Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 5) (Reading Sample) - Felicity Heaton (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📗

still as she had been when he had carried her, as though his touch really could keep her bad dreams at bay. The only disturbances were a few deep sighs that could have been moans in the right situation and the odd flush that heated her cheeks.

Veiron grinned.

Looked like good dreams to him.

He inhaled slowly. Centuries of service in Hell had rendered him immune to the stench, letting him smell beyond it to the remnants of Erin’s soft warm perfume and the undeniable hint of desire.

Very good dreams indeed. The best sort.

Her lips parted and she sighed again.

He wished that he could join her but angels didn’t need to sleep when they were in their natural environment. He could close his eyes and hope that sleep would come. It wouldn’t.

Veiron watched her instead, putting every pale freckle visible on her dirty skin to memory and listening to her soft steady breathing. Minutes ticked by and slowly turned into hours. Time moved as strangely in Hell as it did in Heaven. A few minutes here was hours topside. He would have to wake her soon.

A sense that they weren’t alone prickled down his spine.

He stilled right down to his breathing.

Someone was close. He leaned further into the cave, hoping to conceal himself and Erin. Three Hell’s angels flew by, barely two hundred feet from him and staying over the basalt slope to protect their wings from the intense heat of the boiling lake beyond. They didn’t look his way but it was only a matter of time before they came back. The demon in the black plains would get their attention and tell them what she saw.

“Erin,” he whispered and nudged her arm, feeling guilty for waking her. “We have to go.”

“Just a few minutes more, Mum.”

“Mum?” He pushed her arm again and her eyes opened.

She lay there for a few seconds and then groggily looked up at him. “I was having a really good dream.”

“Tell me about it later. We have to move.”

A frown creased her dirty brow and she yawned. Veiron moved his thigh out from beneath her and her head hit the dirt.

“Ow.” She rubbed the side of her head and pushed herself up onto her knees, looking more alert now. “Did the bad guys find us?”

Veiron nodded. “They will soon. I’ll carry you. We can head for the nearest gate.”

“I thought that was a day away?” She crawled forwards and Veiron turned away so he wasn’t tempted to look down her black tank top at her breasts.

He reached the ledge, stood and offered his hand to her. “The gate we should have exited through is... but this is an emergency.”

She slipped her hand into his and he pulled her onto her feet and then straight up into his arms. He set her down again.

“You’re not carrying me?” she said with a sleepy frown.

“I am but I can’t run with you like this.” He unbuckled the straps of his scabbard and let the sword fall into the cave. Erin rubbed her eyes.

“Don’t you need that?” She nudged the discarded sword with her bandaged foot. “How are you meant to fight without it?”

“I’ll think of a way but I’m not planning on this coming down to a fight.” Because that would be a very bad idea. He didn’t want Erin anywhere near a fight with one of his kind, let alone three of them. Even if he had his sword, he would still lose control if anyone went after her and then she would see him for what he was.

Erin picked up the scabbard and struggled with it, trying to get the straps on over her arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Arming myself. I don’t have fancy powers.” She managed to get one strap around her shoulder and started on the other.

Veiron didn’t have time for this, but arguing with her would probably take longer than strapping the damn sword to her back. He tugged the straps until they were tight and the sword lay flat against her back, and buckled them. The sword was almost as tall as she was. She didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of wielding a blade this size but the steely glint in her amber eyes said that if it came to a fight, she was damn well going to try. He had to admire her tenacity.

He crouched with his back to her. The moment she lifted her right leg, he grabbed her under her thigh and swung her up onto his back. She slipped her arms around his neck, her supple body pressing into his back, and sighed right into his ear.

This was fast becoming a day full of grand mistakes. He had thought that she would wreak less havoc if he carried her on his back, not more. The way she pressed into him and the feel of her inner thighs against his hips and her arms around his neck had him thinking about her in a reversed position, against his front, and naked. He growled at the thought of sliding his cock in and out of her hot sheath, her breathy moans in his ear and body trembling with pleasure.

“Veiron?” she murmured.

Veiron struggled to clear the image of making love to her from his head.

Something shrieked in the distance.

That did it.

He bolted up the slope to the path, clutching Erin’s hot soft thighs as she clung to him for dear life. The moment he hit the flat, he broke into a sprint.

Erin moved against his back, twisting away from him.

“Veiron?” she said, a note of panic in her voice. “Can you run any faster?”

