“Trust me,” Limos said softly. “This is for the best.”
Limos and her horse disappeared, leaving Jillian terrified, confused, and so alone it hurt.
Twenty
Reaver had been prepared to see Reseph in a state of shock, but when Ares brought him back to Greece, slung over his shoulder, Reaver hadn’t been prepared for all the blood.
“What happened? Did he fight you?”
“No.” Ares’s voice was gruff as he strode toward the bedroom they’d prepared. “He went a couple of rounds with a tree. Tree won.”
“Damn,” Reaver whispered. Reseph had done the same thing in Sheoul… thrown himself against a wall over and over, as if he could beat the demon out of himself.
“He seemed to remember everything once he saw us. I used the last of the qeres on him,” Ares said. “When this wears off, we’ll have no way to neutralize him.”
Reaver followed Ares to a guest room, where he set Reseph on the bed. “Summon Harvester,” Reaver said. “She has a particular talent when it comes to restraints.” Reaver knew that firsthand, and the memory made his bones ache.
“Nothing can hold us,” Ares said, as he grabbed a towel from the connected bathroom. “You know that.”
“Harvester’s restraints are made from the victim’s own bones, chains grown out of the skin and attached like part of the body. He can break free, but doing so would be so excruciating that he’ll think twice. He might stay put just to avoid the agony.” Then again, Reseph might welcome the misery.
“Interesting.” Ares wiped Reseph’s face more gently than Reaver would have expected. “Sounds like you know something about this.”
“Too well.” He regarded Reseph, a dull ache throbbing in his gut at the sight of the once happy, carefree male looking so tortured, even while unconscious. “How did he seem before he remembered?”
“He was happy,” Ares murmured. “He seemed like his old self.”
“Maybe he’ll be able to remember that through the rest.”
“I hope you’re right.” Ares whistled, and a hellhound came from out of nowhere. Reaver moved aside, giving the beast plenty of room. They might be lapdogs around Ares and Cara, but they were the same vicious, people-eating demons they’d always been to everyone else, and they especially hated angels. In fact, the buffalo-sized creature snarled at Reaver as he passed, and it took a huge amount of restraint to not strike out at the thing with a punishing heavenly weapon.
Cara would kill Reaver for that, and the look Ares gave Reaver said he knew exactly what Reaver was thinking.
“I’m behaving,” Reaver muttered. “As long as Rin Tin Tin minds his manners, we’ll be fine.”
“His name is Eddie.”
Reaver rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you name them.” He gestured to the thing, which was eyeing Reseph like he wanted to dismember him. Understandable, given how Pestilence had put a bounty on their heads. “Pestilence was immune to hellhound venom. Reseph might be as well.”
“I know. But Eddie can warn us when Reseph wakes up.”
Reaver wasn’t so sure that leaving a pissed-off hellhound with a helpless enemy was a good idea, but Ares didn’t have the same concern, and he strode out of the bedroom without a word. Reaver sighed and accompanied Ares to the great room, where a clearly worried Cara was holding a squirming toddler Ramreel demon.
“I don’t like having him here, Ares,” she said.
“We discussed this.” Ares’s voice softened as he pulled her against him. “We can’t take him to Than’s place because of the baby, and we don’t want him at Limos’s house in such close proximity to Arik. Until we know he’s got nothing left of Pestilence in him, we can’t risk him being anywhere but here.”
If Harvester hadn’t smashed Reseph’s mountain cave in retaliation for Pestilence’s violence against her last year, it would have been a perfect place to keep him. She’d screwed them with her angry actions, but Reaver couldn’t blame her.
“Where are Limos and Thanatos?”
Ares stroked the baby Ramreel’s furry back. “I don’t know. I left them with the human female.”
“Her name is Jillian,” Reaver said.
Ares’s head whipped around. “You know her? Another secret you were keeping from us?”
“I have no obligation to explain myself, Ares. We’ve been through this. She suffered a demon attack. I thought they could heal each other.”
