“Because it took five Sems, including me, to remove the aurial without killing you.” Eidolon flipped the releases on the restraints. “You didn’t handle it well.”
No, a demon channeling power into him while he was unconscious would trigger an angelic instinct to fight. He was lucky his body had accepted Seminus healing energy in the first place. Most angels couldn’t be healed by demons. “Where’s Harvester? What happened?”
“She sent for us to bring you here,” Reseph said. “You almost died.”
Thanatos moved closer to the bed, his accusing gaze cutting deep. “Why did you go to Sheoul to save her? Lorelia and Revenant claimed she was a spy.” He clenched his fists at his sides, as if wishing Harvester’s neck was between them. “But that’s bullshit. She plotted with Pestilence to start the Apocalypse and murder my son.”
Reseph turned a little green at the mention of Pestilence, while Ares folded his arms across his chest, watching with assessing eyes. Of all the Horsemen, he was the one who could be the most level-headed and would likely approve of everything Harvester did over the centuries for the sake of victory. But he was also the one who would be the least understanding of what Reaver had done, because Reaver had done it out of emotion, not logic.
The bed creaked as Reaver sat up, and oh, look at that. He was na**d. He snatched a bed sheet and covered his lap while Eidolon dug a set of scrubs from out of a cabinet.
“Harvester didn’t plot to do any of that,” Reaver said. “Your Watchers are right. She volunteered to fall from Heaven in order to watch over all of you.”
“The hell she did.” Thanatos’s anger was accompanied by a whoosh of souls escaping his armor to writhe at his feet. Their desire to kill in order to be free of his armor forever had them stretching the limits of their invisible tethers.
Eidolon tossed Reaver the blue scrubs before turning to Than. “Put the souls away, Horseman.”
Normally, Thanatos wouldn’t be cowed by any demon, but Eidolon had proved himself time and time again, and he’d delivered Than’s son. The scorpion tattoo on his neck writhed, its tail stabbing at his jugular a few times before he got hold of his temper, but finally, the souls melted into his armor again.
“It’s true,” Reaver insisted. “She’s been looking out for you since you were infants. When she fell, she worked her way to becoming Watcher and spent her time secretly manipulating events. When Reseph’s Seal broke, she pretended to help Pestilence, but everything she did was to help stop the Apocalypse.”
Ares frowned. “But it was she who made sure The Aegis sent Regan to seduce Thanatos. She knew the baby was the key to breaking Thanatos’s Seal.”
Thanatos growled at that, and the souls made an appearance again. This time Eidolon just shot him a dirty look and the souls disappeared.
“She also knew the baby was the one and only person who could stop the Apocalypse,” Reaver insisted. “It was a risk, but she had faith you’d find a way to end the Apocalypse and save your son.”
“But she tortured you. And I…” Anguish darkened Reseph’s expression. “She… and I…”
“Hey,” Reaver said softly. “We’ve been through this.” He shoved his legs into the scrubs and moved to Reseph, who had gone pale at the memory of what he’d done to both Harvester and Reaver. “You weren’t you, and she didn’t have a choice. Raphael ordered her to do it. And trust me, she could have hurt me far worse than she did.” He pulled on the scrub top. “I’m not asking you to understand. Not yet. But I am asking you to give her a chance.”
“She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” Reseph asked.
“More than you know.” More than even he knew, he suspected. He had a feeling they’d uncover a lot more layers of their relationship if he ever recovered all his memories. “Now, where is she?” Ares and Thanatos both shot Reseph a questioning glance, and Reaver’s blood pressure bottomed out. “Where?”
“I left her with Raphael,” Reseph muttered.
Raphael? Shit. What had he done with her? He looked around for his boots, found them near the door.
“E, did Tavin make it back?” He hoped so. The poor Sem had gone through hell while in… hell. And Reaver had managed to f**k him up even more.
“He’s fine. Except for the snake issue. I don’t suppose you can shed some light on that?”
