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Her Demonic Angel – Chapter Three

Erin sat with her back against the wall opposite the open side of her black rocky cell and stared into the hazy fiery distance, watching volcanic vents spewing lava high into the air and listening to the constant screams. She couldn’t remember if it was five days or twenty since the Devil had visited her, but it had been a long time since she had seen anyone.

The other two who had been with the Devil during his visit hadn’t come back to check on her. Someone slid a meal through a grate in the bottom of her door from time to time. She ate only the vegetables, unable to stomach the thought of eating more of the final unicorn in existence let alone the meat itself.

She could have been somewhere more comfortable if she had complied with the Devil’s desires.

He had told her that before storming out of the cell and slamming the door behind him, leaving her alone with the dismembered wings of the last creature who had dared to defy him.

She had felt sick, reliving the Devil ripping them from the demon’s back, whenever she saw them so she had gingerly dragged them to the open side of her cell and tossed them down into the fiery river far below.

She could have escaped this place if she had gone with him. Not the Devil, but the other one who had visited her. At first, she had thought it was the Devil. The man had flown up from the abyss on huge black feathered wings, his wild hair as dark as midnight and his eyes as golden as a hawk’s. The only items of clothing he had worn were a black loincloth covered by tattered age-worn strips of armour and boots that reached his knees and had gold-edged black moulded plates that completely covered his shins.

His sudden appearance had startled her and he had looked so much like the Devil that she had fled to the back of her cell and had done a double take. Only on closer inspection had she realised that this man was different. If it hadn’t been for the black wings, she would have thought him an angel. He had been handsome, but darkness had clung to him, a sense of evil in the twist of his lips as he smiled at her and told her that she could have her freedom if she came with him.

It had tempted her more than the Devil’s offer and she had almost considered placing her hand into the man’s and letting him take her away. Only that lingering sense that he was evil beyond words, as likely to murder her as he was save her, had kept her at the back of her cell. He had hovered near the open wall of her prison, beating his wings and using the rising heat to keep him close to stationary. When she had refused, Erin had expected him to enter her cell and force her to leave with him, but he had snorted, a feral sound that had made her jump, and then swooped out of sight.

She had been too scared to race forwards and see if he really was gone. She had sunk to her backside close to the door of her cell and stared out at the world beyond her prison, wondering what would have happened if she had gone with the stranger. Would he have freed her or would he have taken her to the Devil, or would he have killed her?

His reluctance to enter her cell and the wary glances he had given it had left her with the impression that he hadn’t been willing to breach it for some reason. He had wanted her to extend her hand to him, beyond the boundaries of her prison. That had led her to settle on the idea that if he had entered the cell, something would have happened. What, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care.

She would have her freedom somehow, but it wouldn’t be with the help of a man who had looked like some sort of demonic angel.

Erin rubbed her knees, idly trying to get rid of some of the layers of dirt from her bare skin. At least it was warm in Hell so her scant clothing wasn’t a problem. She laughed at herself, the sound loud and echoing around her cell, jarring with the endless screams that rose up from the abyss.

Was that where the Devil was right now? Too busy tormenting his victims to come and visit her and try to convince her to do as he had asked.

He had told her that she could have her freedom if she would cast aside her sentimentality and kill her sister. Her stomach rolled in response to that memory and she slammed her mind shut against it, unwilling to contemplate such a thing.

Erin buried her face in her knees and hugged them, tired right down to her bones and starving. The few morsels she ate whenever food came through the door weren’t enough to keep her going. Without eating the unicorn meat, she was slowly growing weaker, the effects of the few mouthfuls she’d had wearing off a little more each day. Her throat felt like sandpaper too. The Devil clearly didn’t understand that the constant heat of his hellish realm was dehydrating her.

Then again, did he really care if she died?

She was bait. Whether she was alive or not didn’t matter. Or did it? He had been genuinely angry that she had been held captive for days on end without him knowing and without food or comfort. She could have had that comfort and all the food she could eat if she had only complied with him one way or the other. Play bait or do his work and kill her sister for him.

