Chapter Thirteen
Gabe
Amammoth fist smashed into my cheek with a force that could obliterate an average man’s skull. I slammed back into Siren’s alley wall, my head ringing. I keeled over, one hand braced on my knee, the other touching my lip to find it covered in blood.
Abaddon, the arch demon of the Underworld, stood over me, his hulking frame, mostly naked as he’d busted his clothes clean off, and they hung from his waist in tatters, a dangerous amount of his scaly, gray flesh exposed to me. Refusing to let me pass him, we’d gone out back where it was less likely for a human to spot us and started to brawl afterward. It was getting us nowhere.
My entire body ached, covered in claw marks and bruises. While I was in this form, I had little hope of defeating him. I was losing steam and fast. Abaddon was a beast, outdoing me in height and muscle mass even before he took on his true, demonic form.
I wasn’t getting past him, not with brute force. The terrifying demon spread his black, leathery wings, his face contouring with pleasure from the powerful muscles that flexed and stretched to hold up the two great appendages.
An ugly fist of envy squeezed my heart, as I so often lusted for that sensation. Here this creature shifted, letting out his beast with all the casualness of a man walking his dog.
While Abaddon was named the Angel of the Abyss, he was not a celestial. He was a demon shifter, a wretched beast spawned in the deepest bowels of the Pit.
My lips bent into a mocking grin, despite the pain weakening my human form. “Doesn’t your king get jealous that you let out your wings with no shame when his were cut from his back with the flaming sword of justice?”
The demon let out a rumble of a laugh so deep it jarred my bones and had my beast snarling with hatred.
Let me out. Let me free so that we can pass the devil’s dog and find our mate.
Using my draining strength, I ignored the voice in my head.
“Do you really think Lucifer’s so petty that he wouldn’t let his subjects call upon their true nature, all because you fucks up top cut them off? And for what? All because he’d wanted a taste of his ward?” Abaddon spat at my feet, looking down at me with withering detest. “Bastard of a hypocrite, aren’t you? Don’t think I didn’t scent her on you. You’ll get caught. When you do your arch celestial will come down and slowly plucks your wings from you, feather by fucking feather. Now let out your beast while you still can and fight me with your true strength so that I can break your pathetic carcass without holding anything back. Fight me like the true guardian they sing songs about.”
“I’m not judging your king. I don’t trust him, but I understand his torment now. Paradise paints a different picture of Eve and the serpent, believe me. But I now know his pain. And I, too, would choose my woman over Paradise any damn night of the week. So please, I don’t want to fight you. All I want is to take her home. A piece of Paradise isn’t safe among other supernaturals who can sense what she is, especially one bonded to a celestial.”
Abaddon huffed. “Really? This is the pathetic tactic that you’re going with? Can’t best me in strength, so you lie about love?”
I straighten my spine, lifting my chin as I met the demon’s fiery glare with one of my own. “I’m not lying. I do love her. I tried to resist it for so long, thinking Paradise’s rules and my stupid fetish for duty were more important than her feelings.”
I don’t know why it had taken me so long to realize. Maybe I’d known it for a long time, and I was just too cowardly to do anything different than I always had. Paradise only cared about keeping its pieces of shattered light safe, not because they cherished them, not because they cared about the emotions of the humans that housed their light, but because they didn’t want anyone else to have them.
They didn’t give two rips about Melanie’s feelings, her needs, or her desires. As long as she remained untouched, as long as she remainedtheirs.
Because they were possessive, control freaks.
Abaddon canted his head, his chest heaving with heavy breaths, steam swirling around his nostrils.
“I hope they cut your wings off, Little Guardian. Because then, you’ll be one of us. Know what that means? It means you’ll be answering to me. I used to be the King of Hell, before Lucifer took the throne. It was my brutality that they got crossed with his.”
“Oh yes, I know all about you. You’re the Pit’s only arch class demon.” I ran a tongue over my split lip and let out a dark and rumbling snicker that belonged more to my beast than me.
“You know what they say about you up top? They say you were too weak to be king. That Lucifer broke Abaddon the Destroyer, right after plummeting from heaven with two gaping holes in his back. Then he made you his little bitch.”
Abaddon’s expression grew dark, glittering with hatred and violence in the light of the bare bulb mounted over Siren’s back entrance. “And when you fall, I’ll make you mine.”
Thrusting a meaty hand into the tatters of a pocket that hung from his hips, he withdrew something and threw it at me. It landed at my feet with a tiny jingle of metal on pavement.
A key.
“Go in through the back door,” he grunted over his shoulder, already stalking away. The crack and crunch of bones snapping into place as he shifted back to his human form bounced off the narrow alley walls.
“Wait!”
He stopped but didn’t bother to turn and look at me.
I crouched to pick up the key, looking at it with disbelief. “Tell me why Lucifer came to the surface. Should my kind be worried?”
