Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 5) by Felicity Heaton Page B

question would only hurt him and she had done enough damage already. He had gone through Hell to free her and was leading her out, taking her to her sister. She should have been thanking him, showing her gratitude, rather than playing the painful version of twenty questions.
    Erin averted her gaze, no longer sure how to speak to him or what to say if she could find her voice. Shards of black rock edged the right side of the winding path through the fiery broken black fields, obscuring the way ahead. She frowned as they turned a corner and she saw a group of rickety rusty cages ahead. They weren’t empty.
    Three women dressed in rags, filthy and emaciated, huddled inside them. They reached through the bars of their cramped cages and looked up at her, dark eyes wide and laced with tears.
    As she approached, they pleaded her to help them. Veiron strolled right past them without even sparing them a glance. How could he be so unfeeling? He didn’t even break his stride.
    She couldn’t ignore their cries.
    Erin reached for one of them.
    Veiron’s hand snapped around her wrist and yanked it back.
    “Don’t,” he growled.
    “But they’re scared and starving! I can’t let them just die here.” She wrenched her arm free of his grip and stood up to him. It was hard to intimidate a man who stood over a foot taller and around two feet wider than she was, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from trying.
    “You damn well can because they’re starving all right, and if you open those cages, it will be you on the menu.” Veiron grabbed her upper arm and pulled her against his hard body, so her back pressed against his front.
    Erin looked down into their dull eyes. “They’re demons?”
    “One of the nastier kinds,” he murmured close to her ear, sending a shiver through her limbs. She barely resisted the temptation to lean back into his torso so she could feel his skin on hers.
    Veiron launched a heavy boot at one of the cages, rattling it with a hard kick. The woman in it changed, brown-orange scales erupting across her flesh and her eyes burning blue as she hissed at him.
    The creature spoke, lisping a language Erin didn’t understand through sharp teeth and with a forked tongue.
    Veiron seemed to know it. He grunted, shrugged and levelled another swift kick at the cage.
    “Tell him that if he listens to you,” he snarled and tugged on Erin’s hand, dragging her along behind him. “We have to keep moving. It isn’t safe here.”
    Erin wasn’t about to argue but she didn’t understand Veiron’s sudden haste. The bruising grip he retained on her arm and the pace of his strides had her almost falling with each painful step she managed.
    “I need to rest,” she said and he turned dark eyes on her.
    “We can’t. Not now. Not here.”
    “Because of that thing?” She hadn’t been born yesterday. “She’s going to tell the Devil, isn’t she?”
    “The bastard won’t listen to her. She would need to escape that cage and reach the bottomless pit first. The Devil’s men would rip her apart before she even laid eyes on the old git.”
    “Those horrible black demons with the red fangs and eyes?” She shuddered from the memory of them. “I never want to see another one of those bastards again in my life.”
    Veiron suddenly released her arm and prowled on at a faster pace, heading up an incline. Erin tried to keep up but he was moving too quickly and her feet were killing her. Each step sent fire burning across her soles and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep going without a rest.
    “Veiron?” she said but he didn’t stop. He kept going, the gap between them gradually growing, until he was more than one hundred feet ahead of her and she began to feel exposed and scared again.
    Erin held herself and kept hobbling on, tears stinging her eyes. Her gaze darted around and she swore she could feel eyes on her, following her. She shivered, cold to the bone with fear, and her heart rushed in her