“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 sexual 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 h*ps 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 h*ps 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.
Except that it wouldn’t happen again.
Harvester clung to him as if she heard his thoughts, her nails digging into his back. Stiffening, she clenched around him and let out a keening cry of sheer pleasure. Her core rippled along his c**k as she came, and he was done for.
The orgasm tore him in two. He threw his head back and roared her name, engulfed in an churning maelstrom of ecstasy that went on and on. Harvester came again, arching her spine so violently that she tipped backward, her upper body hanging perilously forty feet above the ground. Panicked even though he knew the fall wouldn’t kill her, he gripped her thighs tight as her wings shot out, leaving her supported on a raft of air. He hissed with pleasure, the crazy position forcing him so deep inside her that he swore he felt her soul.
“Mine,” he moaned. Another release gathered, his come boiling in his shaft as his balls pulsed, filling her again. “You’ve always been mine.”
Harvester panted through yet another cl**ax, and this time when she finished, she sagged in his arms and let him haul her back up onto the castle wall.
“Oh, Reaver,” she whispered against his chest. “Our lives have been so f**ked up.”
“I’m sorry for everything I did to you as Yenrieth,” he murmured into her hair.
“But will you still be sorry if you remember?” She pulled back, creating distance between them he wasn’t ready for yet. “You’re okay with what you remember so far, but you’re still missing so much. What happens if you remember more to hate me for?”
“Is there more?”
“No.” Her lips flattened into a thin, grim line. “But with all the blanks filled in, maybe it’ll change how you feel.”
“I don’t see that happening, but if it does, we’ll work through it.” Shit, now she’d gotten him to talk as if they had a future together.
A wave of doubt came off her, and it occurred to him that even if he’d found a way for them to be together, she’d never fully trust him. Not until he got his memories back and dealt with what he and Verrine had gone through.
But none of that mattered, and reluctantly, he withdrew from Harvester’s warm body.
“Reaver?” She jerked her skirt down and watched him with growing alarm. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “I’m still working on a way for us to be together.”
“You need to hurry. I have to go to Raphael in a few hours.”
“I know.” He cupped her cheek, committing her soft skin to memory. “I know I have no right to ask you this, especially after everything you’ve done for me already.” He inhaled her scent, memorizing that, as well. “But if anything happens to me, I need you to promise to take care of the Horsemen.”
“Of course.” She frowned. “You know I will.”
“And Limos’s baby.”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, they were liquid with unshed tears. “I swear to you, I’ll make sure she gets her baby back. But I will hate Raphael forever.”
“That,” he said, “I can deal with.”
The idea that she’d hate Raphael made the fact that she was going to have to have sex with him tolerable. Okay, not tolerable. Not even close. The mere thought made him want to rip the archangel’s head off and shove it up a Gerunti demon’s slimy ass.
Because the reality was that after Limos’s child was restored to her, Harvester wouldn’t be off the hook with Raphael. There was no way the bastard was going to sit idly by and let her get away. He’d gone to extremes to get her. Without Reaver’s life to hold over her head, he’d find another way, and Harvester would once again be blackmailed into being with him.
Damn, but he hoped she’d make his life a living hell.
Abruptly, shame washed over him. In the fantasyland of his head, the prospect of her hating Raphael forever was awesome. But Harvester deserved better. She deserved to be happy and to be in love. He’d rather she grew to love Raphael—the f**king bastard—than live for eternity with someone she hated.
And wasn’t that just magnanimous as all hell, he thought sourly.
“Why are you asking me this?” Harvester rubbed her face against his palm. “Nothing is going to happen to you. We know Raphael won’t kill you—”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to let you go, and you know it. He’ll blackmail you with something else, and you’ll be forced to accept his offer.”
“I’ll find a way out of it,” she swore. “I won’t stop looking for a way to be free of him.”
“You’ll have to give your word, Verrine,” Reaver said, reminding her of who she was, who she’d always been. “You aren’t one to break an oath, and I’d rather see you with him than suffering with a broken promise. It would eat you alive, and you’d grow to resent me.”
But would she resent him even if he wasn’t around? Because he was going to the Dome of the Rock as scheduled. It just wasn’t going to be Raphael who he offered up as a sacrifice.
“Reaver—”
“Shh.” He silenced her with a kiss. A kiss he hoped conveyed every soul-deep ounce of his love and respect for her. A kiss good-bye. “I have one last favor to ask,” he murmured against her velvet lips.
“Anything,” she breathed.
“Go to the Watcher Council.” He held her body firmly against his as he stroked the creamy skin of her neck, wishing they could stay like this forever. “Find out what you can about Lorelia’s punishment. The Horsemen deserve to know what’s going on. She might even be able to tell you if there’s a way to restore Limos’s baby without Raphael.”
It was a bullshit favor, designed to get Harvester out of the way so he could do what he had to do without her interference. Because he had no doubt that if she knew about his plan, if she even suspected, she’d try to stop him. And if she enlisted the Horsemen’s help to do it, everything Reaver was trying to avoid—death, destruction, and misery—would come to pass.