“Forgive me if I don’t want him healed,” Cara snapped, pulling away from Ares. “I want him dead.” She stormed out of the house with the little demon, and Reaver couldn’t fault her.
Ares cursed and went after her, opening the door just as Harvester strode in, looking like a damned high-class hooker. She was dressed in leather, including a skimpy bra top. At least she had on a long duster. Maybe she should button it up, though.
Her lips, painted as black as her outfit, quirked in a wicked smile. “Hello, lover.”
“I’m not your lover,” he ground out.
“Not yet.” Every long-legged stride popped her leather miniskirted hips out in exaggerated supermodel style. High-heeled thigh-high boots cracked on the marble floor. Toned bare flesh flexed between the top of the boots and the bottom of the obscenely short skirt, and Reaver cursed the slow curl of lust that stirred his insides. “But you will be.”
“Do you have any idea how badly I want to strangle you?”
She flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “You’re into asphyxiation play? Nice.” She jerked her thumb toward the door. “Why did Ares summon me?”
Voices outside carried; Thanatos and Limos had arrived and appeared to be trying to calm Cara. Reaver wished them luck.
“We have Reseph,” he told Harvester.
Instantly, her entire demeanor changed, her posture stiffening, her eyes going icy. “Where?”
“In one of the bedrooms. We were hoping you could use your fun bone-chains to restrain him.”
“Gladly.”
He was about to tell her to cool it, that this was Reseph, not Pestilence, when he heard a howl followed by a bloodcurdling scream and a series of crashes.
He and Harvester ran to Reseph’s bedroom, where they were greeted by the sight of destroyed furniture. The hellhound was unharmed, standing in the corner with his hackles raised, baring his teeth at Reseph, who had clearly hurled himself around the room. Now he was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, and rocking, the heels of his palms pressed into his eyes. Every once in a while he threw his head back into the wall hard enough to put cracks in the plaster and, likely, his skull.
Next to Reaver, Harvester began to shake, her rage billowing off her in a cloud that scorched his skin. Reseph, as if sensing their presence, slowly lifted his head. For a long moment, he stared as if confused, and then horror flooded his expression.
“Harvester… oh, Jesus, I… I’m sorry, oh, fuckohfuckohfuck—”
In a flurry of motion and wings she was on top of Reseph, screaming, her fists pounding his face. Reseph did nothing to protect himself.
“You fucking bastard! You piece of shit son of a bitch!” Her words fell like weapons, sharp, nonstop, just like her fists. Blood sprayed the walls, her face, and dripped from her hands.
“Harvester!” Reaver hauled her, kicking and screaming, off Reseph.
“Let me go! I’ll kill him.” Snarling, she bit Reaver’s hand, and she nearly slipped out of his grasp before he was able to drag her from the room.
“What’s going on?” Thanatos and Limos ran toward them, swords drawn.
“Nothing.” Reaver jerked his head back to avoid a blow from Harvester’s fist. “Check on Reseph.”
The two Horsemen darted into the bedroom while Reaver struggled to get Harvester out of the house. Once they were outside, he released her, expecting her to make another dash inside. Instead, she dropped to her knees and screamed, a sound so full of pain that Reaver felt it as a physical manifestation, as if his wings were wet and weighing him down. Worse,
he had no idea what to do.
Had this been anyone else, he’d gather them in his arms and simply hold them. But this was Harvester, and she wouldn’t welcome comfort. Still, he moved closer. It didn’t matter that she was evil and that he hated her. Pestilence had abused her, and while Reaver wasn’t certain of everything that had happened, he could guess.
“I hate him.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving trails in the blood smeared across her face. “I hate him so much.”
Warily, Reaver crouched as close as he thought he could risk before she could strike out in defense, either physically or verbally. She didn’t tolerate kindness well.
“This is Reseph,” he said reminded her. “Not Pestilence.”
“I don’t care!” she screamed. “I want him strung up on hooks and peeled. I want him castrated and raped and tortured for the next century.”
