Azagoth: A Demonica Novella (1001 Dark Nights) (21 page)

I very much want to extend a special thanks to Liz Berry and M.J. Rose for inviting me to be part of this amazing project. I’ve been dying to write Azagoth’s story for a long time, and I can’t thank Liz and M.J. enough.

I also want to send huge, squishy hugs to Liz, M.J., Lara Adrian, Lorelei James, Lexi Blake, Shayla Black, Cherise Sinclair, and Julie Kenner for their amazing support during a very hard time (the bracelet is gorgeous, ladies!) You touched me more than I can say!

On a similar note, hugs and thanks to Jillian Stein and the ladies of the Book Obsessed Chicks club. You are all so special, and I love you!

About Larissa Ione

Air Force veteran Larissa Ione traded in a career as a meteorologist to pursue her passion of writing. She has since published dozens of books, hit several bestseller lists, including the New York Times and USA Today, and has been nominated for a RITA award. She now spends her days in pajamas with her computer, strong coffee, and supernatural worlds. She believes in celebrating everything, and would never be caught without a bottle of Champagne chilling in the fridge…just in case. She currently lives in Wisconsin with her U.S. Coast Guard husband, her teenage son, a rescue cat named Vegas, and her very own hellhound, a King Shepherd named Hexe.

For more information about Larissa, visit www.larissaione.com.

Revenant

Demonica, Book 11

By Larissa Ione

Coming December 16, 2014

HELL HATH NO FURY...

For five thousand years, Revenant believed he was alone in the world, a fallen angel beyond any redemption. Now he finds he has a twin brother who had all the light and love Revenant was denied. Caught in a tug of war between Heaven and Hell, he must weigh his thirst for revenge against his desire for a mysterious female named Blaspheme-a female whose very origins could deliver him into salvation... or destruction.

LIKE AN ANGEL SCORNED

Blaspheme has a deadly secret: she's the forbidden offspring of an angel and a fallen angel. Hunted by both heavenly and satanic forces, she has survived only by laying low and trusting no one. When Revenant claims he can save them both, how can she possibly believe him? But the powerful angel is persistence incarnate and for Blaspheme, there's no place she can hide in Heaven or Hell where he won't find her...

* * * *

Revenant was one fucked up fallen angel.

No, wait…
angel
. He’d only
believed
he was a fallen angel.

For five thousand fucking years.

But he wasn’t an angel, either. Maybe technically, but how could someone born and raised in Sheoul, the demon realm some humans called Hell, be considered a holy-rolling, shiny-haloed angel? He might have a halo, but the shine was long gone, tarnished since his first taste of mother’s milk, mixed with demon blood, when he was only hours old.

Five thousand fucking years.

It had been two weeks since he’d learned the truth and the memories that had been taken away from him were returned. Now he remembered everything that had happened over the centuries.

He’d been a bad, bad angel. Or a very, very good
fallen
angel, depending on how you looked at it.

Toxic anger rushed through his veins as he paced the parking lot outside Underworld General Hospital. Maybe the doctors inside had some kind of magical drug that could take his memories away again. Life had been way easier when he’d believed he was pure evil, a fallen angel with no redeeming qualities.

Okay, he probably still didn’t have any redeeming qualities, but now, what he did have, was conflicted feelings. Questions. A twin brother who couldn’t be more opposite of him.

With a vicious snarl, he strode toward the entrance to the emergency department, determined to find a certain False Angel doctor he was sure could help him forget the last five thousand years, if only for a couple of hours.

The sliding glass doors swished open, and the very female he’d come for sauntered out, her blue and yellow duckie spotted scrubs clinging to a killer body. Instant lust fired in his loins, and fuck yeah, screw the drugs, she was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Take her twice and call me in the morning.

He watched her long legs eat up the asphalt as she walked, and he imagined them wrapped around his waist as he pounded into her. The closer she came, the harder his body got, and he cursed with disappointment when she dropped her keys and had to stop to pick them up. Then he decided she could drop her keychain as often as she wanted to, because he got a fucking primo view of her deep cleavage when her top gaped open as she bent over.

She straightened, looped the keychain around her finger, and started toward him again, humming a Duran Duran song.

“Blaspheme.” He stepped out from between two black ambulances, blocking her path.

She jumped, a startled gasp escaping full crimson lips made to propel a male to ecstasy. “Revenant.” Her gaze darted to the hospital doors, and he got the impression she was plotting her escape route. How cute that she thought she could get away from him. “What are you doing lurking in the parking lot?”

Lurking? Well, some might call it that, he supposed. “I was on my way to see you.”

She smiled sweetly. “Well, you’ve seen me. Buh-bye.” Pivoting, her blond ponytail bouncing, she headed in the opposite direction.

Back to the hospital.

He flashed around in front of her, once again blocking her path. “Come home with me.”

“Wow.” She crossed her arms over her chest, which only drew his attention to her rack.
Niiice.
“You get right to the point.”

He shrugged. “Saves time.”

“Were you planning to wine and dine me at least? You know, before the sex.”

“No. Just sex.” Lots and lots of sex.

He could already imagine her husky voice deepening in the throes of passion. Could imagine her head between his legs, her mouth on his cock, her hands on his balls. He nearly groaned at the imaginary skin flick playing in his head.

“Oh,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re a charmer, you are.”