Erin wanted to do neither. She didn’t understand why the Devil wanted her sister but she didn’t want Amelia to come to Hell and try to save her. She would rather die here and rot in this cell than see her sister come to harm.

She shifted onto her knees, the rough basalt floor cutting into her dirty flesh, and pushed herself onto her feet. Her steps were unstable but she made it to the side wall of her prison and held onto it as she moved forwards, towards the edge.

Hot air blasted upwards from the inferno hundreds of feet below and almost knocked her backwards. It curled around her, blowing the fringe of her straight black hair upwards and stinging her eyes. She squinted and stared out at the unforgiving bleak landscape that stretched around her, all black rocky crags and flaming rivers. Huge black-skinned beasts roamed the land, their dragon-like wings furled against their backs and weapons in their hands. They tormented any smaller creature they passed, bullying it until it either escaped or gave up and cowered at their feet.

She had grown strangely used to the existence of this place and the creatures that dwelled within it, as though she had always known it was real and not the stuff of legend and myths.

Her gaze tracked the demons far below. Erin had watched the comings and goings of the creatures who guarded the prison, trying to figure them out and see if they had any weak spots. They didn’t. Nothing could stand up to them.

Nothing except the Devil at least.

She couldn’t see him amongst the creatures below her.

Erin leaned further forwards and assessed the ragged cliff face. She might have been able to make it down that way if she had been a champion rock-climber. She wasn’t. She was a weak, exhausted and sometimes scared woman who had never climbed anything bigger than a hill, let alone scaled a sheer rock face several hundred feet high.

The door opened behind her and Erin didn’t make the mistake of whirling to face the visitor this time.

She turned slowly, expecting to find either the Devil or one of his cronies come to torment her.

It was neither.

A bloodstained and beaten man wearing tight black jeans that emphasised the thickness of his thighs and a black t-shirt that stretched across the impressive hard cut breadth of his chest stood in the doorway.

He was holding a very big sword.

Erin swallowed.

Had he come to kill her?

She glanced back at the abyss below her feet. What would be a better and less painful death? Falling to this scarlet-haired man’s sword or plummeting into the volcanic river?

“Erin, I presume?” His deep voice wrapped around her and Erin couldn’t miss the concern that laced the weariness and irritation in it.

Erin looked back at him.

He slid the broadsword down his back and scrubbed his hand across several days’ worth of dark growth on his handsome face.

One good-looking man had fooled her already and it wasn’t going to happen again. This man was every bit as lethal, brutal and vicious as the Devil. It was there in his eyes and the way he held himself, legs spread in a warrior’s stance, ready for a fight.

He looked as though he had already been through several battles recently. Now that she looked closer, she spotted tears in his t-shirt that revealed startlingly enticing glimpses of hard packed muscles.

Erin dragged her gaze down to her own feet.

She must have lost it in the past few days. She had finally plunged into crazy, her mind frazzled by her captivity and being in Hell. She had to be insane to be ogling the man who had clearly come to kill her.

“Why don’t you just do it and get this over with?” she said, feeling a spark of defiance ignite in her chest. If she was going to die, she might as well go down fighting.

“Excuse me?” He frowned at her, a quizzical look filling his dark eyes. “Get what over with?”

“Killing me.”

His dark red eyebrows pinched together. “If you’re not Erin, I might.”

It was her turn to frown. “You don’t want to kill me?”

“Are you Erin?”

She nodded.

“Then I don’t want to kill you.” He stepped into her cell and she noted that he didn’t bother to stay close to the door. If she were entering a cell on a mission to save someone, she would certainly keep one foot in the door in case a bad guy came along and shut them both in. Did he have another means of escape if that happened? He raked dark eyes over her and she shivered under the heat of his gaze. “You are not what I was expecting.”

“Ditto,” she said and shrugged when he looked into her eyes, confusion lighting his again. “I was expecting the Devil to come back.”

“The snide little fucker actually paid you a visit in person?”