“Listen to me, Harvester.” He kept his voice low, soothing, although it didn’t seem to be doing much good. “You’re his Watcher. You can hate him, but you can’t arrange for him to be harmed. Get yourself together or you’ll be pulled from duty. Is that what you want?”
“Isn’t that what you want?” she snapped. “How nice for you to be rid of me.”
“You might not be my favorite person in the world, but I’d rather deal with you than a replacement.” A replacement who might be worse.
“Better the enemy you know, right?” Harvester smiled. Just a little, but it was better than the snarls.
“Right.”
She met his gaze, and he inhaled sharply, knocked off balance by the naked emotion in her eyes. He’d seen vulnerability in her before, most notably when he’d found her being tortured by Gethel, and now, when she’d been crying. But this was different. This wasn’t pain. It was… gratitude? Affection? What the hell was it?
An uncomfortable stirring skated around inside his chest as they locked gazes and the island around them fell away. In the background, he heard the waves crashing on the beach, but it felt as though they were crashing into him. He was being buffeted by the oddest feelings of tenderness.
He cleared his throat of its sudden dryness. “Look, ah, if you can’t help with Reseph right now, everyone will understand—”
Harvester exploded to her feet. The anger returned to her expression, only this time it was directed at Reaver. That was what he got for being kind to a dark-hearted fallen angel, he supposed.
“Understand? I don’t need understanding from the likes of you. What do you take me for? A weakling victim? Fuck you and the air current you rode in on.” With that, she stormed back inside the manor, leaving Reaver trying to recover from whiplash.
What he didn’t think he’d recover from were the feelings she’d ignited in him. Oh, he hadn’t fallen in love with her or some crap. What he’d felt had seemed more like an echo, as if he and Harvester had shared a moment of affection before.
He racked his memory, wondering if the time he’d spent as her prisoner, his brain soaked in addictive marrow wine, had anything to do with the déjà vu. Nothing specific came to mind, but then he’d been delirious most of the time.
Still, that had to be it. Because no way had he ever liked her. And even if he had, it wouldn’t matter. Because someday, somehow, he was going to kill her.
Twenty-one
Hell was neverending pain. It was a fog the color of blood. It was a set of sharp claws that ripped into the brain and shredded it like pulled pork. With every dig of the claws came a new memory, and with each new memory, Reseph screamed.
Sometimes the claws stopped digging; instead they recycled memories he’d already been through but that were juicy enough to relive over and over, bringing nonstop regret and the pain that went with it.
The things he’d done as Pestilence clanged around inside his skull in a maddeningly loud screech, filling his vision so completely that only rarely did he see his surroundings or his siblings when they came. Reseph wasn’t even sure why they came. Limos tried to clean him up with wet, warm cloths, and Ares tried to get him to eat, but Reseph didn’t deserve any of it. He did, however, deserve the knockout punch he’d gotten from Arik before Limos dragged the human away.
He also didn’t understand why he was here. Thanatos had killed him, so how was it that he was alive?
Then there were the other memories, the ones he wasn’t sure were real.
Jillian.
He blinked, slowly becoming aware that he was lying in a fetal position on the floor. He never knew where he’d find himself when he came to or how broken his body would be. And he wasn’t sure if the periods of lucidity were better than the periods of driving memories that took him out of the present. At least when he was being tortured by the memories of what he’d done, he didn’t have to come face to face with the people he’d done them to.
He’d tried to apologize to them, but after Harvester’s beating and Arik’s punch to the face, not to mention Thanatos’s scorching glares of pure hatred, Reseph had given up. “I’m sorry” was beyond lame, an insult, even, given the gravity of his sins.
And Jillian… had those days spent with her, making love and being at peace, been a figment of his imagination? A dream that made the nightmares seem all the worse? Maybe his conscience was playing tricks on him, because the days with Jillian might well be a dream, but she was real.
“Kill me,” he whispered through a throat that was raw from his screams. “Someone… kill me.”
