Beauty Awakened. Gena Showalter

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      The same grotesque transformation overtook Lefty, little sparks of fire flashing underneath his scales.

      Koldo didn’t bother with a response. He simply launched forward, blade arcing through the air. The two demons flew apart, moving out of harm’s way. He expected the action and went low as he landed, twisting to the right. Flames slicked over Righty’s thigh.

      The demon grunted from the pain, the scent of burned hair filling the room.

      Koldo jumped up, kicking a leg forward and a leg backward, nailing both of his opponents at the same time. He landed, and they recovered enough to leap at him, punching. He blocked one, but purposely took the other’s abuse, grabbing on to Lefty’s arm and holding tight as he used the appendage as leverage to swing up both of his legs into Righty’s throat with a brutal slam slam of his booted feet. Then he flipped Lefty over and tossed him to his back to stomp on the creature’s face. Bone crunched, suddenly a jigsaw puzzle that needed to be put back together.

      Before the second stomp, Lefty rolled to his feet and bounded on the bed—the females utterly unaware—and, without pausing to consider a wiser way, slammed into Koldo’s back. A long, thick tail wound around his middle, squeezing. The hook on the end sliced all the way to Koldo’s intestines.

      Lefty raised sharpened claws, intending to slash through his windpipe, but Koldo flashed to the other side of the bed. The moment he landed, he leaned forward and grabbed the end of the creature’s tail, jerking and spinning Lefty’s entire body.

      As the fiend careened forward, Koldo flashed behind him and swung his sword. The demon tried to dodge, but wasn’t fast enough. Fire met scales and bone, and scales and bone immediately lost. The demon’s arm detached, spraying black blood over the floor.

      Blood the humans would never see.

      A howl of agony erupted as Lefty grabbed the appendage and flew out the window, into the afternoon sunlight. Unlike Sent Ones, demons couldn’t regenerate limbs. The creature would have to have the arm reattached.

      Deep down, Koldo knew this would not be their last battle.

      Cursing, Righty turned in a half circle, his gnarled wings sweeping in Koldo’s direction. He could have dodged, but he chose to allow the end of one wing to clip his ankles, knocking them together, sending him flying to the floor. The beads in his beard rattled as he hit, air bursting from his lungs. He pretended to lose his hold on the sword, and the weapon vanished.

      Righty dived on top of him, just as he’d wanted, fangs bared. Koldo punched with all of his might, and broke the demon’s nose, sending fragments of cartilage into his rotting brain. Then, Koldo flashed behind him, summoning the sword of fire, swinging. The demon shot forward, staying low. But not low enough. The scent of smoke and sulfur filled the air. A loud thump sounded. One of the creature’s horns was now missing.

      Features contorted with rage, the demon hopped to hoofed feet, black blood leaking down his face, from his busted nose. Roaring, he lunged. Twisting left, twisting right, Koldo stepped into the battle dance. Righty knew when and where to move, sometimes managing to avoid injury. They tangoed from one side of the room to the other, up the walls, down the walls, on the floor, across the ceiling, rolling over the bed, falling through Nicola as she continued to chat with her sister, not so much as a hitch in her breath.

      Koldo released the sword and grabbed a fistful of fur on the demon’s chest. He launched the creature through the far wall. A second later, the fiend raced back into the room.

      “The girl is mine,” Righty snarled, stalking a circle around him. “Mine! I’ll never let her go.”

      “You were foolish when you decided to follow Lucifer rather than the Most High, and you’re foolish now, to think you can best me. You fight from a place of defeat, and you always will.” Long ago, the Most High had crushed all the forces of hell. But still the creatures struck at humans, determined to hurt those the Most High loved.

      And the Most High loved all humans. He wanted to adopt them, as He’d done the Sent Ones.

      A hiss of rage sounded. “I’ll show you defeat!” Rather than initiating a full-scale attack, the demon backed one step away, two … three. A slow grin lifted the corners of his lips. “Yes, I’ll show you defeat. Very, very soon.” With that, he disappeared through the wall.

      Koldo waited, at the ready, but the demon never returned. No doubt, he’d gone to recruit a few of his friends.

      I’ll be ready.

      Only problem was, “very, very soon” told Koldo nothing. In their realm, one day could be as long as a thousand years and a thousand years as short as one day.

      “What the heck is going on?” Nicola exclaimed. “It’s like two boulders have been lifted from my shoulders.” As she spoke, a smile lit her entire face, transforming her from plain to exquisite. Her pale skin took on a radiant sheen, her eyes becoming the color of summer rather than winter.

      The moisture in his mouth dried.

      “Oh, La La. It’s wonderful!”

      Wonderful, yes, but still the toxin flowed through her veins. That would have to be dealt with.

      He would have to find a way to gently reveal himself to her, something he’d never done with a human. He would have to garner her trust, something he’d never before cared to try. But when? How? And how would she react?

      Be as shrewd as a serpent yet as harmless as a dove, Germanus used to tell him.

      Funny, but Koldo was far less assured of his success with the girl than he’d been with the demons.

       CHAPTER THREE

       The next day

      THE ELEVATOR DINGED, and the double doors slid open. Nicola Lane stepped inside the small enclosure, relieved to find she was alone. She was—

      Not alone, she realized with a jolt of surprise. Oh, wow. Okay. In the far corner, a very tall, very muscled man shifted from the shadows. How could she have missed him, even for a second?

      The doors closed, sealing her inside with him. I don’t judge by outward appearance. I really do not judge by outward appearance. But oh, wow, wow, wow, he had to be a time-traveling Viking sent here to abduct modern women to give to his men back home—because they’d killed all the women in their village.

      I watch too much TV.

      He certainly gave off an all-dangerous-all-the-time vibe. And now, it was too late to avoid a possible pillaging.

      Her heart fluttered, the warped beat making her light-headed.

      “Floor?” he asked, his deep voice filled with more jagged edges than a shattered mirror.

      “Lobby,” she managed to reply, and he pressed the appropriate button.

      It was a miracle the entire elevator didn’t split apart from the СКАЧАТЬ