by Larissa Ione
Harvester nodded and flashed away in a sparkle of light.
“So what’s this about?” Ares asked, as Reaver turned back to him. Cara had slipped away, but the clumsy hellhound had remained to keep an eye on Ares. The things were rarely more than a few seconds away from either one of them, and they always sensed when an angel was near. Ex-angels, too, apparently.
“I need you to summon Revenant.”
Ares’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t ask any questions. He merely called out with both formal protocol, and a less formal, “Yo, Rev. Get your ass over here.” He grinned. “Revenant hates informality. He’s a stickler for the rules. You two would really not get along.”
“We didn’t get along for the five minutes we were both Watchers together,” Reaver muttered. Not to mention the five minutes of ass-kicking Revenant had given him in Gethel’s Sheoulic palace.
Ares scratched the hellhound’s ears. “He was pissed about what Lorelia did to Limos. He reported her to his Watcher Council and recommended execution as punishment. It won’t happen, but he tried.”
Well, that was unexpected. But then, a Watcher’s duty included making sure the other Watcher didn’t screw up. “He was probably more interested in seeing an angel die than in avenging Limos.”
Ares shrugged. “His motives don’t interest me. I’m just glad he did it.” He looked past Reaver, and the hound snarled. “Speak of the fallen angel. White hair today, huh?”
Damn, but Reaver missed the warning tingle that accompanied the arrival of another angel or powerful supernatural being. It was going to take some time to get used to his Unfallen status again.
“Oh, look,” Revenant said. “It’s the newly fallen angel everyone in the underworld is trying to find.” He strode over, his boots clomping on the hard tiles, his leather pants and jacket creaking with every step. “If I took you to the Dark Lord right now, I’d be the richest male in Sheoul.”
“Touch him,” Ares said, “and you’ll live the rest of your sorry life looking over your shoulder.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Revenant said, sounding utterly bored. “The wrath of the Horsemen will come down on me. Every hellhound in Sheoul will be hunting me, blah-fuckity-blah. Don’t worry your little pony heads about it.” He punched Reaver in the shoulder. “Your father is off-limits for Watchers to grab, torture, kill, or molest in any way. Not that I’d molest him. I like my bedmates with bigger breasts and fewer balls.”
“What a relief,” Reaver said dryly.
Revenant grinned, flashing fangs as shiny and white as the hair that fell past his shoulders. “I knew you’d appreciate that. But a word of advice. You’re only off limits while you’re in the human realm. Step into Sheoul, and Satan will want you. Watcher rules or not, I can’t disobey his command.” He turned to Ares. “Why did you summon me?”
“I asked him to,” Reaver said. “I need to know what can stop Satan from starting a war with Heaven.”
“The war you put into motion? That one?” Revenant shrugged. “You can’t do anything. You fucked up.”
Which was why Reaver needed to stop it. And now they had only days to do it.
Ares strode over to the wet bar and poured a shot of whiskey. “Reaver, why the hell would you think Revenant would help you with this?” He held up the bottle. “Anyone?”
Ares must be seriously grateful to Revenant for what he’d recommended to his Watcher Council, because he wasn’t usually so free with niceties for the evil Watchers.
“Hells, yeah,” Revenant said.
Reaver, to be contrary, turned it down and returned to the subject at hand. “I was hoping he’d want to prevent a battle that could rage on for centuries and destroy both our worlds.”
Revenant took a glass from Ares and knocked back half the contents. “Maybe the prospect of war excites me.”
“Maybe,” Reaver said. “But I’ve learned enough about demons in my time to know that most of them aren’t gung ho for war. They want to live their lives, the same as everyone else.”
“I’m not a demon.”
Not technically, but sometimes being a demon had more to do with behavior than DNA. Reaver knew a lot of decent demons… and a lot of humans who were far more evil than almost anyone who lived in Sheoul.
“You’re a fallen angel who must want to protect someone you cared about in Heaven before you fell,” Reaver said.
Revenant shrugged. “If I ever cared about anyone there, I don’t remember, so preventing your war is none of my concern.”
“You don’t remember?” Ares came around the bar with his glass and the bottle of whiskey. “Are you that old?”
