Vengeance: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 3 (38 page)

We emerged into the waning sunlight. The house was quiet. Too quiet. A preternatural pall hung over the hallway. Not even the air moved.
 

“Zerachiel, get outside. Straight to Hellion.” When he hesitated, I rounded on him. “Now.”

He moved like a ghost, his footfalls something one might believe encountered only in dream. Sunlight hit him and he paused, reveling in it. He began to grow, his height topping out somewhere around nine feet based on the top of his head in relation to the top of the doorway.
 

Bahlin breathed out long and low. “Never imagined that would impress me, but he’s like the giants of old.”

“They were like
us
,” the Nephilim corrected. Then he was gone, through the side door, across the lawn, disappearing into the gardens.

“Let Hellion be okay.” The short litany escaped out loud. I shook my head to clear it and then turned to Bahlin. “Do you feel anything different?”

His eyes changed and he breathed deep, smoke curling from his nose. “Brimstone’s on the air.”

“They’re here.” Fear pooled at the base of my spine, wicking upward. “It’s too early. We’re not ready. Shit, shit, shit.” My hand went to my gun, and I pulled it with as much stealth as I could muster. Still, the sound of the metal clearing leather was unnaturally loud in the lower hallway. I looked left and right and saw nothing out of the ordinary.
 

A floorboard creaked overhead, the step that wrought it stopping mid-motion.

“House be damned. If you have to shift, shift.” I backed closer to the wall and jerked my head toward the open end of the hallway. Bahlin stuck close, watching my back as I covered his front. Together, we inched our way down the hall.
 

The first thing I would remember, looking back, was the smell of Hell—cloying, choking, caustic. The demon that followed the smell was no better.

I leveled the gun and began firing before I consciously thought about the percussion. The sound rang through the tight space, deafening. The demon went down with the fourth round.
 

First or second level
, I mouthed to Bahlin.

He didn’t acknowledge me. His eyes were trained on something over my shoulder.

I spun, the movement dragging as if I moved through sludge. Gun raised, finger on the trigger, I watched the walls as they began to bleed. Something big lumbered down the steps. The minute the first scaled and scabbed foot rounded the corner, Bahlin grabbed me and yanked me down the hallway toward the light Zerachiel had found. It was brilliant, a beacon to us in that second, and everything the dark wasn’t.

Movement in my peripheral vision meant a volley of fire launched into every open door as we ran. I dumped empty clips and slammed new ones in place, all the while being pursued. Whatever had come down those stairs brokered painful death, no doubt. Dumping another clip, I shoved a new one home and stopped to spin and fire.
 

My gun hand twitched, the only show of fear that translated from brain to body.
 

The demon was enormous, his body scraping the walls as he lumbered toward us. Fast. Faster than he should have been. Clawed hands flung felled demons out of the way like they were tinker’s toys. Scaled, four-armed and sporting a trio of eyes that wept mucous, he was singularly focused on me. A jaw with row upon row of saw-like teeth opened and roared, the carrion-diffused breath making my stomach pitch.
 

“Holy shit,” Bahlin shouted, taking the thing in.

A tail I hadn’t noticed smashed a hole in one of the downstairs sitting room walls. He—and it was definitely a he—paused, chest heaving.
 

“You.” He pointed one taloned finger at me, his voice prehistoric, guttural. “Come.”

Instead of answering, I raised my gun and shot him. In the eyes. Two out of three, at least.

Then we ran like Hell was on our heels.

And it was.

Chapter Twenty-One

Darkness swallowed me. One second we were racing for the door and the light that poured through, the next there was nothing. Every sense I had was overridden by the cosmic void I’d been sucked into.
 

A hiss sounded all around me.

I raised my gun while reaching blindly for Bahlin.
 

Nothing. It was like he’d disappeared with the rest of reality.

I was too terrified to fire the weapon, unsure of myself, unsure what might be around me.

The hiss sounded again, this time accompanied by the heavy, lumbering slither of a large body moving toward me.
 

My inner voice was screaming while my vocal chords were paralyzed with fear. Lactic acid build-up meant I had to drop my arm.

The thing must have been watching, waiting as it circled. It moved with deceptive silence, teeth closing around my neck just tight enough to split skin in a hundred places. A hot wash of drool slid down my back.
 

My muscles twitched involuntarily, driving teeth deeper, and then I froze. There was no fight-or-flight response, simply survival. I’d been a fool to think Darius’s bite had hurt. This, this was pain.

“Madeline Niteclif.”

The seductive, unfamiliar voice wove its way through my brain, echoing, until I thought my head would explode. My sex tightened, throbbed, ached with emptiness, and I craved release like I’d been sexually stimulated for days. “Not. Real.” The words were gritted out through clenched teeth. My blind eyes sought out anything, anything that would confirm this wasn’t real. “Nightmare.”

“Oh, I’m your worst nightmare. We just haven’t been formally introduced.”
 

A form shimmered in my peripheral vision. The gun fell from numb fingers as he moved around me. “Beautiful.”

A bright white grin answered my proclamation. “So I’ve been told.” He moved close to me, stroked the monster’s snout.
 

It retreated. There was no need for it to restrain me now that he was here.

His presence held me captive, left things so confused I couldn’t sort out the important facts. Yes, I’d lost my gun, but more importantly, I wanted to lose my clothes. My hands wouldn’t work right, wouldn’t undo my holster.

Another memory pushed in from the side. It was a new memory, only hours old, when I’d tried to undo my holster for someone else. “Hellion,” I said softly.

“Ah, Hellion. He’s tied up at the moment.”
 

A brilliant window opened, my eyes watering in response. Through the glass I saw my lover engaged in a bitter fight with Agares and his fellow Dominae—a fight he was clearly losing.
 