Erin frowned at how casually he badmouthed the Devil, as though he wasn’t afraid of him. She stared at the man, taking in his impressive height and build. He was taller than the Devil and much broader too, thick sinewy muscles visible beneath his tight clothing. His biceps were huge, so large she would struggle to wrap both of her hands around one arm. Her fingertips and thumbs wouldn’t touch if she tried. Matching black and red tribal tattoos curled around those biceps, a tantalising peek of a larger design that disappeared under the sleeves of his t-shirt.

Erin found herself wanting to strip his top off to see the rest of it.

She really had lost her mind.

“Are you alright?” He frowned again.

“Just a little brain damage,” she said, trying to make light of everything.

He crossed the black floor and stopped before her, towering close to a foot over her, his immense body overshadowing hers and making her feel tiny. He slid one large hand along the line of her jaw, tilted her head back, and stared down into her eyes.

Erin swallowed. It should be illegal for a man to be so handsome yet so lethal-looking. He screamed danger but she wasn’t quaking under his touch because of it. It was a whole other feeling that had her trembling.

“You don’t look crazy,” he whispered and she added his sultry low voice to the list of reasons someone should stamp him with the words ‘dangerous’ and ‘forbidden’. “Now… all opposed to being rescued, raise your hands, otherwise, I’d like to get the fuck out of here.”

Erin didn’t argue, not even when he clamped one strong large hand around her slender wrist and drew the broadsword strapped to his back with the other. She stared at the open door, battling a flood of emotions that threatened to sweep her under. Freedom. This man was here to save her. It was too sweet and glorious to believe. It had to be a cruel trick, another form of torture to break her.

She didn’t have much time to take in what was really happening when he pulled her over the threshold and into a long black corridor that ran between the cells. Before she could even glance back at the cell that had been her home for God only knew how many days, he was dragging her along the hallway.

“Can you run?” He glanced over his broad shoulders at her and didn’t give her a chance to respond before he started at a pace.

Erin tried to keep up. The prospect of actually surviving and escaping Hell flooded her with adrenaline that had her bare feet moving but she couldn’t match his long strides. A bright flash blinded her but it didn’t slow her companion. He kept running. They passed a large open room and she turned her head in time to see several dead bodies strewn across a floor slick with blood. More flashes lit the darkness and with each one, a body disappeared.

They looked like humans. Had the man killed them to reach her? What was that light and why were they disappearing?

She started to ask but her gaze settled on the hard angles of his profile and the stern set of his jaw and she thought better of it. This man was her ticket out of Hell and she wasn’t about to piss him off, not when she had the impression that he was quite content with killing.

Erin pounded along the black-walled corridor beside him, her legs beginning to tire and each step jarring her bones and sending pain shooting across the soles of her feet. She lost her footing on one of the sets of steps that led downwards and almost fell. The man’s hand on her wrist stopped her. He pulled her up by her arm as though she was nothing but a ragdoll in his hands, suspending her off the ground for a second before setting her down again.

“You are weak,” he said and she bristled at the double meaning in his words. He wasn’t just saying she was weak from her captivity, but that he thought she was weak period.

Erin snatched her wrist free of his grasp and rubbed it. She turned her nose up and stormed ahead of him, feeling crazy for taking the lead when she didn’t know where she was going and she didn’t have a weapon, or the knowledge of how to wield one. She couldn’t let him think she was weak though.

He followed behind her, a dark shadow barely a few feet from her, his footsteps almost silent.

They reached a split in the corridor and Erin paused. Neither of the avenues she could take looked inviting. Both were pitch-black and voices came from one. Or was it the other? Everything echoed in the corridors and it was hard to distinguish which would lead her to a grisly death and which would lead her to freedom.

She chose the right.

The man grabbed her around the waist from behind, twisted her in his arm, and slung her over his shoulder.

Erin struggled and his arm tightened against her back, causing his thick shoulder to press into her stomach. Her organs protested, sharp pain lancing each one.

“You’ll fall off. I need to move fast and you’re slowing me down.”

Well, that was just rude. Erin punched his backside. God, it was like a rock. She almost purred. Could this man get any smexier?

