The thought sucked the air right out of his lungs. It had popped into his head as easily and inexplicably as his question to her about loving someone. Being in Sheoul must be getting to him.
“Irrelevant,” she said. “You don’t love me, so that’s not why you did this.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“And I have a simple answer. Fuck off.” Harvester even offered him a helpful visual aid in the form of a hand gesture.
He flopped onto his back and stared up at the craggy ceiling. “If you keep saying that, you’ll forget how to talk like a polite person.” Something whacked him in the head. “Ow.” He sat up and glared at the stone wobbling next to him. “What was that for?”
“For fun.” She scooped up his backpack. “Are we leaving or what? I’m tired of waiting for Calder.”
Despite his curiosity, he welcomed the change of subject from past loves, because he definitely didn’t want to get into why he’d rescued her again. He wanted to tell her that he was the angel Yenrieth, to explain that the Horsemen were his children and he was grateful for what she’d done, but now wasn’t the time. He had a lot of questions about his past and who he’d been as Yenrieth, and until he broke down the massive wall around her, he couldn’t expect any real answers. If anything, giving her important information like that would hand her a huge advantage over him, and that was something he couldn’t risk. She was far too unpredictible and, likely, unstable after months in Satan’s dungeon.
Of course, Reaver thought she’d been unstable before her own father imprisoned her.
“We don’t know where Calder went.” He gestured to the far side of the cavern, where two different tunnels meant two different possibilities. “We could guess, but if we choose wrong, we’ll lose him.”
They couldn’t afford another loss. Reaver hadn’t known Matt well, but he hoped the guy was okay. Tavin, though… Reaver was going to steep in guilt until he got confirmation that the Sem had made it to Underworld General.
Harvester hadn’t moved.
“Harvester?”
She still didn’t move. In fact, he thought she might be shaking.
“Harvester,” he prompted, more urgently this time.
Her gaze flipped up to his. “We have to find him, Reaver.”
She licked her lips, and he caught a glimpse of her fangs, longer than usual, and he felt like a dolt. She needed to feed, and they were out of time.
He shot for a tone that wasn’t dripping with sympathy—she’d hate that—or that wasn’t overflowing with impatience. “You can feed from me.”
“No.” She backed up, crying out when she bumped her wing anchors into a stalactite that hung so low it nearly touched the ground. When she spoke again, her voice was laced with pain. “I might lose control. And it’s against Heavenly law for you to willingly give your blood for food.”
The control thing was an issue for sure, but since when did she care about Heavenly law? “As you’ve pointed out before, I tend to bend rules.”
“Bend? You wouldn’t be bending a rule. You’d be breaking it over the ass of an archangel.”
The visual almost made him laugh. “Don’t worry about that.” After what he’d done, what was one more broken law?
“I’m trying,” she said tightly, “to not make things worse for you with the archangels.”
He actually did laugh at that, even as he appreciated her concern. “I hit the height of worst when I rescued you.”
Her chin came up, and he braced himself for a mulish conversation. “I’m not feeding from you.”
He wasn’t worried about a broken rule that no one would find out about anyway. His concern was that drinking his blood could, potentially, drain his powers as it replenished hers. He could scarcely afford to lose any strength, and he wasn’t sure how much he could trust Harvester if she was significantly stronger than he was.
“Why are you being so obstinate? A year ago, you’d have jumped at the chance to suck me dry.”
“A year ago, I was pretending to be an evil bitch.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what I am!” she shouted. “I used to know, and now I don’t, and it’s all your fault.”
Ah, damn. For so long after he’d lost his memory, he’d wandered aimlessly, not knowing who he’d been and unclear on who he was, other than an angel who had been given the boot from Heaven for saving the life of a human child who had been fated to die.
So yeah, he’d been directionless, but at least he’d been able to start life with a clean slate. Harvester didn’t have that. In her case, she’d spent the majority of her life in the service of Sheoul. She might have fallen from Heaven on purpose, but she’d truly become a fallen angel. Was she going to be able to re-adjust?
