Reaver(48)

I’ve fucked demons who were less disgusting than you.

Pain lanced her, as fresh and raw as the day he’d said those words to her.

“What a bastard,” Reaver growled, taking her nonresponse as a yes. “After what he did, why would you have been willing to fall? Why would you have given up everything for a jerk like him?”

“I told you,” she said quietly, “you didn’t know him. He wasn’t always like that.” They were almost to the village boundary. The forest beyond would provide some cover and escape routes. “And I made a promise. Pathetic as I was, I loved him in spite of everything. He came to my rescue so many times when I got in over my head with demons. And he always brought me my favorite rare irises to cheer me up. And once, when I caught him mourning a child he was too late to save from a demon, he told me that every child who died on his watch took a piece of his soul. I think I fell for him that day.”

She inhaled a shaky breath. “He loved children… and I should have told him about his own sooner. If I had, maybe he could have saved them before the curse was cast upon them.”

She’d waited until they were adults for their own protection, but by then Yenrieth had forgotten about his vendetta against Lilith, and he’d also seemed to have lost a lot of his powers. Harvester had kept putting off telling him out of fear that he’d go crazy again, and this time, he’d truly end up dead. She shouldn’t have allowed her fear to rule her head. How many people had paid horrible prices because of her actions?

She searched Reaver’s face for judgment, but his expression was blank. Scarily blank. “So what it comes down to is that I kept my oath to watch over his children, and I volunteered to become a spy. After I was cast into Sheoul, I never saw him again. I don’t even remember what he looks like.” The tears she’d been trying so hard not to shed stung her eyes. “Reaver? How can I remember every cutting word he said, every warm touch of his fingers, and not remember what he looks like?”





Fifteen





Reaver’s stomach rolled. He was responsible for what Harvester had become. As Yenrieth, he’d been a real piece of work, hadn’t he?

And how messed up was it that he hoped Yenrieth had gone through centuries of hell for what he’d done to Verrine. But screw it, aside from the brief memories that had come to him in the caverns Reaver didn’t remember anything, and to him, Yenrieth was a stranger. Hell, Yenrieth was a stranger to everyone except Harvester.

But why? What had Yenrieth done to deserve such an extensive memory wipe? If what he’d done was that bad, why had he not been simply cast from Heaven and straight into Sheoul?

“I’m sorry, Harvester,” he murmured.

“I didn’t tell you any of that to get your pity,” she said sharply, but the bite was dulled by the hitch in her voice. “I told you because you rescued me, and you deserve to know why I did what I did. But it was a long time ago. I’m over it.”

Clearly. He kept his opinion to himself, however. Being kind to Harvester always ended badly.

The howl of a hellhound rose up, followed by another… and another. The carrion wisps began a frantic squirrelesque chatter.

Up ahead, dark shapes began to take form as they crept out of the forest shadows. The telltale outline of buffalo-sized hellhounds grew into fully realized forms that shot toward the village like giant, furry bullets.

Crimson eyes zeroed in on Reaver and Harvester.

“I don’t think they’re here to hunt carrion wisps,” Harvester whispered.

Reaver cursed. He didn’t have enough power to slow a single hellhound let alone an entire pack.

“I have an idea,” he said, keeping his gaze on the rapidly approaching predators. “Do you have enough power to put up a shield between us and them?”

“Yes, but it’ll be good for only a moment.”

“Do it. Stay behind me and don’t say anything.”

Her eyes flashed with temper. “Excuse me?”

“Do you want to be eaten or dragged back to Satan… or both? No? Then shut up and get behind me.” Yeah, he was going to pay for that later, but for now, she glared daggers and obeyed.

The hellhounds came at them, their long strides eating up the distance. Reaver squared his stance and waited as Harvester cast an invisible shield between them and the hellhounds. The first wave of beasts hit the shield and bounced off like rubber balls on a window.

The shield collapsed and before the animals could recover, he grabbed the leader around its thick neck and wrenched it to the ground. He sank his fingers into the hellhound’s fur at the base of its skull and used the last of his power to project images of the hellhounds that protected the Horsemen’s families, followed by an image of their queen of sorts, Ares’s mate, Cara.