“You can’t carry me and fight your way out of here.”

He laughed, the warm timbre of it echoing around the dark walls. “Believe me, Sweetheart, I can fight with both hands tied behind my back. You’re no hindrance at all.”

He jogged down the left corridor with her, each step jolting her on his shoulder until she felt close to losing what little remained of the last thing she ate. Erin grabbed his leather belt, hooked her thumbs into the waist of his jeans and pushed herself up enough that it didn’t hurt as much as he ran.

This was just embarrassing now.

It was bad enough having her rescuer belittle her.

Having him carry her fireman-style to freedom was making her wish he had left her in her cell.

Warm fresh air assaulted her, as fresh as Hell got anyway, and she looked up to see the huge black walls of the prison fortress bouncing away from her.

“You can put me down now,” she said but he didn’t hear her. Either that or he was ignoring her. She was tempted to punch him on the backside again but gave up and let him have his way.

The jagged towers of the prison slowly wobbled into the distance and were lost from view behind the spires of black rock that lined the path her hero had chosen. Vents in their sides and tops belched hot acrid smoke that stole her breath. She pulled his black t-shirt up, exposing a lean delicious back, and covered her mouth with it. How the hell could he run in this?

Erin wanted to be sick.

She counted the bounces in his step to keep her focus off the horrendous smell of rotten eggs invading her lungs and the increasing number of bleached bones that lined the path as though someone had kicked the bodies out of the way and just let them rot there. Or perhaps some smaller creature had picked the bones clean. There were grooves in some of them, as though sharp teeth and claws had scraped them. Erin hoped it had happened after death and that the screams still ringing in her ears weren’t the death cries of people being eaten alive.

The man managed over three hundred steps before he finally stopped and set her down with surprising care in a wide clearing.

“Are you alright?” He held her at arm’s length, looking her over.

Her blood heated when his dark eyes lingered on her breasts and then the tiny shorts she wore.

“Do you always dress like this?” He raised an eyebrow.

Erin folded her arms across her chest, covering her breasts. The black pebbles of the path cut into the bare soles of her feet. “I was in bed when they took me.”

He ran his gaze over her again and a touch of crimson ringed his dark irises.

Erin took a step backwards.

That had to be a reflection of their fiery surroundings. It had to be.

Mr Tall, Dark and Deadly couldn’t be something straight out of Hell.

He frowned at her feet. Erin gasped as his large hands settled on her waist and he lifted her onto a relatively smoother rock on the side of the path.

“I didn’t anticipate this.” He rubbed his stubbly jaw and crouched before her. His hands were gentle as he lifted one of her feet and inspected the sole, his thumbs pressing in and sending a warm jolt up to the apex of her thighs.

She placed one hand on top of his head to steady herself and tried to resist the sudden desire to comb her fingers through the long crimson lengths of his hair.

She had dated a few men with long hair in the past but none of them had dyed it the colour this man had chosen. It was like blood.

“I like your do,” she said with a smile. “It’s pretty cool.”

He frowned up at her. “Do?”

“Your hair.”

His frown intensified. “We are trapped in Hell and you are discussing my hair?”

“I have to do something to take my mind off the fact that I’m trapped in Hell. What dye do you use?”

The man straightened and even when she was standing on a rock, she was still shorter than he was. “It is not dyed.”

“That’s natural?”

“If you would like, I can prove it to you.” His smile was nothing short of salacious and he reached for his belt. “The carpet matches the curtains.”

Erin blushed and grabbed his hands to stop him from going ahead and flashing her. He looked as though he really would go through with it and while the thought of seeing every inch of this man nude was appealing, it couldn’t stand up to her greater desire to escape.

The man shrugged and then did something that really challenged her ability to think straight and focus on escaping.

He removed the leather contraption that held his sword to his back, reached over his head and tugged his black t-shirt off, revealing a body so perfect that it would make angels weep. Every inch of lightly bronzed skin stretched taut over granite hard muscles. They shifted in a sensual symphony as he easily tore his t-shirt into two pieces. Her gaze ambled over him, ignoring her commands to focus on anything other than his godly form, then he upped the stakes and it was game over.