“No.” The cry was soft, pleading. I tried to raise a hand to help him, but it came up free of my gun. What had happened? I wouldn’t have let go of my gun.

“But you did,” the man in front of me responded. “You don’t want to shoot me, Madeline. Quite the contrary, love.”

Love.
“Don’t call me that.”
 

A beastly image, that of a demon with three heads, shimmered over the man like a mirage, there then gone so swiftly I didn’t know what I’d seen and what I’d imagined in this twilight of the mind.
 

“You’ll take care,
love
, to not anger me. I’m all that stands between Agares and your beloved. You owe me your gratitude.” He turned, waist-length auburn hair swinging wide enough to slap against my thighs.
 

I whimpered. My sex grew wet with need.

He inhaled. “Lovely.” Moving in close, he traced a finger down my cheek, curled it under my chin and pressed his lips to mine. He moved over my mouth with languid strokes of his tongue that I met and matched.
 

I wanted him, lust blurring every image but the silver eyes that stared into mine.
 

The image of Hellion winked out.
 

“No!” I wrenched my mouth away, the denial echoing through my head. I swear my skull fractured at the noise.
 

Hands fondled my breasts, regained my attention, refocused my rejection. I shoved him, forcing him back a step. “Who the hell are you?”

He ran a hand over the back of his mouth. “I forget we’ve yet to be formally introduced.”
 

He stalked around me, hips rolling, his semi-erect phallus outlined in the tight, fawn-colored breeches. Doeskin leather moved in whispers over leanly muscled thighs. His shirt was open—had it always been?—over his chest. A faint line of hair disappeared below his bellybutton into the waistband of his pants. Platinum nipple rings winked in the spotlight that seemed fused to his every movement.
 

“In the grand scheme, it seems so trivial, a name for a name.” Bending low, he purred, “I am Asmodeus.”

Fear Asmodeus.
Tyr had warned me last time I’d seen him. My knee raised in a sharp jerk and the resounding crack of Asmodeus’s nose met with my hearty approval.

He backhanded me with stunning ferocity.
 

I’d barely begun to lick the blood from my split lip when his nose stopped bleeding.
 

“And these were my favorite breeks.” He stripped his shirt off, all the while talking. “Hellion doesn’t give you any type of challenge, does he. He’s a weak coven master who couldn’t hold his place against Connell Darach.”

My brows drew together. “Connell?”

“Hellion fell to him. You remember.”
 

Another window opened before me, the light more blinding. I watched Hellion fall to Connell all over again. “No.” I shook my head, trying to clear it of the sticky web of lies Asmodeus wove.

“Don’t struggle, love. It will go so much easier if you don’t.”

“Go how?” My words were sluggish.
 

“You’ve surely figured out what I want.”

“Hellion.”

Asmodeus chuckled, the sound tracing up the insides of my thighs, hot as breath. “Far from it. I couldn’t care less about your lover. No, my interest lies in replacing him as the one who finds release between your thighs.”

“No.”
 

“Surely you don’t think he loves you?” He waved a hand negligently at the darkness and another window was born, this one showing Hellion wrapped in a passionate embrace with Agares. The other Dominae cheered. Bodies littered the earth around them, the bloody ground cast a deeper and darker red in the setting sun. “He’s a man of opportunity, not morals.” Asmodeus
tsked
me. “Poor Maddy. Thrown over by the Fates once again.”

“No.” The plea in my voice was undeniable. I couldn’t tear my eyes from Hellion.
 

Asmodeus turned and watched the scene through the window, tapping his chin.
 

“Let him go.”

“Oh, I could. See, the agreement has always been that Agares deliver you to me. In return, I guaranteed to let him keep Hellion for eternity.” He shook his head in mock sympathy. “Shame there’s no suicide in Hell. No doubt Hellion will crave it before long.”

“Let him go.” The plea was louder this time.

“But then I’d break my word to Agares. I did promise him, after all.” Asmodeus turned and, tossing his shirt aside, moved closer. “Touch me.”

My hands moved of their own volition, slowly tracing up his swimmer’s physique. Hard planes proved interesting grounds for exploration. My mouth followed my hands, lips anxious to keep pace.

The ground shook beneath me.
 

Something swiped at my foot and I kicked out, desperate not to lose this moment. I knew Asmodeus would grant me the physical release my body craved, would put an end to the carnal throbbing between my legs. Every nerve in my sex burned with need. When he touched my nipples, flicking thumbs over their hardened peaks, I cried out, biting down on one of his piercings.

“That’s it, love.”
 

Love.
I pulled back slowly, eyes narrowing as I fought not to look at Hellion locked in the confusing embrace with Agares. “You don’t love me.”

“No, and you don’t love me.” He pinched my nipples and I groaned. “Seems fair, does it not?”

My chest was heaving. Sweat made my shirt stick to my back. Salt stung my eyes. “No.”

“But it is. You see, I need not love you to father your child, Niteclif. All I need is for you to spread your legs.” He reached forward and dragged a thumb across the span just above my hipbones.

Pain lanced through me.

“You’ve just ovulated for me.” At my confused look, his eyes flashed a deep, dark crimson. “Why, dearling, did no one tell you I’m the demon of lust? I’m one of the seven deadly sins brought to life.” He moved to tower over me. “And I
revel
in my role in debauching the most pious of you. I’ll have you several times to ensure my seed takes.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he scoffed. “Because, Niteclif, if I can control the High Council, I can hold dominion over the spawn of the angels. What better way to see to the fall of mankind than to use the precious angels’ own legacy against the inferior, bendable,
breakable
flesh of man?”