Reaver (14 page)

an instant sense of familiarity the moment their lips touched, a bizarre and disturbing
rightness
that

shook her to the core.

Nothing had changed. The feeling was still there. The strange rightness should scare her, and it did,

but it also felt so good she wanted to weep, and that was something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

It was almost as if she was Verrine again, and she and Yenrieth were lying in a meadow together,

soaking up the sun. She’d been so happy at times like that, and the only thing that would have made

her happier was if she’d been sure he felt the same way about her as she felt about him.

Clinging to those precious memories, Harvester thrust her tongue between Reaver’s velvety lips.

For a heart-sinking moment he did nothing, but when she flicked her tongue against his, he responded

with a low moan that flowed through her like a caress.

Sliding her hands upward from his shoulders to his neck, she traced the tendons that strained under

his skin and the veins that pounded beneath her fingertips. A rumble started low in her belly, the

hunger she needed to take care of soon but that always grew worse when she was aroused.

The taste of Reaver’s blood had only whetted her appetite, and the thought of sinking her teeth into

Reaver’s warm flesh and taking the ultimate nectar that composed an angel’s blood made her fangs

throb and lengthen.

She’d been disgusted by the idea of feeding when she’d first fallen, but gradually, she’d learned to

tolerate it. Then like it. And now it was a pleasure she looked forward to.

Especially if she got to feed from an angel.

She didn’t care that drinking from an angel brought out her evil side.

A shudder of anticipation ran through her, followed by unwelcome reservations. She no longer had

to play fallen angel, did she? Yes, she was technically a True Fallen, and she had all the needs that

came with it. But she was supposed to be a good guy underneath her evil veneer. Shouldn’t she be at

least
trying
to be decent?

Reaver’s teeth pinched her bottom lip, gently, and all her self-doubt faded into the background.

“Reaver,” she whispered against his mouth.

The next thing she knew Reaver flipped her onto her back and slammed his heavy body on top of

her. His smile was cold as he looked down at her.

“Come on, Harvester,” he said, his voice husky, unused, and so damned sexy even when he was

trying to intimidate her. “Did you really think I’d let you get the upper hand?”

“Of course not,” she said bitterly. “The great Reaver doesn’t let anyone get the upper hand. He

doesn’t let anyone in, does he?”

He frowned. “Where is that coming from?”

A sudden stab of anxiety pierced her gut. Where, indeed. She had no idea if Reaver let people in or

not. And why in the realm of fuck would she care, let alone be bitter about it?

Something was happening to her, and whatever it was, she didn’t like it. She used to know exactly

who and what she was. Even when she was hanging from hooks in Satan’s living room, she knew what

she was, even if what she was amounted to nothing but a slab of meat.

But since the moment Reaver stormed into her life to rescue her, everything she knew was turned

upside down. Was she good? Was she evil?

Only one thing was certain: For the first time in her life, she was lost.

Very little could confuse Reaver. Harvester not only confused him; she twisted him into knots. His

body reacted to her even as his brain tried to make sense of the things she said and did. No one else

had ever done that to him. At least, no one whom he could remember.

“Well?” he prompted. “What makes you think I don’t let people in?” She was right, but how did she

know that?

“I don’t want to answer,” she said crisply. “Now who has the upper hand?”

She shoved against him, a halfhearted effort. She was testing the waters, determining if she was

strong enough to unseat him. She wasn’t, even though his body was still recovering from the

paralyzation and was numb from the thighs down. Everything above that was in full operational mode.

Everything was working
too
well, in fact, leaving him breathless, hot, and aching after Harvester’s

kiss.

“I’m still on top of you,” he said. “So I wouldn’t get too cocky.”

She arched under him, blatantly rubbing against his erection.
Oh… yeah
. Forbidden pleasure jolted

him all the way to his balls.

“I’m not the
cocky
one.” She smiled, all innocence and sugar. “So now that you have me under you,

what do you plan to do to me?”

Plan? Or want? “I don’t plan to do anything to you.” He started to push away, but she grasped his

biceps, digging her nails into his skin to hold him.

“Wait.”

Tired of her games and her taunts, annoyed with himself for becoming aroused by the one person in

the universe he knew would use it against him, he snapped. “What?”

Hurt darkened her eyes but was gone so fast he’d have missed it if he blinked. “Nothing. Get off

me.” She shoved at him, this time in earnest, but he didn’t budge.

He made an effort to soften his tone this time. “Tell me what you wanted.”

“Fuck off.”

He looked down, trying to get a read on her, but he kept getting derailed by the dark circles under

her eyes. She was healing from her torture experience, but far too slowly, and they might still have a

long way to go.

“Tell me, Harvester, how did you perform Heavenly good deeds for five thousand years and not get

caught?”

She laughed, but he failed to see what was so funny. “Easy. I didn’t perform any good deeds. I fell

from Heaven in order to gain a position as the Horsemen’s Watcher and derail the
Daemonica
’s

Apocalypse if and when the time came.” She dug her nails into his chest, and he swore she purred

when he felt a twinge of pain. “If something wasn’t related in some way to the Apocalypse, I ignored

it. It would look pretty suspicious if I ran around rescuing kittens and defending humans from demons

now, wouldn’t it?” She writhed, struggling to escape his hold. “Release me.”

