Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 5) (51 page)

Giving Erin his back.

She smiled. Her man was clever. While he was far less likely than she was to deal damage to the Devil, he could distract him so Erin could.

She teleported behind the Devil and slammed her fist into his lower back. Her power increased the force of her blow and fired from her as it struck him, a double whammy. He stumbled forwards and turned on her with a snarl, his eyes glowing crimson and white teeth sharp.

Veiron unfroze and grinned as he brought the blade of his spear down. It sliced down the Devil’s back and he cried out, fury brightening his eyes. He snarled and launched himself at her. Veiron was there before he could reach her, his arms and wings wrapped around her and his back taking the brunt of the Devil’s blow. He grunted and growled, and Erin panicked.

“Veiron?” she said and broke free of his grasp. He grabbed her shoulders and she caught his arms to hold him upright, and searched his eyes. “You okay?”

He nodded. A bright red glow lit him from behind and Erin focused. She teleported Veiron before the blast could hit him and landed hard on top of him a short distance away. He growled.

“Sorry.” She grimaced and another blaze of red shot towards them. “I’m still getting the hang of all this.”

She focused and shifted them again, the darkness enveloping them for longer this time before it faded and she found herself right at the edge of the plateau. At least they were standing.

A blast of black energy hit her square in the chest and sent her flying. Erin screamed and pushed all of her power to her hands and unleashed everything she had. The world spun around her, flickering black and gold, and then red as her blast hit something. It exploded with such force that a shockwave hit her and flipped her head over heels. She twirled violently, trying to focus so she could teleport. She couldn’t tell which way was up and which was down but she knew which way she was heading, and fast.

Something slammed into her waist and yanked her so hard from behind that she threw up.

“Sorry,” Veiron grumbled, twisted her in his arms and nestled her close to his body, one arm against her back and one under her knees.

Erin swallowed and shook her head. The embarrassment of vomiting in front of the man she loved was a small price to pay for being saved from a horrible fall to an excruciating death. Besides, it probably wasn’t going to be the only time she threw up in his presence over the coming months.

Veiron gathered her closer and spread his crimson wings. They glided down towards the fortress and landed in the courtyard. Veiron furled his wings against his back and went to set her down but she locked her hands around his neck. She tried to teleport them but nothing happened. Erin focused her power on her hands but they remained cold, as icy as her blood. She had suffered this cold before when she had been training and had tried to do something big. Had she expended too much of her power at once?

“Take me somewhere else. Quickly.” She still couldn’t shake the vision she’d had of Veiron in this place and she didn’t want to fight the Devil here.

Veiron’s red eyes met hers and offered a silent apology. He nodded, opened his wings and beat them.

The Devil appeared before them, no trace of blood on him and his suit immaculate again, as though the blows they had managed to land had never happened. He picked fragments of basalt from his black hair and casually flicked them to the ground. Each fragment hit the pavement with such force that they left spots of lava behind.

He straightened his shirt cuffs and tossed a bored look her way. “You will have to try harder than that, Daughter.”

His smile unnerved her.

He cocked his head to one side. “I see you have discovered the limit of your power. It was an impressive display but in your current condition, you are no match for me.”

Erin looked down at her stomach.

Was he saying that she had no hope of defeating him while she was pregnant? She focused on her belly and felt the warm glow there. It was the only place she felt warm, and it was a place that was constantly at the back of her mind, her will focused on protecting the baby inside her. Her power was split between fighting and protecting, but she couldn’t place her baby at risk by changing that and using all of her strength to fight her father.

Erin looked up into Veiron’s beautiful eyes. Flecks of brightest crimson shifted in liquid gold. She had thought his red eyes were the most amazing thing she had seen but they didn’t compare to the breathtaking beauty of his golden ones. This was a change she didn’t regret, because it was a reminder that they were joined now, together forever, and no one could take that from them. Not Heaven, and certainly not Hell.

She turned her head and looked across at her father. “You’re wrong. If I were alone, I might not be a match for you... but I’m not alone. Together, we can defeat you.”

