Angel's Power (10 page)
Ariel shuddered. “God help him,”
she murmured. Even Samael didn’t deserve this.
“Samael, you have failed your
People,” Raphael said. His voice was quiet, but the demon shivered.
“Kill me,” the creature said in a
voice like crushed rocks. It moved restlessly.
Ariel stepped back, wary. Her skin
prickled as all her instincts told her to run. Suriel’s arm muscles bunched as
he clutched his sword. Ariel wanted to grab him and run away, but the portal
shimmered behind the demon as if more were trying to get through, but couldn’t.
“Kill me. Hurry,” the demon
rumbled.
“Do it,” Ariel said urgently. She
watched the blur waver and bow towards them. “Hurry.”
Suriel glanced at her, then pressed
his lips together and lunged. His shoved the sword deep into the creature’s
chest. Gabriel was a quick step behind, but his knife went into the remaining
eye. Raphael grabbed Ariel and pushed her back, pulling her with him as he
moved away from the violence.
“Raphael, concentrate,” she said as
an idea sprang full-blown into her mind. If they could somehow combine their
powers, maybe Raphael could heal the portal if she fed him enough energy. “Take
my hand.”
He obeyed her without question,
thankfully. “Heal the portal,” she said, drawing power. “It’s a wound in our
reality. You can heal it, Omega.”
Raphael flashed her a look and
nodded. “Right.” He raised his free hand and began to work. Ariel grabbed more
power as she felt him pull it from her. She wasn’t sure she could keep up. He
drew it out as fast as she could gather it. Sweat ran down her face, but she
couldn’t stop and wipe it away. Suriel struggled with the sword, twisting it as
the demon roared. Gabriel had to let go of his knife. The demon’s eye burst terribly,
like lava pushing through rock, and it slumped to the ground, tail twitching.
Samael may have wanted them to kill him and free his soul from the demon flesh,
but Ariel was positive he hadn’t realized how much it would hurt.
“Is it working?” she asked,
clutching Raphael’s hand like a lifeline. Gabriel was backing away from the
creature.
He nodded shortly, eyes closing as
his face twisted. “I need more energy.”
She sucked in a deep breath and
gritted her teeth, forcing everything she had towards Raphael. Her vision went
blurry, whether from Raphael’s work on the portal or her own exhaustion, she
wasn’t sure. When Suriel touched her shoulder, she jerked, surprised, then
leaned into him gratefully. He’d slipped the sword out of Samael and held it
tip down on the stone floor. The metal was black with the demon’s heart blood.
“It’s working,” Gabriel said,
moving closer to Raphael. “Look at the portal.”
It wavered in the air, pulsing
almost invisibly. Ariel held her breath as Suriel fed her more energy. She cast
it into Raphael who clenched the fist of his free hand. When he abruptly pulled
back, light flared so bright she cried out, flinching. When she opened her eyes
again, spots impaired her vision, as if she’d looked at the sun.
“It’s done,” Raphael said, his
voice low with exhaustion.
Ariel sagged and would have fallen
if Suriel hadn’t been holding her up.
Gabriel steadied Raphael, propping
him against the wall. Raphael slid down to sit on the lowest step. Ariel joined
him, completely wiped out. When she could focus again, she stared. The demon
was gone, but the scent of his death lingered. Black stains had sunk into the
stone floor, like some terrible abstract painting.
“Where did the demon go?” she
asked.
“I wove Samael’s soul into the
portal to glue it closed. It won’t open again.”
She looked at Raphael, shocked.
“It was the only way,” he said.
She swallowed and nodded, feeling
faintly ill. “I understand.”
Gabriel walked towards the stains
and prodded at them with his toe. “Samael opened this portal when he was still
alive.” He sounded very certain.
Suriel sighed and joined him,
holding his hands out over the stained floor. A whisper of power floated in the
air. “It’s sealed. Samael gave his soul to close this rift.”
“He chose this as penance. I felt
it.” Raphael rubbed his face, grimacing tiredly. “I’d like to go to sleep now
for about three days.” He stifled a yawn. “Maybe longer.”
“Me too,” Ariel said, leaning
against him. The adrenaline from the battle had gone, leaving her shaky and
exhausted.
Raphael put his arm around her and
hugged her. “Let’s not do this again any time soon.”
She snorted. “Or ever.”
Raphael chuckled. “Yeah. That too.”
Suriel walked over to them and
smiled down at her, then offered her a hand up. She took it and he hauled her
up. “I need a shower before I go to sleep.” She wrinkled her nose as she caught
a whiff of him. “No, strike that.
You
need a shower more than I do,” she
told Suriel. His arms were streaked with demon blood.
