Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 5) (49 page)

Veiron drew his spear again. “I will not allow you to inhabit her body. I will kill you first.”

“Who said I desired to inhabit her body?”

Erin’s eyes widened. “You said you did.”

“I said you would provide me with a vessel. You would fight me. It is in your nature. I need a vessel that is both powerful and compliant, one raised to allow me to enter it at will and one happy to carry out my commands and stand at the head of my army when I do not occupy it.” The Devil grinned, his eyes flashing bright gold, and slid his hand down her body and laid it over her stomach. “When the fruit you bear ripens, I will have the vessel I desire. I will be invincible.”

CHAPTER 36

T
he shock in Erin’s enormous eyes echoed within Veiron. She hadn’t known but that didn’t stop anger from rising up and obliterating his surprise. The force of it shocked him.

“Whose child is it?” Veiron spat the question at her and she frowned at him.

“You said you were damn well sterile... clearly you’re not as sterile as you bloody thought!” Her amber eyes narrowed and brightened, just as the Devil’s had done, and Veiron could sense her anger rising, coming to match the strength of his. “It’s yours.”

“Impossible,” Veiron said and ignored the Devil when he laughed. “I did not lie to you... if I did say that... angels cannot procreate. Who else have you slept with?”

“No one, Veiron, I swear. It is yours.” The fury in her eyes faded and she settled her hands over her stomach. “It explains the bouts of sickness I’ve been experiencing. I thought it was my power... Christ.”

The Devil roared in her ear and she flinched. Veiron snarled at him and drew his spear, his instinct to protect her kicking into overdrive. Her eyes opened again and tentatively met Veiron’s.

“I don’t know how it happened... but whatever grows inside of me, you are the father.” Her hands trembled against her stomach, as bleached of colour as her beautiful face. He felt her shock in his own blood, felt her fear and trepidation as though it was his own. Perhaps it was. Fathering a child was not something he had ever considered because it was impossible. The muddled emotions he felt in Erin said parenthood wasn’t something she had ever considered either.

“Are you sure?” he said and she nodded.

“You’re the only man I’ve slept with in the past year so it can’t be anyone else’s child now, can it?” she snapped, her words a low growl that conveyed every ounce of her anger as it reached a rolling boil again.

Veiron stared at her. A flash of her in the tub, hands hot against his body, burning up as she rode him, sent his temperature soaring but chilled him at the same time. Her gaze held his and he knew she was telling the truth. If she carried life in her womb, it was his seed that her body quickened and used to create it.

“How?” he whispered.

It was the Devil who answered. “Erin is of my flesh, and I am able to mate with all. You are correct, Maggot. You are sterile... but this is not a problem for my daughter. She took your dead seed and gave it life, just as I can take a barren womb and give it new life.”

The Devil placed his hand over Erin’s on her stomach.

The surprise and fury in her beautiful eyes faded and fear rose and took their place, obliterating them. She clutched her stomach and her lips parted.

Veiron felt her fear in his blood, knew why her demeanour had changed so abruptly. It wasn’t only fear born of the Devil wanting their child. It was fear of being a mother. He had witnessed her terror when her other form had shifted beneath her skin and could see in her eyes that she was imagining what the child of the Devil’s daughter and a demonic angel would look like. He wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter, that no matter what their baby looked like, it would be theirs and it would be loved, and they wouldn’t let it come to harm.

He was damned if he was going to let the Devil have their child as his vessel. He would protect both Erin and their unborn baby.

He clutched his spear and met the Devil’s gaze. The man smiled at him, radiating confidence with a cruel edge, one that challenged Veiron.

“What do you intend to do?” the Devil said, his smile growing wider. “You are powerless against me. You have both been doing exactly as I had planned the whole time.”

He caressed Erin’s cheek and she shifted away from his touch. Veiron growled. The Devil lifted his hand away from her stomach, black flames licking over his fingers and up the arm of his suit.

“No sudden moves,” he chided and Veiron stilled.

Amelia and Marcus landed a short distance off to Veiron’s right.