But there was no one around to hear. Even Harvester, who delighted in his agony, had left after fitting him with restraints. He didn’t care about the shackles. He wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Besides, sometimes he jerked on the chains just to feel the soul-deep knifing agony that shot through his bones.
How long had it been since she’d chained him, anyway? He remembered a couple of nights, a couple of dawns.
Suffer, you bastard. Suffer as no one has suffered before, she’d whispered, before licking at a trail of blood that ran from his face to his ear. If you care at all, you should know that you aren’t free of Pestilence. Only a sliver of evil could turn you back into him. Oh, not in an apocalyptic sense, but you could revert back to the disgusting creature you were if evil taps into the demon half that was awakened when your Seal broke. You think you’re miserable now? Turn back into Pestilence and watch your brothers and sister hunt you into the ground.
Harvester’s words rang in his ears over and over as he fell back into the pit of memories, so soaked in horror.
“End me,” he whispered.
But no one heard.
Twenty-two
Limos stood in Ares’s great room for the sixth day in a row, biting her lime-colored nails and staring down the hallway toward Reseph’s bedroom, where his screams had grown louder over the last hour. They should peak soon, and then he’d fall into a period of soft whimpers as he rocked himself back and forth, staring blankly into space.
“He’s not getting any better.” She turned to her brothers, husband, and Kynan. “We can’t let him suffer like this.”
Ares closed his eyes for a second, face tilted to the ceiling. “No one wants Reseph to suffer, Limos.”
“Really? You could have fooled me. Thanatos stares daggers at him every time we go in the room.”
Than, who was pacing the length of the great room, paused. “It’s not that I want him suffering. It’s that I can’t get what he’s done out of my head.”
“But that’s not Pestilence in there,” Limos insisted. “It’s Reseph. We need to do something to help him.”
“What do you suggest?” Ares asked. “He won’t listen to any of us. He won’t eat, he won’t drink, and when I tried to drag him into the shower today he just dropped to the tiles and screamed. Like he didn’t deserve to be clean. I’ve seen a lot of trauma in my life, but this is beyond anything I know how to deal with.”
Arik looked up from playing tug-of-war with Hal. “What about what you did for me? When I was all out of it after escaping from Sheoul.”
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Limos thought about that for a second. “I stimulated you.”
Arik winked. “And you did a damned fine job of it.”
“Christ,” Kynan muttered. “Get a room.”
Ares shrugged. “It can’t hurt to try something new. Limos, the woman Reseph was with… he’s been calling for her. Do you think they had something going on?”
Jillian’s devastation had definitely been real. “I didn’t talk to her for long, but if I had to guess, I’d say they had some sort of relationship. Which, for Reseph, would be a first.”
“Bring her here.” Ares spoke as if he was a general giving a soldier orders, but for once, Limos didn’t call him on it or take it personally. Deep down, he was as worried about Reseph as she was. “The human may be the only person who can help him right now.”
“I’m on it.” She just hoped that Jillian would want to come.
Finding out that the male you had been sleeping with was not only half demon, but that he had almost brought about the End of Days wouldn’t be a selling point.
“You might want to hurry.” Reaver’s voice came from out of nowhere. Limos spun to where he stood near the fireplace, his sapphire eyes bright with concern.
“Why? What is it?”
“I’ve just come from the Watcher Council. Their fear that Pestilence will return is urgent.”
Ares strode forward, a lock of his reddish-brown hair falling over his eyes. “You said exposure to evil could do that. We’re keeping him isolated.”
“That’s good, but in the state he’s in, his mind is weakened. This same thing would have happened if I’d left him in Sheoul-gra.” Reaver sounded a little relieved that what he’d done had actually been the right choice. “His mind is full of cracks that Pestilence could slip through. He needs to heal, and it needs to happen now. Even then, he’s going to spend his entire life fighting to keep Pestilence at bay.”
Thanatos cursed. “Then we’re screwed. Reseph has always been one to ship out when things get rough.”