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you want.”

“I don’t want your help.”

So damned stubborn. “You might not
want
my help, but you need it.” He shifted his weight and

eased to the side, giving her some room so she wouldn’t feel trapped. “We need to work together to

get out of here alive. You know that, right?”

She sprang away from him like a frightened rabbit and settled on her haunches a few feet away. “Of

course I know that.” He thought her face was a shade paler than it had been a moment ago. “I just

don’t like it. And I don’t trust you. I don’t understand why you would risk so much to rescue someone

you hate.”

Because you watched over my children
. Remembering why he was here erased all his animosity.

She was difficult, volatile, and infuriating as hell, but he owed her a million times over, and so did

every human and angel in existence. But could he risk telling her the truth? If what Raphael said about

her hating Yenrieth was true, she’d blow a gasket if she found out Reaver was the very angel she

detested.

Maybe he should test the waters a little.

“Wouldn’t you rescue someone you hated if they saved all mankind and prevented an apocalypse

that would have killed countless angels?” he asked.

“No.”

“Not even if that someone was Yenrieth?”

She hissed, baring her fangs, and he knew Raphael hadn’t jacked him around on how she felt about

Yenrieth.

“Especially not him.” Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “Why would you even bring

him up to me?”

“You gave up your wings to take care of his kids. He must have meant something to you, even if

you hate him now.”

“He
did
mean something to me, but that was in the past. Now I would rather see him rot for all

eternity than save his miserable soul,” she growled, and he wondered what he’d done to her to make

her hate him that much. “So shut up about him and tell me why you did this. You’re not an angel of

justice. You’re a battle angel.”

“So I can’t want to make sure someone who does a great service is rewarded for their actions?”

“Oh, I think you absolutely want that,” she said. “But it’s not your priority. You were bred for war,

so it’s in your nature to write off people as collateral damage if their lives are sacrificed for the

greater good. If the archangels didn’t want you to come, then they’re well aware that the greater good

will be served by my being tortured for all eternity.” She stood in a fluid, lithe movement that drew

his appreciative gaze. “So why would you, a battle angel who should consider me a casualty of war

and an acceptable loss, risk
starting
a war to save someone you hate?”

“You aren’t an acceptable loss, and I don’t hate you,” he said, surprising even himself with his

honesty. But that didn’t mean he liked her. His feelings for her were as complicated as the history

between Heaven and hell.

Her snort of derision set his teeth on edge. “Even if you loved me, I wouldn’t understand why you

saved me.”

“Have you ever loved someone?” he blurted out, and whoa, that came out of left field.

But suddenly, he wanted to know the answer. He couldn’t imagine her in a relationship, and he was

beginning to wonder how prickly she’d been even as an angel. Who in their right mind would put up

with her?

As Yenrieth, I must have.

The thought sucked the air right out of his lungs. It had popped into his head as easily and

inexplicably as his question to her about loving someone. Being in Sheoul must be getting to him.

“Irrelevant,” she said. “You don’t love me, so that’s not why you did this.”

“It’s a simple question.”

“And I have a simple answer. Fuck off.” Harvester even offered him a helpful visual aid in the form

of a hand gesture.

He flopped onto his back and stared up at the craggy ceiling. “If you keep saying that, you’ll forget

how to talk like a polite person.” Something whacked him in the head. “Ow.” He sat up and glared at

the stone wobbling next to him. “What was that for?”

“For fun.” She scooped up his backpack. “Are we leaving or what? I’m tired of waiting for Calder.”

Despite his curiosity, he welcomed the change of subject from past loves, because he definitely

didn’t want to get into why he’d rescued her again. He wanted to tell her that he was the angel

Yenrieth, to explain that the Horsemen were his children and he was grateful for what she’d done, but

now wasn’t the time. He had a lot of questions about his past and who he’d been as Yenrieth, and until

he broke down the massive wall around her, he couldn’t expect any real answers. If anything, giving

her important information like that would hand her a huge advantage over him, and that was

something he couldn’t risk. She was far too unpredictible and, likely, unstable after months in Satan’s

dungeon.

Of course, Reaver thought she’d been unstable
before
her own father imprisoned her.

“We don’t know where Calder went.” He gestured to the far side of the cavern, where two different

tunnels meant two different possibilities. “We could guess, but if we choose wrong, we’ll lose him.”

They couldn’t afford another loss. Reaver hadn’t known Matt well, but he hoped the guy was okay.

Tavin, though… Reaver was going to steep in guilt until he got confirmation that the Sem had made it

to Underworld General.

Harvester hadn’t moved.

“Harvester?”

She still didn’t move. In fact, he thought she might be shaking.

“Harvester,” he prompted, more urgently this time.

Her gaze flipped up to his. “We have to find him, Reaver.”

She licked her lips, and he caught a glimpse of her fangs, longer than usual, and he felt like a dolt.

She needed to feed, and they were out of time.

He shot for a tone that wasn’t dripping with sympathy—she’d hate that—or that wasn’t overflowing

with impatience. “You can feed from me.”