“Not really.” Reaver jammed his feet into his boots and bent to tie them. “I don’t know what it is. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Eidolon nodded. “I’ve got Idess on it, and I’ve got someone else I can consult with.”
Relieved, Reaver straightened. If Eidolon was on it, Tav was in good hands. “I need to go.” He started toward the tent exit but stopped before he got there. “Where’s Limos?”
More exchanged glances. “She’s home.” Ares’s tone dripped with rare emotion, and Reaver’s gut clenched as he remembered what Revenant had said about an accident.
Thanatos’s gaze was stricken, his pause ominous. “She lost the baby.”
“She didn’t lose it,” Ares growled. “The child was destroyed.”
Reaver’s heart skidded to a smoking halt and raw, grinding grief carved deep into his chest. Oh, Limos, I’m so sorry. His throat constricted into a tube so narrow every breath was like a searing whip of air.
“How?” he croaked.
Thanatos let loose a tirade of curses in several ancient languages. “Our new Heavenly Watcher lost her shit. The bitch took us all down. She even killed one of Ares’s hellhounds.” He inhaled a ragged breath. “The baby didn’t survive. We’ve been scouring the globe for Lorelia, but it looks like she’s hiding behind archangel skirts.”
Rabid fury and ice-hot hatred shot through Reaver with an intensity he hadn’t felt since learning Verrine had kept the secret of his children from him. Harvester was missing, was probably being held by the archangels until they decided what to do with her, and the Watcher who had been assigned to watch over Limos had hurt her and killed Reaver’s grandchild.
“I have to go,” Reaver ground out. “I swear to you, Lorelia will pay for what she’s done.”
“No, Reaver,” came a chorus of voices he knew too well. “It is you who will pay for what you’ve done.”
Suddenly, he wasn’t standing in Underworld General’s triage tent anymore.
He was in standing atop Mount Megiddo, surrounded by archangels. And a few yards away was Harvester, her curvy body wrapped in a skin-tight ivory leather dress that revealed more flesh than he wanted anyone but him to see.
Her eyes were downcast.
And her hand was twined with Raphael’s.
The leaden press of foreboding crushed Harvester under its weight. This was going to be bad. She dug her nails into Raphael’s hand as hard as she could, hoping to inflict as much pain as possible, hoping to make him feel a small measure of what she was feeling. The dickhead just smiled and watched four archangels escort Reaver into the center of a ritual circle drawn with the blood of three camels bathed in holy water.
Harvester’s heart bled as he was forced to his knees on the hard-packed earth where so much history had been made. Tel Megiddo was not only a site important to humans but to angels as well. It was here that fallen angels could summon those in Heaven. It was here that angels were elevated to higher ranks within their orders. And it was here that punishments were carried out.
Clearly, Reaver wasn’t here to be elevated. But what kind of punishment would he be forced to endure? Raphael’s smile grew wider, and a sudden, terrifying thought came to her.
Tel Megiddo was also where executions took place.
Oh, dear God, no. “You promised you wouldn’t kill him,” she croaked. “You bastard.”
Trembling with a combination of fear and anger, she jerked away from Raphael and bolted toward Reaver, but two Enforcers, angels assigned to ensure compliance of angelic law, seized her by the arms and hauled her backward.
“Leave her alone!” Reaver exploded to his feet, but four more Enforcers brutally pinned him to the ground.
“I promised you we wouldn’t destroy him,” Raphael assured her. “But what he’s done can’t be forgiven, either.” He cupped her cheek with a gentleness that didn’t match the ominous tone in his voice. “Calm down. You’re only making things worse for him.”
You son of a bitch. She hated that he was right, hated that Reaver was going to suffer for saving her. Swallowing dryly, she put on the cool, detatched facade she’d perfected as a fallen angel and forced herself to remain still.
Raphael joined five other archangels who formed a semicircle around Reaver as he lay on the ground, arms and legs held by the Enforcers. Another Enforcer reached under him and dragged his wings out to spread wide in the dirt.
Michael rose above the others as if on an invisible pedestal.
