Revenant(103)

“You fell for me?” One side of his mouth ruffled in a cocky smile.

“How can you not know that,” she whispered.

Dipping his head, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her sweetly. Reverently. “Thank you. I’ve lived more in the last week than I lived in my entire life. You are a butterfly, Blaspheme. Your beauty transforms everything around you.”

He stepped back, and panic seized her. “No.” She reached for him, but he sidestepped and nodded to someone behind her. Too late she realized what was happening. Eidolon’s strong arms folded around her, caging her against his broad chest and rendering her unable to get to Revenant no matter how hard she struggled. “No!” she screamed. “Don’t do this.”

For a torturous, fleeting second, she swore she saw tears in Revenant’s eyes. And then he was gone. She stared at the empty air where Revenant had once stood, and when her brain caught up with her eyes, she collapsed against Eidolon and sobbed.

Sobbed until there was nothing left.





Revenant was still reeling from his good-bye with Blaspheme when he flashed to Gethel’s residence. By some miracle, Blaspheme had fallen for him, which made leaving her even worse. Especially because he’d fallen for her, too, and the very real possibility that he might not ever see her again made his heart clench.

It also made him angry. He’d lived five thousand years alone, and he’d finally found the female who brought out the angel inside him he hadn’t known existed… and Satan was going to take that away from him.

Anger fueled every step he took in search of Satan’s vile baby mama. He found her in her lush bedroom, wrapped in furs and studying herself in front of the mirror.

“Do you think I’m fat?” Gethel asked, peering at her side profile.

“As a cow.”

“Asshole.” She wheeled around with impressive speed, given that she was as big as a cow. A pregnant cow. “Did you bring that doctor bitch again?”

Gods, he was going to love taking her down. “I brought something better.”

Her pale eyes lit up. “What is it?”

“An archangel.”

With the way she flushed and began to pant, he thought she was going to orgasm right then and there. “Who?”

“Raphael. Do you know him?”

Her lips curled back from sharp, pointy teeth. “I despise him.” She looked past him, as if Raphael were standing in the doorway. “Where is he?”

“I had to leave him in the Temple of Gog. See?” In the center of the room, he cast a 3-D image of Raphael, bound and unconscious, next to the statue of Gog that sat along the temple’s back wall. Proof was always a good thing when you were going for deception. “Live angels can’t enter Satan’s territories. I figured I’d let you have a shot at him before I slaughter him and hand his head over to the Dark Lord.”

“Take me,” she said. “I want to feed on his haughty archangel blood.”

So predictable. “I can’t do that. Satan cast a spell on this place so no one can kidnap you.”

“I can leave of my own free will,” she said. “I’ll go myself. You’ll accompany me as protection.”

Her command made him grind his teeth, but accompanying her had been the plan all along. “Take my hand,” he said. “Temple of Gog.”

Grinning, she flashed them to the temple, fashioned from ancient Roman buildings to worship some of the earliest and most powerful demons to exist in Sheoul. As they materialized, Reaver lunged from where he’d been concealed behind a pillar and clamped a Tal around her throat. The glass cuff, made by angels to render fallen angels helpless, shaped itself into an invisible collar, squeezing hard enough to allow only wisps of air to pass through her windpipe.

Best of all, as her eyes bulged and she grasped at the Tal, she couldn’t speak.

“Where’s Raphael?” Rev asked, and Reaver gestured to a shadowed corner, where the archangel lay, unconscious, on his back. “Did you have any trouble?”

Reaver yanked Gethel toward Raphael. “Nope.”

Suddenly, Gethel’s face went exorcist, morphing into something horrible, and the thing in her belly began to push against her skin as if it wanted out.

“Shit,” Reaver snapped. “We need to hurry. Lucifer is strong even in her womb. If he were to be born now…”

He didn’t have to finish. The coming battle was going to be impossible to win as it was. Throwing in Lucifer, whose power was predicted to eclipse the power he’d wielded in his past life, was going to ensure that neither Revenant nor Reaver survived this. And Revenant had no doubt that once Lucifer was grown, he’d make everyone Reaver and Rev loved pay as well.