Not once in his five thousand years had anyone ever called him a charmer. But even uttered with sarcasm, it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him.

“Don’t do that,” he growled.

“Do what?” She stared at him like he was a loon.

“Never mind.” Dying to touch her, he held out his hand. “You’ll love my play room.”

She wheeled away like he was offering her the plague instead of his hand. “Go to hell, asshole. I don’t date fallen angels.”

“Good news, then, because it’s not a date.” And he wasn’t a fallen angel.

“Right. Well, I don’t fuck fallen angels either.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Go away.”

She was rejecting him? The sudden reality was like a blow that left him completely off balance. No one rejected him.
No one.

She started to take off again, and a strange agitation fermented in his chest. This wasn’t right. He had his sights set on her, and she was supposed to surrender. This was something new. Something…titillating. The agitation morphed into a sensation he welcomed and knew well; the jacked-up high of the hunt.

Instantly, his senses sharpened and focused. His sense of smell brought a whiff of her vanilla-honey scent. His sense of hearing brought her rapid, pounding heartbeat. And his sense of sight narrowed in on the tick of her pulse at the base of her throat.

The urge to pounce, to take her down and get carnal right here, right now, was nearly overwhelming. Instead, he moved in slowly, enjoying how she backed up, but he didn’t catch the scent of fear from her.

“What are you doing?” She swallowed as she bumped up against a massive support beam.

“I’m going to show you why you need to come home with me.” He planted both palms on the beam on either side of her head and leaned in until his lips brushed the tender skin of her ear. “You won’t regret it.”

“I already told you. I don’t fuck fallen angels.”

“So you said,” he murmured. “Do you kiss them?”

“Ah…N—”

He didn’t give her the chance to finish her sentence. Pulling back slightly, he closed his mouth over hers.

Strawberry gloss coated his lips as he kissed her, and he swore he’d never liked fruit as much as he did right now.

Her hands came up to grip his biceps, tugging him closer as she deepened the kiss. “You’re good,” she whispered against his mouth.

“I know,” he whispered back.

Suddenly, pain tore into his arms as her nails scored his skin. “But you’re not that good.”

Before he could even blink, she shoved hard and ducked out from under the cage of his arms. With a wink, she strutted away, her fine ass swinging in her form-fitting scrub bottoms. She stopped at the door of a candy apple red Mustang and gave him a sultry look that made his cock throb.

“Give up now, buddy. I can out-stubborn anyone.” She hopped into her car and peeled out of her parking stall, leaving him in the dust.

* * * *

Blaspheme was practically hyperventilating as she drove through New York City’s crowded streets, wishing she’d taken the Harrowgate to work today. But no, she’d chosen to drive from her Brooklyn apartment one last time, a sentimental stupidity that had not only taken up precious time, but had run her straight into Revenant.

Gods, he’d looked like a giant goth biker, wrapped in leather and chains, his massive boots sporting wicked talons at the tips. Even the backs of his fingerless gloves were adorned with metal studs at the knuckles. She’d always hated the tough guy bullshit, but Revenant had fucking
owned
it. She got the impression that he lived his life that way; if he wanted it, he owned it.

He wasn’t going to give up on her, was he? At least, not without a fight, which she was going to have to give him. She couldn’t afford to have a fallen angel sniffing around, not when she had a massive secret to hide.

Cursing, she fumbled through her purse for her cell phone and dialed her contact from the moving company. Sally answered on the second ring.

“Hi, Bonnie,” Sally said, using the name Blaspheme used when dealing with humans. “The movers said they’ll be done loading your apartment for the second shipment to London by the end of the day.”

“Good,” Blas said. “I should be there in an hour—” The Call Waiting beep interrupted. “Can I get back to you? My mother is ringing in.”

Sally’s cheerful, “No problem,” was followed by a promise to make sure the movers would take wonderful care of Blaspheme’s things and not to worry, and a moment later, Blaspheme’s mother was on the other line.

“Hi, Mom.” Blaspheme slammed on her brakes to avoid rear-ending a piece of shit truck that apparently hadn’t come equipped with a turn signal
or
brake lights. She shot the driver the finger through her front windshield.

“Blas.” Her mother’s raspy voice came from right next to Blaspheme.

Screaming, Blas dropped the phone. “Holy shit!”

She opened her mouth again to yell at her mother for popping into the car from out of nowhere, but when she saw the blood, her voice cut out. Deva, short for Devastation, sat in the passenger seat, every inch of her body covered in blood. The broken end of a bone punched through her left biceps, and a deep, to-the-femur burn had devastated her right leg.

“Oh, gods,” Blaspheme gasped. “What happened?”

Her mother lifted her trembling hand from her abdomen, and Blas got an eyeful of bowels poking through the laceration that stretched from just above her navel to her hipbone.

“I—” Deva sucked in a rattling breath…and slumped, unconscious, against the window.

Also from Larissa Ione

Click to purchase

~ DEMONICA/LORDS OF DELIVERANCE SERIES ~

Pleasure Unbound (Book 1)

Desire Unchained (Book 2)

Passion Unleashed (Book 3)

Ecstasy Unveiled (Book 4)

Eternity Embraced ebook (Book 4.5) (NOVELLA)

Sin Undone August (Book 5)

Eternal Rider (Book 6)

Supernatural Anthology (Book 6.5) (NOVELLA)