“No idea. My memory was taken from me.”
And here Reaver thought he was special. “Why? Who’d you sleep with?”
“Dunno—” Revenant went taut, as if every muscle had turned to stone, and the glass in his hand shattered. “I… have to go,” he rasped.
“Wait.” Reaver grasped Revenant’s arm, and a sense of familiarity rippled through him, as if a memory was on the verge of coming to life. Had they known each other in the past? “Why did you let me lift the collar key off you?”
Revenant scowled. “I didn’t.” He leaned and then righted himself, the unsteady sway of a drunk man. Even his gaze had gone glassy. “I… why did I do that?”
Then he was gone, leaving Reaver with more questions than he’d started with.
“That was weird.” Ares snapped his fingers at the hellhound who rushed over to see if the broken glass was edible. The beast got a quick lick of whiskey before sullenly slinking away. “Damned mutts will eat anything. Cara is always dealing with grumpy-ass hellhounds and their bellyaches.”
“They get grumpier?”
Ares snorted. “You have no idea—”
Suddenly, Ares was armed and armored, and the hellhound that just took off with its tail tucked was back, crouched in the doorway with its hind legs gathered and ready to launch. Reaver wheeled around to come face to face with Gethel’s image. Like last time, when she’d appeared at Than’s place, she was a phantom, completely protected by the spawn in her belly.
“I’m really getting sick of this new power of yours, Gethel,” Ares growled.
“Yes, well, I’ve been sick of you for decades.”
“Why are you here?” Reaver asked, his teeth clenched so hard they hurt. “Or not here.”
“I have an offer for Reaver.” She stepped closer, her eyes glittering with anticipation, and Reaver knew the offer was going to be a sucky one with a high price. “Arrange for Raphael to meet you at the Dome of the Rock tomorrow at dawn. If you agree, Satan will call off the war.”
“What happens to Raphael?”
Gethel’s smile was so cold Reaver’s spinal fluid froze. “That,” she said, “is none of your concern.”
“Tell me what Satan wants with him,” he shot back, so not in the mood to deal with vague offers and secret agendas.
“Let’s just say there’s a score to settle.”
Man, it was tempting. Raphael had screwed with Reaver’s life hard, had forced Harvester to torture him, and had blackmailed her into becoming his mate. Getting that archangel bastard out of the way would be awesome.
But it would also make Reaver a traitor. And as much as he hated Raphael, the archangel was an angel, and while Reaver might play fast and loose with Heavenly rules, he would never betray Heaven to Satan.
“Well?” Gethel huffed. “I don’t have all day.” She cranked her head around in an Exorcist move and hissed at Ares. “Keep your mutts back, or I’ll burst their skulls like popcorn.”
Ares barked out a command, and the five hellhounds that had been stalking Gethel halted midstep. They couldn’t harm her, but clearly, Gethel had a thing against hellhounds.
Could she really kill them even if she was no more substantial than a ghost? If so, Lucifer had grown unbelievably strong. Not good.
Gethel jammed her fists on her hips and pivoted back to Reaver. “Your answer, Fallen.”
She must be loving this, the bitch. “My answer is no.”
“Think about this very carefully,” she said.
“I did. No.”
Her soiled wings shot up from her back, and the hounds growled. “Idiot! You will be condemning Heaven to a war it can’t win, which means it will spill over into the human realm.” Her wings quivered with her zealous excitement. “But before any of that happens, you, and everyone you care about, will pay for your foolish choice to not deliver Raphael to the Dark Lord.” She spat on the floor, and even though she wasn’t physically in the room, her wet spit splattered on the tiles. “You have until dawn.”
She disappeared, and Reaver cursed. He was so sick of the games both Heaven and Sheoul played with lives, the way they used loved ones to get what they wanted.
“So what are we going to do?” Ares’s gaze was steely, his stance squared and aggressive. He was ready for battle, and Reaver knew the Horseman would fight until his last breath if Reaver asked him to.
“We aren’t going to do anything.” Reaver scrubbed his hand over his face. Fuck, he was screwed. “I started this, and I’ll finish it. I can’t put anyone else at risk.”
