Awakened by a Demoness (6 page)

He frowned at that. He did not possess a name. He possessed a rank, the position as Fifth Commander of the Echelon. He did not need a name. His rank was a greater honour than any name could ever be.

Yet he still found himself hoping she wasn’t about to begin calling him Silly all the time.

He stared over her head at the coven building. She had been heading in the same direction as him after all.

“Leave,” he said, not wanting her to interfere in his mission.

Asteria turned to face him, skipped backwards along the street, and smiled in a way he didn’t like, one that said he was about to be given a reason to keep her with him, at least for a little longer.

“I guarantee I can get information out of our lead.”

Our lead?

He huffed at that.

He was damned if he was going to work with a demon. He paused and considered that. She did have a lead, and she did seem confident about being able to extract information from said lead. He didn’t trust her though. She
was
a demon. Her means of getting the information she spoke of were probably nefarious. Such as torture.

“I decline. You may leave.” He waved his hand through the air, shooing her away, which only seemed to infuriate her.

She blocked his path, shoved her hands against her hips, and scowled at him.

“I decline.” She mocked him. Little wench. He glared down at her but she didn’t relent. She stepped closer, tipped her chin up in a mulish way, and glared right back at him. “It was my lead first and you probably only know about it because you snooped on me. I know you listened in on my conversation back at Fort William. You stole my intel.”

He folded his arms across his chest, his eyebrows pinching hard as he set his jaw. “I did no such thing. I left before you received anything of value from those males you were luring with the offer of free sex. I presume you slept with them as payment?”

The thought that she had made his blood burn for some reason, but he justified it by telling himself it was because she was sinful, wicked, and he punished such crimes.

He merely wanted to punish her.

Asteria’s words echoed in his mind, a sultry tease about his big sword and punishing her with it.

He gritted his teeth and shoved her out of his head.

“I didn’t fuck them,” she snapped, loud enough that a few people paused to stare. “I’m not that sort of woman. Do you think all demons fit the stupid image Heaven has drilled into that thick skull of yours?”

He arched an eyebrow at her tone and the way her eyes were changing again, turning black as her pupils blazed gold and thinned into vertical slits. Her black horns even flared a little.

“And do you think all angels fit the image the Devil has drilled into your head?” he countered.

Another mistake.

She responded by looking him up and down in a way that only made his blood burn hotter for some reason, especially when her eyes lingered on his hips and chest.

It became an inferno in his veins when she stepped up to him, tiptoed and whispered into his ear, “Your halo is a little bent.”

She turned and walked away before he could muster a retort, her words swimming in his head.

“What do you mean by that?” he barked after her.

She just raised her right hand above her shoulder and saluted him with her middle finger.

He bit out a low growl of frustration and went after her, trying to push what she had said out of his mind. She was messing with him. That was all.

So why couldn’t he stop pondering it?

His halo was bent?

Was she insinuating that he was a bit wicked like her?

He laughed at that. Far from it. He had never set a foot out of place, followed orders to the letter and was devoted to his duty.

He had never had a wicked thought in his life.

He could practically taste the lie in that as he stared at her, watching her walking away from him, her pert backside swaying side to side beneath that infernal pleated skirt that revealed more than it concealed, swishing back and forth to give him glimpses of lace-trimmed black panties.

Rey had the sinking feeling that the demoness was affecting him.

Dear lord, she was.

Because he had just called himself by the very name she had given him.

He clenched his fists and vowed that as soon as they had questioned the members of the Rozengard coven, they were going their separate ways and he would never see her again.

He was Fifth Commander of the Echelon.

An angel, one of the elite, an eradicator of demons.

She was one of those demons, a breed of creature he lived to hunt and destroy.

It was time he remembered that.

The angel was so easy to rile, it was almost boring. Still, Asteria did love the way his eyes flashed gold fire at her whenever she ruffled his feathers. She bounced ahead of him, leading the way towards the dull brown and white building ahead of them at the end of one of the main roads of the town, enjoying the way his eyes kept drifting back to her. He was doing his best to ignore her, to keep those stunning peridot eyes off her, but he was failing dismally.

She knew whenever his attempts failed and his eyes landed back on her. A brief flare of heat would chase through her, one that a part of her she was doing her best to ignore whispered came from more than just the fact he was an angel. She’d had run ins with his kind before, and their presence always set off a low burning in her blood. This sensation was different though. It ran deeper, blazed hotter, making her too aware of him where he trailed behind her, all glower and gruff as he stared at her back.

Maybe it was an Echelon thing.

She had never crossed paths with one from that elite clique of arseholes.

Most demons who strayed into their paths didn’t live to tell the tale. She was honestly surprised that she had, especially considering the way he looked at her from time to time, a glint in his eyes as his right hand twitched at his side, telling her that he wanted to call that fiery blade he possessed to cut her into little bitty pieces with it.

Or he could just call his Echelon gift and burn her with nothing more than a touch.

What was stopping him from doing his duty and killing her?

Asteria didn’t want to search for the answer to that question too hard. Something warned her that she wouldn’t like it.

Or maybe she would and that was why she feared it so much.

She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at him, catching him studying the hotchpotch of white flat-roofed buildings around them. His pale green-yellow eyes twinkled with warmth as he nodded at a few witches, spoke with them in a kind manner and gave them each a smile as they chatted and some even flirted with him.

By the Devil, he really did ooze goodness.

There wasn’t a drop of darkness in him.

Although, something was different about him today. She could still sense the light in him, but it no longer affected her as it had in Fort William. She didn’t feel a pressing urge to vomit whenever he was near her. No. The pressing urges she experienced now were far more unsettling.

