Free Blood Redemption (Angel's Edge #3) by Vicki Keire

feeling like the emptiness of a black hole sucking at me. Belial tightened his grip across my throat until it became really hard to breathe. Black spots danced before my eyes as he stepped backward into the portal he’d created. I closed my eyes, desperate for breath and sick to my stomach at the abrupt spatial displacement.
    And opened them to see Asheroth standing not three feet away, his face darkening into rage as I gasped for breath like a dying fish. His diamond eyes were a sharp contrast to the dark night around us as they locked with mine, growing in brightness until they resembled twin halogen headlights in their intensity. Belial laughed softly behind me. I struggled against his hold, but he had me firmly pinned. I was gasping; I was choking; my world was whiting out.
    I barely heard the growl that came from my self-proclaimed Fallen guardian angel. “Let. Her. Go,” he howled.
    Asheroth in a rage was not a pretty sight. His abyss-wings unfurled behind him, and I was reminded that the demon that held me wasn’t the only Fallen one around here. There was no telling what Asheroth would do; he might not even care that I was caught between two enraged immortal beings. Belial merely laughed, and removed his hand from my throat. I gulped down ragged increments of air, my throat tender and bruised. “If you’re lucky, I won’t kill her in front of you,” Belial taunted.
    “If you’re lucky,” Asheroth said, stalking closer with the grace of a cat, “you’ll live long enough to wish you hadn’t.”
    Then he rushed us both.



unny what you think about when your life’s about to end.
    As Asheroth charged us, it was the silver and crystal bracelet Ethan had given me that occupied my mind. I thought of the way it looked like sunlit water flowing over rocks deep in the mountains, and the way it fit me perfectly, the clasp forming a set of wings that rested right over my pulse. I could envision it, sliver-bright and linked with crystals; it matched my damning Nephilim eyes. Although the bracelet would always remind me of Ethan, for now all I could think of was Asheroth, and the way the crystals on the bracelet glowed like his irises.
    Then Belial’s crushing hold clasped against my throat, and was jerked right back into reality.
    With a cry of rage so deep and guttural it reminded me of rocks grinding against each other, Asheroth slid to a halt mere inches from my face, digging gouges in the grass with his feet. He seemed to not even see me; the rage written on his face was directed all at Belial as his nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed.
    “What. Have. You. Done?” he raged while he looked solely at the demon who was choking me. But even though I hadn’t drawn his direct glare, his words were aimed at me. “Why have you brought him here to the sanctuary I prepared for you?”
    I have never wished for the power of speech so desperately in my life. I tried to answer Asheroth, to protest, to tell him that it wasn’t my fault, but Belial’s arm tightened even more across my throat until breathing became so difficult I was afraid I was passing out. I scrabbled uselessly with my fingers at Belial’s unmoving arm, all the while trying to gurgle out some kind of words that would make sense to the mad Fallen angel.
    Behind me, Belial laughed. “Trust you to be the one to get things backward,” the demon smirked. He released my throat just enough to allow a trickle of air to get through, but not enough to form actual language. I coughed and choked at this reprieve until my vision blurred.
    “I brought her to break your wards, Fallen one,” Belial said in a darker tone. “It was one of the reasons I took her.”
    Asheroth began to circle us like a sleek, and very angry, cat. Pieces of his tousled black hair hung in his eyes. I was relieved to see that he was wearing his red leather jacket; the jacket was actually battle armor, and was impervious to assault from other angels. I didn’t know how it would stand