Ares came over and laid a big hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about us. Just don’t do anything stupid, like rescuing Harvester and leaving us in the dark about it.” Irritation rumbled in Ares’s voice, but Reaver didn’t regret the choice he’d made to keep the Horsemen safe. “You’re our father, and we’ll do anything to help you. Especially if it means a chance to feed Gethel to the hellhounds.”
Reaver knew that, and he was grateful. But he also didn’t see any way for the Horsemen to help. He couldn’t hand an archangel over to the forces of evil, but he couldn’t risk his family, either.
“Ares!” Clutching a cell phone, Cara ran into the great room, wrapped in a fluffy pink robe, her hair dripping wet. “It’s Regan. Than’s castle is under attack.” The cell buzzed before she could say more. She glanced at it and looked at Reaver. “It’s Shade. Underworld General is under siege, too.”
Nothing could attack the inside of the hospital, but if the parking lot filled with demons, they could wreak havoc on the outside. Once the structure was compromised, the antiviolence spell would break, and the hospital, which had barely recovered from Pestilence’s rampage, would fall.
“Are you going to Than’s?” Reaver asked.
Ares threw a gate open. “Yup. Wanna lift?” At Reaver’s nod, Ares turned to Cara. “Call Reseph. Send him to UG.”
“Call Limos, too.” Ares and Cara both gave Reaver looks edged with doubt, but Reaver shook his head. “She’s okay.”
“Ares.” Cara ran over and kissed him, a kiss so full of love that Reaver nearly swayed from the force of it. He thought of Harvester, and how they’d finally found each other… but was it too late?
“Be careful,” she said to both of them. “I’ll send some hounds.”
“If these are Satan’s forces, the hounds won’t fight,” Reaver said.
“I know.” Cara patted Ares on his boiled-leather breastplate. “But they’ll defend. And they look really scary.”
Reaver laughed despite the seriousness of the situation. “They are that.”
Ares cast a personal Harrowgate, and with a wave to Cara, Reaver entered with the Horseman… and stepped out into complete chaos.
Thirty
Reaver stood on the outer wall of Thanatos’s keep, looking out at the charred remains of the evil army that had besieged them. The battle had been tough, but brief… which meant this had been a demonstration of intent, rather than a full-scale assault on Reaver’s loved ones.
But tough, he knew, was a matter of perspective. With no powers, Reaver had been forced to fight with his hands. He was good at it, more than a match for a similarly sized demon, but… he’d hated the way everyone felt as though they needed to protect him.
He felt like such a failure, unable to contribute much to battle. Even Thanatos’s vampire servants had been of more help. Just a day ago Reaver could have crushed any one of them like an insect under his boot.
Now he was the bug waiting for a foot. A foot that was coming for him soon. The attack had made that clear. It had made a lot of things clear, and as he gazed out at the sparse vegetation surrounding the countryside where Thanatos’s children would play, Reaver knew what he had to do.
Footsteps approached, and Reaver turned to see Thanatos and Ares top the stone steps that led to the wall walkway. No longer armed, Ares was in the blue board shorts he’d worn at his manor, and Thanatos was in workout pants and a T-shirt. The 3-D tattoos that covered him from chin to toe shimmered on his skin as he walked.
“Got a text from Limos,” Than said. “Underworld General is safe. Minor casualties.” He smirked. “Eidolon refuses to help the injured enemies. Funny, I’m always torn between wanting to kill that guy and wanting to high-five him.”
“I know what you mean,” Reaver muttered. “All Sems have that effect.”
Than snorted. “I’ve noticed. Which reminds me that I need to text Wraith and cancel our playdate for the kids today.”
Reaver just shook his head. It was so bizarre that Thanatos found the most exasperating of the Sem brothers to be the least annoying. Even more bizarre was hearing the Horseman known as Death talking about playdates.
“Never thought I’d say I was glad to see Harvester show up,” Ares said. “Man, she smoked that ice troll.”
Reaver tried not to be petty and bitter about the fact that he’d barely been able to make the ice troll flinch.
