The screams turned to moans. Jillian’s, his—they blended together.
“Reseph! Dammit, what’s wrong with you?” Something struck his face hard enough to snap his head back. Limos.
He grabbed her. “Get Jillian out of here,” he croaked.
“I’m not leaving.” Jillian crossed her arms over her chest and squared her shoulders, digging in for a fight. Wasn’t going to happen.
Shoving Limos aside, he dug in just as hard as Jillian. “I was there when you were attacked.” His voice was hoarse, and his heart was pounding against his rib cage so hard the bones felt like they might crack. “I ordered it.”
She shook her head. “You’re confused, Reseph. You wouldn’t have—”
“I was the man you saw standing in the shadows.”
This time, she shook her head violently. “No. That man’s eyes were red. The things I told you are getting jumbled up in your memories.”
“You didn’t tell me about how one of the Soulshredders put the tip of one claw under your left eye and let you think he was going to blind you. You begged him not to. Remember that? He was going to, but Pestilence—I—told him to do it last, because if you were blinded, you couldn’t see the things they did to you.”
Jillian lost all the color in her face. “No… you’re… I must have talked in my sleep.”
Reseph pressed on, relentless. “He dragged his claw across your face, drawing blood all the way to your ear. He tore out your earring and shoved it in your mouth.”
“Stop,” Jillian whispered. “Harvester, we need to hurry…”
Dammit, she was still set on whatever bullshit Harvester had planned. Reseph swallowed his disgust. “Do you want me to go on? Do you want me to tell you that if the demons hadn’t been interrupted, I’d have watched them—”
“Reseph!” Thanatos’s voice was harsh. “That’s enough.”
“I’m not done.” In a flash, he spun Jillian around and shoved her roughly against the wall, every cell in his body shriveling up at the devastation in her expression. “I would have f**ked you, then gutted you, then f**ked you again. You want a visual on that?” He steeled himself against the tears welling in her eyes. “Because I can get really detailed on how it would go down. Tell her, Harvester. Tell her what I did to you.”
“I said enough!” Thanatos’s furious roar accompanied a brutal slam of his fist into Reseph’s shoulder. Well-deserved pain sliced down his arm as he was yanked away from Jillian and Harvester flashed out of the room. Reseph didn’t fight. All he could do was watch Jillian flee, sobbing.
Jillian couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Blindly, she stumbled into the great room, where Harvester stood, eyes averted, her slender body trembling as hard as Jillian’s.
Cara caught Jillian’s arm and led her to the sofa, but although Jillian’s muscles had turned to rubber, her joints had frozen, and she couldn’t sit. Couldn’t do anything but stand there and choke on her own tears. That person in there, that wasn’t Reseph. That wasn’t the man she’d found in a snowdrift and nursed back to consciousness. That wasn’t the man who made her laugh, love, and feel safe.
She’d been looking at a total stranger.
“My… God.” She inhaled on a ragged sob, and finally, her knees went liquid and she sank onto the couch. Cara sat with her and handed her a tissue.
“Jillian?” Limos walked over. “Are you okay?”
Jillian rubbed her arms and tried desperately to stop crying. “The man I love was pretty much the most evil being to have ever walked the earth.”
“We told you that,” Limos said softly.
Yeah, they had. But Jillian hadn’t listened. She’d convinced herself that things hadn’t been as bad as everyone claimed. Or at least that Reseph—Pestilence—had been more of a figurehead or man behind the desk than an active participant. But he’d been right there in the front, leading the charge.
“He was there when I was attacked.” His eyes… God, his eyes. They haunted her dreams, always growing brighter with the sound of his evil laughter. “He’s the reason I was attacked.”
“It wasn’t him, Jillian.”
She knew that, but hearing him describe the things that had happened in the parking lot had been crushing. She’d known he’d been evil, but only when he’d gone into horrific detail while showing no emotion had it truly sunk in.
Jillian hugged herself, because if she didn’t she’d come apart. “You don’t sound convinced.”
Limos sank down on the arm of the couch as though her legs had given out. “Yeah. I know. Deep inside, I know Reseph wasn’t responsible for what Pestilence did.”
“But?”
“But sometimes when I look at Reseph, I don’t remember him as the brother who used to pester me to go to movies with him or who used to make us all decorate for Christmas and dress up for Halloween. I look at him and see the son of a bitch who blackmailed me, ruined my wedding day, kidnapped Cara, stole my husband’s soul, and tried to kill my baby nephew.” Limos was staring at her feet, her shoulders slumped, and it occurred to Jillian that what Limos and her brothers had gone through was far worse than anything Jillian had endured.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It must have been hard to see him change like that.”