“The warning extends to everyone.” The Devil flicked a glance at Amelia. “You would not want her harmed now.”

“You wouldn’t,” Veiron said and took a step towards them. One way or another he would free Erin from her father’s grasp. Once she was out of his reach, they could fight him and find a way to undo the deal she had made. If she had bargained for Veiron’s memories, then the Devil hadn’t fulfilled his side of the deal yet. Veiron still couldn’t remember her or his past life.

“You are probably right. She is more valuable to me alive.” The Devil’s smile faded and darkness shifted across his expression. “For now at least. I was so disappointed when I discovered my only offspring was female but this turn of events isn’t so unpleasant... or unexpected. In fact, the whole affair turned out rather well.”

Veiron frowned and his anger spiked back up, burning hotter than ever. “You let me rescue her.”

The dark-haired male’s grin said it all. “Of course I allowed you to save her. Why else would you manage to escape so easily? I saw an opportunity to improve a bad situation and get what I wanted. Everything since then has gone according to my plan. You both played your roles so perfectly.”

“You used us.” Erin’s eyes widened and fixed on Veiron.

“No need to make it sound so crass. I had seen that you were destined to end up with this disgusting creature and decided to... give you a nudge towards each other.”

“A nudge?” Erin struggled against the Devil and he tightened his grip on her. “Did you make us do things?”

He laughed. “No. Always so concerned about the things you care about, aren’t you, Daughter? I did not make you love Veiron, and did not make Veiron love you. That sickening emotion was destined to bloom between you. I merely gave you both a helping hand. I admit that sending my men after you to keep you together was not my finest hour, and neither was allowing one of them to harm you, but it was necessary. I needed your feelings to develop more quickly.”

Veiron glared at him. “You were impatient. You had a daughter but you wanted a son, so you forced us to remain together. You put your own daughter at risk. What sort of sick—”

The Devil held up his hand and Veiron bit his tongue. He was regaining his strength but hadn’t healed enough to withstand another blast of the Devil’s power.

“I was impatient,” the Devil said and stroked Erin’s bare arm. “I realised I had gone too far that night and backed off to allow things to progress naturally. They did. Erin entered the right stage of her cycle on the island and you sired a child with her.”

Erin’s cheeks paled again and she covered her mouth with her hand. Amelia gasped.

“Erin?” Veiron whispered and she looked at him, her amber eyes swimming with tears. “I will get you out of here. I swear it.”

“And how will you do that, Maggot?” The Devil grinned over her shoulder at him. “You failed last time... and witnessing your death was just the catalyst Erin needed to awaken. Not only that, but I removed you from the equation, leaving Erin desperate enough to turn to me... but there seems to have been a complication.”

“You bastard,” Erin screamed and stamped on the Devil’s foot, elbowed him in the chest, and then flicked her hand over her shoulder and cracked his nose. He snarled and released her and she stumbled forwards.

Veiron reached for her but she didn’t come to him.

She turned on her father, bright orange flames caressing her hands and dancing over her bare arms.

Black blood poured over the Devil’s lip and he rubbed the back of his hand over it, smudging it across his face. The blood instantly stopped flowing and disappeared, leaving his appearance perfect again.

“Where was that spirit when I held you captive?” He flicked the blood off his hand. “If you had displayed the rage and hunger for violence you have shown at times in these past few weeks perhaps I would not have needed to go through so much trouble. I could have used you as my vessel after all.”

“I will never be your vessel and neither will my child!” She threw her hands forwards and unleashed a crackling orb of golden energy. The Devil held his hand up and the blast exploded against an invisible barrier surrounding him. “This wasn’t part of our deal. It’s off.”

She released another bolt of golden fire and the Devil disappeared.

Veiron’s neck prickled and two strong hands grasped his shoulders. He cried out as sharp claws dug into his flesh and burned him, eating into him like acid.

Erin spun on her heel to face them.

The Devil stepped up behind Veiron and he twisted at the waist and beat his wings, trying to free himself. The man pressed his fingers deeper into Veiron’s flesh and he burned hotter, the heat stealing his strength, rendering his arms immobile.

