He shook his head as he thought about how he had been in those darker days, ashamed that he had allowed himself to fall so far and resort to such cruel and despicable methods of revenge.
Looking back now, he wished he could change everything he had done from the moment he had been forced into a contract with Asmodeus. He had allowed his hunger for vengeance to consume him, blinded by it and unable to see what he was doing to himself, his actions inviting the darkness within him to grow stronger and take root. Asmodeus had only made a contract with him. Nevar had embraced the darkness and given himself over to it.
He couldn’t bring himself to regret everything though.
His foolish actions had brought Lysia into his life.
He had been his own downfall, but she would be his salvation.
He felt sure of it as he led her across the uneven terrain, towards the point where the hill rose even higher ahead of them. The darkness of Hell in this area concealed the entrance of the cave he knew to be there, blending it in with the rest of the black rock that formed the hill.
She would be safe there.
He would bide his time and wait for Liora to speak with Erin about what she had seen, in case his ward could offer him something vital that would help him protect Lysia and stop her from awakening. If everything that Asmodeus relayed to him didn’t give him a way of helping Lysia, then he would do what was necessary in order to get that information himself.
He didn’t want to leave Lysia here in Hell, alone and uncertain whether he would return, but he couldn’t go blindly into the future with her, waiting for something to happen that might end with her awakening as the Great Destroyer if he couldn’t protect her from it.
Lysia moved closer to him as the path narrowed and gasped as small rocks at the edge of the track crumbled away and tumbled down the sheer slope to the lava strewn valley below.
The thought of her slipping on the loose path and falling down into the valley sent sharp claws slicing into his heart and squeezing it.
He tightened his grip on her hand, unable to shake the fear that she might fall and master it. When another series of pebbles clattered down the slope, he stopped, turned to face her and scooped her up into his arms. She settled against him, her heart beating wildly in his ears and her palms warm against his neck as she held on to him.
He turned with her and kept walking, his eyes locked on the small flat area ahead of them where the cave opened out onto the side of the hill.
His heart steadied, the resolve flowing through him bringing strength with it.
Lysia would be safe with him here.
They would wait to hear from Asmodeus.
If his master offered no useful information, then he would do the only thing he could do to ensure Lysia was safe.
He would return to a place he had vowed he would never set foot in again.
He would go to Heaven.
A place where he would have to unleash his darker side if he was to have any hope of surviving the assault of the angels who would be awaiting him.
Nevar clutched Lysia closer to him and stared down into her eyes, warmed to his core by the soft tender look in them.
He would use the side of himself that part of him feared and the rest of him despised. He would embrace all the darkness he held within him and he would use the strength it gave him.
He would do that for her.
He would do that so he could come back to her.
CHAPTER 20
Lysia sat on the long padded cushion that Nevar had produced for them in the cave and he slumped next to her, rested his back against the black rough wall and sighed out his breath. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, and stretched his legs out in front of him.
“What happens now?” Her voice seemed loud in the dark cave, echoing around the curved walls.
Nevar had assured her this area of Hell was safe, and she couldn’t sense any demons nearby, but it didn’t reassure her. She had been caught up in a whirlwind of new emotions from the moment Nevar had mentioned going to Heaven, and she feared that he still intended to head out on what his friends had called a suicide mission.
Now he was alone too, an army of one, and she knew he would refuse her offer if she said she would go with him.
“We sit and wait to hear what Erin has to say.” The weary edge to his deep voice stirred a feeling in her chest, something akin to fear.
She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to decipher it. Concern. The reason for it seemed ten-fold. She worried that he would leave her and head to Heaven without her. She worried that he wouldn’t return. She worried what Erin would say. She worried that Erin was still upset and that something would happen to the little boy. She worried that Nevar seemed tired, drained of his strength. It was fading away right before her eyes.
“What happens after that?” she whispered and he cracked his eyes open and stared at his boots.
“I do whatever I have to do.”
She wanted to rail at him for that and for speaking only of himself. They would do whatever they had to do. She placed her hand over his where it rested on his thigh and his jade eyes shifted to it.
“You look tired.” She stroked her thumb over the back of his hand and he heaved a sigh.
“Because I am tired. Hell is not my home. I still have to sleep when I am here.”
“And eat,” she said, filling in the blank he had left hanging in the air and had refused to mention. “You haven’t fed since I met you. You refused Asmodeus. You have only taken mortal food… and you know it isn’t what you really need to restore your strength.”
He took his hand from under hers and glared at her. “And what do I need?”
“Blood.” She frowned at him and he looked away from her.
“If I have blood, I will just crave more blood. It’s a vicious cycle. I told you that.” The weary edge to his voice invaded his handsome face, etching it with lines that turned it grim. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “It doesn’t help.”
“But neither does not drinking blood. You still crave it. At least if you’re drinking it, you are stronger.”
His lips compressed into a thin hard line.