Brave words that she didn’t fully believe but she’d had to say something to catch the Devil off guard and make him doubt himself and his powers. She wanted him to fear that she might be right and could defeat him. It would play on his mind and might give her the opening she needed to make her threat come true.

She focused hard and mustered enough energy to disappear from Veiron’s arms. She reappeared on the steps behind the Devil and swayed, her head spinning and heart pumping hard. Her hands shook, numb with cold now. Erin rubbed them. There had to be a way to recover full use of her powers and help Veiron. She wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines while he fought her father.

Veiron launched himself at the Devil and her father held his hand out and drew a black and red flaming blade out of the air. He blocked Veiron’s spear with it and the back of his suit jacket shredded.

Huge black wings made of shadows burst from his back, shifting like smoke in the stifling air.

Damn.

Maybe she could fly after all.

Erin breathed on her hands, trying to warm them up. They were like ice. She could only stand and watch as Veiron flew upwards, luring the Devil with him, and they clashed in the air. She rubbed her hands together and willed her power to come back. Her limbs shook, bones frozen and blood like icy sludge in her veins. Veiron growled and attacked the Devil again, only to be knocked back and sent flying through the air. The Devil went after him, his flaming blade a bright arc in the darkness. It cut across Veiron’s left wing and he cried out.

Come on. Erin rubbed her hands harder. She wasn’t going to stand here like a useless little girl and watch the man she loved die. Not again. Heat swelled in her stomach. Erin flinched as Veiron barely dodged the Devil’s next attack but wasn’t quick enough to evade the blast of power he unleashed after it. It hit Veiron and sent him tumbling through the air.

Veiron spread his crimson wings to right himself and dived downwards, gaining some space.

Erin focused on the heat inside her. She was stronger than this. She wasn’t going to let her power boss her around. A small red flame broke out of her thumb, flickered and died. It was a start.

The tiny patch of heat on her thumb slowly spread along the length of it and then crept over her hand.

Veiron clashed with the Devil again and her father laughed, disappeared and reappeared right next to him. He grabbed Veiron by the throat, beat his shadowy wings, and shot downwards.

“Veiron!” Erin ran forwards, her eyes glued to him, heart racing. He struggled against the Devil’s grip but didn’t escape it in time.

He smashed into the ground and a huge shockwave shot out and knocked Erin flying. She tumbled through the air. She’d had just about enough of this. She had wings and it was about time they damn well came out.

A hot blast swept across her shoulders and caressed her arms and she stopped short of hitting the wall of the fortress. Erin slowly looked behind her. Black shadows fluttered from her back, flowing out of her and forming wings.

They disappeared and she dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch.

Erin ran down the steps to the paved area of the courtyard and towards the huge ball of dust lingering in the air where Veiron and the Devil had hit. Veiron. He had to be all right. Would she know if he wasn’t? He was her servant after all.

She sprinted into the dust cloud and waved her hand in front of her face to clear it. She couldn’t see a thing. She choked and covered her mouth and nose with her hands, trying to stop the dust from getting into her lungs.

“Veiron?”

Something growled and a huge dark shape loomed out of the dust cloud. Erin halted and then backed off a step, straight into something else.

Hot hands settled on her shoulders.

The dust swirled and cleared, revealing Veiron before her in his demonic form. His eyes blazed gold as they settled on her and then the man behind her. Blood soaked his left arm and part of his left dragon-like wing hung limp, the bone snapped midway down the outside. He growled again, bearing red sharp teeth.

“Release her, coward,” he snarled and the Devil laughed from behind her.

“Why would I do that?”

Erin smelled blood. She looked down to see a trail of black running down her chest and panicked. Was she injured? No. She had cut herself before and her blood was red. She glanced at the Devil’s hand. Black blood covered it. He had injured Veiron but had harmed himself in the process, or had Veiron hurt him?

Veiron growled, the dark sound echoing around the spires surrounding the courtyard.

“Release her.” He lumbered towards them, immense and lethal, his heavy steps shaking the ground.

