13. Fuck Angels, Fuck Hellions
Deyva
I quickly decided that pacing around in the chapel while the guys were out fighting wraiths was not going to do me any good.
Kais made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal, but fuck, I was actually worried about them.
All of them. Even Zach and Stavros, the little shits.
Not Azariah though. I hoped those wraiths dragged him back by his good wing and kept him there.
My decision made, I headed out the front door of the church.
As long as I stayed within the gate, I should be okay, I reminded myself.
I just wanted to watch them for my own peace of mind and maybe show some moral support.
I could flash them like with Kais in the gym this morning, if that would help.
Nah, better not distract them. Although Zach’s face would be priceless. I made a mental note to ask him if he’d ever seen boobs in person before.
Each step toward the gate was a slow drag, as if through mud. Coming closer to that border of safety felt like I was walking directly into Kimaris' clutches again. My hands clenched in front of me and my pulse accelerated with every step forward.
Here’s good. I can see them from here.
I had to admit it—the guys looked sexy in action.
Desire and hunger rippled through me as I watched.
Zach was precise and deadly with his flaming blade, making it look like a dance.
Stavros and Kais looked like action heros with their weapons.
Azariah? Typical fucking angel, putting on a show with his holy light.
Worry cut through my desire as a cluster of wraiths began to gather and morph just outside the gate right in front of me. I instinctively took a few steps back. They can’t get through. You’re safe.
Kais said something to Azariah, pointing to the wraiths closest to me. The angel answered and started in that direction. Too fucking slowly.
“Well, slow down a little. You won’t want to attack them before their power goes up exponentially,” I muttered.
As if he heard me, the angel caught my eye and smiled as he started toward the gate. I glowered back, crossing my arms. He held up a long, lithe arm covered in slender muscle tone to summon his holy light again. Glowing like a miniature sun, he smote the wraith without breaking a sweat.
So he’s a powerful one , I realized. Possibly one of the guardians closest to God. What could he have done to end up in Hell?
To my utter shock, rather than turning back to help the guys, he hopped over the gate and headed straight toward me.
“What are you doing?” I cried out. “Get back out there! They need you!”
“Ah, they’ve got it handled.” The cocky bastard waved a hand dismissively. “I figured now’s the perfect time for you and I to have a little one-on-one, First Daughter.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now? They are mortal , they could die!”
“Oh, so you care if they live or die, despite having a plethora of food sources here at the ready.” Azariah stroked his chin pensively. “Very interesting.”
“You winged shit! Why the fuck are you even here?” I demanded.
“Why are you?” he countered.
I hated him almost as much as Kimaris at that point.
Especially because up close, his cockiness practically making a film on my tongue, my instinct was to feed from him.
To shove my tongue in his stupidly pretty mouth and rub the front of his pants until he felt like a steel pipe.
Angels were like a superfood and a euphoric drug all in one.
He’d power me better than Stavros, better than any of the morsels I took from the guys in their dreams.
And being with a human man made me attach sex to feelings. I hated Azariah and myself for wanting anything from him, even if it was just my biology buzzing.
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him off, when a red glow from beyond the gate caught my eye.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “Oh no no no no.”
“What—”
Azariah had barely turned around to look when I found myself running toward the gate.
I didn’t scream their names like the townspeople at the gate did. I didn’t want to draw their attention away from their enemies, not for a second.
“Succubus!”
“Fuck you, Feather Butt,” I snarled over my shoulder and then huffed at the weak insult. I’d think of a better one later when Zach wasn’t being surrounded by smoke wraiths and Stavros wasn’t pointing a freaking kid’s toy at a demon general.
Kais was busy trying to save Zach, but he was just a few more wraiths away from being swallowed up in their smoke with the younger man, and if Stavros was going to stand a chance against the general, he needed Zach and Kais at his side.
He needed me.
“Fuck feelings. Fuck angels. Fuck hellions,” I snarled, taking a running leap over the gate.
I hunched my shoulders and ducked my head down, horns thrust forward as I ran full speed for the wraiths, a snarl on my lips.
“Zach!” Kais gasped, digging through the smoke, his own lungs already scratched from the wraiths. “Deyva?”