He crouched again and bent over her feet, giving her a glorious view of his strong back and the detailed red and black tribal tattoos that swept up his thick arms and down his shoulder blades. They curled there, skirting identical ridges of scar tissue.

Erin leaned forwards as he finished wrapping one of her feet in half of his ruined t-shirt and started on her other. She swept her fingers along the wide dark scar that slashed up his left shoulder in line with his spine.

The man was gone in a flash, standing several feet away from her and breathing hard.

“What the fuck?” he snarled and Erin flinched, her hand still poised where his back had been. “Don’t touch me. Understand?”

“I’m sorry… I just saw the scars and wondered what had happened to you.” She hated that she couldn’t get her voice above a whisper and that she couldn’t look at him. Shame burned her cheeks. So much for her insane thoughts about paying back her glowering saviour with some naughty time when they made it out of Hell.

Erin stared at her feet. He had done a nice job of covering them with his t-shirt. She supposed she should thank him for coming to save her and for not doing the whole thing with her slung over his shoulder, leaving her feeling weak and pathetic. Maybe she should just ask him to point her in the right direction and she would find the way out on her own. Her gaze shifted to his sword where it lay on the ground. On second thought, he was armed and if she ran across some of those demons, he might be able to fend them off or even kill them.

“Thank you for coming for me. I owe you my life,” she said and finally managed to find the courage to look him in the eye again.

He casually shrugged his wide bare shoulders. “You own me nothing. I’m only here because Amelia would have come if I hadn’t, and if she dies then that’s my life over.”

“Oh.” Erin’s gaze ate basalt again and her cheeks scalded, her burning heart heating them. He was with Amelia. That made sense in a strange way, although it only left her with more questions about why Amelia knew about Hell, what the Devil wanted with her and how she had met this man.

A man who had taken her place, risking his life to save Erin so she didn’t have to.

Erin stepped down from the rock, feeling as though someone had just popped her favourite balloon. She knew she should feel happy that her sister finally had a man in her life that had a noble and good bone in his body but she couldn’t muster the emotion when jealousy was riding her.

Her amber eyes met his dark ones but she couldn’t hold his gaze. It fell to the ground again. She didn’t want to look at him anymore. The blood staining his face and the harsh cuts across his bearded jaw and neck did nothing to dampen his feral handsome looks.

Erin envied Amelia for having him in her life.

“I want to keep moving.” She started off without him, following the winding path that was surrounded by black jagged rocks and bleached bones and stretched into an equally dark and bleak distance.

Erin was beginning to hate black.

The man easily caught up with her in a few long-legged strides and fell into step beside her, his broadsword strapped to his back again. He cut an imposing figure as he strolled along beside her, his air casual yet throwing off a lethal don’t-even-try-it vibe.

She wanted to give him the silent treatment but it had been days since she had spoken to someone and he was currently her mind and heart’s favourite subject. She wanted the goods on this man, every juicy bit of them.

“So… were you a captive here once too and that’s why you know your way around?” That question hung in the air between them.

His lip curled, revealing a flash of straight white teeth, and he frowned.

Clearly, he was still pissed at her for touching him. Well, sorry. She couldn’t have stopped herself if she had tried. She still wouldn’t be able to if she so much as glanced at the scars that he had evidently tattooed around, as though they were central to the design.

He was silent a few seconds longer and then looked down at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled.

Erin walked on a few paces, towards a long sloping drop into a valley below. She glanced down, seeing that the path she was on turned a corner ahead and continued close to a hundred feet below her.

He finally spoke. “You could say that I’m local.”

That unnerved her, especially when coupled with the bright crimson that flared in his dark irises, a corona surrounding his narrowed pupils.

Erin stepped away from him, backing towards the edge where it was rocky and the stones were loose underfoot. Her gaze darted down to the path far below her. Her footing was poor where she was but she didn’t want to be near him until she was sure it was safe. She would sooner risk falling than being within his reach.

