Her Avenging Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 7) (40 page)

Not a threat.

They needed to get out of the cells before they were completely stripped of their powers.

Dull light illuminated the cell, revealing grimy white walls that enclosed them in a hexagon. There were thousands of these cells, split into clusters. Each small cluster of around fourteen cells formed a circle with a central area and a path that intersected it. That path curved with each block of cells, forming a ring. There were hundreds of rings of cells, with more cells in each ring as they expanded outwards from the centre of the detention block.

Which ring were they in?

Nevar hoped Lukas had some ability with the light and had been able to place them in cells close to the central white tower.

Lysia would be there.

Brighter light flooded into the room and stung his eyes. He squinted against it and the rectangle came into focus, fading to reveal the centre of the courtyard and Marcus. The former angel stood with his left hand facing towards them, his silver half-feather half-leather wings furled against his back.

The dark-haired male smiled. “I thought you would be in the one with a special blocker. You both must be high on Heaven’s interest list since you had a gold door.”

Nevar followed Asmodeus out of the cell and looked around him, taking in the other cells that formed the rest of the circle. Some of the doors were black, meaning they were occupied by demons. Some were blue, meaning they were empty. Across from them was a red door.

Another special blocker.

“You think we should let him out to play?” Marcus’s smile widened as he eyed the door.

Something banged around inside the cell.

“Erin would never forgive us if we left him here.” Nevar headed towards the cell and Marcus followed him with Asmodeus.

It wouldn’t be long before Heaven realised they were here and they were free.

Marcus held his hand out again and the door faded. Veiron snarled and stooped as he squeezed through the narrow entryway, his demonic form far too large for the small cell. He beat his leathery wings and rose to his full height, towering over all of them.

“Middle,” he grunted, his voice deeper and rougher than normal.

Middle?

Nevar realised he was talking about their position within the containment facility. He beat his black wings to lift himself up to Veiron’s eyelevel and scanned the rings of cells. They were dead centre in the rings, still a long way from the bleak featureless white tower that rose in the middle of them.

They had to move quickly if they were going to make it there before they were spotted. The angels who guarded the detention block were some of the strongest in Heaven, and rarely left their posts.

Marcus set about releasing demons from the cells that were occupied. They didn’t stick around to thank him. Several rushed off together on foot, sprinting around the ring. The remaining two took flight, rising high above the facility.

Alarms blared.

N
evar took the shrieking wail of the alarm as their cue to get moving. He beat his wings and shot over the first ring of hexagonal white cells, heading towards the central tower in the middle. Lysia. He was coming.

Asmodeus caught up with him, falling in beside him, still in his black form like Nevar. His broad obsidian wings beat the air as he flew, the breeze tousling his black hair and sweeping it back from his horns. His master’s violet eyes fixed on the tower too and narrowed.

Veiron grunted as he flew past them, his larger leathery wings beating the air and easily carrying his extra weight in his black demonic form. He pointed off to their left.

Luck was not with them.

Six guardian angels approached, their silver-edged royal blue armour bright in the white light of Heaven and their pale-blue-silver wings steadily beating the cool air, bringing them swiftly towards them.

Marcus shot up into the air high above them, glared at the cells below and swept his hand out in a wide arc.

Every black door that Nevar could see opened and demons piled out, roaring and snarling as they rushed the angels on the ground.

Veiron broke away from them and Marcus joined him, heading towards the six guardian angels still pursuing them. Nevar let them go and set his sights on the twelve who had appeared ahead of him, blocking his path to the tower.

He called his curved obsidian blades and gripped them tightly in his black, clawed hands as he flew hard towards them, refusing to slow. Asmodeus beat him to them, easily cutting down three in one fluid movement, disabling their wings and sending them dropping to the ground. How the hell had he done that?

His master looked as surprised as Nevar felt before turning his black blades on the other angels and attacking them.

Nevar barrelled into the group and slashed at one of the angels. The guardian clumsily blocked his sword and fumbled an attack, and Nevar had his answer.

They were newly reborn.

He smiled wickedly.

