Reaver(46)

“Did you ask him about it?”

Her belly growled, and she realized they hadn’t eaten in days. Worse, her wing anchors were throbbing reminders that she needed blood. Maybe she could feed from one of the carrion wisps, because there was no way she was taking Reaver’s vein again. That had caused way too many problems, and the idea that she might hurt him… she didn’t want to think about it.

She nodded at him… and had to force herself to not look at his throat. “He claimed he didn’t know what was going on. So… I went to Raphael.”

Reaver’s eyes widened. “Behind Yenrieth’s back?”

“That’s a little harsh,” she said, a little too self-defensively. She’d felt like she was betraying him at the time. Maybe she still did. “I was worried about him. He was on a self-destructive path that was going to land him on the wrong side of Heaven.”

“Do you think maybe he wouldn’t have gone as nuts if you’d told him he was a father instead of hiding such a critical secret from him?” Reaver’s voice dripped with accusation, as if he was the one she’d lied to.

“Fuck you, Reaver.” She punched him in the arm the way she used to do to Yenrieth when he pissed her off. “It’s easy to cast judgment when you’re five thousand years in the future and looking back on the should-haves, isn’t it?”

He cursed on an exhale, and when he spoke next, he’d managed to moderate his tone. “So what did Raphael do when you went to him?”

“He told me to keep an eye on Yenrieth, which I did, in between my Justice duties and looking for his children.”

“And you found them?”

“I found all but Limos,” she said. “I knew where she was. I just couldn’t get to her.”

Lilith had farmed out three of the four children to human parents, swapping their human infants for hers. Years later, Harvester learned that Lilith had sold the human babies to demons. For what purpose, Harvester didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know.

The fourth child, Limos, had remained with Lilith. Limos had been raised to be evil and had been betrothed to Satan as a youth. It wasn’t until Limos left Sheoul to find her brothers that Harvester had finally seen Yenrieth’s daughter for the first time.

“Raphael told me you saved Reseph’s life once. Is that true?”

“Maybe. There’s no way of knowing if he’d reached immortal maturity at that point. But yes, I took him from a burning building when he was a child. His human mother was a worthless priestess whore who left him to fend for himself for days at a time.”

Reaver’s jaw clenched, but what he’d just gotten angry about, she had no idea. He was pretty attached to the Horsemen, so maybe he didn’t like the idea that Reseph and Limos had gone through tough childhoods. Ares’s had been brutal as well, being raised as a warrior, but his parents had, at least, cared for him. Thanatos had been the lucky one, gifted with wonderful parents in a tight-knit community.

Too bad he’d gone crazy and killed most of his clan after being cursed as a Horseman. Thanatos might have had the best childhood, but he’d been given the worst curse and had suffered the most because of his actions.

The carrion wisps were closing in again, their agitation growing as the orangeish light that gave the region its extra-eerie atmosphere began to dim for nightfall. She picked up the pace as much as she felt she could.

“So,” Reaver said, his square jaw still tight, “when did Yenrieth finally learn he had three sons and a daughter?”

She shivered despite the arid heat in this horrid place. “Not until after they were cursed as Horsemen. Limos told him. I’m still not sure if she did it to be cruel or if something deep inside her really wanted a father. At the time she was still very much under the influence of her evil upbringing.”

Again with the tightness, except now it was Reaver’s entire body that had gone as taut as a Darquethothi hide bow string.

“What did he do?” Reaver’s voice was little more than a growl.

“Today’s humans might say that he went… ballistic.” The memory made her sweat, not because of the fact that he’d practically gone into orbit with rage, but because that was just the beginning. “Raphael tasked me with trying to calm him down, and it worked… until I admitted that I’d known about Lilith’s pregnancy since conception.”

Reaver’s footsteps became heavier, striking the stones under his soles with such force that the ground shook. “Was he angry with you?”

Her shiver turned into a full-body shudder. “He would have had to come down a hundred notches to be merely angry.”