Limos swallowed. “It felt like I’d lost a limb. And it caused a lot of problems between me and my brothers. Thanatos and Ares were always fighting, and I was keeping secrets, and all around us the world was breaking apart.” She looked up. “Do you want me to take away your memories? I can’t go all the way back to your time with Reseph at your cabin, but I can get rid of your time in Greece.”
The discussion between Limos and Thanatos on the day they’d taken Reseph away came back to Jillian. “I thought you told your husband you wouldn’t do that.”
“I think he’d understand.”
The days and nights Jillian had spent with Reseph replayed like a movie in her head, making this all so much worse. She’d been terrified to find out who he was, afraid he wouldn’t be the man she’d fallen in love with. Turned out she had been worried for a damned good reason, because what Reseph was couldn’t have been any worse.
She felt so hollow, as if her chest had been scooped out and her heart trampled. It was so tempting to take Limos up on her offer, to be rid of the pain of knowing who Reseph truly was and what he’d done. But she’d been miserable not knowing, too. The mystery of where his brothers and sister had taken him, the worry about him, had eaten her alive.
“Thank you, Limos, but no,” Jillian murmured, wondering if she’d regret this decision. “The whole thing just… sucks.”
“It does.” Limos stood. “Let me take you home.”
“No.” Jillian dashed the tears from her eyes and turned to the fallen angel. “Harvester, let’s do the ritual.”
Harvester blinked. “After what he’s done, you still want to help him? Why?”
Jillian flushed with sudden, white-hot anger. She’d been helpless in that parking lot, but this was something she could do to fight back.
“Because Pestilence is a f**king monster,” she said, “and if I can do something to keep him from coming back, I’ll do it.”
Limos took Jillian by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’re awesome.”
“Indeed.” Harvester murmured so quietly Jillian wasn’t sure she spoke at all.
They started toward the bedroom, but Jillian pulled to a sudden halt. “Wait.” She gazed out the window at the scores of demons roaming around. Demons Reseph had slept with. Demons who were waiting for him to come back. Screw that. Jillian wasn’t going to help him get his mind back just so he could walk outside and have an orgy. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Shoot.”
“Can you get rid of all those female demons outside?”
Limos grinned. “You got it. Smitey-smite-smite.”
Wondering if Limos was going to actually smite them, Jillian and Harvester went into the bedroom, where Reseph had regressed again and was bashing himself against the wall. And it was Reseph. Jillian feared she’d see Pestilence when she looked at him, but this was definitely not the evil being from the parking lot.
Harvester gestured to Reseph with a jerky wave of her hand. “Touch him.”
Jillian kneeled in front of him, taking his face in her palms. He calmed instantly, although his eyes were wild and his teeth clenched against panting breaths.
Palming both Jillian’s and Reseph’s foreheads, Harvester began to chant in a strange, guttural language. Heat spiraled through Jillian from where Harvester was touching her, and her skin tingled. An intense vibration followed, and Reseph fell to the floor, unconscious.
“What happened?” Jillian reared back, but Harvester caught her.
“It’s okay,” Harvester assured her. “We’re almost done.” She scored her palm with her fang and jammed her hand to the center of Jillian’s chest. A stinging, hot sensation dug into her skin, almost as if she were being branded.
“What,” she gasped, “what are you doing?”
Harvester pulled away. “Finishing.” For some reason, Harvester smiled, and it was an almost… sad… smile. As if she wasn’t happy about what she’d done, but knew it was for the best. “Be well,” she murmured. “Be well, and be… forgiving.”
With that, Harvester spun around and fled the room, her wings flaring out as if she couldn’t wait to take flight.
Jillian, for her part, couldn’t have fled if she’d wanted to. Her muscles turned to gel, and before she knew it she was on the floor next to Reseph, and consciousness was… nonexistent.
Twenty-six
Harvester couldn’t get out of Ares’s house fast enough. She all but ran down the hall, knocked over Ares’s servants in the great room, and slammed Reaver out of the way as she darted through the front door.
“Harvester!” Reaver’s booming voice followed her as she hit the steps off the porch. “Fallen!”
She paused as the spark required to flash out of there skimmed over her skin. “What?” she snarled. She didn’t even know why she’d answered. But, she thought, maybe it was because this would be the last time she saw him.
“What’s going on in there?” Reaver strode over and stood imperiously before her.
“I just made sure Reseph and Jillian will be taken care of.”
“Taken care of?”
“Fuck off, Reaver,” she sighed. “I’m tired of your constant needling. Just give me sixty seconds of peace. Can you do that?”
“My needling?”