Heaven had sent angels into Hell to stop Lysia and she had decimated most of its forces with the aid of his side. All of those angels had been reborn in Heaven, stripped of their memories, including their knowledge of fighting. Meaning most of the angels in Heaven were now weak and near defenceless.

Nevar roared and cut down two more angels, turned in the air and dealt a heavy blow to a third. Asmodeus had already handled the rest, and Veiron and Marcus were heading back towards them.

This was going to be easy.

Nevar’s eyes shot wide as he sensed the swift rise in power off to his left and quickly turned towards the guardian angel there, staring blankly at the silver blade of the spear shooting straight towards him.

Asmodeus barrelled into Nevar, sending him flying away from the path of the blow, and grunted.

Nevar twisted in the air to face Asmodeus and his eyes widened further. His master clutched the staff of the spear the angel had aimed at Nevar, breathing hard and frowning at the guardian at the other end of it. The blond male stared coldly at Asmodeus and shoved forwards, driving the spear’s blade deeper into Asmodeus’s chest through his black breastplate.

Asmodeus growled through his fangs as he pushed back against the angel, slowly tugging the spear from his chest, pain etched in every line of his face. His shadows twined around the spear, shattering the staff, and slipped from his skin, leaving him.

He paled and dropped to the ground, striking it hard.

Nevar roared and attacked the angel. The male tried to block with the remains of his spear but Nevar knocked it aside with one blade and thrust with his other, driving it deep into his side. Blood rolled down the black blade and Nevar pulled it free of his flesh and turned, bringing his other sword around in a swift arc.

The guardian angel produced another spear and braced it with both hands. Nevar’s blade struck the blue and silver staff, the clash ringing loudly across the facility and vibrating down through Nevar’s hands. This wasn’t a weak newly reborn angel. This one was strong.

He swept his second blade upwards, catching the angel across his right thigh. The male grunted and beat his silver-blue wings, shooting backwards and placing some distance between them. Nevar pursued him and spun his swords in his hands so the guards rested against his little fingers and the dull edge of the curved blades ran along his forearms.

The blond male attacked, shooting towards him and bringing his spear up in a swift diagonal arc.

Nevar raised his left arm, blocking the strike with his vambrace, and brought his right one around, slashing at the angel’s chest. The point of his blade cut across the male’s blue armour and caught his extended right arm, slicing through his biceps. The angel grasped his spear in both hands and hefted it, breaking past Nevar’s defences and knocking him sideways.

He didn’t give the angel a chance to land a blow on him. He dropped his left blade, threw that hand towards the blond male and sent shadows rocketing towards him. They struck deep, puncturing his stomach and chest and shooting out of his back.

The angel swallowed hard and then coughed up blood, his blue eyes turning dull as his arms dropped to his side and his spear slipped from his grip.

Nevar recalled his shadows and the male fell, his silvery wings streaming upwards as he dropped towards the cells. Bright light burst from him and he disappeared.

Nevar turned and flew downwards as quickly as he could, heading for Asmodeus where he lay in a pool of blood.

Veiron reached him first, back in his normal more human form, his broad crimson-feathered wings furling against his red-edged black armour as he landed. Marcus joined him and helped him remove the blade from Asmodeus’s chest. The dark angel gritted his teeth as it pulled free and collapsed against the white ground, fighting for breath. Nevar slowed his descent, unable to believe what Asmodeus had done. He had taken a blow for him, one that probably would have killed him.

The angel he had plotted to murder so many times had saved him.

He landed at Asmodeus’s feet and his golden eyes slowly opened, fixing on him.

“Don’t give me that look,” he croaked and grimaced, grunting as his face contorted and pain rippled through his power.

Nevar wiped the confused expression from his face and the concern from his eyes and crouched beside him.

Asmodeus struggled to swallow and opened his eyes again. Blood flowed from beneath his black breastplate, covering his pale skin, and he looked down at it, frowning at the wide slash in the metal just to the left of his heart.

“I have only had it back for a few days and look at it now.” His master’s lips tugged into a humourless smile as he looked back at Nevar. “Go. Leave me. You have to reach Lysia.”

