The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,178

out of his body against his will was worth it. If his skin was the same as Ron's, then he’d never felt this agony before. It was probably more painful than anything else he'd experienced in his very long life.

But before she could even make this angel weak, the first malakim popped into the room. Immediately, Sam moved to intercept him, simultaneously shoving his shoulder into the surprised angel’s human-looking body and pulling an aether blade from thin air. Naturally, the malakim fought back, shoving at Sam with the force of an angel.

And the room we were in wasn’t very big. I didn't know if they called this a storage closet, an office, or something else, but there was clearly not enough room for a real fight. Unfortunately, taking this anywhere else would be worse.

It seemed Sam had the same idea. "Sia, lock the door," he yelled.

"I got it," Ron said, slinging aether in that direction.

It hit, and a split-second later, someone rattled the knob. That was when the angels began to pour in - but not through the door! One after the other, malakim, seraphim, and more slipped in from the corridor. Sam hacked at some and slashed at the others. Ron pulled out a sprite to add to that, then called his own aether weapon. Sia didn't bother with any of it. Her entire focus was on Stieviel.

"I need him unconscious before I push them back," she told me.

"Then let me pull him apart," I begged.

"I don't fucking-" She didn't get to finish the sentence.

Gabriel slipped into the room and hit her hard. I almost threw Stieviel away to go help her, but I knew better. Not while the little angel was squirming as hard as he could in my arms, and there was nothing I could do to him. Not the way Sia could. But if I let him go, then what? So I resorted to what I knew best.

Ignoring the useless beating of his wings against my arms and chest, I swung the man so that his head cracked into the cinderblock wall. Once, twice, and on the third time, his body finally went limp. Dropping him in place, I surged towards Gabriel, but Sia had him under control. Sam and Ron were struggling with the other angels who'd forced their way into this tiny space, so I grabbed the one closest to me and pulled.

The problem with tearing apart human skins was that the blood was atrocious. It got everywhere, but wounds released aether faster than anything else. That was why I always preferred to use my hands in combat. Before the angel’s body even hit the ground, he was unconscious. Seeing me in play, Sam shoved another at me, then turned to help Ron.

"Sia?" I asked, making sure she had this.

"Help Sam," she ordered.

That was as close to an assurance as I'd get from her. Yet for every angel I pulled apart, another slipped in to take his place. It was like this was a never-ending stream of bodies, and not enough room to even bother counting them. Sam hacked, wounding plenty of them with his aether blade, but he couldn't take the chance of slipping through the corridor like he normally did. If this many were coming in, then how many were down there waiting?

And how many angels were in this town, anyway?

Surprisingly, Ron was holding his own, too. Throwing sprites with one hand and swinging his sword in the other, my boyfriend was a force to be reckoned with. He didn't even have to stop to think before creating something else like I’d never seen before. These weren't just butterflies that were copies of Sia's creations. Oh no, he made some sprites that were angel-seeking weapons, others that threw themselves in the path of an attack to protect Sam, and he made still more whose purpose I couldn't figure out.

Then there was Sia. In her pretty little dress and her fancy heels, she fought just as well as the rest of us. Clearly, the time I'd spent teaching her hand-to-hand combat had had some effect. But she didn't use a weapon like we did. Instead, she just used her hands. Each time she touched Gabriel, brassy-colored fog lifted from his body, only for him to snatch it back and reclaim it before she could take it in.

Back and forth, the pair of them traded aether like that, never quite managing to claim it as their own. It seemed that Gabriel had learned