Page 4 of Hell's Storm

He nods, flashing a smirk as he pulls me close. The hospital lobby blurs as his magic takes hold of both of us. “Hang on.”

The feeling of being punched in the gut washes over me as I watch her talk to Ryker. I didn’t hate Ryker; in fact, I looked up to him while he was at the academy. He helped me get through training in my first year, and he was top of his class, but I hate how she looks at him like he’s a great guy. He’s not. He’s not demonic that much I can tell, meaning he’s one of the first non-demonic Soul Reapers in Hell, and the Shadow World. Ryker plays women, just like Ledger does. That, and I know nothing about him despite spending a year training with him. Ryker kept to himself, barely talking about who he was or where the fae came from.

The Angel of Death inside of me stirs when Ryker wraps his arms around her. My lips part as I want to say something.What would I say? Get off my girl? She’s not mine… obviously.Lately, he’s been hard to control, even with the same medicine Asura takes.

Ledger said he smelled Ryker on Asura the day of the party, but it wasn’t the “I had sex with her, and now she has my scent on her” smell.

This was new for Ryker to not fuck a girl the first chance he got.

Andhe can touch her.

My hands are raw and healing slowly from even placing my hands on her for more than a moment. The Flame is blazing hot—hotter than Ledger’s hellfire.

Ryker’s magic spikes in the air as if he’s about to use it to transport somewhere else.Where would he go with her?

“Wait!” Hades’s voice has me looking over my shoulder as he and the rest of the council rush forward, looking at Asura. “Asura!”

But then the two were gone, vanishing in the thin air of Ryker’s magic.

“Where did they go?” Hades snaps at me.

I shrug. “I don’t really know where Ryker takes her.”

His brows pull together. My eyes are playing a trick on me for a second, making me think I’m looking at Ozias. Ozias is a bit taller, almost like a hellhound and his hair has a slight purple tint in certain lights. His eyes are a cold, lifeless black, and his thin lips are in a frown. His power radiates like Ozias’s darkness. “Are you stupid?!”

My brows cock.

“Hey! Don’t take it out on him!” My father comes to my aid, but I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle myself better than he can.

“You and I know that she can’t handle The Flame right now, and you aren’t even worried?” Hades snaps.

“She’ll be fine once she can control it,” I say, knowing that it took her father a day or two to control it.

Hades growls, sounding like a hellhound. “With The Flame, the demon controlling her demonic half is gone. It was expelled from her body when the Flame touched her, meaning Asura isfullyhuman right now.”

A cold sweat runs down my body. No human has ever survived the Flame, though there haven’t been many to attempt it. Asura’s father told us a story about how one of the heirs, a long time ago, gave up his Flame to a human. The human lasted five seconds before combusting into flames.

“H-How is that possible?” My father takes the words right out of my mouth. His eyes glance around to make sure no one is watching our conversation. “Although she’s technically half-human, she’s a demon too, right?”

“I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to find Ryker and get her to a safe place before The Flame kills her,” Lucifer says, joining the conversation. He stands tall, blond hair pushed back with a suit on.

Did all the rulers of Hell know something we didn’t?

Hades sighs. “Or until those after her finally find her.”

My brain is firing with all the possibilities of what might happen to Asura, after we just got her back from Earth. She finally returned to Hell and has only been going to the Soul Reaper Academy for a short time. I should have tried harder to stop her and Ryker, but she’s an adult. She can make her own decisions like she always has, regardless of anyone else’s feelings.

And I was being a dick instead of doing what Ozias was doing, getting in good with her graces.

Goosebumps rise against my skin, telling me my hellhounds are trying to find me. My nerves must have ticked them off to look for me. “Why would people be after her?” I feel like, in a way, I didn’t need to ask it. Asura was the heir; that’s enough.

“She has the Flame now… She’s the Queen of the Underworld. Someone can kill herandtake the Flame and the throne. Do you need much more than that?” Hades declares.

Ryker’s magic makes me dizzy, but when I open my eyes, I see we aren’t at the Shadow World hospital. We are at the blue lagoon… the place Ryker took me to before, when he kissed me.Only kissed me.I look up at him and see his pastel pink eyes wander in the same type of amazement. “I thought you came here often?”

He sucks on his teeth, then sighs almost sadly. “Truly, never enough. My mother… She used to bring me here a lot when I was a kid. We’d swim until it was dark and then enjoy the glowing lights.”

The night sky is still pitch black where we are, but with the bright blue flowers covering the tree or the lagoon swirling with the same luminous color, I can barely tell it’s night. “What happened to her?”

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