Nevar shook his head, causing the strands of his white hair to slip down and caress his forehead. “No. I’m not leaving.”

“Insubordinate wretch,” Asmodeus muttered and closed his eyes and swallowed again. The pool of blood beneath him spread outwards across the white ground, creeping towards Nevar’s boots.

“I don’t take orders from you… get used to it.” Nevar looked from him to Veiron. “Can you heal him?”

Veiron scrubbed a hand over his scarlet hair and nodded. “It will take time.”

Marcus rose to his feet. “I’ll hold them off.”

The dark-haired angel launched into the air before Nevar could offer to help. Asmodeus grabbed Nevar’s ankle.

“Go. Leave me. All of you. You are wasting time.” His master shoved his leg, almost knocking him off balance.

Nevar removed his hand from his leg and clutched it. “Liora would kill me if I returned without you and, besides, you cannot leave her, remember? You made a vow that you would be with her and you definitely can’t break it now that you’re about to become a father.”

Veiron paused at his work, his crimson-edged golden eyes darting to Asmodeus. “You’re gonna be a dad?”

Asmodeus nodded and paled further.

Veiron’s red eyebrows rose and he shook his head, a look of consolation on his face. “It happens to the best of us. Hey, our kids can be playmates.”

Nevar could well imagine the hell they would cause together but didn’t mention it. He focused on Asmodeus, holding his hand and bearing the pain whenever his master squeezed it so tightly that his bones ached beneath his black skin.

Marcus returned, bloodied and beaten, out of breath, just as Veiron finished closing the wound in Asmodeus’s chest and sank back onto his heels.

The Hell’s angel looked up at Marcus and sighed. “You couldn’t take a few less hits?”

Veiron lumbered onto his feet and held his hand over the worst of Marcus’s injuries, a deep gash across his left side. The laceration closed before Nevar’s eyes and Nevar was glad that they had brought Veiron along. Without him, they probably wouldn’t have made it further than this.

Nevar helped Asmodeus onto his feet and the black-haired angel grumbled in the demon tongue as he fingered the slash in his breastplate.

“I will help you repair it later,” Nevar said and his master lifted his golden eyes to meet his. “Are you able to fight?”

Asmodeus nodded and shirked his grip. “Who do you think you are speaking to? Of course I am ready… and now I am angry. These angels will pay for damaging my new armour.”

He spread his black wings, beat them hard and lifted off. Nevar followed him, materialising his blades back in his hands, and flew over the rings of cells.

The white tower called to him, almost within reach now.

All that stood between him and Lysia were two dozen angels.

A huge winged demon crashed through the left side of the wall of angels, taking several down with him, tearing into them as they fell.

Twenty angels.

Four against twenty sounded reasonable to Nevar. He liked those odds.

Asmodeus transformed again, his skin turning inky black and his horns emerging, and the gold edges of his obsidian armour shimmering violet.

Nevar followed him into the thick of the angels as Marcus and Veiron flew into them a few metres away, splitting the group in half.

He grunted as the first angel he encountered landed a swift blow on his jaw, snapping his head to one side, and slashed across his chest with a short blade. Nevar shoved his hand into the male’s face and pushed him back, and thrust with his sword, repaying the angel by slicing across his hip armour, leaving a deep groove in the blue slats.

A second angel attacked from behind and Nevar arched forwards as the blade cut down his back plate and to the right of his spine. He turned, throwing his weight into the strike, and the angel blocked with the vambrace around his forearm, pushed forwards with that arm to knock Nevar’s sword aside, and thrust at him with his blade.

He beat his wings and dodged the blow, and pinned them back to drop when the first angel tried to hit him from behind, ending up beneath both of them.

Nevar unleashed his shadows. They streamed from his outstretched hand, snagged the first angel by his ankle, and he yanked his arm downwards. The angel shot past him and he released him, not waiting to see him crash into the ground. He flapped his wings and shot upwards, towards the second angel, gripping one blade with both hands as he flew. He brought it down by his side and roared as he swept it upwards in a devastating arc, slicing through the stomach of the angel. A flash of light claimed him.