Her Wicked Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 6) (13 page)

Differentiating between the two immense black hellhounds hadn’t been hard once she had realised that Remus had a floppy ear. She smiled again at the memory of how Asmodeus had corrected it for him, his air that of a doting but frustrated father. It did wreck the hellhound’s deadly and frightening appearance, and that had softened her initial feelings towards them both, making them less scary and threatening.

When she had reached the far end of the walled grounds, she had peered over the edge. Her head had turned and her stomach somersaulted at the sheer drop to the valley far below. Romulus had moved between her and the wall and nudged her backwards, forcing her away from the frightening drop. The hellhound hadn’t stopped nudging her until she had been a good five metres from the wall.

Liora had turned then and paused, frozen by the sight of the black castle. It was strangely beautiful and enchanting, made of tall cylindrical towers topped with conical roofs that reached high into the thick hot air. She had drawn such castles as a child. It had a fairy tale air about it.

The enchanted castle of a dark prince.

Where was her dark prince now?

Liora ran her gaze over the black walls inside his home. They were unadorned. She had walked through several empty rooms and through endless bare corridors. She could hardly call it snooping when there was nothing to peek at.

Romulus and Remus stalked behind her and she had the feeling that she was slowing them down. She hobbled on and focused on her magic. It was still weak and it would be a while before it was strong enough for her to use on her sprained ankle.

“Maybe I could ride one of you?” She looked over her shoulder at her two dark guardians. They were as large as she had pictured, their ears easily reaching her shoulder, and were thickly muscled too. “Could you support my weight?”

They stared blankly at her, red eyes not giving away if they could understand her or not. Asmodeus spoke English. She shook that thought away. He had said they understood him when he spoke a demonic sort of tongue. They hadn’t understood her earlier. She should have pressed Asmodeus to teach her a few commands, just in case she needed them. They seemed complacent and hadn’t shown any sign of wanting to attack her, but she still couldn’t bring herself to trust them one hundred percent.

They had dark auras and unnaturally strong energy. It set her magic on edge and she was having a hard time convincing herself that they wouldn’t harm her so it would relax and she could focus on recuperating.

She doubted they would obey her even if she did speak their language.

Romulus trotted on ahead, loping down the dark dimly lit corridor. Remus huffed and followed, and they turned left and disappeared from view. Growls filled the silence and she hurried forwards, afraid that Asmodeus had been wrong and there was an intruder. Her limited magic sparked around her fingers, draining her strength as she tried to use her natural energy to enhance it.

She rounded the corner and sighed, her magic fading again.

The two hellhounds rolled around in the corridor ahead of her, growling at each other and trying to grab each other’s scruff.

It wasn’t the first time they had done this.

They acted like puppies sometimes, bounding ahead of her and shouldering each other, snarling and growling at the same time. It made it difficult for her to believe they were several hundred years old.

Liora smiled as she watched them playing and her thoughts turned back to Asmodeus. He had raised them from puppies, saving them from death. It was proof of the good in him that he hid so well from others. If Apollyon were aware of what Asmodeus had done, he wouldn’t view his twin as evil at all.

Romulus and Remus got to their paws and came to her. Surprise claimed her when they pushed under her palms, causing her to rub their heads between their tall pointed ears.

Liora petted them as Asmodeus had, stroking their short satiny black fur.

“Do you love your master?” she whispered and they both lifted their heads, looking up at her with bright red eyes, and wagged their whip-like tails with enthusiasm. Liora smiled at them. They definitely loved their master and she had a feeling that he loved them in return.

They moved off as one, scouting the corridor ahead.

Liora followed them, allowing them to lead her deeper into the castle and up a set of stone steps to the next floor.

It was a whole different world.

The stairs ended in a large rectangular room filled with ornately carved black stone furniture. Shelves lined most of the walls, crammed with books, some of which were tomes and many of which looked extremely old and worn. Long low cupboards filled the gaps between them on the wall to her left.

She rounded the large rectangular table in the middle of the room, drawn to the cupboards and the incredible array of knickknacks on top of them. None of them seemed to go together. Everything on the main table at her back was the same, and on the smaller tables dotted around the expansive room and the mantelpiece of the huge fireplace behind her. It was a bizarre and colourful collection of random items, and many of them were antiques, dating back thousands of years if she had to guess.

On the cupboard before her was a small black and gold statue of an Egyptian cat that she knew was a goddess, a very simple candlestick that looked as if it had been fashioned from ivory, and countless other things, including coloured glass bottles, cutlery, shells, dolls and toys. She picked up an old, worn brown bear. One of its eyes was missing and the left arm was about to fall off.

Liora moved on to the bookcase that stood between the cupboard and the next one, and ran her fingers over the spines of the books. He had so many of them. She plucked one that had been bound in green scaly leather from the shelf and leafed through it. She didn’t know the language written on the crinkled paper. The ink was faded too, almost impossible to make out in places. Elaborate and beautiful illustrations filled some of the fragile pages. One of them was of a dragon.

She ghosted her fingers over the lifelike image and then closed the book and set it back on the shelf.

Further along, she paused again, her fingers resting on the spine of a large tome. Power. It flowed through her fingertips and up her arm, gifting her with some of its strength. Liora grabbed the black leather-bound book from the shelf and flipped it open. Familiar writing greeted her. A spell book.

She closed it and held it to her chest, and looked at the others around it. She touched them each in turn, feeling the power they contained. Some of that power felt familiar to her, but others were different, new and exciting. She wanted to tear each book from the shelf, curl up beside the fireplace and devour them. She could learn so much from these books. Ancient spells that had been lost in her world.