“Don’t,” Erin said and shook her head.

“Obey me, or I will destroy the man you love,” the Devil hissed over Veiron’s shoulder and Veiron snarled and tried to dislodge him again. He couldn’t move. The acid burning through his veins had spread to his flesh, scalding every inch of him. He gritted his teeth against the pain and held Erin’s gaze, silently trying to tell her to leave while she had the chance. It didn’t matter if he died again. He would be reborn as he was now and he would come back for her. They would finish this somehow.

She couldn’t risk her life or that of their child for his sake.

“Don’t, please.” Erin lowered her hands.

Veiron swallowed several times and mustered all of his strength. He had to convince her to go.

“Do not, Erin,” he whispered and swallowed again to wet his dry throat. “Leave while you can. Do not do this for me.”

Her eyes flickered between his and the man’s behind him, her expression turning uncertain.

“We could amend the deal,” the Devil said and Veiron shook his head, silently cursing him for tempting her, his own daughter. “In exchange for your son, I will revive Veiron’s memories by accepting him as my servant. I will not inhabit your child or you, but he and you will stand at the head of my army and the child will serve as my destroyer. A small price to pay in exchange for your lover. You could be together again. A happy family. It is what you desire most, is it not?”

Veiron snarled and focused so his wings disappeared. He unleashed them again, so fast that they smashed into the Devil and caught him by surprise. His claws tore out of Veiron’s shoulders and Veiron propelled himself forwards and hit the black ground a few metres from Erin.

She looked down at him and then beyond him to her father.

“Come, Daughter. Make your decision.”

CHAPTER 37

E
rin’s gaze danced between Veiron where he knelt on the ground, covered in blood and black dust, and the man who called himself her father. She placed her hand over her stomach, torn between accepting his offer and fighting him.

She had thought her sickness had been due to the increase in her power caused by her awakening and her grief over losing Veiron. What if she was pregnant though?

Her skin prickled, coldest across the back of her neck and down her spine, and her stomach somersaulted. When she had awoken, and times after that, she had seen her claws and had felt the shift of horns beneath her flesh. Would her baby be like that and like Veiron had been during the time they had conceived it? Would it come out with fangs and claws, and black skin, with glowing red eyes? Her insides flipped again. There was no point in asking whether it would. She knew in her heart that it would be like her and Veiron, and it frightened her. She only hoped that like them it would appear human most of the time too. She didn’t fear the baby and she wouldn’t fear its demonic appearance if it had one. She was frightened that it would never be able to lead a normal life in the mortal world and that would drive it to become evil, like her father.

Her eyes flicked to Veiron and he pushed himself up onto unsteady legs.

“Come to me, Erin.” Veiron held his hand out to her and she wanted to go to him more than anything but she feared that if she took a single step towards him that the Devil would attack him. She had to find a solution, one that didn’t involve making deals with her father and placing those she loved at risk.

Veiron wanted to remember her and had been willing to fall to achieve that but she wasn’t willing to let him go down that route. In the time she had known Veiron, she had discovered the depth of the hatred he felt towards the game that Hell and Heaven played with him and the two beings that used him as their pawn. She wouldn’t let him go through that again.

She looked over her shoulder at Amelia. The look in her grey eyes gave Erin strength. Whatever happened, her sister would be there for her. They weren’t sisters by blood but that didn’t matter. Amelia was her family. They had grown up together and had always been each other’s best friend. She would do anything for Amelia and she knew that Amelia felt the same way.

“If you’re scared that Veiron will fall foul of Heaven’s commands, then let him contract with me. Let him become like Marcus and be free, not a servant of the Devil,” Amelia said and while Erin was grateful for the offer, she could never accept it and Veiron would never accept it either.

He wanted his memories back.

The Devil could give that to him.

If he fell, he would remember everything, but it would pull him back into the game again. If he pledged himself to Amelia, he would be free of it, but Heaven and Hell would seek to kill him in order to reset the game, just as they desired to kill Amelia and Marcus.