The red blades on his spear gleamed wickedly, one of them drenched in black.

He had cut the Devil.

An idea struck her.

Erin met Veiron’s golden gaze and held it, silently conveying her plan. He frowned, his black brow crinkling, and shook his head. She widened her eyes at him in a way she hoped conveyed it was an order and he had better do it. She was seventy percent certain that she would be able to manage her part in the plan.

He grunted and then growled, flashing twin rows of vicious sharp red teeth. Erin took that as an agreement to go along with her insane idea and also a warning that he was already growing tired of her pulling rank. He could assert his authority over her later, in bed, when all this was over. Right now, she needed him to do exactly what she asked.

Veiron twirled his spear, pointed it at the Devil, and then clutched it in both hands and drew it back towards him beside his head.

Erin’s stomach fluttered.

She hoped she had enough power to pull this off. She grabbed the Devil’s hands where they clutched her shoulders and focused on holding him there, her mind on using her power to stop him from teleporting.

Veiron charged at her, hunkering down and shaking the black ground with each step.

The Devil struggled behind her and she tried not to panic. So a huge black demonic angel was thundering towards her with a spear aimed at her chest. She trusted him, and she had wanted him to put everything into this attack and come at her full speed. She just hadn’t expected him to look so frightening. Her hands chilled.

Oh, now was not the time for her power to flake out on her.

“Release me,” the Devil hissed into her ear and she felt hazy from head to toe. Releasing him sounded good.

No, it sounded bad. Completely against her plan.

She held him tighter and her hands chilled another ten degrees. Veiron closed in. She caught the flicker of hesitation crossing his face and she nodded, trying to convince him to continue.

“Release me!”

It did sound good, and with a several-hundred-pound demon charging her, she was inclined to do just that and get the hell out of his way.

Veiron’s blade touched her chest.

Fiery darkness engulfed her.

A black roar deafened her and she reappeared before she had intended, hitting the ground hard. The earth bucked and shook beneath her, cracking in places to reveal boiling lava. She pushed onto her feet and leapt as the slab beneath her slid down at one end and tipped up at the other. It sank into the lava and Erin ran, ducking to avoid the shards of rock breaking off the spires of black above her and leaping over the bubbling pools of fire erupting from beneath the broken paving.

Had Veiron done it?

Erin chanced a glance towards where she had left him and her heart stopped.

The Devil stood with the blade of Veiron’s spear sticking into his black-blood-soaked chest, holding the shaft of it in his left hand and Veiron by his neck in his right. He roared again and threw Veiron down the steps in front of him. Veiron tumbled down them, changing back into his mortal appearance as he did so, his wings twisting beneath him and then disappearing. Erin shook her head. This was not happening. She wouldn’t let her vision come true.

Her black shadowy wings erupted from her back and she shakily beat them, almost flying across the courtyard. It was more like hopping and flying and hopping again but she didn’t quite trust her wings yet. They had disappeared on her once already and she didn’t want to fly too high and end up plummeting into one of the lava pools now dotting the courtyard.

The Devil pulled Veiron’s spear from his chest, held it in both hands and aimed it at Veiron’s back. Veiron didn’t move. He remained face down on the ground, his eyes closed.

Erin hopped, flew, hopped and focused her power on her hands again. Her wings disappeared mid-flight and she lashed out with her power as she dropped towards the ground. Twin golden orbs shot towards the Devil. The first smacked into his left hand, knocking the spear from his grasp and sending it spinning through the air, and the second slammed into his chest, sending him flying into the towering doors of his fortress. He hit them hard, the boom from his impact echoing around the courtyard.

She ran to Veiron and pulled him up off the ground, struggling with his weight and finding it hard to keep a grip on his slippery bloodied shoulders. He groaned and relief washed over her, replacing the chill in her blood with heat that even her power couldn’t contend with.

A droning thumping noise filled her ears and Erin froze with her hands against Veiron’s shoulders. That didn’t sound good. Veiron moved at last, pressing his palms into the cracked black slabs beneath him and pushing himself up.