As an angel trained to fight the forces of demons, Chiara knew to not let them take her alive, but she never expected to survive her first battle. Trapped in the depths of hell and tortured, only one thing is keeping her alive - the demon kept priso...
A metallic snick sounded through the whole the tower, snaking into Aster's mind and sending a needle down her back. She sat up from the overstuffed pillows on her reclining sofa and leaned as far over as she could to peer down the hallway. The heavy double door—always bolted closed from the outside swung slowly open.
No one was on the other side. She blinked at the darkness that filled the archway.
Her door was unlocked and open. That meant only one thing.
"Daddy's dead," she whispered, uncoiling her limbs to stand.
Come to think of it, her door opening by itself meant several things, most of them particularly unpleasant.
But was it unpleasant that her father was dead? She wasn't sure. He'd had her locked in this tower her whole life, denying her existence to the outside world the same as he denied her the chance to live her life. She wasn't about to cry over his body.
Her door was open though, and that was definitely a good thing. Because...
"I'm free," she said. She jumped to her feet, ripping her silk nighty off at the same time. She had to get out as fast—she froze. Her floor and the other chairs were littered with slumbering servants, those human women who found their way into the deepest halls of hell and were recruited to serve her by her father. They taught her languages, how to contour her face, braided her hair, brushed her hair, told her stories of the human world and their lives, told her filthy jokes, and generally grew bored with existence being locked up with her.
Most days, they drank themselves into a stupor and hoped Zeigfel would ask them to join him in his rooms for a change of scenery.
They also had orders to watch her every move, and the punishments they faced should Aster "accidentally" harm herself or try to escape were so horrifying that they wouldn't even tell her what those punishments entailed.
These human women would never believe Aster if she told them her father was dead and all bets were off. Aster tiptoed around two women tangled in each other's arms where they had passed out half on and half off a fainting couch.
If she was leaving, she had to dress for the Midlands—that place where the humans lived. And the only human styled clothes she had were the ones the human women brought with them. These clothes tended to be tight (that would be good, because she would probably be on the run the whole time), but not well-suited to her wings (that was bad because she would need to use them to escape Hell). Details weren't going to stop her now, though.
Aster jumped over the last sleeping form and ducked into her dressing room. In a thrice, she yanked fitted, leather riding pants up over her ample curves and shoved her feet in a pair of spiked boots. There weren't any shirts that would work for her wings, or any real shirts to speak of in her collection, but she found a low-cut, black satin and leather corset which sat below her wings and she could lace over her chest. Her breasts were up almost to her neck in the thing. But, according to her servants, this should pass as normal in the human world. She eased back into her front sitting room and scanned the furniture.
All her possessions were in this tower—clothes, art, jewelry, fine perfumes, the most expensive human and demonic made make-up and hair treatments. She huffed.
Bling-blings and assorted goop.
All useless. Daddy didn't let her own anything remotely resembling a weapon. Too bad. A few weapons would be really useful against the monsters that would hunt her now that he was dead. Her presence in the tower was an unspoken but well-known secret between the other major demons, but so long as her father, Zeigfel, lied to them, pretending she didn't exist, they wouldn't take action. They wouldn't sit around doing nothing now.
Demon councils were notoriously blood-thirsty and swift moving.
Well, boredom was about to become a thing of the past for Aster. The worst monsters hidden in the depths of hell would come for her, if the regular hordes of demons weren't enough. Speaking of which, there were a lot of regular demon hordes she would have to avoid on her way out.
"This princess has to get the fuck out of here if she wants to escape Hell," she muttered. She made her way around prone bodies to the long hall that stretched from the sitting room to the door.
That black hole at the end turned her stomach.
She wouldn't survive long. There was no doubt.
Aster took a step forward, and then another, and then she was running down the hall, her boots thudding softly on the thick carpet. She hit the stone floor beyond the door—the first time she ever stepped out of her tower—in a full sprint. Cold air hit her face like a slap, but she almost laughed out loud.
She wouldn't survive long, but she would die free.
And before she died, she would finally have a little fun.
***Thank you for reading the opening to the next book in the series, featuring Aster (half demon, half angel and a queen of chaos) and Valerio, the human warrior training to be an angel who is sent to find her before the demons can take her back to Hell - so that she can be judged for her crimes and punished for eternity by the angels .... ****
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