Mated (The Queen's War #1)

Chapter 2

Pure instinct had Perci bring her knee up in a sharp movement to nail the blue-eyed immortal in the balls. She had a momentary panic that the sword would slice her throat when the attacker she deduced as a seraph staggered back and groaned in pain, but his sword fell away in favour of cupping his bruised genitals instead.

She'd only side-stepped a metre or so when a monumental force had her catapulted backwards into the alley. Her back met a wall with a velocity that had her sucking in a tortured breath that caused tears to pour from her eyes. Before she even had time to slide down the wall into a quivering heap, a large hand collared her throat, keeping her suspended.

Perci blinked away her tears and gripped the heavily muscled forearm of another seraph as he slowly choked her. This viking-like man could be nothing other than seraph due to the enormous white wings that stretched from his back and filled the small alley. She thought it was ironic that an angel, the supposed upholder of all things good in the seraph, was killing her. Black spots started to creep into the edges of her vision when the blue-eyed seraph from before limped up to her and punched her in the stomach. The tight grip on her throat prevented her from doubling over in pain, but her body tried to anyway.

"Just look at that thing." Perci heard blue-eyes remark and felt the accompanying tear of her clothes.

If she wasn't currently seconds away from dying, she would have been indignant at being in her underwear in front of two strangers, but as it was she wouldn't have to worry about her embarrassment for much longer.

Numbness took hold and she felt a kind of acceptance settle into place. She wearily forced her eyes to open further than the slits they were currently and stared her killer in the eyes. His smirk wasn't something she particularly wanted to die seeing, but she definitely wanted him to see that she wasn't afraid of him as her last act of defiance.

The world fell away a heartbeat of time later, and the metaphysical fall she expected to experience happened physically instead. Sweet oxygen rushed down her throat as her senses slowly returned to her. She was aware of her frantic breathing and hunched over position on the concrete ground. Weakness had truly settled into her muscles and as she tried to get her lungs under control, she dragged herself into a sitting position.

Clashing metal and masculine grunts pierced the fogginess of her mind. Piece by piece her sight unblurred and when it did, she suddenly wished it hadn't.

Blocking the way out of the dead-end alley, a huge Hellspawn demon was battling it out with the two seraph. The angel was using his wings to his advantage and lifting off the ground to avoid the deadly slashes of his sword, but blue-eyes wasn't so adept. Perci watched transfixed as the Hellspawn kicked out with his military-style boot and sent the angel tumbling face-first into a wall before spinning to avoid a strike and cleaving blue-eye's head from his body. Seeing his partner dispatched, the angel let out a toe-curling battle cry and charged the Hellspawn with a speed that Perci could barely track.

Back and forth she watched the two immortals bounce around the alley and saw the aggression visibly increase with every moment that passed. Finally, just when she thought it couldn't possibly last any longer, the Hellspawn ignited his whole right arm in demonfire and clawed his hand down the angel's wings. A shrill scream escaped the seraph's throat and using his pain to his advantage, the Hellspawn thrust his sword into the angel's stomach and sliced upwards through his torso and out his left shoulder. Utterly revolted, Perci could only watch and try not to throw up.

Her rapt stare was interrupted the second the Hellspawn looked at her. With a confidence that he knew she wouldn't be going anywhere, he dragged the two corpses to the side of the alley and ignited them both in demonfire until nothing remained but their ashes. Then, wiping his sword on his black trousers, the demon sheathed it and approached her slowly whilst taking his shirt off.