Reaver(14)

She was far more comfortable with hate.

The male stopped and smoothed his finger over the shell of her ear. The telltale tingle of healing energy entered her body and, as if the world had suddenly gone from peaceful night to daytime in the city, sounds flooded her ears. In the distance, there were shrieks and barking noises. Somewhere close by, the distinct rattling of crispy tree leaves in the breeze joined the male’s labored breathing.

“Tell me,” she rasped, “your name.”

“It’s me,” he murmured in a voice that filled her with disbelief. Dread. Relief. Emotions that didn’t mix well. Like fear and gratitude. Love and hate. “It’s me. It’s Reaver.”





Five





“R-Reaver?”

Reaver held Harvester’s frail body tight against his as he navigated the final steps of a winding ledge that dropped them into a world of weird. “It’s me. It’s okay. We’re safe.”

Relatively safe, anyway. Relative meaning that they weren’t dead. Yet. He just hoped the same could be said for Tavin, Matt, and Calder. When he’d left them to sneak into Satan’s realm, they’d been engaged in a battle they’d initiated as a diversion. It had been a risky move, and Reaver could only pray they’d make it to the rendezvous point.

A hunter’s horn sounded in the distance and was answered by another, closer horn signal. Satan’s minions hadn’t gained ground, but they were spreading out. Damn.

He scanned the landscape of thorny plants, hills of blackened earth and trees, and twisted, abandoned structures. Nothing moved.

He looked down at Harvester, and as before when he first saw her hanging over a pit of acid, he felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t like Harvester even though he was grateful for the things she’d done, but she didn’t deserve this; her naked body too thin and mottled with bruises and ligature marks, her once silken black hair tangled and dull, and worst of all, missing her gorgeous green eyes.

Under ideal circumstances, an angel could heal from even the most heinous injuries within hours. But these were far from ideal circumstances, and Harvester’s source of power, her wings, had been severed. Without wings or medical assistance, it could take weeks, even months, for an angel’s body to fully heal.

“I can’t risk healing you more than I did,” he said. “My power isn’t reliable right now, and I could do more harm than good.”

“Reaver,” she croaked, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Why… how…”

“Shh.” He tucked her face into his chest, quieting her. “We’re going to meet up with some friends, and then I’ll answer all your questions.”

Reaver and the assassins had worked out a plan A and a plan B. Plan A had been shot to hell when iron gates had prevented Reaver from getting out of Satan’s realm to the south, where his companions would have been waiting. Now, with demons in pursuit, they were on their way to plan B. Hopefully Tav, Matt, and Calder had realized quickly that Reaver’s escape route had gone bad.

Inhaling the stench of rotten vegetation that permeated this section of Sheoul, he started away from the skeletons of some burned-out buildings and toward a mountain range as expansive as the Rockies. He moved swiftly, outrunning the sounds of pursuit and pausing once to blast a group of imps with a ball of lightning. The sphere struck the leader, and from there sent electrical strikes at each of the surrounding imps, frying them all in a handy eight-for-one.

Harvester slept in his arms, barely stirring when he stopped to listen for anyone following them. By the time they neared the plan B meeting site, Reaver was sure they’d lost the demons—temporarily. Reaver wasn’t naive enough to think they were off the hook. The demons chasing them were only the first wave, the security detail unlucky enough to be guarding the dungeon Harvester was kept in.

Once Satan got wind of this, if he hadn’t already, Reaver and Harvester were going to have legions of minions on their heels.

A trail carved into sheer canyon walls dropped them into a narrow valley, where he found Tavin near a dense copse of twenty-foot-high larva-nettle bushes that bit like snakes. Worse, the bastards implanted their larva into the victim, and anyone unlucky enough to play host to the spiny larva died a week later when branches started popping out of their bodies.

Wisely, Tavin had positioned himself several feet away.

“Dude.” Tav stepped out from behind a gnarled tree trunk, his crossbow up and ready to nail anything that moved. “I can’t believe you fucking did it. Man, when all hell broke loose from inside Satan’s realm, I figured you were a goner.”