A breeze spun up, bringing with it the fresh scent of the sea, the sand, the olive groves that dotted the island. It was the scent of freedom and life. She inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. She wanted to remember this forever.
“Harvester?” Reaver grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “What is wrong with you?”
She wrenched free of his grasp. “Nothing. Leave me alone. Can’t you take a hint? Or, you know, a direct command?”
Reaver stiffened at her not-so-veiled reference to his inability to follow orders, a character flaw that had gotten him booted from Heaven several years ago. “Something’s going on. Does it have to do with the Horsemen?”
“No, it has nothing to do with them.” She sniffed. “Which means you have no right to question me.”
The sapphire glints in Reaver’s eyes hardened into crystal shards. “You’ve done a lot of things to me that you had no right doing, so you might not want to go there.”
She spread her wings, letting the breeze ruffle the sensitive tips. This would be the last time she felt the wind on her skin, in her hair. This would be the last time the sun touched her body. The dark vibration she’d felt in her soul over the last couple of days grew stronger, more urgent. She had to go. Punishment was always worse if someone had to be sent to drag you back.
She inhaled again, recording all the scents to memory. Including the spice that was uniquely Reaver. She eyed him, wondering if she had time to cash in on the day of pleasure he owed her. What a perfect way to go out—with a bang.
The vibration inside her grew more insistent, as if someone had stomped on the gas pedal and the engine responsible was revving at the edge of burnout.
So much for good-bye sex.
“Take care of them, Reaver. Keep their children safe.” She wished she could have held Logan just once. Yeah, it was stupid of her to allow sentimentality to soften her now, when she needed to be tougher than ever, but it was just so unfair that the baby boy was here because of her, and she couldn’t even rock the child in her arms for a moment.
Then again, she’d accomplished everything she’d set out to do. At this point, whatever happened was out of her hands.
She sparked the energy she needed to flash herself to Sheoul, but in the split second it took to open the connection, Reaver grabbed her again.
“Stop!” He got up in her face, his jaw set in stubborn determination. He had always been magnificent in his anger. “If you tell me what’s going on—”
“What? You’ll help?” She shoved him, maybe not with as much force as she could have, but with enough that he stumbled backward. “As if I’d believe that. And even if I did, I don’t need it.”
Reaver threw up his hands. “I give up. Go be bitter somewhere else.” He spun on his heel and stalked toward the house.
“Reseph! Dammit, what’s wrong with you?” Something struck his face hard enough to snap his head back. Limos.
He grabbed her. “Get Jillian out of here,” he croaked.
“I’m not leaving.” Jillian crossed her arms over her chest and squared her shoulders, digging in for a fight. Wasn’t going to happen.
Shoving Limos aside, he dug in just as hard as Jillian. “I was there when you were attacked.” His voice was hoarse, and his heart was pounding against his rib cage so hard the bones felt like they might crack. “I ordered it.”
She shook her head. “You’re confused, Reseph. You wouldn’t have—”
“I was the man you saw standing in the shadows.”
This time, she shook her head violently. “No. That man’s eyes were red. The things I told you are getting jumbled up in your memories.”
“You didn’t tell me about how one of the Soulshredders put the tip of one claw under your left eye and let you think he was going to blind you. You begged him not to. Remember that? He was going to, but Pestilence—I—told him to do it last, because if you were blinded, you couldn’t see the things they did to you.”
Jillian lost all the color in her face. “No… you’re… I must have talked in my sleep.”
Reseph pressed on, relentless. “He dragged his claw across your face, drawing blood all the way to your ear. He tore out your earring and shoved it in your mouth.”
“Stop,” Jillian whispered. “Harvester, we need to hurry…”
Dammit, she was still set on whatever bullshit Harvester had planned. Reseph swallowed his disgust. “Do you want me to go on? Do you want me to tell you that if the demons hadn’t been interrupted, I’d have watched them—”
“Reseph!” Thanatos’s voice was harsh. “That’s enough.”
“I’m not done.” In a flash, he spun Jillian around and shoved her roughly against the wall, every cell in his body shriveling up at the devastation in her expression. “I would have f**ked you, then gutted you, then f**ked you again. You want a visual on that?” He steeled himself against the tears welling in her eyes. “Because I can get really detailed on how it would go down. Tell her, Harvester. Tell her what I did to you.”
“I said enough!” Thanatos’s furious roar accompanied a brutal slam of his fist into Reseph’s shoulder. Well-deserved pain sliced down his arm as he was yanked away from Jillian and Harvester flashed out of the room. Reseph didn’t fight. All he could do was watch Jillian flee, sobbing.