Remus whined behind her and she looked back at him. He wagged his tail and she took the hint. She set the book back on the shelf. When Asmodeus returned, she would ask him if she could read them. Maybe he could help her with them. Her grasp of languages wasn’t exactly extensive and something told her that not every witch would write in the ones she knew. Asmodeus was old, probably as ancient as these tomes. He might be able to speak the languages and help her decipher them.

The hellhound moved off to play with Romulus. The way the other canine snapped at his heels and Remus bent his head made Liora feel that Romulus was the older of the twins. The leader of their small pack.

Liora moved on to the next cupboard and frowned at the collection of items crammed on every inch of the black surface.

The more she looked at the items, the more she felt that Asmodeus had tried to make his castle a home by filling it with things that a normal person would have in theirs.

The books, the statues, toys and dolls.

The pictures in front of her.

The frames were a mishmash of modern and antique, in colours ranging from blue and white through to solid silver. Many of the old photographs and pictures they contained didn’t fit the frames, and some of them looked like photos taken from people’s wallets. Two or three of the frames just contained the sample picture that had come with them.

Liora touched the silver frame closest to her, staring at the small wonky faded photograph of a seascape it contained.

A sense of sorrow rose up within her and the longer she stared at the picture, the stronger it grew.

Asmodeus had tried so hard to make this place feel like a home, yet he had said it wasn’t his home. He didn’t feel that it was. He was filling it with things that weren’t his, a bizarre collection of broken, faded, worn items.

More than ever, she felt he was missing something.

Companionship.

He tried to fill the void within him with these objects and with his hellhounds, but he still felt alone.

She had seen it in his eyes at times and could sense it in him.

He struggled to be around her during those instances, turned uncertain and awkward, and it was normally then that she had a sense of hope or positive feelings inside him. Warm feelings. Good feelings.

She felt sorry for him when he struggled with himself and his emotions, so unsure of himself and afraid of what he was experiencing, driven to fight it because he feared it made him weak and he would pay in blood if the Devil knew he harboured good within him.

Liora had only known him a short time, but there had been many instances when she had felt that he was trying to be normal and that he wanted to be like others. He wanted to be good, even though it wasn’t in his makeup. The Devil had distilled evil in his blood and moulded him into a violent, cruel man.

She had felt that evil and darkness in him when they had first met, an aura of danger and malice that had warned her away. The good in him had been so small, barely noticeable. Now, the good in him was something she could sense with ease, and she knew it was growing, nurtured by however he felt about her and how hard he was trying to change.

For her?

She wasn’t sure.

Was it just exposure to her world and the people in it that was changing him, or was he changing himself because of the desire that zinged between them whenever they were together?

He wanted her, just as he had told her after he had protected her from the Hell’s angel and had turned on his own kind, and he was willing to go against everyone, his master included, to have her.

He had saved her when she had fallen into Hell, taking the impact and shielding her in his arms.

He had gone off to face his master and had ordered his hellhounds to protect her and keep her safe in his absence.

He cared about her.

She cared about him too.

He didn’t need to change in order for her to feel something for him. She desired him as he was and could see the good in him, and she wanted to be with him. Screw convention and what everyone else thought about him. She wanted him.

Liora turned away from the cupboard and frowned at the long rectangular stone table that stretched across the room before her.

In the middle of it was organised chaos.

Scraps of parchment mingled with pencil stubs, crayons, pastels and paints. There was a hotchpotch collection of scraggly paintbrushes that had seen better days in a stained glass jar.

Next to them was a large black bulging folder held closed by an elastic strap around the middle.

A portfolio?

Liora’s heart thumped as she reached for it. She was going too far now, probing too much, but she wanted to see this side of Asmodeus. She had wanted the truth about him, and she had heard that an artist’s work was often a reflection of their mood and inner self.

She wanted to see beyond the veil of darkness he wore like a shield to the man beneath.

Romulus and Remus whined as she drew the portfolio across the table to her and slipped the elastic off. She glanced at them where they sat beside her, their red eyes almost level with hers.

“I just want a peek. Don’t tell him, okay?” she whispered, her fingers paused at their devious work.

The hellhounds settled, lying at her feet, and she took it as them giving her their consent.

Liora’s heart set off at a pace again, spreading prickly heat through her veins. She shouldn’t do this. What if Apollyon was right and there was only darkness in Asmodeus?

Asmodeus had told her that he took pleasure from inflicting pain, inciting fear and being cruel. His drawings were likely to be a reflection of that and his environment, images of demons and mutilations, of torture and bloodshed.

She hesitated, afraid of what she would find now, unsure whether she had the strength to look inside Asmodeus’s soul through his drawings.

Liora took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and flipped the portfolio open.

She sucked down another breath and quickly opened her eyes, settling them straight on the first sheet of paper.

Her eyebrows shot up.

It was Romulus and Remus, sleeping curled together beside a fireplace that she recognised.

Liora lifted her gaze from the charcoal drawing to the ornate black fireplace opposite her. Her eyes drifted left, towards the end of the table. A tall-backed black throne stood there, close to the fireplace.

Asmodeus had sat there and drawn his faithful friends.

She looked back down at the picture. It was good, done with a skilled hand and far better than she had expected. He had talent. Then again, he had probably been drawing for thousands of years. He’d had time to hone what natural talent he might have had, especially if what Apollyon had said was true and he didn’t need to sleep when in this realm.

Liora carefully eased the drawing aside to slowly reveal the one beneath, taking her time in case it was a gross image and one she didn’t want to see.

It was another painting of his hellhounds, done in shades of grey. Beneath it was another one and then another. Were they all of Romulus and Remus?

She skipped forwards and paused once again, her breath leaving her.

Before her was a beautiful colourful painting.

A lush green landscape with rolling hills, a sparkling river that snaked through the scene, and a rustic stone bridge. The detail was amazing and she could see that he had taken great pains to create something close to real, even though he only had second-hand equipment.