CHAPTER 15
“You sure you don’t want my boots?” Grey looked down at Lyra’s feet, at the meagre protection his socks offered her.
He had made her borrow his dirty pair too, so they formed a double layer on her feet, but it still wasn’t enough to satisfy him.
“You sure you don’t want to stop asking me that?” she said, the smile curving the corners of her lips at odds with the sharp bite in her tone.
He wanted to sigh.
Not one of exasperation, but one of a strange sort of happiness.
They had fallen into an easy camaraderie over the past day they had been marching south, the air between them clear at last, freeing them both from its oppressive weight. Gods, it felt good to have it all out there in the open, nothing hidden from her anymore, and to have her stay at his side.
More than that, she stole kisses whenever he let her, and had held his hand for hours.
She had even slept in his arms when they had taken shelter in a small cave at the base of one of the mountains, both of them needing rest.
Grey hadn’t been able to sleep.
The novelty of holding a female while she had been sleeping, of her trusting him to protect her when she was vulnerable, had kept him awake and watching her, absorbing how good it had felt in case it never happened again.
Lyra nudged his hand with hers, knocking the backs of them together, and he looked down at her delicate little hand and then up into her eyes. They sparkled at him, tranquil tropical blue.
Called to him.
He could feel her, could feel the need as it steadily built inside her again.
The desire.
She wanted him again.
Fuck, he wanted her every second of the day.
She playfully tugged at his fingers, and he slowed to a halt and came to face her, giving in to her.
He swiftly banded his right arm around her waist, lifted her as she squeaked, and seized her lips. She moaned, her hands coming down on his bare shoulders, nails pressing in as she clutched him tightly and stroked her tongue along the seam of his lips. He opened to her, groaned as she tangled her tongue with his and teased his fangs, sending a shiver down his spine.
Sweet fucking gods, he would never get enough of this.
He would never get enough of her.
Her legs wrapped around his waist and he groaned again, this one strained as he cupped her backside and held her against him. Her shorts were loose enough that he could feel all of her natural curves beneath his fingers, together with her heat as it pressed against his stomach just above the waist of his trousers.
He slowly lowered her, needing to feel that heat somewhere else.
Somewhere that ached for her.
“Grey,” she murmured against his lips as he settled her against his already rock hard length.
He turned with her, broke away from her lips and scoured the desolate valley for a place where he could take her, somewhere they might have at least a little privacy.
She tensed.
His senses went on high alert and he swiftly looked up at her to check her. She stared off into the distance over his shoulder in the direction they had been heading.
He looked there too.
“What’s that?” She pointed, and he tracked her finger, following it to find what she had spotted.
Something was there in the gloom.
A long way away.
He squinted, focused harder and let his animal side rise to the fore a little, enough that his vision sharpened and the world around him brightened, and he could see what she had.
Lights.
They were steady. Bright. White.
These weren’t flaming torches.
They were manmade.
“You think it’s the ones you’re looking for?” Lyra whispered, as if they would be able to hear her from such a distance.
Still, it paid to be cautious.
His senses didn’t reveal anyone in the area other than him and Lyra, but he wasn’t going to risk it.
“It’s possible,” he said in a low voice and lowered her to her feet. He looked back in the direction they had come, and then in the one they had been heading. They had been following the mountain range from the dragon village, and the Devil’s domain had been to their left the entire time, meaning they had certainly been heading in the right direction to cross paths with the mortals. “The dragons said they were a day’s march south-east, and that’s the course we’ve been taking to reach the portal.”
“We should check it out.”
He whipped around to face her. “No.”
He wasn’t taking her anywhere near Archangel. If they saw her and realised what she was, well it didn’t bear thinking about. Talon had gone through hell at their hands and he was just a tiger, a common enough species of shifter. Archangel would go to town on a hellcat.
Grey wanted to get her to the portal as soon as possible.
He wanted to get her home, where she would be safe.
She sidled closer to him, the feel of her near to him comforting him and soothing his fear of something happening to her.
He glanced down at her, and his gaze caught on hers, on the worry that shone in it.
“I don’t want you coming back to Hell, Grey,” she whispered, her dark eyebrows furrowing. “I know you will if you don’t find out what the humans are doing. You need to help your brother, and that need will bring you back to this realm.”
He sighed, brushed the knuckles of his right hand across her cheek, and wanted to deny that to alleviate her worry, but he couldn’t lie to her.
Her concern touched him, warmed his heart in a way he had never experienced before. He didn’t want her worrying about him, and he certainly didn’t want her demanding to come with him when he returned to Hell, so there was only one course of action open to him.
“Fine. We’ll take a look as we’re passing.”
Just a peek.