“Reaver, known also as Yenrieth,” he began, his rich baritone carrying such power that Harvester wondered if his words were being broadcast in the heavens. “You have defied us for the last time. Because of you, Satan is demanding a hundred thousand souls in payment for our breach of contract. His forces are gathering, and an assault on Heaven is now not a matter of if, but when. We have laws for a reason, and in thousands of years, you haven’t learned to obey them.”
He produced a golden treclan stake, and Harvester slapped her hand over her mouth, cutting off the cry of alarm that coiled in her throat.
Not long ago, Gethel had driven half a dozen of those things into Harvester’s body. Every place the stakes had penetrated began to throb anew, as if her muscles remembered the agony of the stakes developed solely to hold an angel for all eternity if one wished.
Michael slammed the stake through Reaver’s hand, pinning it to the ground. Reaver’s face contorted in agony and sweat beaded on his brow, but he didn’t make a sound.
“No!” Harvester screamed. “Don’t do this!”
No one listened. She struggled against the Enforcers, sobbing as the archangels took turns driving stakes into Reaver, one in each hand, foot, thigh, and wing. Reaver never screamed, never made a single noise as his bones broke and his blood ran in rivers on the hard-baked ground.
Uriel punched a stake into Reaver’s abdomen, and Harvester’s screams hadn’t even died away before Gabriel rammed a treclan into Reaver’s chest. This time, he grunted and coughed blood, and for the first time since the horror began, he closed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Reaver,” she rasped, tears streaming down her face. She cried out as Raphael lifted the last stake high over his head and plunged it into Reaver’s throat.
Reaver gasped, bloody spittle spraying from his pale lips.
“We don’t take any pleasure from this,” Raphael said to Reaver, and Harvester called bullshit on that. The other archangels seemed either sad or indifferent, but Raphael’s glee wasn’t well concealed. “Harvester. Come here.”
The Enforcers released her, and she half ran, half tumbled toward Reaver. Gabriel caught her before she reached him.
“What are you doing?” She tried to break away, but the other archangels gathered around her, blocking her.
Raphael kneeled next to Reaver and shocked the hell out of her when he gently palmed Reaver’s cheek. “Not all is lost, Yenrieth. When one falls, another rises.” He dragged his hand through the pool of Reaver’s blood and stood to face to Harvester.
All of the archangels began to chant in a deep, hauntingly beautiful song. She felt frozen in place as Raphael came to her. He stopped a foot away.
“I wish it could be my blood that strengthened you,” he said gruffly. “But you’ve already got a blood connection with Yenrieth.”
“I don’t understand.” Anxiety wrapped around her chest and turned her lungs to cement. What were they going to do to her?
Reaching out with his bloody hand, Raphael gripped the back of her neck and joined the chanting. The world around her spun, joined by a muscle-melting peacefulness that made her sag. Several hands caught her and held her upright.
Suddenly, agony hijacked every muscle, every organ, every cell. It was as if every bone was being pulverized while still inside her body. The pain blinded her, took her breath and her voice so she couldn’t even scream. She felt her wings crumpling like wadded-up paper, and she thought she must have passed out, because the next thing she knew, the archangels were backing away, heads bowed, and the pain was gone, replaced by the purest, sweetest euphoria she’d ever known.
Blinking, trying to gain her bearings, she tensed the muscles in her back… and felt the weight of wings. New wings.
Was it possible? Had she been returned to full angel status? Afraid to look, she flared her wings and peeked with one eye.
She gasped, her heart soaring at the sight of massive, glossy blue-black wings that rose high into the sky, the tips of each feather dusted with iridescent glitter.
“Only a handful of Unfallen have been raised to Heavenly angel status,” Gabriel said. “But never before have we raised a True Fallen. We weren’t even sure it could be done.” Framing her face in his hands, he kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Welcome home, Verrine. Your service to the human and Heavenly realms has never been equaled, and you can never be thanked enough.”
Tears of unfettered elation filled her eyes, and deep in her soul an awareness she hadn’t felt in five thousand years filled her heart. The blood bond with Reaver. She could feel him in places that had been so empty for so long.