Jillian couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Blindly, she stumbled into the great room, where Harvester stood, eyes averted, her slender body trembling as hard as Jillian’s.
Cara caught Jillian’s arm and led her to the sofa, but although Jillian’s muscles had turned to rubber, her joints had frozen, and she couldn’t sit. Couldn’t do anything but stand there and choke on her own tears. That person in there, that wasn’t Reseph. That wasn’t the man she’d found in a snowdrift and nursed back to consciousness. That wasn’t the man who made her laugh, love, and feel safe.
She’d been looking at a total stranger.
“My… God.” She inhaled on a ragged sob, and finally, her knees went liquid and she sank onto the couch. Cara sat with her and handed her a tissue.
“Jillian?” Limos walked over. “Are you okay?”
Jillian rubbed her arms and tried desperately to stop crying. “The man I love was pretty much the most evil being to have ever walked the earth.”
“We told you that,” Limos said softly.
Yeah, they had. But Jillian hadn’t listened. She’d convinced herself that things hadn’t been as bad as everyone claimed. Or at least that Reseph—Pestilence—had been more of a figurehead or man behind the desk than an active participant. But he’d been right there in the front, leading the charge.
“He was there when I was attacked.” His eyes… God, his eyes. They haunted her dreams, always growing brighter with the sound of his evil laughter. “He’s the reason I was attacked.”
“It wasn’t him, Jillian.”
She knew that, but hearing him describe the things that had happened in the parking lot had been crushing. She’d known he’d been evil, but only when he’d gone into horrific detail while showing no emotion had it truly sunk in.
Jillian hugged herself, because if she didn’t she’d come apart. “You don’t sound convinced.”
Limos sank down on the arm of the couch as though her legs had given out. “Yeah. I know. Deep inside, I know Reseph wasn’t responsible for what Pestilence did.”
“But?”
“But sometimes when I look at Reseph, I don’t remember him as the brother who used to pester me to go to movies with him or who used to make us all decorate for Christmas and dress up for Halloween. I look at him and see the son of a bitch who blackmailed me, ruined my wedding day, kidnapped Cara, stole my husband’s soul, and tried to kill my baby nephew.” Limos was staring at her feet, her shoulders slumped, and it occurred to Jillian that what Limos and her brothers had gone through was far worse than anything Jillian had endured.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It must have been hard to see him change like that.”
Limos swallowed. “It felt like I’d lost a limb. And it caused a lot of problems between me and my brothers. Thanatos and Ares were always fighting, and I was keeping secrets, and all around us the world was breaking apart.” She looked up. “Do you want me to take away your memories? I can’t go all the way back to your time with Reseph at your cabin, but I can get rid of your time in Greece.”
The discussion between Limos and Thanatos on the day they’d taken Reseph away came back to Jillian. “I thought you told your husband you wouldn’t do that.”
“I think he’d understand.”
The days and nights Jillian had spent with Reseph replayed like a movie in her head, making this all so much worse. She’d been terrified to find out who he was, afraid he wouldn’t be the man she’d fallen in love with. Turned out she had been worried for a damned good reason, because what Reseph was couldn’t have been any worse.
She felt so hollow, as if her chest had been scooped out and her heart trampled. It was so tempting to take Limos up on her offer, to be rid of the pain of knowing who Reseph truly was and what he’d done. But she’d been miserable not knowing, too. The mystery of where his brothers and sister had taken him, the worry about him, had eaten her alive.
“Thank you, Limos, but no,” Jillian murmured, wondering if she’d regret this decision. “The whole thing just… sucks.”
“It does.” Limos stood. “Let me take you home.”
“No.” Jillian dashed the tears from her eyes and turned to the fallen angel. “Harvester, let’s do the ritual.”
Harvester blinked. “After what he’s done, you still want to help him? Why?”
Jillian flushed with sudden, white-hot anger. She’d been helpless in that parking lot, but this was something she could do to fight back.
“Because Pestilence is a f**king monster,” she said, “and if I can do something to keep him from coming back, I’ll do it.”
Limos took Jillian by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’re awesome.”
“Indeed.” Harvester murmured so quietly Jillian wasn’t sure she spoke at all.
They started toward the bedroom, but Jillian pulled to a sudden halt. “Wait.” She gazed out the window at the scores of demons roaming around. Demons Reseph had slept with. Demons who were waiting for him to come back. Screw that. Jillian wasn’t going to help him get his mind back just so he could walk outside and have an orgy. “Can I ask a favor?”
“Shoot.”
“Can you get rid of all those female demons outside?”
Limos grinned. “You got it. Smitey-smite-smite.”
