Reaver(82)

“It would if you’re fallen and Reaver is—” He snapped his mouth shut so fast she heard his teeth crack.

She narrowed her gaze. “Reaver is… what?” When he waved away her question, she gave up trying to be civil. “Dammit, why are you here? If you’re going to kill me, do it already. And have the balls to do it yourself instead of hiding behind fucking darkmen.”

“Your time in Sheoul has wreaked havoc on your vocabulary.” Raphael stepped closer, a mountain of Heavenly menace. “You know why we had to send the darkmen. I didn’t want to, but you survived, you’re here now, and it’s over.”

He pressed forward, stalking her like a tiger, his gaze hungry and ruthless, and an alarm started clanging in her head. But before she could so much as think about flashing out of there, he was on her, backing her against the lone tree on the hilltop.

“What are you doing?” The quaver in her voice more than gave away her anxiety. She’d escaped one enemy just to land on the doorstep of another. She’d gone from the frying pan into the fire. From the claws of a Soulshredder into the jaws of a Gargantua.

She was racking up the clichés for trouble.

One hand slammed into the tree above her head, and the other gripped her shoulder in a bruising hold. Even at full strength, with all the power inherent to a fallen angel of her rank and genetics, she couldn’t escape him.

“I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago.” The archangel’s eyes flamed hot. There was no warning, no slow buildup. He slanted his mouth over hers.

Startled, Harvester went taut as Raphael pressed his big body against hers and savaged her mouth in a demanding, brutal kiss. Under normal circumstances, her response would be swift and lusty. But these weren’t normal circumstances by any means.

And Raphael was no Reaver.

Wedging her hands between them, she palmed his chest and shoved, breaking the kiss. “Don’t do this.”

“I am doing this. I’m claiming you.” He was so arrogant, so sure she’d fall under his spell.

She shoved him again, but he didn’t budge. “No one claims me.”

Except that wasn’t entirely true, was it? When she and Reaver had been in the Boregate, what he’d done to her had felt like a possession, and God help her, she thought maybe that was okay.

“You’re mine, Verrine.” Raphael’s voice throbbed with authority, the kind that made even high-ranking angels cower before him. “You should have been mine thousands of years ago, but you gave everything up for that loser Yenrieth.”

She inhaled sharply, a vicious stab of realization piercing her gut. “That’s why you didn’t want me to fall, isn’t it,” she said hoarsely. “It had nothing to do with the fact that you thought it was a crazy idea. You didn’t want me to go because you wanted me for yourself.”

How could she have been so blind? Raphael had been a rakish novice archangel at the time she and Yenrieth were in their training, and he’d made himself available to keep her company when Yenrieth was off either hunting minor demons or looking for a female with a warm bed.

“He’ll never be faithful to you,” Raphael had said. “It’s not in his nature. Battle angels were bred to fight and breed more warriors. They’re soldiers. Dumb muscle. You need someone with brains, someone who can stand by your side for life and never look at another female.”

Like an idiot, she’d been too naive to recognize Raphael’s attempts to lure her into his own bed.

“Yes,” Raphael said. “I wanted you.” His smile was very cat-and-mouse, and she was the mouse. “And now I have you.”

“You don’t have me.” She tried to slip out from under him, but he blocked her with his body and tightened his grip on her shoulder. The sensation of being trapped left her struggling to breathe normally.

“But why now?” she asked, her mind racing to make sense of this. “It’s been almost five thousand years. You didn’t get over me in that much time?” Not that she had a lot of room to talk, given that she’d carried a torch for Yenrieth for just as long.

“Time runs differently in Heaven. You know that. It feels like yesterday, not centuries.”

He had a point. But she wasn’t going to acknowledge it. “You didn’t want me to be rescued. You wanted me to rot in Satan’s torture chambers. How can you claim to want me if you didn’t care that I was going to suffer and die?”

“I did care,” he said fiercely. “But leaving you there was for the greater good.”

“Funny how the greater good doesn’t feel so good when you’re the one with the hot poker in your bowels.”