No, a demon channeling power into him while he was unconscious would trigger an angelic instinct to fight. He was lucky his body had accepted Seminus healing energy in the first place. Most angels couldn’t be healed by demons. “Where’s Harvester? What happened?”
“She sent for us to bring you here,” Reseph said. “You almost died.”
Thanatos moved closer to the bed, his accusing gaze cutting deep. “Why did you go to Sheoul to save her? Lorelia and Revenant claimed she was a spy.” He clenched his fists at his sides, as if wishing Harvester’s neck was between them. “But that’s bullshit. She plotted with Pestilence to start the Apocalypse and murder my son.”
Reseph turned a little green at the mention of Pestilence, while Ares folded his arms across his chest, watching with assessing eyes. Of all the Horsemen, he was the one who could be the most level-headed and would likely approve of everything Harvester did over the centuries for the sake of victory. But he was also the one who would be the least understanding of what Reaver had done, because Reaver had done it out of emotion, not logic.
The bed creaked as Reaver sat up, and oh, look at that. He was na**d. He snatched a bed sheet and covered his lap while Eidolon dug a set of scrubs from out of a cabinet.
“Harvester didn’t plot to do any of that,” Reaver said. “Your Watchers are right. She volunteered to fall from Heaven in order to watch over all of you.”
“The hell she did.” Thanatos’s anger was accompanied by a whoosh of souls escaping his armor to writhe at his feet. Their desire to kill in order to be free of his armor forever had them stretching the limits of their invisible tethers.
Eidolon tossed Reaver the blue scrubs before turning to Than. “Put the souls away, Horseman.”
Normally, Thanatos wouldn’t be cowed by any demon, but Eidolon had proved himself time and time again, and he’d delivered Than’s son. The scorpion tattoo on his neck writhed, its tail stabbing at his jugular a few times before he got hold of his temper, but finally, the souls melted into his armor again.
“It’s true,” Reaver insisted. “She’s been looking out for you since you were infants. When she fell, she worked her way to becoming Watcher and spent her time secretly manipulating events. When Reseph’s Seal broke, she pretended to help Pestilence, but everything she did was to help stop the Apocalypse.”
Ares frowned. “But it was she who made sure The Aegis sent Regan to seduce Thanatos. She knew the baby was the key to breaking Thanatos’s Seal.”
Thanatos growled at that, and the souls made an appearance again. This time Eidolon just shot him a dirty look and the souls disappeared.
“She also knew the baby was the one and only person who could stop the Apocalypse,” Reaver insisted. “It was a risk, but she had faith you’d find a way to end the Apocalypse and save your son.”
“But she tortured you. And I…” Anguish darkened Reseph’s expression. “She… and I…”
“Hey,” Reaver said softly. “We’ve been through this.” He shoved his legs into the scrubs and moved to Reseph, who had gone pale at the memory of what he’d done to both Harvester and Reaver. “You weren’t you, and she didn’t have a choice. Raphael ordered her to do it. And trust me, she could have hurt me far worse than she did.” He pulled on the scrub top. “I’m not asking you to understand. Not yet. But I am asking you to give her a chance.”
“She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” Reseph asked.
“More than you know.” More than even he knew, he suspected. He had a feeling they’d uncover a lot more layers of their relationship if he ever recovered all his memories. “Now, where is she?” Ares and Thanatos both shot Reseph a questioning glance, and Reaver’s blood pressure bottomed out. “Where?”
“I left her with Raphael,” Reseph muttered.
Raphael? Shit. What had he done with her? He looked around for his boots, found them near the door.
“E, did Tavin make it back?” He hoped so. The poor Sem had gone through hell while in… hell. And Reaver had managed to f**k him up even more.
“He’s fine. Except for the snake issue. I don’t suppose you can shed some light on that?”
“Not really.” Reaver jammed his feet into his boots and bent to tie them. “I don’t know what it is. I’ll see what I can find out.”
