thing, and she hated it.
Alarm bells tore through the silence, ripping her back to the world, and she glanced around as everyone sprang back into action, her fellow hunters racing from the rooms lining the corridors to seek out the source of the threat.
Emelia saw her chance and took it.
“I should go help.” She twisted away from Linda.
The woman regarded her with a cold and critical once-over. “Are you sure? You need to talk.”
She didn’t need to talk. She needed to get the hell out of there. She needed to go to her quarters and surround herself with quiet. Although, that would be difficult with the alarms blaring.
Was it the angel?
Had he returned?
She shoved him out of her head and did her best to ignore the strange thrill that swept through her at the thought he might have come back.
It was more likely that Thorne had caused the alert to sound.
Either that or Anais was finally going to set her dragon free.
Emelia had noticed the way her friend had looked at the blue-haired shifter. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she hadn’t been the man’s prisoner, not as Emelia and the others had been the captives of the dragons who had taken them. There was a connection there, and it blazed as brightly as the one Sable shared with her demon king, Thorne, and Olivia shared with her elf prince, Loren.
Anais had fallen for an immortal.
Emelia suppressed another shudder as a memory popped into her mind before she could block it, one where the green-haired dragon who had held her captive had returned to her, badly injured and growling about how she would love him as Loke’s female did.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Remembered the single word she had spat at him, filled with defiance despite how crazed he had appeared.
Never.
“Emelia?” Linda shuffled closer, and Emelia backed off a step.
A group of hunters rushed towards her and she allowed herself to get swept up in them, jogged shoulder to shoulder with them a short distance, until they rounded a corner, heading towards the cafeteria, Thorne’s usual landing place when he was causing a ruckus.
She tossed a glance back over her shoulder, assuring herself that Linda hadn’t followed, and broke away from the group to duck down another corridor, one that would take her to the stairs leading up into the wing where her quarters were.
Emelia sprinted down the corridor, picking up speed as the weight of her memories began to grow heavier, pressing down on her. She refused to crumble, pushed back just as hard, determined to make it to her rooms before they hit. She wouldn’t let everyone see her weak.
Not anymore.
The corridors passed in a blur, and her breath was sawing from her when she finally reached her door. Her hand shook as she fumbled with the knob, twisted it, and pushed the door open. She staggered inside, her pulse pounding, throbbing in her temples. The door slammed behind her, and she stumbled a few steps until she bumped into the dark brown leather couch that occupied the centre of her studio apartment, facing her small TV.
She clutched the back, the leather creaking beneath the pressure of her grip, and breathed. Just breathed. She focused on each breath, until they fell into a steady rhythm and she felt her control returning, her strength welling up with it. She stared at the dark screen of the television, slowly piecing herself back together and pushing out the memories that threatened to send her to her knees.
She was done with being weak.
She was strong, had fought immortals, slain them in double digits. She was powerful, courageous. She was still the woman she had been before entering Hell. Before that vile dragon had laid his filthy paws on her.
She was strong.
Her knees buckled and she grunted as they slammed into the wooden floor of her apartment, her chin striking the back of the couch. She slumped towards it, pressing her cheek to the cool leather, and closed her eyes.
The alarms ceased.
Had it been the angel?
She found herself hoping that it had been, found herself using her grip on the back of her couch to pull herself back onto her feet, and found herself twisting to face the door. A door she wanted to walk towards, to open and venture out again.
In search of him.
Why?
He was dangerous. Too powerful. A warrior. An immortal she knew just by looking at him that she could never best in a fight. It would be over in mere seconds. Her life obliterated without any effort on his part.
He was everything the dragon had been.
But the rage that had been in his silver eyes had been immeasurable. Real. Intoxicating. And his vow? It had shaken her, but not in a bad way. For the first time since returning from Hell, she had felt a glimmer of hope.
Hope that the dragon might pay.
If he got the punishment he deserved, if she knew he was dead, would the nightmares end?
She closed her eyes and swayed forwards as a wave of fatigue hit her. She didn’t want to sleep. Whenever she slept, she saw things. She remembered things. It all played out in her mind like a horror movie and she was powerless to stop it.
