Reaver(40)

At least, no one would know until he was born. Then the horse shit would hit the fan. The Horsemen had wreaked havoc upon the Earth once—badly enough that history had been erased and rewritten. The archangels had done it before, and they could do it again. The Earth and its inhabitants might suffer, and that was regrettable.

But Heaven would be safe.





Thirteen





Reaver stared at the beast Harvester had become, his mind torn between focusing on the fact that he was glowing and the fact that while she’d been latched on, connected to him in a way that seemed more intimate than anything he’d ever done, he’d remembered things about his past with her. Yenrieth’s past with Verrine. The memories had been fleeting and broken, as if they’d been whirling inside a tornado and he could catch only bits and pieces as they flew by.

Harvester stared back at him, her normally green eyes as black as the oily pools dotting the landscape around them. Black and blue veins ran like a road map of evil under her gray skin, and her lips, usually lush and as smooth as a fine merlot, had blackened and peeled back to reveal a mouth full of sharp teeth. She was taller. Larger. And two horns jutted from her skull like railroad spikes.

“We’re going to slaughter you down here, angel.” She charged him, swiping at his face with claw-tipped hands.

“Shit.” He spun, caught her from behind, and threw her to the ground.

His blood had strengthened her, but she was still no match for him. Not yet. Once she was fully healed, they’d be on even footing. He knew from experience that she was his equal in almost every way.

She popped to her feet with a hiss. “You’re going to die.”

“Verrine!” His bellow rumbled through the cave, breaking free rocks and dust that pelted them and swirled through the air. “This isn’t you. My blood did something—”

“It is me!” she screamed, and he swore the air pulsed around her. “I’m not Verrine. I’m hell’s daughter. Evil runs through my veins. You wasted what was left of your pathetic life to rescue a monster.”

“You aren’t a monster.”

“No?” She took a few steps toward him, her hips swaying in that dangerously seductive way she had that drove Reaver crazy with lust. “Want to know what’s going through my head right now? Because I guarantee you’ll change your mind.” She whirled around as Calder burst into the cavern.

“I found the way out!” Calder gave Harvester a double-take. “Damn, bitch, you’re ugly.” He gestured to the tunnel he’d emerged from. “Come on, I’ll show you. We can be in the human realm in an hour—”

Calder’s head exploded like a balloon full of strawberry jelly and cream cheese. Gore splattered on the cave walls and dripped down the stalactites to form gooey puddles on the ground.

“What the fuck?” Reaver leaped away from Harvester, whose finger and thumb pointed like a gun at the demon’s remains.

Smiling, she brought her hand up and pretended to blow smoke from her finger pistol. “Bang.”

Still stunned, Reaver choked out, “He was going to get us out of here.”

“Whatever,” she said with a shrug. “He was an asshole.”

Yes, he was. But he was an asshole they needed. “He was our ally!” he shouted.

“Ally?” Harvester laughed, a crackly, paper-thin sound. “Do you know how many good guys I’ve killed since I fell? Thousands. Humans, demons, angels.” Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, as if inhaling the scent of her victims’ misery. “I fucking loved it.” She shivered and opened her eyes.

To survive Sheoul and earn a place as Watcher, she had to do things that hardened her heart and blackened her soul.

Raphael had called it. Reaver wasn’t sure what he’d expected from Harvester post-rescue, but this wasn’t it. He’d hoped that Verrine was somewhere inside the fallen angel, and now that he had a few memories in his head, he truly couldn’t reconcile this Harvester with the angel who had, in the human realm, healed children and animals. Who had brought him manna drops after he’d been mangled in a battle with demons.

Who had kissed him.

“Damn you, Harvester,” he breathed. “Whatever is going through your head is happening because of my blood. Or my glow. It’s affecting the evil side of you, but you can fight it.”

She raked her hand through her hair, exposing more of her polished black horns. “It’s easier not to.”

“Since when has doing the right thing been easy?” He inched slowly closer, careful to keep her from feeling trapped. “It wasn’t easy to give up your wings, was it? It wasn’t easy to do the things you had to do to prove your loyalty to Satan, but you did it.”