I didn’t answer as I reached the melee, my hands shaped into claws, all the power Stavros had given me dressing my skin with electric energy. I ripped into the wraiths, shredding them like ugly, Halloween tissue decorations, their screams shrill and scratching in my ears.
“Holy shit,” Kais gasped as I tore through the tangled web of hellions surrounding Zach.
“Help Stavros,” I snapped. I caught one brief glimpse of Kais’ wide-eyed stare and then he spun around, hurrying back to Stav’s side, firing his crossbow into the hellish general heading toward us.
At my back, holy light burst forward, cutting through the wraiths, my own grasp flinging wraiths into the light until Azariah and I had carved our way into the heart of the tangle.
Zach, beautiful Zach, was white as a sheet, his skin marked with red claw marks, his breath shallow, and the two different colors in his eyes stark and vivid.
Azariah burned away the last of the wraiths as I fell to my knees and searched for Zach’s pulse.
It was there, but faint, and I pressed my hand over his heart, softening the burn of the energy I’d used against the wraiths, and pressing it into him.
I was low now, but it was enough to make sure his heart wouldn’t stop before we got back to safety.
“This is my fault,” Azariah murmured.
I growled, checking to make sure no more wraiths were near before standing and whipping around to face the angel.
“You’re fucking right it is,” I hissed. And then I reached for his shirt collar and yanked him against me, pulling unapologetically on his hair to bring his mouth to mine.
Azariah stiffened but didn’t fight me, and I took two deep gulps of his life, his power, our mouths pressed together in a cold imitation of a kiss.
The angel tasted of love and anger and fear and confidence, and something explosive, like the birth of a star in my belly.
I moaned and ignored the flood of arousal that ran through me, pulling away and staggering back.
“Watch him. And if you let anything else happen to him, I will drain you dry,” I warned Azariah.
He nodded, face stony, arms glowing. “And the general?”
“I’ll manage the general.”
Azariah knelt over Zach, sheltering him with his good wing, and I turned to face Kais and Stavros.
Kais was on his last shot, aiming carefully, and Stavros was checking the small tank of his gun.
The general had nearly reached the gate, only a few yards away, and I could almost feel the faltering faith from the townspeople, the sudden doubt that their priests would survive this.
I had a feeling that if that faith failed, so too would the gate.
“I’m out of holy water,” Stavros warned Kais. “Jesus, Deyva, what are you doing out here?”
“Aim for an eye socket and leave the rest to me,” I said, settling my hands on Kais’ shoulders, giving him some of the angel’s strength to steady his hand.
“You’re sure?” Kais asked.
Was I sure that Kimaris wouldn’t rise up behind this general and grab me in his fist and drag me back to hell? No. But I was sure I could take down this fucker first for my guys.
“Positive.”
“Deyva, no,” Stavros said, but he quieted when I raised my hand and covered his mouth with it.
I whistled, and the demon general turned away from the whispering, frightened townspeople by the gate, to face us. I squeezed Kais’ shoulder as he lined up his shot, both of us releasing a slow breath. The general ducked its head, a fire white gaze leveled at us.
“Now.”
Kais fired and the arrow flew true, lodging deep and centered in the general’s eye socket.
I broke out from between Kais and Stavros, body bending into a feline gallop.
The townspeople screamed as the general rose up and tumbled toward the gate, a bone-grinding bellow ringing out of it, full of static and a painful metal-on-metal screeching.
The air was full of the sour taste of panic, the ash and sulfur of Hell, and a fleeting thread of faith, hope. My body strained, even with the angel’s gift, to push faster, and hit harder as I collided with the demon general.
“Kimaris’ bitch ,” the general growled.
Which was really the wrong fucking thing to call me.
I screamed, tackling the warped and twisted body, my heart burning through the angel’s power like a car gunning the gas, eating up the fuel.
The demon fell back from the gate with me latched onto its side, tearing tree roots away, grabbing a bone out of the rib cage with a feral cry.
The demon roared and the townspeople screamed, Kais shouted my name, and I ignored them all.
My hands lit up with holy flames, thanks to Azariah, and I jammed one up into the demon’s chest through the hole I’d torn.
It thrashed side to side as I beat it roughly with its own bone, grabbing onto its arm and ripping it from its twisted socket.