“Do not snap at me,” she said, feeling what was coming and unwilling to take the brunt of his anger or back down to stop him from turning on her. She caught hold of his hand and brought it away from his face. “You are hungry, Nevar. I sense it constantly in here.”
She lowered her other hand to her chest and the mark beneath her skin shimmered to the surface, casting a purple glow over them both.
“I have felt it from the moment I took blood from you. It made our connection stronger, and now I can feel you more clearly, but it’s fading.” She traced her fingers over the six-horned beast circling the pentagram.
A beast she would become.
Memories flashed through her mind, a vision of gigantic clawed paws covered in black scales and blood, lashing out at the angels that swarmed around her. The tips of dark leathery wings appeared at the corners of her vision as she fought. Her wings. Her claws.
She dropped Nevar’s hand and breathed hard, fighting for air as the cave closed in on her and the memories rushing through her head became more violent. Each blow the angels landed on her paws and her chest echoed on her body.
“Lysia.” Nevar grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. “Breathe. In for five. Out for five.”
She tried to do as he instructed but her throat tightened and she gasped as an angel drove a white spear straight through her chest and cried out as fire seared her heart.
“Lysia.” Nevar pulled her against his hard breastplate and wrapped his arms around her. The feel of his hands skimming up and down her back and his warm breath puffing against her bare shoulder soothed her a little. She pressed her hands to his armour and burrowed closer to him, seeking the comfort of his embrace.
She wasn’t there.
It was only a memory.
It would never happe
n again.
She wouldn’t allow it to happen again.
Nothing would take her from Nevar.
She ran her hands up his breastplate and curled her fingers over the raised edge around his neck. She tugged at it, wanting it gone, needing to get closer to him. She needed him to make her memories go away. She needed to fill all of her senses with him and leave no chink where the past could seep through and taint the present.
“Make this go away,” she whispered, frantically pulling on the piece of armour. It disappeared and she swept her hands over his bare chest, the growl her touch elicited thrilling her and boosting her confidence.
She worked her way across the broad flat slabs of his pectorals, her gaze devouring his delicious body as she explored every inch of it. Her fingers drifted lower, roaming down the line between his pectorals. She carefully traced each line of the mark on his chest, emblazoned above his heart, watching the violet ink ripple beneath her caress. He loosed another moan, the husky sound of it sending a hot achy shiver through her bones, and she dropped her head and kissed the mark that connected them.
His hand came up and he ploughed his fingers into her hair, holding her lips against his flesh. She swept them over the mark and darted her tongue out, stroking it over his warm skin and tearing another deep rumbling groan from him.
Lysia lowered her hands to the start of his stomach. His muscles tensed beneath her touch and she drew back, Nevar’s fingers still tangled in her hair. Her gaze devoured each ridge of honed muscle on his torso as his gaze bore into her. She moaned and lightly raked her short nails over the peaks and valleys of his stomach.
Nevar moaned again and his grip on her loosened. He leaned back against the wall, giving her more access to him, and she ventured onwards, her gaze dropping to her next destination as the dark memories began to disappear, replaced by an all-consuming and driving need of Nevar.
She ran her fingers across the waist of his hip armour.
“And this… make this go away too,” she murmured, breathless with anticipation and the desire rising to new dizzying heights within her.
His gaze darkened, his pupils gobbling up the soft jade of his irises.
The armour around his waist disappeared.
Her fingers touched soft cloth and she moaned at the thought of him removing that item next, revealing him to her. She wanted to lick and stroke him as he had her, giving him the same incredible pleasure she had experienced back on the island.
She placed her right hand on his bare shoulder and lifted her right leg over his, settling herself on his thighs. His hands instantly dropped to clutch her backside and he tried to draw her closer as his gaze fell to her lips, a hungry edge to it. She would kiss him, but not yet. Not until she had satisfied a commanding urge stealing through her.
She lowered her left hand and cupped him through his loincloth. A husky moan escaped him at the same time as she loosed a groan of her own. He was hard beneath the black material, as solid as stone. The feel of him had heat pooling in her belly and swirling lower, towards the apex of her thighs. She bit her lip and rubbed him through the material, unable to stop herself from stroking his steely length, wanting to feel every inch of him and know that he would be inside her again before long, filling her and intimately connecting them once more.
She wanted to rush to the finish line but found the strength to hold herself back. Patience was apparently a virtue. She wasn’t sure she had ever been big on virtues but she could learn to embrace them if it would draw out the pleasure of this moment with him.
Lysia palmed him one more time before tearing herself away and shifting closer to him. He groaned as they came into contact and tilted his head back, exposing the strong curve of his neck and his Adam’s apple. It bobbed as he swallowed and she couldn’t resist dropping her head and licking it, tearing another moan from him.
“Lysia,” he husked, raw need edging his deep voice, and she gave in to him, rocking her hips against his hard length to give them both a brief burst of pleasure.
His fingers pressed into her backside and he growled. “Time to make these go away.”