Eidolon nodded. “I’ve got Idess on it, and I’ve got someone else I can consult with.”
Relieved, Reaver straightened. If Eidolon was on it, Tav was in good hands. “I need to go.” He started toward the tent exit but stopped before he got there. “Where’s Limos?”
More exchanged glances. “She’s home.” Ares’s tone dripped with rare emotion, and Reaver’s gut clenched as he remembered what Revenant had said about an accident.
Thanatos’s gaze was stricken, his pause ominous. “She lost the baby.”
“She didn’t lose it,” Ares growled. “The child was destroyed.”
Reaver’s heart skidded to a smoking halt and raw, grinding grief carved deep into his chest. Oh, Limos, I’m so sorry. His throat constricted into a tube so narrow every breath was like a searing whip of air.
“How?” he croaked.
Thanatos let loose a tirade of curses in several ancient languages. “Our new Heavenly Watcher lost her shit. The bitch took us all down. She even killed one of Ares’s hellhounds.” He inhaled a ragged breath. “The baby didn’t survive. We’ve been scouring the globe for Lorelia, but it looks like she’s hiding behind archangel skirts.”
Rabid fury and ice-hot hatred shot through Reaver with an intensity he hadn’t felt since learning Verrine had kept the secret of his children from him. Harvester was missing, was probably being held by the archangels until they decided what to do with her, and the Watcher who had been assigned to watch over Limos had hurt her and killed Reaver’s grandchild.
“I have to go,” Reaver ground out. “I swear to you, Lorelia will pay for what she’s done.”
“No, Reaver,” came a chorus of voices he knew too well. “It is you who will pay for what you’ve done.”
Suddenly, he wasn’t standing in Underworld General’s triage tent anymore.
He was in standing atop Mount Megiddo, surrounded by archangels. And a few yards away was Harvester, her curvy body wrapped in a skin-tight ivory leather dress that revealed more flesh than he wanted anyone but him to see.
Her eyes were downcast.
And her hand was twined with Raphael’s.
The leaden press of foreboding crushed Harvester under its weight. This was going to be bad. She dug her nails into Raphael’s hand as hard as she could, hoping to inflict as much pain as possible, hoping to make him feel a small measure of what she was feeling. The dickhead just smiled and watched four archangels escort Reaver into the center of a ritual circle drawn with the blood of three camels bathed in holy water.
Harvester’s heart bled as he was forced to his knees on the hard-packed earth where so much history had been made. Tel Megiddo was not only a site important to humans but to angels as well. It was here that fallen angels could summon those in Heaven. It was here that angels were elevated to higher ranks within their orders. And it was here that punishments were carried out.
Clearly, Reaver wasn’t here to be elevated. But what kind of punishment would he be forced to endure? Raphael’s smile grew wider, and a sudden, terrifying thought came to her.
Tel Megiddo was also where executions took place.
Oh, dear God, no. “You promised you wouldn’t kill him,” she croaked. “You bastard.”
Trembling with a combination of fear and anger, she jerked away from Raphael and bolted toward Reaver, but two Enforcers, angels assigned to ensure compliance of angelic law, seized her by the arms and hauled her backward.
“Leave her alone!” Reaver exploded to his feet, but four more Enforcers brutally pinned him to the ground.
“I promised you we wouldn’t destroy him,” Raphael assured her. “But what he’s done can’t be forgiven, either.” He cupped her cheek with a gentleness that didn’t match the ominous tone in his voice. “Calm down. You’re only making things worse for him.”
You son of a bitch. She hated that he was right, hated that Reaver was going to suffer for saving her. Swallowing dryly, she put on the cool, detatched facade she’d perfected as a fallen angel and forced herself to remain still.
Raphael joined five other archangels who formed a semicircle around Reaver as he lay on the ground, arms and legs held by the Enforcers. Another Enforcer reached under him and dragged his wings out to spread wide in the dirt.
Michael rose above the others as if on an invisible pedestal.