“Yeah,” Than said, “but wasn’t that against Watcher rules?”
Reaver glanced down into the courtyard at the troll, which hadn’t dissolved into a greasy stain yet. In the human realm all demons that didn’t appear human would, upon death, dissappear. But rate of disintegration varied depending on species and where they died.
“She didn’t violate Watcher rules,” Reaver said. “This wasn’t about Horsemen. It was about the conflict between Sheoul and Heaven.”
“Exactly.” Harvester appeared next to Reaver in a glittering shimmer of light, and instant lust kindled in his groin at the sight of her in a short black leather skirt, a black leather bra top, and thigh-high fuck-me boots. Damn, he was happy that her taste in clothing had survived the transition from fallen angel to angel.
“But I’ll still get in trouble.” A breeze made her ebony hair swirl around her slender shoulders, and Reaver’s fingers flexed with the desire to wrap her silky locks around his hands and hold her for a sensual onslaught. “I’m not supposed to be on the front lines, since I’ll be a target for capture or kill.”
“Then why are you here?” Ares asked. “It’s a foolish risk. You never expose your most important assets to the enemy. That’s how wars are lost.”
“Foolish?” Harvester cocked a dark eyebrow. “I swore an oath to watch over you. Not to put up with your shit. I’m not evil anymore, but I’m still not nice. Keep that in mind.”
Well, that wasn’t going to help the relationship between Harvester and the Horsemen at all. “He’s right,” Reaver said before Ares could blow his stack. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Would you have come?” she shot back. He didn’t need to answer that, and she knew it. “Thought so.” She looked past Reaver at Than and Ares. “Boys, can I have a minute with your father?”
Warmth engulfed Reaver at the way she’d said your father. His family had begun with one impulsive roll in the grass with a demon, but Reaver couldn’t be sorry. The Horsemen’s existence had caused countless tragedies and measureless destruction, but angelic intuition told Reaver everything had happened the way it was supposed to.
Than and Ares left, miraculously without an argument, leaving Reaver in the cool Greenland breeze with the female he wanted to prop against the battlements and ravish. The burn of battle still rushed through his veins, heightening his senses and laying a fine line between bloodlust and good old-fashioned se
xual lust.
Fuck it. He wasn’t an angel anymore, didn’t have to play nice. Not that he ever had.
Before Harvester could so much as blink, he lifted her onto a merlon and stepped between her legs to kiss her.
“Now this,” she murmured against his mouth, “is the way to come down from a fight.”
He couldn’t agree more, and while she tore open his jeans, he shoved up her skirt. They didn’t waste time with foreplay; this was going to be raw and swift, as much a needed release of tension as a way to mark his female in a way she’d never forget.
Because this would be the last time.
He entered her in a powerful surge that made them both cry out. He didn’t pause, didn’t let either of them get accustomed to her tightness or his size. There was only a single, driving instinct to possess. As if she felt his desperation, she clung to his neck with her arms and wrapped her legs so tightly around his hips that he couldn’t have broken free if he’d wanted to.
He thrust against her, fueled by the way she met every pump of his hips with a frantic roll of hers. And when she whispered hot, dirty things in his ear, things she wanted to do him and that she wanted him to do to her, he nearly short-circuited with lust. She wanted to do what with a pair of stiletto heels? Harvester might have a halo, but dear, sweet Lord, she was no angel in the sack.
Awesome.
Voices drifted from below, but he wouldn’t have cared if they were coming from a few feet away. Nothing was stopping him, nothing was getting between him and the female he loved. Not yet. Right now, in this very moment, she was his, and he didn’t share.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Oh… yes.” She wedged her hand between their bodies and cupped his balls. A wicked vibration hummed through his sac and up his shaft, and holy… damn, he nearly went over the edge.
“I’m glad,” he said between panting breaths, “that you still have that power.”
“Oh,” she purred, “you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Groaning, he melded their mouths together as he rocked against her. Sweat broke out all over his body and his pulse drummed loudly in his ears. They were out in the open, in a precarious position and right there for anyone to see, but it was perfect. He had no doubt that no matter where or when he and Harvester made love, it would always be perfect.