Reaver(33)

“Tell me, Harvester, how did you perform Heavenly good deeds for five thousand years and not get caught?”

She laughed, but he failed to see what was so funny. “Easy. I didn’t perform any good deeds. I fell from Heaven in order to gain a position as the Horsemen’s Watcher and derail the Daemonica’s Apocalypse if and when the time came.” She dug her nails into his chest, and he swore she purred when he felt a twinge of pain. “If something wasn’t related in some way to the Apocalypse, I ignored it. It would look pretty suspicious if I ran around rescuing kittens and defending humans from demons now, wouldn’t it?” She writhed, struggling to escape his hold. “Release me.”

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you want.”

“I don’t want your help.”

So damned stubborn. “You might not want my help, but you need it.” He shifted his weight and eased to the side, giving her some room so she wouldn’t feel trapped. “We need to work together to get out of here alive. You know that, right?”

She sprang away from him like a frightened rabbit and settled on her haunches a few feet away. “Of course I know that.” He thought her face was a shade paler than it had been a moment ago. “I just don’t like it. And I don’t trust you. I don’t understand why you would risk so much to rescue someone you hate.”

Because you watched over my children. Remembering why he was here erased all his animosity. She was difficult, volatile, and infuriating as hell, but he owed her a million times over, and so did every human and angel in existence. But could he risk telling her the truth? If what Raphael said about her hating Yenrieth was true, she’d blow a gasket if she found out Reaver was the very angel she detested.

Maybe he should test the waters a little.

“Wouldn’t you rescue someone you hated if they saved all mankind and prevented an apocalypse that would have killed countless angels?” he asked.

“No.”

“Not even if that someone was Yenrieth?”

She hissed, baring her fangs, and he knew Raphael hadn’t jacked him around on how she felt about Yenrieth.

“Especially not him.” Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “Why would you even bring him up to me?”

“You gave up your wings to take care of his kids. He must have meant something to you, even if you hate him now.”

“He did mean something to me, but that was in the past. Now I would rather see him rot for all eternity than save his miserable soul,” she growled, and he wondered what he’d done to her to make her hate him that much. “So shut up about him and tell me why you did this. You’re not an angel of justice. You’re a battle angel.”

“So I can’t want to make sure someone who does a great service is rewarded for their actions?”

“Oh, I think you absolutely want that,” she said. “But it’s not your priority. You were bred for war, so it’s in your nature to write off people as collateral damage if their lives are sacrificed for the greater good. If the archangels didn’t want you to come, then they’re well aware that the greater good will be served by my being tortured for all eternity.” She stood in a fluid, lithe movement that drew his appreciative gaze. “So why would you, a battle angel who should consider me a casualty of war and an acceptable loss, risk starting a war to save someone you hate?”

“You aren’t an acceptable loss, and I don’t hate you,” he said, surprising even himself with his honesty. But that didn’t mean he liked her. His feelings for her were as complicated as the history between Heaven and hell.

Her snort of derision set his teeth on edge. “Even if you loved me, I wouldn’t understand why you saved me.”

“Have you ever loved someone?” he blurted out, and whoa, that came out of left field.

But suddenly, he wanted to know the answer. He couldn’t imagine her in a relationship, and he was beginning to wonder how prickly she’d been even as an angel. Who in their right mind would put up with her?

As Yenrieth, I must have.

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?”