“Three of them?”

She buried her face against his back.

“No... it’s more like twenty.”

Veiron growled. Fuck it. Desperate times and all that shit. They already knew where he was. Maybe he could lose them or at least slow them down.

He released one of Erin’s thighs and held his hand out in front of him, focusing a short distance ahead. The landscape there shimmered and distorted, and then disintegrated into curling black smoke. Erin’s arms tightened to a death grip on his throat that choked him.

“What the hell is that?” she shrieked close to his ear.

Veiron grinned as the portal erupted into fierce white flames.

“Our ticket out of here.”

Chapter 7

Erin had screamed at the top of her lungs from the moment Veiron had leapt headlong into a flaming vortex until they had exited it in another area of Hell. He hadn’t stopped there. He had produced another wall that had the look of a painful death if you made even the slightest mistake and leapt straight into that one. They had done the sickening jump several times and had eventually ended up next to another of the small groups of buildings that were scattered around the black and fiery landscape of Hell.

Veiron didn’t make another vortex this time. He ran with her through the village, heading up a winding wide road that led towards a plateau that had a sheer drop into the buildings on the left and a huge wall on the right.

Erin felt sick.

With all the jumping from one place to another and the fear that churned her stomach to acid, she was close to throwing up all over Veiron. She didn’t think he would appreciate it.

He set her down on the wide ledge that overlooked the village and walked towards a huge stone arch cut into the sheer black wall that rose up into the endless darkness above her.

“Is this a gate?” she said, unwilling to let herself believe that she was this close to freedom until Veiron confirmed it.

He nodded. Erin’s knees weakened. Veiron was there before they gave out, his arm around her waist, holding her steady. She cursed herself for looking so weak in front of him and clutched his biceps, breathing slowly to calm her feelings. A gate. She couldn’t believe it. She had thought her nightmare would never end and now she was on the verge of escaping Hell.

Erin slowly raised her eyes to meet Veiron’s dark ones, waiting for him to call her weak again. He didn’t. His expression remained soft but intense, edged with warmth that sent her temperature rising and tempted her to drop her gaze to his mouth, lift her lips to his and kiss him.

“It isn’t the gate we were supposed to use. Your sister isn’t on the other side.” His deep voice sent her insides trembling and increased the temptation to look at his mouth.

“Why can’t you zap us to that gate?”

He shook his head, released her waist, and a solemn look entered his eyes. “Amelia and Marcus are waiting there. If I teleport to that gate, then I’ll be leading the Devil’s army straight to her location. I came here to save you so the Devil wouldn’t find her, so he couldn’t kill her.”

“I get it.” Erin took his hand, marvelling at how small it made hers look, and squeezed it to let him know he didn’t need to explain. She understood. If they went to that gate, the demons would follow them and find Amelia. She would have to wait to see her sister again.

She stroked her thumb along the length of his. Maybe waiting wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if Veiron stayed with her until he reunited her with Amelia. Erin could certainly think of some delicious ways to pass the time. Would he stay with her? His mission had been to free her from Hell. When they reached her world, that mission would be over. Wouldn’t it?

“What happens when we go through the gate?” she said, struggling to get her voice above a whisper when fear of his answer squeezed her heart.

He glanced down at their joined hands, and then back into her eyes.

“When we reach the other side, we can’t stop running. Hopping around might have thrown them off my scent for now, but it won’t take them long to discover which gate we used. They will come after us.” Veiron led her towards the huge stone arch. Liquid darkness filled it, inky and rippling, reflecting the fires of Hell that glowed behind her. “I will find a way to get you safely to Amelia.”

Erin nodded and took comfort from his words. He was going to stay with her and help her and she was glad because she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him yet. The more time she spent with Veiron, the more she wanted to get to know him and unlock his secrets. He had risked everything to help her escape, had revealed himself by using his powers and placed himself in danger. She was grateful to him for that, but it wasn’t the reason she wanted to kiss him as she looked up at him, lost in his dark eyes.

He had tasted so good in her dream, had felt so good as he moved above her, his eyes locked on hers, body gliding in and out, taking her to Heaven.

He scared her but he fascinated her too, and spoke to everything that was woman inside her. He was lethal beauty and deadly grace, vicious yet tender, a world of contradictions wrapped in a body that was all honed muscle and masculine strength. A body she wanted to touch and a soul