*Logan

Logan was lost under the drowning force of his daemonium's wrath. He knew Chiara was there, and she needed him, but he couldn't stop the Dark Flame hunting her. Rage blinded him from everything but the need to catch her. To hurt her.

The angel he desired darted from the room, narrowly escaping his grasp. He followed, fast and deadly. She was quick, though and smart. She tricked him again and again, hiding, flying, running on swift, silent heel.

Lust was a maze that was his home, however. She seemed to be following a trail that he didn't detect, unerring, but not towards the main exit. So where was she going, this bright, beautiful toy he wanted to break?

He passed through a dozen halls. A dozen more. All sex and wrath, fire and stone. This was who he was—the Dark Flame and the Wing Cutter.

The flash of a sword was all the warning he had of her attack, then a lancing cut across his thigh crippled him. Shimmering grey wings and her dark hair that blended with the shadows was all he saw as she darted out of reach.

He gritted his teeth, waiting for his leg to heal. Her steps whispered from behind the columns, but the dancing flames created movement through the whole room, dragging his eyes this way and that, never falling on her though. He held his breath listening for the shush of her wings or scuff of her feet. This room was empty except for the agonizing souls in the pit.

She was in here, somewhere.

Then, beside him—

"Come back to me, my love," whispered a sweet voice. It trickled through the thunderous rage in his head, all the way down to Logan.

He wrenched himself free. He clawed his way upward. The daemonium's control cracked, but didn't break.

The shift was only partial. "Chiara, run!"

Her wings beat, lifting her out of reach and in a blink, she was through one of the arched ways.

Logan held onto his daemonium. The beast inside him roared. He roared back at it. He, Logan, who had endured endless days of torture and pain in the dungeon was not going to be defeated by his own demon so easily.

He clung to his partial shift—it would have to be enough. Leg bleeding and dragging behind, he set out on a limping scuttle.

Chiara needed him, but she was going the wrong way, and if the lurkers in the tunnels hadn't lied to him, she would fall in their trap just as much as if he had led her there. He opened his mouth to yell, to tell her, when flames erupted in his gut.

The Dark Flame, his own daemonium, was setting him on fire, cooking him from the inside. He dropped to the ground, a mindless, screaming beast, body filled with agony.

His daemonium whispered to him. It dug claws into his brain, it stirred the embers in his chest.

Remember what the lurkers said. What they promised.

Find the angel.

To put out the flames, all he had to do was give in and do what he was made for.

Logan's orders were clear and simple. His reward if he obeyed would be generous—not only a pardon for his crimes against Zeigfel, but also for helping murder Lucius. He would have his own legions, his place at the table among the original fallen and the demon lords who ruled in absence of the Sleeping King of Hell. Women. Whiskey. Battles. Glory.

All of this would be his in exchange for delivering one single angel to the guards who would wait for them in Lust. He had to give her to them, and at the moment of delivery, he had to do one simple task. A task he had performed countless times on other angels in the battlefield.

One he was good at.

One he was named for.

Cut her wings, and all would be his.

He heaved to get air in his scorched lungs. Smoke curled from his nose and mouth, and the stench of burnt meat gagged him. It was the dungeon, but a thousand times worse.

The reward could be his...

I am Logan, brother to Jeraar, not a vessel for the Dark Flame. I am the Dark Flame.

The burning reached up, higher in his chest, and met the poison there. Instantly, he began to cool. The poison leeching from him into his daemonium and extinguishing the flames as it spread.

I control the Dark Flame.

He faced the truth. This power, to create the dark flames and burn through his enemies wasn't his in the beginning. It was only after he killed Jeraar in the games for a position in Lucius's legions that the power came creeping into him.

He killed his twin, the only thing he'd ever cared about besides himself, and was left with the power to keep killing. By the Sleeping Kings, he was a piece of shit.

Wresting the final hold on his body from his daemonium, he shifted fully to Logan, and lay, gasping for air on the cold marble floor, smoke coiling up and off him.

He had to heal.

He didn't have the time. He staggered to his feet.

Chiara.

She was going towards the balcony entrance, guided by the breeze she must feel.

Bring the winged creature to us, we will hide at the balcony, and take her.

There were short-cuts to the balcony—always short-cuts in Hell. He limped to the wall, falling against it and letting it support him, then ran his hands over the cold, perfectly smooth marble until he found what he was looking for. A seam in the wall, invisible to the eye. He pressed. Stale air of the tunnel enveloped him.

He breathed in. It was like being back in the matrix, being newly-formed. He healed faster in here. His staggering walk turned to a trot and then a full sprint through the winding darkness. Every sense was heightened. It hit him that this had to be the first time he'd ever taken a short-cut through the Halls of Lust. Energy suffused him.

Here, and not in the deepest most hidden places was the power of the Sleeping King and the lords of hell the strongest.

He reached the door he needed, a line of light marking it and the faintest scent of clean air assuring him. He pressed the edge, easing it open, inwards into the tunnel. He sniffed.

Stronger scents of fresh air and the outside world came to him over the incense and smoke of the pits, the cold smell of marble. Misery was thick in the air as well, not so much as a smell, but a heaviness that eddied like water currents.

There—soft jasmine and rain, small green stems, and sun-warmed stones. A whisper of bare feet and feathers, then a darker shadow passed in front of the opening.

He stepped out and wrapped his arms around Chiara, pinning her arms and covering her mouth with a hand. He dragged her backwards.

She instantly drove a foot into his knee. Teeth nearly severed his fingers. Then the back of her head slammed into his nose, a shock of blinding white pain and loud crunch filled his head and ears.

She broke his nose...

"It's me," he hissed. "It's Logan."

"Logan," she whispered through his hand. She stilled instantly, her warm body under his arms, wings tucked tight, but still burning where they touched bare skin, and moved back with him into the deeper shadows.

This room was adjacent to the balcony room—the second largest hall in Lust. Light from the outside world spilled onto the floor from a narrow opening towards the balcony. They were so close now.

Sibilant hisses and the faint creak of leather betrayed the demons creeping closer to their hiding place, though. He and Chiara weren't free yet.

He bent forward to whisper to her. "The room is filling with demons. Run for the balcony when I say, and be ready to fight."

She shook her head free. "What about you?"

"I'll hold them back. Understand?"

She nodded.

Wait. Shit. "Do you still have a sword?"

She nodded again.

"Good girl. Keep running. When you reach the balcony, fly. Don't look back."

"But—"

"Now!"

*** He's back and she's almost out - they are so close now! Hit the star if you enjoyed the chapter and have an awesome day!!! ***