One thing was certain. Offering to help her was only going to send her into retreat mode, and arguing with her would do the same. All he could do was give her space, something he was so not good at. So screw it.
“You’re a fallen angel, Harvester,” he said. “But you aren’t evil.” Hopefully. “That means you can be whatever you want.” He moved toward her, noted the way her breaths came faster as he drew nearer. “But you can only be what you want if you survive. Which means you need to feed from me. No more bullshit. Do it or give me a damned good reason why you can’t.”
“Fuck off.”
“There you go,” he growled. “Run to your standard answer when you don’t have a real response.”
“You don’t understand, you fool,” she yelled. “Is your halo squeezing your skull so tightly that your brain can’t get blood? Feeding from you will fuck me up. I did it once. I fed from an angel, and it made me do… horrible things. I killed the angel, Reaver. I couldn’t stop, and I killed him.”
Crushing sadness at the angel’s death… and at Harvester’s obvious regret, sat like a lump in Reaver’s belly. But they had no choice, and he couldn’t let up on her now.
“You won’t kill me. I won’t let you.”
He backed her against a boulder, and she yelped again when she banged her wing achors against the stone. She must be in so much pain, but even now she was schooling her expression as if she hadn’t made a sound. He spared her his pity and tapped his throat.
“Now, bite me.”
Her eyes locked onto his neck and the force of her hunger crashed over him like a tidal wave. This time, she wasn’t going to refuse. A sudden stab of unease pierced his chest, even though he knew they needed for this to happen or they weren’t going to survive.
Then again, if she fell into a sinister haze of bloodlust while he was powerless, drained by her feeding, she might just revisit the time when she’d tortured him. When she’d done her evil best to get him addicted to marrow wine.
Maybe they should wait a little longer for Calder—
As fast as a croix viper, she struck, sinking her fangs deep into his vein.
And then the world shifted under his feet.
Eleven
Eidolon was having a great day. Which was notable, because ever since Pestilence had come through the hospital like a rabid tornado and killed half his staff and destroyed a fuck-ton of equipment, most days were shit.
Underworld General had been understaffed for months, and he’d had to do an emergency hire of untrained people in order to keep the hospital operating at the most basic levels. He was paying to have several ter’taceo—demons who passed as humans—attend EMT, nursing, and medical schools, but obviously that took time. Time he didn’t have.
What was getting the hospital through in the meantime was the hiring of demon species who already possessed healing abilities as part of their breed makeup. Which meant he’d hired dozens of Seminus demons.
It hadn’t been easy—Sems were rare, even for incubi. But thanks to Sin’s prior relationship to Tavin when she’d been his assassin master, Eidolon had been able to bring several of his brothers on board.
Things were finally getting better. He was even getting ready to
expand his medical practice by building an urgent-care clinic that would be connected to Underworld General via an internal Harrowgate. He’d chosen his in-laws, Gem and Conall, as well as a False Angel named Blaspheme to run the place.
Eidolon finished stitching up a Mamu who had split his head open while attacking an elderly human male. Eidolon had no idea if the human had survived, and he didn’t ask. His job wasn’t to judge. Usually. He’d been raised by Justice demons, so judging had been trained into him at an early age, and every once in a while he couldn’t help but deliver a little hospital justice. Like using stitches instead of his much less painful healing power. Or operating without anesthesia.
Little things. Little things that gave him an immense feeling of satisfaction.
“Keep the area clean,” he told the Mamu. It was pointless to talk about cleanliness with a demon who thrived in filth, but some habits were hard to break. “You’ll need to make an appointment to have the stitches removed.”
The Mamu hissed, his black lips peeling back from pitted, pointy little teeth. “Appointments. Fuck appointments. I can do it myself.”
“That’s your choice.” Eidolon stripped off his gloves and trashed them. “See the front desk about payment.” He got out of there before the Mamu bitched about that, too.
