Reaver(47)

“You knew? All this time you knew I was a father, and you didn’t tell me? I trusted you. I’ve trusted you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “At first, I didn’t want you to get yourself killed. Then I found Lilith seducing a human. I tried to force her to tell me where the children were, but she was furious that I knew about them in the first place. She threatened to kill them if I told anyone. I had to wait until they were old enough to take care of themselves. But then Limos wreaked havoc with the boys and it all went so badly. She told you before I could.” She fell to her knees in front of him, tears streaming down her face. “It was all for you. I wanted to tell you sooner, but—”

“But what?” He seized her biceps and lifted her roughly to her feet. “You had no right, Verrine. None. I would never have betrayed you like that. This is payback, isn’t it? Payback for fucking Lilith instead of you.”

“He hated me,” she whispered. “He was so cruel.”

“What did he do?” Reaver stopped in the middle of the road as if there weren’t hundreds of demons slinking closer and closer. “Harvester? What did he do to you?”

She kept walking. It was stupid to have told him any of this. Now all that shit she’d worked so hard to bury was surfacing again, and it hurt more than anything Satan’s torture crew had done to her.

Reaver grasped her arm and swung her around, and she clenched her teeth at the stab of fire that shot through her wing anchors. “Tell me.”

“Why? Why do you give a shit what happened?” She jerked out of his grip, earning another searing blast of pain. “Are you getting off on knowing I lost the only male I’ve ever loved? That he crushed me under his boot like garbage? Is that fun for you?”

“No.” Reaver reached for her again, this time to brush his knuckles over her cheek. “I just want to know what kind of person he was. He sounds like an asshole.”

She slapped him. She slapped him before she even knew what she was doing, and when the crack of flesh on flesh echoed through the village, everything stopped. The creatures froze, and so did she and Reaver.

“Don’t say that,” she rasped. “You didn’t know him. He trusted me, and I betrayed that trust.”

“You did it to protect him.”

She barked out a bitter laugh. “Or maybe I did it to have power over him, like he said. Or maybe he was right when he told me I did it to punish him for fucking that demon bitch instead of me. I am Satan’s daughter, after all.”

“Harvester might have done that, but not Verrine.”

She snorted. “You didn’t know Verrine. How can you say that?”

“Because Verrine sacrificed herself for Yenrieth and his children. She wouldn’t have done that if she was the kind of person who would betray him out of a power trip or revenge.”

“Whatever.” Suddenly feeling the weight of the last four days without rest, she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms as she started down the road again. “Can we just drop it?”

Reaver fell in beside her. “We can’t drop it. I want to know what he did to you.”

“You really are a hellhound with a bone, aren’t you?” He didn’t reply. Not that she expected him to. “Fine. You really want to know? Yenrieth, that bastard, after he was done ripping me a new one, disappeared for months. When he finally came back, he was his normal self again.” She grimaced. “That should have been a clue.”

“How so?”

“He… pretended to want me. I still loved him, so I gave in.” She closed her eyes, trudging blindly on the bumpy road.

God, she’d been a fool. Yenrieth had found her in her quarters. There had been no talk. Yenrieth had simply blown in as if he’d belonged there, swept her up, and kissed her until she opened up like a night-blooming rose. She’d been so happy, so filled with love for him that she hadn’t even considered any possibility other than that he’d finally come around and realized they were meant to be together.

What a fucking stupid, blind twat she’d been.

“I gave him my virginity. And he…” Heat scorched her cheeks. She opened her eyes, wishing she’d done the same thing back when Yenrieth had come into her room to seduce her. But truly, would anything have changed? She’d wanted it, and like a spineless fool, she’d been weak enough to take it any way he’d give it. “I’m done with this conversation.”

Reaver ignored her. Shocking. “He used you and threw you away, didn’t he?”