Now, she couldn’t remember the last time she had slept for more than a few minutes. She glanced to her left at the double bed, at the smooth burgundy sheets that had been left undisturbed since she had returned. She lowered her eyes to the spot on the light wooden floor beside the bed, where a quilt lay rumpled and twisted.
Her nest.
If Linda saw it, she would probably throw Emelia into a padded room.
Emelia had tried to sleep in her bed the first night back in her home, and had woken curled up on the floor, hurled from a nightmare and covered in cold sweat.
She had ended up in the bath, shivering despite the hot water that scalded her.
She drifted to the door of her apartment, lifted her hand, and slowly pressed it to the wood.
If he could, would the angel really slay the dragon for her?
She wanted Zephyr to suffer for what he had done to her, and for the terrible things he had probably done to other women in the past. She needed closure, and Archangel refused to give it to her. The few times she had pressed him to let her lead a team back into Hell to hunt the dragons down, her superior, Mark, had flatly stated that Archangel wouldn’t risk another war and they were focusing resources elsewhere right now.
They wouldn’t help her.
They wouldn’t give her and the other huntresses who had been held by the dragons the closure they needed.
She shifted her hand to the knob, lowered her eyes, and stared at it. The angel was dangerous, possibly even more so than the dragons. She couldn’t trust him.
She raised her hand to the locks and twisted them into place, then pushed away from the door, taking steps backwards towards the couch.
She couldn’t.
Emelia turned away and strode through her apartment, heading towards the door to the left of her untouched bed. She stripped off as she went, not caring where her T-shirt and trousers fell. Her bra and panties followed. By the time she entered the bathroom, she was naked.
She kept her eyes away from the mirror above the sink, not wanting to see the scars that marked her pale skin, wounds that would forever remind her of what had happened.
Her fingers drifted over the small docking station on the shelf beside the mirror, dipping in at the power button, and the soft sound of music filled the small space.
She sank to her backside on the edge of the bath and ran the water. The sound of it thundering into the white tub soothed her, instantly smoothing the ragged edges of her nerves. While the bath was filling, she idly swept her fingers back and forth beneath the flow of water, her eyes shifting out of focus as she stared at it.
She didn’t need to talk.
This was what she needed.
This ritual.
It settled her like nothing e
lse could.
She poured some bubble bath into the water and swished it around, creating a frothy white blanket, savouring how the heat seeped into her skin and the smell of lavender rose to permeate the humid air.
When the bath was full, she twisted the taps and stepped into the tub. She sighed as she sank into the water, deep enough that it lapped up to her chin. Her eyes slipped shut. Bliss. The quiet, the warmth, the music, and the scents that swirled around her. This was the therapy she really needed.
Her mind drifted, and she let it, safe in the knowledge it would remain away from the dragon as it always did whenever she soaked.
She went over the new rosters, the recruits Mark had assigned to the team she was in and the changes to the patrol schedule. She was going to need to speak with Sable about that.
Sable.
Emelia frowned. Wife of a demon king and queen to his people. She doubted Sable was going to be working for Archangel much longer after declaring that in front of everyone. Even Olivia had cut her hours back to practically nothing, was spending most of her time with her elf prince in Hell. Would Anais follow suit?
Was she going to lose all her closest friends to that place?
She wrapped her arms over her chest beneath the water and sank lower so it swept across her lips.
She hoped not.
Even as she knew it was going to happen.
Because apparently, Sable wasn’t just a queen of demons now.
She was half-angel.
What had the man called it? Echelon. He had said that Echelon were rare now and all were meant to serve his realm. He had announced himself as the fourth commander of that legion, or group, or whatever it was. What were Echelon?
Were they different to other angels?
She tried to push him out of her mind, but he refused to go. He had been imposing. Not just because of his towering seven-foot height, but because of the way he had held himself, how he had turned dark in the blink of an eye, transforming into a savage warrior ready to do battle. Terrifying. He had seen things she hadn’t wanted anyone to see, and now that she was calming down, it left her feeling scraped out and hollow inside.
Avenged by an Angel Page 2
