Cambion Lord (Dark Warrior Alliance #23) - Brenda Trim Page 0,63

the littlest accomplishment. If not, they walked around boasting about what they’d done until someone stopped and told them how great they were.

Her first order of business would be to take out his audience. It would throw him off to not have his actions watched and praised. Perhaps long enough for Dante to find her and kill the Daeva. Because once she made a move she wasn’t going to last very long. She was bleeding and weak. She doubted he’d pause long enough for her to heal.

The Daeva spun to a table set up above Chloe’s head. Feet shuffled across the floor and arguing started up. With a groan, she shifted to see what was going on. Clearly there were more demons than the spiders hanging from the ceiling. White hot agony shot through her. The only thing she heard was her pounding heart and heaving breaths.

The discomfort receded slowly. Her eyes came back online first. She had to blink several times to clear her vision. She barely stifled her gasp. The last thing she wanted was to draw his attention back to her.

The Daeva was hunched over a human male. The demon’s arm was lifted over one of the man’s tattooed arms. Silver glinted as the blade was lowered. With several grunts, the Daeva sawed at the shoulder joint until the appendage fell away from the rest of the body.

The victim’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t so much as flinch. Chloe couldn’t tell if he was dead or if he’d passed out. Not that it mattered. Her eyes widened as the Daeva took the arm and pointed the bloody end to the cement floor and started drawing.

He weaved and swayed as he moved it across the ground. It reminded her of a dancer. With the hellhounds and scavenger demons feasting on entrails as his backup. This was more of a macabre scene with blood, guts and gore as the set.

Chanting started in the back of the room. Chloe hurt too much to move her head and look for the source. Zander and Dante had been right. The archdemon in front of her was drawing Dark runes on the floor.

Energy built within the room. It burned at first then settled over her like a lead blanket. She couldn’t breathe. The pressure in her chest had increased to painful levels, so it could be from that. It was hard to tell.

Chloe took a shuddering breath which came out in a white puff as the cold settled around her. There were nine different levels to Hell and not all of them fit the human notion that fires burned everywhere in the Underworld. Some of them were biting cold. What was clear to her in that moment was this demon was opening a portal that would allow all manner of his kind to cross through.

She couldn’t allow that to happen. Chloe forced her legs to swing to the side of the table. Agony shot through her stalling her progress. Panting, she braced her hands on the edge of the platform. That got the Daeva’s attention.

One of his eyebrows shot up as he gave her a pointed look. “Going somewhere, Angel?”

Breathe. Chloe forced the air through gritted teeth and narrowed her eyes. “Depends on your intentions.”

A laugh that sounded more like dried leaves rustling in a breeze echoed throughout the room. “I intend on using you to become Lucifer’s second in command.”

Chloe’s head was shaking from side to side. “No fucking way. I refuse to be a part of anything that allows that asshole more freedoms. He got what he deserved when he betrayed us all those years ago.”

The Daeva smiled. It chilled her to her bones. “You have no choice in the matter. You’ve cut yourself off from your kind and made no allegiances to mine. There is no one to come and save you.”

Chloe’s heart skipped several beats with his words. He was right. Her choices had exiled her from Heaven, and she never aligned with Lucifer. She was all alone. Her shoulders lifted and fell while she staunched the emotions that threatened to take her under.

Chloe pushed down and lifted her butt off the table. Her limbs were shaking so hard her torso looked like a leaf barely hanging on a branch. Claws clamped around her biceps and pulled when she was about to jump down. Her back hit the wood and her breath whooshed out of her.

Scavenge demons stood on the backs of hellhounds. They had no lips, so