“Reaver, known also as Yenrieth,” he began, his rich baritone carrying such power that Harvester wondered if his words were being broadcast in the heavens. “You have defied us for the last time. Because of you, Satan is demanding a hundred thousand souls in payment for our breach of contract. His forces are gathering, and an assault on Heaven is now not a matter of if, but when. We have laws for a reason, and in thousands of years, you haven’t learned to obey them.”
He produced a golden treclan stake, and Harvester slapped her hand over her mouth, cutting off the cry of alarm that coiled in her throat.
Not long ago, Gethel had driven half a dozen of those things into Harvester’s body. Every place the stakes had penetrated began to throb anew, as if her muscles remembered the agony of the stakes developed solely to hold an angel for all eternity if one wished.
Michael slammed the stake through Reaver’s hand, pinning it to the ground. Reaver’s face contorted in agony and sweat beaded on his brow, but he didn’t make a sound.
“No!” Harvester screamed. “Don’t do this!”
No one listened. She struggled against the Enforcers, sobbing as the archangels took turns driving stakes into Reaver, one in each hand, foot, thigh, and wing. Reaver never screamed, never made a single noise as his bones broke and his blood ran in rivers on the hard-baked ground.
Uriel punched a stake into Reaver’s abdomen, and Harvester’s screams hadn’t even died away before Gabriel rammed a treclan into Reaver’s chest. This time, he grunted and coughed blood, and for the first time since the horror began, he closed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Reaver,” she rasped, tears streaming down her face. She cried out as Raphael lifted the last stake high over his head and plunged it into Reaver’s throat.
Reaver gasped, bloody spittle spraying from his pale lips.
“We don’t take any pleasure from this,” Raphael said to Reaver, and Harvester called bullshit on that. The other archangels seemed either sad or indifferent, but Raphael’s glee wasn’t well concealed. “Harvester. Come here.”
The Enforcers released her, and she half ran, half tumbled toward Reaver. Gabriel caught her before she reached him.
“What are you doing?” She tried to break away, but the other archangels gathered around her, blocking her.
Raphael kneeled next to Reaver and shocked the hell out of her when he gently palmed Reaver’s cheek. “Not all is lost, Yenrieth. When one falls, another rises.” He dragged his hand through the pool of Reaver’s blood and stood to face to Harvester.
All of the archangels began to chant in a deep, hauntingly beautiful song. She felt frozen in place as Raphael came to her. He stopped a foot away.
“I wish it could be my blood that strengthened you,” he said gruffly. “But you’ve already got a blood connection with Yenrieth.”
“I don’t understand.” Anxiety wrapped around her chest and turned her lungs to cement. What were they going to do to her?
Reaching out with his bloody hand, Raphael gripped the back of her neck and joined the chanting. The world around her spun, joined by a muscle-melting peacefulness that made her sag. Several hands caught her and held her upright.
Suddenly, agony hijacked every muscle, every organ, every cell. It was as if every bone was being pulverized while still inside her body. The pain blinded her, took her breath and her voice so she couldn’t even scream. She felt her wings crumpling like wadded-up paper, and she thought she must have passed out, because the next thing she knew, the archangels were backing away, heads bowed, and the pain was gone, replaced by the purest, sweetest euphoria she’d ever known.
Blinking, trying to gain her bearings, she tensed the muscles in her back… and felt the weight of wings. New wings.
Was it possible? Had she been returned to full angel status? Afraid to look, she flared her wings and peeked with one eye.
She gasped, her heart soaring at the sight of massive, glossy blue-black wings that rose high into the sky, the tips of each feather dusted with iridescent glitter.
“Only a handful of Unfallen have been raised to Heavenly angel status,” Gabriel said. “But never before have we raised a True Fallen. We weren’t even sure it could be done.” Framing her face in his hands, he kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Welcome home, Verrine. Your service to the human and Heavenly realms has never been equaled, and you can never be thanked enough.”
Tears of unfettered elation filled her eyes, and deep in her soul an awareness she hadn’t felt in five thousand years filled her heart. The blood bond with Reaver. She could feel him in places that had been so empty for so long.