He grinned and lifted his sword.
“You don’t like the gore? I think it adds a little character to the blade.”
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
“Definitely no,” Raphael echoed,
standing up with a groan. He grabbed Gabriel’s arm. “Let’s go home.”
Gabriel nodded and looked up the
steps. The faintest light from the main level of the house shone down. “The
smell
is
rather unpleasant, isn’t it?” he asked, ever the master of
understatement.
Ariel shot her brother a disgusted
look and began the long slow climb to the light.
Epilogue
Ariel woke slowly, warm and comfortable.
Afternoon sunlight streamed across her bed.
“How do you feel?”
She smiled into her pillow and then
rolled over. Suriel lounged on the bed, the sun highlighting his arms and upper
body. His legacy marks were very blue in the light. She stretched, taking the
time to work all the kinks out of her back. His eyes traveled down her body as
the covers slid away. The look on his face made her blush.
“I feel good,” she said, smoothing
her hair. The sun warmed her muscles, baking some of the ache out of them.
“You do feel good,” Suriel said,
running his fingertips down her arm.
She shivered, thinking about how
he’d tied her up last time.
He smiled at her, wicked and hot.
“I’d like to touch you all over.”
She laughed, arching her spine. “I
bet you would.” Her breasts tingled as his eyes fell on them.
Suriel sat up and the covers slid
down. He was nude. The muscles in his chest flexed as he grabbed her, flipping
her onto her stomach.
“Hey!”
“Shh,” he said, spanking her
lightly.
She squirmed. “I didn’t say you
could do that.”
“I don’t need to ask your
permission,” he said, bringing his hand down again.
She scissored her legs, flipping
over. Suriel reared back, his erection bobbing as he avoided her feet. “Bad
girl.” His eyes twinkled as he grabbed her ankles, dragging her up into him.
Ariel wrapped her legs around him
and ground her pussy into his cock. He grunted, shuddering as her wetness
spread over his shaft. She lifted up, sliding him over her clit. God, he felt
good. When he tried to flip her over again, hands on her hips, she sat up,
pushing him down. He smiled up at her, hips moving and teasing. She narrowed
her eyes at him and shifted, wings slowly moving out of her body until she
loomed over him in angel form. The sunlight danced over her feathers, tingling
as the energy she contained rose like sparks from a fire.
His eyes went dark as she leaned
down, kissing him harshly. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said, remembering
the demon. “We have no idea how many other demons came through the portal
before we sealed it.”
He used his strength to lift her
until he was standing with her in his arms. She wrapped her legs around him,
sliding his cock deep inside her body. He gasped, then abruptly, his wings
shifted out too. “If there are more of them, we will fight them until they are
all dead and gone. You won’t lose me,” he promised, walking to the window.
Every step he took pressed him further inside her. She wrapped her arms around
his neck and hung on, trusting him to keep her safe. With their bodies still connected,
he shoved the casement open and leaped outside.
Ariel gasped, wings and energy
working even as he lifted them up into blue skies.
“Are you crazy?” she yelled, wind
whipping her hair around their faces.
“It feels good,” he replied, hips
suddenly moving.
Ariel looked down, shocked when she
saw a few people down below them, standing on the stone courtyard connected to
the castle. A few of them were looking up, watching them, and the knowledge of
what they might see sent a thrill through her. She clenched her inner muscles
and Suriel groaned, fucking her harder as they floated higher.
“They can see us,” she whispered in
his ear.
He groaned, grabbing her buttocks
and grinding into her. The contact pushed on her clit deliciously. “Let them,”
he ground out, wrecked. “They will know we are truly mated.”
Ariel understood. Only a mating
pair could ride the winds this closely connected without plunging to their
deaths. In the past, the People’s tradition dictated a mating flight before
witnesses to sanctify a true choosing between lovers. That custom, like so many
others, had fallen away in modern times.
“Perhaps it’s time to return to the
old ways,” she murmured, reveling in his heat. His cock speared her again and
again, pressing against her womb. She shuddered, hanging on, and then he
suddenly stiffened. Ariel threw her head back as his orgasm triggered hers. For
one blessed moment, she looked directly into the sun, pleasure coursing through
her like electricity. When she finally came back to herself, Suriel kissed her
gently, floating them back down to the window.
“No one can tear us apart. Not now.
Not ever,” he said, voice dark with passion. He landed on the windowsill and
stepped into her room.
Ariel smiled at him as she slid
down his body. “Even unto death, I will always love you.”
“Even unto death, Ariel,” he
replied, eyes bright with love.
The End
www.erinmleaf.com
Other
Books by Erin M. Leaf:
www.evernightpublishing.com/erin-m-leaf
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