Page 60 of The River of Fire

Once I stop tumbling, I groan and try to lift myself up from my sprawl, spitting sand. Before I manage more than a couple of inches, a kick lands in my side, flipping me to my back. I both felt and heard a rib snap.

I can’t help the whimper that comes out of my mouth. Sensing a looming presence, I open the eyes I had shut tightly with pain. Belial stands above me, upper body moving with his furious heaving breaths.

“You are owed to me, you pathetic bag of blood.” He’s all but seething, hands clenched by his sides, like he wants to pummel me further into the ground.

“What are you talking about?” I wheeze, blinking to clear the spots from my vision.

“I did not give your grandfather leave to breed an angel and leave Hell!” He’s growling with fury, as if it hasn’t been decades since my mother was conceived. “Then when my soldiers tracked them down to bring him back, that meddling do-gooder got in their way and they slaughtered her for it.”

My eyes are tearing up, both from the implications of his story – the tragic end my grandparents met because of this monster’s pride – and the pain in my side.

“So he killed twenty-five of my best soldiers before they brought him down. He would not let himself be captured.”

“And you killed him, too,” I finish the story.

“They killed themselves!” he snarls, eyes starting to glow orange. His voice is now far from that artificial sweetness. “They managed to hide their spawn, suppress its powers so it would go through life unnoticed.”

My mother. That explains her complete ordinariness in spite of being a full-blooded Nephalem. I clench my teeth and wrap an arm around my aching torso.

“But you,” he continues, that evil grin bearing his sharp teeth, horns emerging from the top of his brow. “I felt you. It took me decades to convince the council to enlist Elioud children. Years of herding the souls together until enough gained a form. But the council moves slowly…”

He could do that? It explains the clusters of manifestations in those caves… right before Ash and I ran into the archdemon now giving his villain speech.

“Why?” I ask, genuinely curious. “I’m just a quarter Nephalem. Rare, yes, but not that much stronger than my teammates. At least not in a tangible way.” My senses are sharper than any of the other soldiers and that’s about all I can claim as an upper hand.

“You will take the punishments of your grandfather. But you love spreading your legs for archdemons, don’t you?” His lip curls in disgust. “He must have mounted you a thousand times for his smell to reek out of your every pore.”

Belial holds his arm out to the side and a spear taller than the average man appears in his hand. The shaft is made out of the same demonic black metal as the swords Ash had made for me. The tip is fashioned out of a ruby, fire burning at its core.

“I think I’ll start penetrating your body right now.” He throws his head back and laughs at his own lousy pun.

I can feel my lower lip trembling in fear. I know it’s better that I die today than to let this asshole torture me for years. But I don’t want to die. I want to eat more quiet breakfasts with Daniel, laugh with Kevin on our patrols. Get drunk with Jessica and watch Ethan try to make Liam lose his temper. I want to findSimone. Make Maalik smile at my stupid jokes. Cuddle with Puck in the mornings.

But most of all I want Ash. I want to see that smug smile when he manages to get me flustered. The focused way he looks at me when I eat, like he’s writing a research paper on all my favorite foods. I want to touch every inch of the taut smooth skin that covers his warrior’s body. Want to lie in his possessive hold every night as I fall asleep.

A big part of me hoped that he’d find me on my next patrol, once his anger settled and whatever punishment he got for having all those humans killed was over. That he didn’t mean for me to leave. Lying here, I don’t even care about those deaths anymore. He’ll never be the hero. But I clearly have the capacity to fall in love with a villain.

Belial presses the tip of his spear under my clavicle. His face is now that of the aberration he truly is. “Make sure to scream loudly,” he chirps, the high-pitched voice so at odds with his horrific form.

He pushes the spear down, the sharp tip cutting through my leathers like a knife through butter. The next second it’s embedded into my skin. I clench my teeth, pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth. As the ruby scratches against bone, I can’t hold my pain in any longer.

My mouth opens in a shattering scream, every ounce of agony reflected in it. He twists and blackness starts overtaking my vision. The spear is pulled out just as a deafening boom of thunder vibrates through my body. I force my half-closed eyes to open and sob at the sky behind Belial.

Enormous crimson wings catch the air like mighty sails as Ashtaroth unsheathes his weapon and roars, “Belial!” Thunder emphasizes the fury in each syllable.

The psychotic demon giggles. “Oh, finally,” he says, and throws a wave of Hellfire at my archdemon. Ash doesn’t even try to dodge it as it hits him, and he explodes in a supernova of red light.

That’s when darkness engulfs me and I lose consciousness.

Chapter 44 – Ashtaroth

Ipull myself out of my true form and back into a physical body. I want to be able to hold a weapon, to crush Belial’s skull with my hands, to rip him apart, limb by limb.

Reforming right in front of him, I grab his head and twist it before pulling it off. I want to feel his blood covering my body like an unholy baptism, but I am not the only one who cannot be destroyed.

Belial’s ethereal form, orange tendrils trailing behind it, leaps back before reforming once again into the flesh and bone demonic visage. The Fallen and Elioud, having mostly dispatched the rest of Belial’s troops with Sariel’s help, move closer but maintain a healthy distance. The ones that are not injured or tending to the injured, at least. I look at Lana, bleedingand unconscious just a few feet behind the archdemon who hurt her.

“You wanted to fight, betrayer,” I taunt in our original language, making his nostrils flare. I beckon him closer with one hand and unsheathe the blade that reformed with my body with the other. I need to exhaust his power enough that he flees.

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