He frowned at her and then at her feet, and held his hand out to her. “Come away from the edge.”

Erin shook her head.

If he was something terrible, then she was going to hit the slope, slide down to the path below and make a break for it. She would probably cut her bare legs up but it was better than being tortured by a demon. Had he only rescued her so he could toy with her and hurt her? Was this just another trick after all?

Her sister would never associate with something demonic and evil.

“Do you work for the Devil?” Erin shuffled backwards. His dark eyes flicked to her feet and then back to her eyes, and he stretched his hand closer to her, an impatient and concerned expression on his face. The Devil could change his appearance. This man had a voice that could melt her and so had the Devil. They were one and the same. “Are you the Devil?”

He laughed. “Hell, no. I’m not that evil. Do I look like I go around getting manicures between torture sessions?” He sighed and smiled at her. “I swear to you, Erin. I’m not here to hurt you… and I will keep you safe. Trust me?”

“No, I don’t trust you. I don’t even know you… you say you’re local but you don’t work for the bastard who held me captive, and you expect me to believe that shit?” She edged further away from him and he frowned, his eyes narrowing and expression switching to one of irritation. Anger flared in his eyes.

He growled, low and vicious, and the flecks of red in his eyes brightened. “I expect you to believe it because it’s the truth. I hate the bastard who kidnapped you, and would like nothing more than a chance at separating his head from his body. I’m risking my neck to save you and you dare accuse me of being the one loathsome creature I despise above all others?”

Erin backed off another step as he advanced one, until the balls of her feet hit the slope. Her heart thumped out a hard rhythm against her breastbone and blood rushed through her ears. His gaze locked on hers, challenging her to accuse him again, to voice any belief she still had that he was unworthy of her trust. She trembled and stared up into his eyes, searching them for a sign that he was lying to her.

His anger seemed genuine, born of hatred for a man that she too despised and disgust at being compared with him. He couldn’t blame her for being cautious though, surely? After everything she had been through, it was only natural for her to think everyone in this horrible place was out to get her, and he had admitted that he was a local.

The man backed off at last, the anger in his eyes melting away together with the red, leaving his irises dark. He sighed, his shoulders heaving with it, grimaced and rubbed a hand over his face.

“What am I supposed to say to make you believe me?” he whispered and met her gaze again. “Tell me that, Erin. I’ve trekked through Hell to find you, have fought and killed to reach you, have carried you and tended to you. I’ve risked my life to save you. Doesn’t that make me worthy of a little trust? You think I want to be here?”

No, she didn’t. He had mentioned more than once that he was risking everything by being in Hell, by saving her, and she felt terrible for doubting him.

He held his hand out to her again. “I swear to you, Erin, that I mean you no harm and I am here purely to rescue you and reunite you with your sister. Will you trust me to do that? Can you trust me?”

Erin’s better judgement said not to but she slipped her trembling right hand into his and stepped away from the edge. She looked up into his eyes. They glowed red around the edges again and in the centre too, highlighting his wide pupils. His gaze locked with hers and rocked her with a jolt that reached her soul.

“What’s your name?” she whispered, captivated by his eyes and lost in them. They had more power over her than the Devil’s had. She wanted to stare into their flaming depths for all eternity.

“Veiron,” he husked, his warm breath caressing her face, and Erin’s senses came alive, lighting up like an electrical storm. His masculine scent of dirt, aftershave and fresh sweat filled her nostrils. The warmth of his hand clasping hers heated her right down to her bones. The sound of his voice made her blood burn to hear him speak again. Her gaze delighted in discovering every tiny fleck of fire in his dark irises. The only sense left was one that cried out for a taste of him.

She might be losing her mind, but she knew without a doubt that she wanted this man regardless of what he was.

He was the most dangerous man she had ever met and he belonged to her sister, but there was something about him, something sensual and powerful, deadly and alluring, that she couldn’t resist. He had the smile of a demon, the body of a god, and the tenderness of an angel when he let his guard down.

Her captivity had been a nightmare.

But travelling through Hell with this man at her side was going to be a worse form of torture.