“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 sexual 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 h*ps 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 h*ps 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.
Except that it wouldn’t happen again.
Harvester clung to him as if she heard his thoughts, her nails digging into his back. Stiffening, she clenched around him and let out a keening cry of sheer pleasure. Her core rippled along his c**k as she came, and he was done for.
The orgasm tore him in two. He threw his head back and roared her name, engulfed in an churning maelstrom of ecstasy that went on and on. Harvester came again, arching her spine so violently that she tipped backward, her upper body hanging perilously forty feet above the ground. Panicked even though he knew the fall wouldn’t kill her, he gripped her thighs tight as her wings shot out, leaving her supported on a raft of air. He hissed with pleasure, the crazy position forcing him so deep inside her that he swore he felt her soul.
“Mine,” he moaned. Another release gathered, his come boiling in his shaft as his balls pulsed, filling her again. “You’ve always been mine.”
Harvester panted through yet another cl**ax, and this time when she finished, she sagged in his arms and let him haul her back up onto the castle wall.
“Oh, Reaver,” she whispered against his chest. “Our lives have been so f**ked up.”
“I’m sorry for everything I did to you as Yenrieth,” he murmured into her hair.
“But will you still be sorry if you remember?” She pulled back, creating distance between them he wasn’t ready for yet. “You’re okay with what you remember so far, but you’re still missing so much. What happens if you remember more to hate me for?”
“Is there more?”
“No.” Her lips flattened into a thin, grim line. “But with all the blanks filled in, maybe it’ll change how you feel.”
“I don’t see that happening, but if it does, we’ll work through it.” Shit, now she’d gotten him to talk as if they had a future together.
A wave of doubt came off her, and it occurred to him that even if he’d found a way for them to be together, she’d never fully trust him. Not until he got his memories back and dealt with what he and Verrine had gone through.
But none of that mattered, and reluctantly, he withdrew from Harvester’s warm body.
“Reaver?” She jerked her skirt down and watched him with growing alarm. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “I’m still working on a way for us to be together.”
“You need to hurry. I have to go to Raphael in a few hours.”
“I know.” He cupped her cheek, committing her soft skin to memory. “I know I have no right to ask you this, especially after everything you’ve done for me already.” He inhaled her scent, memorizing that, as well. “But if anything happens to me, I need you to promise to take care of the Horsemen.”
“Of course.” She frowned. “You know I will.”
“And Limos’s baby.”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, they were liquid with unshed tears. “I swear to you, I’ll make sure she gets her baby back. But I will hate Raphael forever.”
“That,” he said, “I can deal with.”
The idea that she’d hate Raphael made the fact that she was going to have to have sex with him tolerable. Okay, not tolerable. Not even close. The mere thought made him want to rip the archangel’s head off and shove it up a Gerunti demon’s slimy ass.
Because the reality was that after Limos’s child was restored to her, Harvester wouldn’t be off the hook with Raphael. There was no way the bastard was going to sit idly by and let her get away. He’d gone to extremes to get her. Without Reaver’s life to hold over her head, he’d find another way, and Harvester would once again be blackmailed into being with him.
Damn, but he hoped she’d make his life a living hell.
Abruptly, shame washed over him. In the fantasyland of his head, the prospect of her hating Raphael forever was awesome. But Harvester deserved better. She deserved to be happy and to be in love. He’d rather she grew to love Raphael—the f**king bastard—than live for eternity with someone she hated.
And wasn’t that just magnanimous as all hell, he thought sourly.
“Why are you asking me this?” Harvester rubbed her face against his palm. “Nothing is going to happen to you. We know Raphael won’t kill you—”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to let you go, and you know it. He’ll blackmail you with something else, and you’ll be forced to accept his offer.”
“I’ll find a way out of it,” she swore. “I won’t stop looking for a way to be free of him.”
“You’ll have to give your word, Verrine,” Reaver said, reminding her of who she was, who she’d always been. “You aren’t one to break an oath, and I’d rather see you with him than suffering with a broken promise. It would eat you alive, and you’d grow to resent me.”
But would she resent him even if he wasn’t around? Because he was going to the Dome of the Rock as scheduled. It just wasn’t going to be Raphael who he offered up as a sacrifice.
“Reaver—”
“Shh.” He silenced her with a kiss. A kiss he hoped conveyed every soul-deep ounce of his love and respect for her. A kiss good-bye. “I have one last favor to ask,” he murmured against her velvet lips.
“Anything,” she breathed.
“Go to the Watcher Council.” He held her body firmly against his as he stroked the creamy skin of her neck, wishing they could stay like this forever. “Find out what you can about Lorelia’s punishment. The Horsemen deserve to know what’s going on. She might even be able to tell you if there’s a way to restore Limos’s baby without Raphael.”
It was a bullshit favor, designed to get Harvester out of the way so he could do what he had to do without her interference. Because he had no doubt that if she knew about his plan, if she even suspected, she’d try to stop him. And if she enlisted the Horsemen’s help to do it, everything Reaver was trying to avoid—death, destruction, and misery—would come to pass.