Wondering if Limos was going to actually smite them, Jillian and Harvester went into the bedroom, where Reseph had regressed again and was bashing himself against the wall. And it was Reseph. Jillian feared she’d see Pestilence when she looked at him, but this was definitely not the evil being from the parking lot.
Harvester gestured to Reseph with a jerky wave of her hand. “Touch him.”
Jillian kneeled in front of him, taking his face in her palms. He calmed instantly, although his eyes were wild and his teeth clenched against panting breaths.
Palming both Jillian’s and Reseph’s foreheads, Harvester began to chant in a strange, guttural language. Heat spiraled through Jillian from where Harvester was touching her, and her skin tingled. An intense vibration followed, and Reseph fell to the floor, unconscious.
“What happened?” Jillian reared back, but Harvester caught her.
“It’s okay,” Harvester assured her. “We’re almost done.” She scored her palm with her fang and jammed her hand to the center of Jillian’s chest. A stinging, hot sensation dug into her skin, almost as if she were being branded.
“What,” she gasped, “what are you doing?”
Harvester pulled away. “Finishing.” For some reason, Harvester smiled, and it was an almost… sad… smile. As if she wasn’t happy about what she’d done, but knew it was for the best. “Be well,” she murmured. “Be well, and be… forgiving.”
With that, Harvester spun around and fled the room, her wings flaring out as if she couldn’t wait to take flight.
Jillian, for her part, couldn’t have fled if she’d wanted to. Her muscles turned to gel, and before she knew it she was on the floor next to Reseph, and consciousness was… nonexistent.
Twenty-six
Harvester couldn’t get out of Ares’s house fast enough. She all but ran down the hall, knocked over Ares’s servants in the great room, and slammed Reaver out of the way as she darted through the front door.
“Harvester!” Reaver’s booming voice followed her as she hit the steps off the porch. “Fallen!”
She paused as the spark required to flash out of there skimmed over her skin. “What?” she snarled. She didn’t even know why she’d answered. But, she thought, maybe it was because this would be the last time she saw him.
“What’s going on in there?” Reaver strode over and stood imperiously before her.
“I just made sure Reseph and Jillian will be taken care of.”
“Taken care of?”
“Fuck off, Reaver,” she sighed. “I’m tired of your constant needling. Just give me sixty seconds of peace. Can you do that?”
“My needling?”
A breeze spun up, bringing with it the fresh scent of the sea, the sand, the olive groves that dotted the island. It was the scent of freedom and life. She inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. She wanted to remember this forever.
“Harvester?” Reaver grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “What is wrong with you?”
She wrenched free of his grasp. “Nothing. Leave me alone. Can’t you take a hint? Or, you know, a direct command?”
Reaver stiffened at her not-so-veiled reference to his inability to follow orders, a character flaw that had gotten him booted from Heaven several years ago. “Something’s going on. Does it have to do with the Horsemen?”
“No, it has nothing to do with them.” She sniffed. “Which means you have no right to question me.”
The sapphire glints in Reaver’s eyes hardened into crystal shards. “You’ve done a lot of things to me that you had no right doing, so you might not want to go there.”
She spread her wings, letting the breeze ruffle the sensitive tips. This would be the last time she felt the wind on her skin, in her hair. This would be the last time the sun touched her body. The dark vibration she’d felt in her soul over the last couple of days grew stronger, more urgent. She had to go. Punishment was always worse if someone had to be sent to drag you back.
She inhaled again, recording all the scents to memory. Including the spice that was uniquely Reaver. She eyed him, wondering if she had time to cash in on the day of pleasure he owed her. What a perfect way to go out—with a bang.
The vibration inside her grew more insistent, as if someone had stomped on the gas pedal and the engine responsible was revving at the edge of burnout.
So much for good-bye sex.
“Take care of them, Reaver. Keep their children safe.” She wished she could have held Logan just once. Yeah, it was stupid of her to allow sentimentality to soften her now, when she needed to be tougher than ever, but it was just so unfair that the baby boy was here because of her, and she couldn’t even rock the child in her arms for a moment.
Then again, she’d accomplished everything she’d set out to do. At this point, whatever happened was out of her hands.
She sparked the energy she needed to flash herself to Sheoul, but in the split second it took to open the connection, Reaver grabbed her again.
“Stop!” He got up in her face, his jaw set in stubborn determination. He had always been magnificent in his anger. “If you tell me what’s going on—”
“What? You’ll help?” She shoved him, maybe not with as much force as she could have, but with enough that he stumbled backward. “As if I’d believe that. And even if I did, I don’t need it.”
Reaver threw up his hands. “I give up. Go be bitter somewhere else.” He spun on his heel and stalked toward the house.