She had crossed paths with many angels from the usual ranks of Heaven, had even been responsible for the demise of one or two in her lifetime. All of them had made her want to fight and protect herself. Rey didn’t. It set her on edge, because the less he triggered her demon instincts that screamed he was a danger to her and that he was good, all light and shiny, the less resistance she had against him, and the more she felt the full effect of being around him.

The more she wanted to tangle with him, and not in the fighting sense of the word.

His blond eyebrows dipped, his firm broad mouth settling in a stern line, and his gaze slowly edged back to her.

Asteria faced front again, shaking off the odd sensations that ran through her whenever she dared to look at him. She labelled them as disgust. She despised him. That damn little voice whispered again, calling them other names.

Desire. Lust.

Whenever she teased him sexually, it fired her up, caused heat to pool low in her abdomen and her blood to burn at the image of whatever she had taunted him with actually happening. The thought of the heels of her boots digging into the firm globes of his backside as he thrust into her, acting like spurs for her stallion, had her trembling with a need to see if the bastard might take her up on it and make that fantasy real.

No chance.

His green eyes had told her that straight.

She had to be losing her fucking mind if she was considering sleeping with an angel anyway.

She flicked another glance over her shoulder, bit back a gasp when her eyes met his, and quickly looked away again as fire flashed through her, making her nipples hard beneath her corset.

The Devil damn him to Hell.

“Quit staring, Rey,” she bit out and shuddered for effect. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

He huffed. “Believe me, I am not looking at you in any way other than as a potential threat, Asteria.”

She shuddered again, this one all too real and born of pleasure as her name rolled off his tongue in his gruff, deep voice. Sin. This angel was built for it whether he knew it or not.

She glanced again, cursed him in her head in the demon tongue as she caught something new in his eyes, something startling, before he masked it by turning his attention elsewhere.

Amusement.

The stuck up angel was teasing her and enjoying it.

The slightly mortified edge his eyes had gained said that horrified him. Why? Were all angels so damned stiff that they didn’t have fun?

She spun to face him and stopped in his path, and he was so busy diligently keeping his eyes off her that he collided with her. She shivered, a hot and achy one, as his hard body pressed against hers for a second, knocking her back, before he leaped away like a frightened cat to stand at a two metre distance from her.

Glowering at her again.

She planted her hands on her hips and glared right back at him. “I didn’t walk into you, Jackass, so don’t give me that look.”

Her body continued to tremble from the brief contact, tiny aftershocks of heat rippling through her. What the hell would he do to her if he did take that stick out of his fine backside and succumb to her charms? She wasn’t sure she could handle a male like him. In fact, she felt pretty damn certain she would melt into a puddle on the floor.

He looked close to unleashing his pearly white wings to threaten her, so she twirled the coloured stripe in her hair around her finger. His eyes darted there, he dragged them away again, and the unruly little critters went right back to her fingers, remaining locked on them this time. She slowed her movements, deliberately twisting the gold-to-red stripe around her index finger, brushing it occasionally with her thumb.

Those beautiful greens lost their sharp edge, his pupils dilating to darken them as he watched her fingers. She could almost hear his thoughts. Would her hair feel soft in his fist as he grabbed it and tugged her head back for a forbidden wicked kiss?

By the Devil, she wanted to know just how his profane mouth would feel on hers as he did such a thing.

Asteria took a step towards him, smiled when he didn’t bolt, was too busy staring at her fingers as they worked their magic on him, holding him firmly under her spell.

She edged another step closer, and another, until she was only a metre from him, could feel his power radiating from him, washing over her and colliding with hers. Only this time, the light he unconsciously emitted didn’t rub her the wrong way. It didn’t bother her at all. She risked a glance at his right wrist, frowned as she noticed the cross on the inside of it that marked him as an Echelon wasn’t glowing.

It should have been burning, blazing with light because of her proximity, but there wasn’t even a faint glow about it. It was pitch black.

“Asteria,” he murmured and swallowed hard. His lips parted, blond eyebrows dropping low above those hungry green eyes, and she waited with bated breath, so eager to hear what he was going to say that she made the mistake of moving closer. Bright light burst from the corner of her left eye and he flashed his teeth at her. “Get away from me.”

At first, she thought he was threatening her, a fear that had her leaping back a good two metres, but then her eyes widened as he grasped his right wrist and let out a low growl of frustration as he clutched it, his face contorting.

“What’s wrong?” she said and his eyes darted up to her, narrowed into dark slits that quickly burned gold.

Huge feathered white wings erupted from his back, tearing through his black t-shirt, and she gasped as she stumbled backwards, her fear turning to panic.

“Run,” he whispered, and she wanted to do just that, wanted to take the out he was giving to her, but something kept her feet pinned to the cobbles within striking distance of him.

The fear in his gold eyes.

He honestly didn’t want to hurt her.

The quiet voice she liked to think of her as her survival instinct rose to a scream in her mind, compelling her to flee, not only to save herself but to spare him. She tried to move, but nothing happened. It was as if her feet had been glued to the ground. She was powerless before him, could only swallow hard and pray to every god she knew that her life wasn’t about to end here. She had dodged a bullet with the Devil, and it had filled her with a strong desire to live. So why the hell wasn’t she hauling arse across the town?

“Asteria,” Rey whispered, his handsome face crumpling as he struggled with his right hand, as if he had no control over it.

Most of the street had stopped to stare, and most of them were looking at Rey as he stood opposite her, stunning white wings arching high above his shoulders.

“Rey.” She held her right hand out in front of her, her palm facing him. “You don’t want to do this.”

It was more a question than a statement to convince him to put his pearly white wings away and stop looking at her as if he was going to burn her to ashes at any second.

He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth so hard his jaw muscles popped beneath his tanned smooth skin, and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.