Although he knew it wouldn’t be enough to assuage his own curiosity about what Archangel were doing in Hell. That curiosity had only grown since meeting the dragons and hearing that the squad he was looking for weren’t the only ones in Hell. There were others, and they were forcing fae to work the portals so they could come and go as they pleased.
He kept his eyes locked on the lights in the distance to his left as they started walking again.
He already wanted a closer look, and once he had that, he was going to want to rattle a few answers loose from one of the hunters, and maybe give them a little payback for what they had done to his pride, attacking it for no reason.
He led Lyra up a path that looked as if it ran along the base of the mountain around twenty feet up from the valley floor. A good vantage point. He ushered her in front of him as the path narrowed, torn between having her take the lead where she would be vulnerable to any hunter that might be ahead of them, and having her bring up the rear where he couldn’t see her.
He needed to see her, needed eyes on her at all times.
She reached behind her, and he looked down at the hand she offered. He slipped his into it and clutched it tightly as he silently thanked her for picking up on his fear and his need to know she was safe and for helping him soothe them both.
When they were in line with the hunter camp, Lyra stepped off the path and skidded silently down the slope. He followed her and ended up next to her behind a large boulder. She peered around it.
Grey huffed.
The hunters were on the other side of the valley, too far away for him to see what they were doing.
He wanted to get a head count before he did anything, needed to know how many hunters he would be dealing with if he approached the camp and tried to get some answers about that damned door.
He turned to Lyra to say they should sneak closer for a better look.
The scent of blood hit him.
Shrieks and terrified screams shattered the silence.
Grey snapped his head towards the hunter camp, the odour of blood growing thicker in the hot air as he tried to see what was happening.
Who the fuck was killing all the mortals he had intended to interrogate?
He could feel his chance slipping through his fingers as he studied the darkness ahead of him, searching it for a sign of what was attacking the mortals.
Lyra leaped the rock and started sprinting towards the battle, keeping as low to the ground as possible to avoid detection.
He growled and gave chase, his heart slamming against his ribs as his need to protect her screamed that she was going to hurl herself into the fray blind, with no plan and no clue as to what was happening.
The remaining sensible part of him tried to rise above it and hammer home that she was only trying to get a closer look. He knew that. She was moving low, silent in the darkness. She wasn’t launching an assault.
But his instinct to protect her was too strong, overruled sense and roared that she was going to fight and get herself hurt. Or worse.
That had his stomach churning, heart racing and limbs trembling as he sprinted after her, scanning the distance ahead of her as the battle drew closer.
What the hell was happening ahead of him?
Had the mortals strayed too close to a dragon’s territory and were paying the price?
He searched the dull golden sky.
Surely a dragon would choose to decimate the mortals in its beast form though?
The skies were clear.
Lyra ground to a halt around sixty metres from the battle.
Her fear flooded him.
Everything slowed as she turned towards him, her long black hair splaying outwards and her blue eyes going impossibly wide.
“Run!”
Had she spotted the dragon he couldn’t see?
He ignored her and ran towards her instead, reached his right arm out to her and willed her to run to him, his every instinct screaming at him to protect her.
A burst of air battered him, a blast of black dust sweeping over him as the ground bucked and shook, and he quickly covered his face with his arms to protect his vision from the particles.
What was out there?
Unsettling silence fell.
He lowered his hands from his face as the air cleared around him.
Something drove hard into his gut, lifted his boots from the ground and sent him flying high into the air.
The world zoomed away from him, pain arcing like lightning through his body, zinging along his bones. He growled and ripped his backpack off, gripped one of the straps between his teeth and shifted the moment the pain dulled enough to allow him to transform.
He twisted and turned in the air as he came down, eyes darting as he swiftly charted the distance between him and the ground.
This was going to hurt like a bitch.
He flipped one last time and landed hard on all four paws, his bones taking the brunt of the impact, sending another blast of pain shooting through him, one that came close to forcing him to shift back into his human form.
Thank fuck for feline bone structure and its ability to absorb impacts.
He wasn’t sure he had ever been so grateful for it.
He dropped his pack and kicked out of his clothes, freeing himself so he could fight.
Grey lifted his head and snarled at the one who had tossed him as he prowled forwards.
The male stared him down, towering close to seven feet tall, his powerful body encased in heavy black armour that mimicked the muscles beneath. A horned helmet flared from back from above his nose and wisps of long golden hair danced from beneath it, not fitting with his dark appearance.
The crimson eyes that narrowed on Grey matched it perfectly though.
Together with the undeniable aura of pure evil that hovered around the male.
And his huge black feathered wings.
Not a dragon.
A fucking angel.
A fallen one at that.
He had come for Lyra.