Reaver (23 page)

assholes. But call him an asshole, because Lorelia’s behavior earlier was starting to make sense, and

he suddenly didn’t think the infant had been incinerated.

The doctor stood there as if expecting a response to the bad news, and social convention probably

dictated that Revenant should give him one that wasn’t full of curse words. So he nodded politely.

But inside, he was fuming. Lorelia had intentionally baited the Horsemen into a fight, giving her an

excuse to blast them all and take the baby. And there was only one reason she’d have done that.

The archangels were planning a switcheroo with Gethel’s kid. Clever bastards. Too bad for them

that Rev was more clever.

“Now,” he said, done with the fake polite shit. “Blaspheme.”

Eidolon bared his teeth. “She’s off-limits to you.”

The doctor turned on his heel and strode back to his siblings. Off-limits, he’d said. Not bloody

likely. That False Angel intrigued Revenant. He’d never been fascinated by a False Angel before, but

something about Blaspheme made him twitchy. She had a secret, and he wondered how hard it would

be to get it out of her.

Later, though. Right now he had more pressing matters.

He turned toward the exam room where Limos was with Arik and various staff members. He began

to chant, low and quiet, until all around him, the air started to hum. With a thought, he gathered the

vibrating air together into a single ball of energy that filled his palm.

“
Stora ilsh ka’aport
.” The ball flew invisibly from his hand and shot into Limos’s room, where it

settled over her belly to form a shield. “Fuck you, Lorelia. You and your Heavenly brethren can kiss

my ass.”

Raphael’s bellow of rage rocked the ancient Karnak temple complex, cracking walls and toppling

pillars that had stood since 1500 BC. They were in the human realm, but occupying the same space in

a different realm was the Sheoulic equivalent, a demonic temple used for sacrificing pregnant

females.

They’d planned this down to the second. They’d positioned themselves perfectly. Even the damned

stars were favorably aligned.

The ritual, performed only once before, should have worked. Raphael had performed the other one,

so he knew how to do it.

Uriel grabbed his arm, but Raphael spun out of the way and the other angel caught a fistful of his

robe’s silky sleeve.

“Calm down.” With a wave of his hand, Uriel airlifted a two-ton stone to the top of the pillar it had

fallen from. “We’re not here to destroy this place.”

“No,” Raphael snarled, practically choking on his fury. “We’re here to swap Limos’s child with

Gethel’s, but the
ritual failed
.” He rounded on Lorelia, who had gone as pale as the full moon above.

“What did you do? Every chant we tried failed to send Lucifer into Limos.
Every
chant!”

“I—I didn’t do anything—”

“Limos’s womb wouldn’t accept him. You had to have done something. That was our only shot at

destroying Lucifer!”

“Listen to me.” Lorelia’s ivory lace gown swished in the yellow dirt as she moved toward him. “I’m

telling you, nothing I did would have caused her body to repel Lucifer. Nothing. They share blood. Her

body should have recognized that.”

“Then what happened?” Sweet heaven, he wanted to scream again.

Uriel righted a fallen statue and then wiped his hands as if he’d manually moved the five-ton

goliath. “Could anyone have known what we planned?”

“Like who?” Raphael asked.

“I don’t know.” Uriel was wearing his usual drab brown tunic and gray breeches, and he blended in

with the scenery as he paced around, looking for debris to clean up. He could be annoyingly OCD.

“But if someone knew, they could have done something to Limos.”

Lorelia nodded. “It’s possible she ingested herbs or a potion that would render her body

inhospitable to Lucifer. Or perhaps a spell encased her in repellant magic.”

But who could have known? He’d kept this between the three of them for a reason. Had either Uriel

or Lorelia betrayed them? Had Lorelia, in her enthusiasm to level the Horsemen, said too much or

behaved strangely? The smallest thing could have given the Horsemen something to go on. They

weren’t fools, after all.

He swiped the tiny clouded marble out of Lorelia’s hand and held it up to the moonlight. He could

crush it between his fingers like a grape. And while he’d rather not, he would if doing so served the

greater good.

But it wouldn’t, so Limos’s baby, its essence reduced to the marble he was holding, would live.

But that didn’t mean he was done with it.

Eighteen

An hour before darkness fell, Harvester and Reaver discovered an abandoned shack to hole up in just a

few miles from the carrion wisp village.

Harvester, her power humming through her body at maybe a fourth of her capacity, set

displacement wards on the trail behind them to throw off the Darkmen. Naturally, she pointed out that

even if Reaver had been at full strength, he couldn’t have placed the wards. Only evil magic could fool

an angelic assassin.

“See, I’m more than useful,” she said, enjoying the way the vein in his temple throbbed with

annoyance. “Now discharge your powers. I can make out your glow, and it kind of makes me want to

stab you.”

He used up his power to demolish a couple of the eerie black trees that populated the area, and by

the time they stumbled through the shack’s open doorway, Harvester’s stomach was growling

embarrassingly loud for food. But worse, her entire body was snarling with the need for blood, and her

wing anchors throbbed so viciously that any shoulder movement felt like she was being struck with an

ax.

She couldn’t feed from Reaver again. Feeding from him had turned her into a monster she hadn’t

wanted him to see. She shouldn’t care, should revel in Holy Boy’s disgust. But truthfully, every time

she went all Monster Mash, she disgusted even herself.