“E!” Blaspheme’s voice called out from the other side of the emergency bay.
He jogged over to one of the exam rooms, where Blas and a red-haired Sem named Forge were working on a Sem lying on a table.
“Handing this one off to you.” Blaspheme shoved a clipboard at him. “I’ve got a pregnant Sora in exam one I need to prep for delivery.” She gestured to the Seminus demon patient. “He asked for you.”
She swept out of the room in a blur of golden hair and purple scrubs. He moved to the patient and was shocked to see Tavin lying on the table.
“Holy hell, Tav.” The guy had been minced, but Forge’s healing ability was sealing up wounds nearly as quickly as Eidolon could do it. “What the fuck happened? Where’s Reaver?”
“Screw Reaver,” Tav muttered. “He did this to me.”
Eidolon blinked. He didn’t get struck dumb often, but he couldn’t see Reaver turning on someone like this. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
Tavin sat up, fighting Forge when the other Sem tried to hold him down. “This,” he said, yanking down the collar of his shirt.
Eidolon peered closely at the glyph. “I thought you had a worm—”
“I did.” Tavin cursed. “Reaver healed me. It did something… I don’t know what. But when it was done, I had this viper that fucking bites.”
Eidolon brushed his finger over the snake and yanked his hand back when it struck. “That’s interesting.”
“Interesting?” Tavin flopped back down on the exam table. “Maybe you’ll find it interesting how, when I sliced into a demon and got blood on my hand, the damned viper latched onto my throat and injected me with shit that made me go crazy. I went into some sort of berserker mode. Nearly killed myself without even knowing it. I tried to… hurt… Harvester, too. Would have, if Reaver hadn’t stopped me.”
It sounded almost as if Tavin had entered s’genesis, the final stage of a Seminus demon’s maturation, when they turned into monsters who cared only about sex. And they would take it in any way they had to, which often meant trickery and violence.
Eidolon frowned. “You said this happened when you killed a demon?”
At Tavin’s nod, Eidolon strode to the door and shouted at a nurse to fetch Idess, another in-law. As an ex-angel of sorts, she was the closest thing to an expert on an angel-powered… whatever-it-was plaguing Tavin.
While he waited, he helped Forge heal Tavin, who spent the entire time bitching about angels. Eidolon said a silent thanks when Idess showed up, her chestnut hair secured in a long, tight ponytail by a series of gold metal bands.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Eidolon pointed to Tavin’s symbol. “Do you recognize that?”
Narrowing her honey-colored eyes, Idess leaned in close. But not close enough to get bitten, he noticed. “That looks like a patron cobra.”
“A what?” Eidolon and Tavin asked in unison.
She inhaled a deep breath. “It’s a symbol angels used to brand people requesting protection from demons. But this makes no sense. Not only is it slightly altered—this snake has fangs—the symbol hasn’t been used in thousands of years.” She frowned down at Tavin. “How did it get there? Only an angel could do this.”
“Reaver did it.”
She blinked. “Reaver?” She looked as baffled as Eidolon felt. “Why would he do that? The patron cobra can’t be used on demons.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Tavin said. “His powers are all fucked up.”
“Oh.” Idess’s expression went slack. “Oh.”
“Oh, what?” Tavin croaked. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Neither did Eidolon.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that instead of protecting you, it’s fighting you. See, if the symbol is cast on a human, it gives the bearer strength and focus and the ability to fight demons with extra skill. The snake also comes alive and fights the enemy. But because you’re a demon, it’s battling you, too.”
Tavin closed his eyes. “That’s great. That’s just fan-fucking-tastic.” When he opened his eyes again, they’d gone gold with anger. “So you’re saying that every time I fight a demon, this is going to happen?”
“I can’t say for sure,” she said, “but I’d guess that’s the case. It might attack you randomly, as well.”