Her shorts, sandals and top disappeared. She gasped and then moaned as he growled again, a deep rumble of appreciation as he raked his hot gaze over her body. The hunger and need swirling in his violet-edged green eyes sent heat coursing through her body and left her feeling empowered.
She leaned back, giving him a better view of her bare body. He sank his fangs into his lower lip, a ravenous look settling on his handsome face, and frowned as he tugged her hips towards him. She threw her head back and moaned as her bare flesh came into contact with his, the barriers between them gone.
He rubbed her against him, rocking her core up and down his hard length, and she arched her back, thrusting her bare breasts up into the air as she tangled her hands in her hair and gave herself over to his command. A feral snarl filled the cave and a thrill chased through her, the wicked and raw sound of his hunger stoking her desire and making her burn at a thousand degrees, until she felt sure she would melt in the intense heat blazing between them.
The first sweep of his moist tongue across her stomach tore a gasp from her. The second had her moaning his name and on the verge of begging for more. He kissed a path over her flesh, rocking her against him the whole time, driving her out of her mind with need.
She wanted to tell him to go slow, to let her stroke him with her tongue and learn more about his body and the pleasure she could wring from it, but she couldn’t find her voice as he sucked her left nipple into his mouth. Sparks skittered over her skin from the centre of her breast. Each swirl of this tongue or scrape of his fangs across her sensitive flesh had her squirming against him, hot all over and slick with need.
She couldn’t take any more.
She grabbed his shoulders, shoved him hard against the cave wall, and rose off him. His gaze devoured hers, all violet now and filled with fire and hunger, need that she knew she could satisfy and that burned within her too.
Lysia swooped on his mouth, determined to master him this time. His hands tightened against her hips and he tried to bring her back into contact with him. She tensed, denying him and making him wait. He growled and she swept her tongue across his lips, so the snarl ended on a moan. He opened for her and she delved her tongue inside, tangling it with his as she fought him for dominance.
Claws pressed into her bare buttocks.
Her own had emerged the moment she had kissed him, brought out by the depth of her need and her desire to keep him where he was, trapped beneath her and at her mercy.
She kissed him and threaded the fingers of her left hand into his white hair, holding him in place against her mouth as she skimmed her right hand to his chest and his stomach. He tensed, his hips jerking upwards off the padded mattress as she wrapped her fingers around his velvet and steel length.
“Lysia,” he moaned and she echoed him, her body crying out for her to take this to the next level.
She needed him inside her again, one with her.
She needed it with a desperation that astounded her, as if she would die if she didn’t get him inside her soon.
She palmed his length, ripping another moan from him that had him tilting his head back and flashing clenched fangs.
He looked beautiful like that, feral and dangerous, as desperate for her as she was for him.
She rubbed the sensitive crown of his cock down her to her core and slowly seated herself on him, taking him into her at an excruciating pace that had him pressing the back of his head into the black cave wall and growling as he dug his claws into her backside.
Every inch of him tensed and the sight of her powerful warrior in all his glory stirred her desire, sending it swirling higher, until she could no longer control herself and surrendered to her feelings and her needs.
She sank down onto him and rose again, and he guided her on him, moaning in time with her and each long stroke. Divine. She grasped his hair and tugged his mouth back
to hers, pouring out her passion as she rode him, increasing her pace until he was thrusting into her on each down stroke, sending her soaring higher into the stratosphere, shooting towards the stars.
He grunted with each hard meeting of their hips, each deep thrust of his cock forcing a moan from her throat, one that he swallowed in a kiss that left her feeling there was no place where they weren’t connected.
The mark on her chest surfaced and his mirrored it, shining brightly and washing them with purple light.
She clutched his head and screwed her face up as her belly tightened, her thighs trembling against his as she bounced on him and he thrust into her, a wild coupling that she couldn’t bring back under control. Need drove her and she was a slave to it, searching for the push she needed to tumble over the edge into bliss.
Nevar growled as she ran her tongue down his left fang and shoved her away. She didn’t let him make her stop, not as she knew he wanted to. She grabbed his shoulders, slammed him back against the wall and kissed him again, licking his fangs. They grew longer, sharp daggers that stirred a fierce ache inside her, a dark hunger to feel them penetrating her flesh, joining them in the ultimate way.
She wanted to bite him too. She wanted his rich blood flowing into her body and strengthening their connection.
His fangs grew longer and his guttural groan told her everything he would never voice. He wanted to bite her too. He hungered for it with the same intensity that she did.
His fight ended here and now.
He wanted to bite her and she would show him that it was all right. He was allowed to want it. He was allowed to do it. She would never deny him anything, and he should never deny himself anything either.
She kissed along his jaw on his left side and he stilled, his hands tensing against her bottom. She kept rocking on him, riding his rigid length, as she swept her lips over his earlobe and sucked it into her mouth.
She released it with a ‘pop’ and whispered into his ear, “It’s okay, Nevar… if you want to bite me… because I want it… and I want to bite you too.”
Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) Page 20