Besides, it fucking hurt when the horns drilled out of her skull.

The windowless one-room dwelling was dusty and smelled like mold, but there was a gel-like

sleeping pad large enough to fit two extra-tall people and a stone trough, which was presumably a

toilet. It wasn’t the Hilton, but considering the last time they’d rested it had been inside a parasitic

bush, this was luxury.

Reaver cast a glance outside through the crack he’d left in the doorway. “I’ll keep watch while you

get some sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” she lied. She was fucking
exhausted
.

“You’re going to sleep,” he insisted as he dropped his backpack onto the dirt floor and dug out the

canteen. “Here. Drink.”

Her first instinct was to rail against his command no matter how parched she was, but immediately

on the heels of that impulse was genuine gratitude. Huh. Maybe there was hope for her after all.

“So demanding,” she said, settling on a combination of both acceptance and indifference. Sinking

down on the gel mattress, she took the canteen, downed as much as she could handle, and then took the

protein bar he offered. “Thank you.”

He cocked an eyebrow, as if shocked that she took the time to offer thanks.
Yeah, well, join the club.

Right there with ya, buddy.

She tore open the chocolate-covered whatever-it-was as Reaver opened his own. The thing was

waxy on the outside and had the consistency of sawdust on the inside, but it tasted better than anything

Harvester had ever had.

With the exception of Reaver’s blood
. She shoved that thought into the back of her mind and

ordered it to stay there.

Reaver finished his protein bar and sank onto the mattress, putting his back against the wall so he

was facing the door. He folded his hands across his abs, and she let her gaze take him in from his

broad chest to his powerful shoulders. His black T-shirt, torn and frayed at the seams, clung to him

like a second skin, revealing every flex of his muscles.

And his arms… holy hotness, they were strong, yet gentle. She’d seen him demolish demons with

them, but she’d also seen him cradle a newborn infant with care. As she ogled his tan biceps, they

rippled as if demanding attention.

Even Reaver’s
muscles
were demanding.

“You should get a tattoo,” she blurted. She loved tattoos.

He grinned, and she felt a silly flutter in her breast. “A long time ago, I made a bet with Eidolon. He

said I’d find a mate. I bet him I never would. So now if I ever take a mate, he’s going to make me get

the Underworld General caduceus tattooed on my ass.”

“Why?” Seemed like a stupid bet for an immortal to make. Never was a long, long time.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “You’d think he’d want me to tattoo it somewhere everyone would see

it.”

“Not the tattoo,” she said impatiently. “The bet. Why did you say you wouldn’t take a mate?”

One massive shoulder rolled in a lazy shrug. “At the time, I was Unfallen. I had no future. I wasn’t

going to enter Sheoul to complete my fall, and the likelihood of earning my wings back was pretty

much nil. Who would want me?”

Was he fucking kidding? Who
wouldn’t
want him? Just looking at him was practically orgasm

inducing. He was powerful. Loyal. And he’d stop at nothing to protect those he loved. He’d even sneak

into hell to steal Satan’s prize possession in order to stop Lucifer. Any female would be lucky to have

him.

Even Harvester, who had hated him for years, could see that.

“And now?” she asked quietly. “Do you think you’ll find a mate now that you’re a halo-fied angel

again?” She didn’t know why she was asking. Wasn’t even sure she wanted an answer.

His sapphire eyes locked onto hers, and her heart did a crazy flip. “Assuming I don’t get stripped of

my wings or executed for rescuing you… maybe.”

The way he said it, low and rough, was downright erotic, as if he was right now picturing his mate.

Naked.

Harvester’s body went all kinds of hot.

“Harvester,” he said, in that rough voice that made her sex throb.

“What?” she found herself leaning toward him, heard her pulse pounding in her ears and felt her

lungs struggle for oxygen.

“Lift up your shirt.”

She sucked in a hot breath. “My shirt?” Her hands were already on the bottom hem.

“I’ll do it.” Very gently, he gripped her shoulders and turned her. “I want to see how your wings are

healing.”

“Oh.” She went utterly cold with disappointment. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but

that wasn’t it.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, a dry teasing note in his voice, “I’m not a doctor, but I

played one for years.”

“Yes,” she drawled, “that’s much better.” She wondered if he’d enjoyed working at Underworld

General. She’d never thought of him as the doctorly type, but as he peeled her tank top up and

smoothed his warm hands up her back, she decided she liked his bedside manner.

“Your scars are gone,” he murmured, and she swore she heard his heartbeat pound a little harder, a

little faster. So did hers.

His touch was tender as he probed the aching area near her shoulder blades. “Can you extend your

wings yet?”

“I’ll try.” She hoped the slight breathlessness in her words came across as pain and not a reaction to

his hands on her body.

Then the pain definitely came through as she tried to bring her wings out. Bone erupted from the

slits in her back, and by some miracle she didn’t cry out.

“That’s good,” he said. “You’ve got about two feet of framework. All bone, but once you feed, you

can probably double that and add some tissue.”

Retracting her unformed wings, she jerked away from him and yanked her top down. “Not from

you.”

“Are we really doing this again? You,” he growled, “are the most stubborn, difficult, infuriating

person I have
ever
dealt with.”

“Aw.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “You say the sweetest things.”

He shook his head as if she were a lost cause, and maybe she was. “We need you to be able to sense