“Found that out already.” Tavin uttered a juicy Sheoulic curse. “I have decades left on my assassin contract. This… this is not good.”
Red lights flashing on the wall indicated that an ambulance was arriving with a critical patient, and Eidolon’s adrenaline spiked. He loved a good emergency.
“I gotta go,” he said to Tavin. “I’ll work on this, see if we can come up with a way to reverse it.” He glanced at Idess. “Can you look into it as well?”
“You bet.” She smiled reassuringly at Tavin, but the look she gave Eidolon was the exact opposite. Basically, poor Tav was screwed.
Reaver, what have you done?
Reaver, what have you done?
Plugging into Reaver’s vein was like plugging into an electric socket. Harvester had fed from an angel before, but to her relief, this was different. Better. Way better.
No longer worried about turning into a heinous beast, she drew deeply, greedily.
Hot blood splashed into her mouth, a silken cascade of the most coveted substance in the underworld. It was as if Harvester had bitten into a live wire while orgasming. Wetness flooded her sex as blissful effervescence flowed through her veins and ecstasy sizzled over the surface of her skin.
Clinging tightly to Reaver’s shoulders and clamping him firmly between her thighs, she swallowed, her pulse growing stronger with every pull on his vein. She’d only ever experienced this once before.
With Yenrieth.
This was what sex between angels felt like. This was what Neethul marrow wine was created to imitate. Harvester used to guzzle the stuff like iced tea on a steamy day in the Styx river basin. Now she realized that marrow wine was a massively pathetic substitute for the real thing.
This was sensual. Decadent. Literally divine.
If Heaven could be summed up as a flavor, it would be Reaver’s blood. She needed more.
“Easy, sweetheart.” Reaver’s husky voice rumbled through her, adding another layer of euphoria to her senses. “You can take more later. I’m not going anywhere.”
You promise? The question popped into her head as if it were a natural thing to ask. Whatever. She’d be horrified later. Right now, all that mattered was how Reaver’s lifeblood made her feel. How he made her feel.
He’d broken another huge rule for her, and he’d done it so easily, as if he weren’t committing a wing-severing offense. The
knowledge laid her out, gutted her emotionally.
And it made her so hot she wanted to rip his clothes off with her teeth. Moaning at the thought, she rocked against him, letting her sex roll back and forth over his erection. She thought she heard him moan, too, and was his breathing as frantic as hers?
“Hey, Harvester.” Reaver stroked her back as he spoke, breathless and hoarse. “You need to stop now.”
No stopping. Her entire body vibrated at a frequency that threatened to blow her apart in a dark, seething storm of ecstasy…
Dark… seething… no, that didn’t seem right. Her angel-blood-addled brain couldn’t focus anymore. Reaver’s Heavenly light and power was infusing her, making her strong. Warping into darkness and evil and—
“Harvester.” Reaver’s voice, more urgent, rolled through her. “Stop.”
His hands, which had been caressing her back and running through her hair, were suddenly on her shoulders in a biting, painful grip. Growling, she doubled her efforts to take his blood. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she should stop, but she crushed the thought with coldhearted ruthlessness.
She was a fallen angel, after all. Evil. Satan’s daughter.
Suddenly, Reaver tore away from her. Blood sprayed from his torn throat, calling to her like a juicy hamburger called to a starving man. She dove for him, but he wheeled out of the way.
“You… I remember—holy shit.” He stared at her like she was both a stranger and an old enemy as he slapped his hand over the wound in his neck. “Something’s wrong with you.”
Something was wrong with her? She laughed, and even to her own ears it was a sinister sound.
“Nothing’s wrong with me, angel.” Her voice was warped. Guttural. Demonic surround sound. “It’s you. You’re glowing. You’re an angel in hell, and now everyone is going to know it.”
Twelve
Metatron barreled through the halls of the Archangel complex, his heart racing, his powers skating on the surface of his skin. Screams reverberated off the walls and pillars, and under his feet, tremors rocked the ground.