Blaspheme’s skin was still pale, but some of the color had started to return. Good. He didn’t like seeing her upset.
“And then your memory came back a couple of weeks ago?” she prompted. “How did that happen?”
“Reaver again. You sensing a pattern?” Revenant was struck by an urge to seek out his brother and start another brawl. “He rescued Harvester from Sheoul and saved the realms or some crap. For his actions he was raised to Radiant and given his memory back. And because whatever is done to one of us has to be done to the other —”
“You were turned into a Shadow Angel.”
“You got it.” He raised his glass in a begrudging toast. “To my heroic twin brother and his shiny halo.”
“But why wouldn’t you be a Radiant? I mean, you’re an angel, right?”
The liquor went down smoother this time. “Because there can only be one at any given time. There has to be a Shadow Angel for balance, and Reaver won the hero lottery while I was fed Satan’s blood as an infant. It corrupted me, gave me all of the qualities and abilities of a fallen angel.” He tongued a fang. “Including these.”
“So your inner angel is masked,” Blaspheme mused. “Interesting.” She climbed out of bed and started dressing. What a shame. “You said your mother was imprisoned when she was pregnant. What happened to her after you were born?”
He should have expected the question, but it still stabbed him in the heart. “She died after a couple of decades of torture.”
“I’m sorry,” she said as she fastened her bra. “Did you know her at all?”
“Yeah.” The alcohol in his belly turned sour, and all he wanted now was to vomit. “Can we not talk about this?”
“I should be going anyway.” She tugged on her pants. “We had a deal, remember?”
Yeah, he remembered. And he was kicking himself in the nuts for making it. He wasn’t ready to let her go. He should be; he’d never had a problem letting a female go in the past. But suddenly, he was aching at the thought of parting from her.
It’s that damned False Angel magic.
Of course. Hopefully it would wear off once she was out of his sight. But what if it didn’t? What if she was intentionally enchanting him? That was one of a False Angel’s many methods of finding sustenance. They used their pheromones and seductive skills to enchant, their aphrodisiac powder to seduce, and then they severed ties and gorged on the emotional agony they caused. The more heartbroken the male was, the more energy she took from him. If she was lucky and he died, she feasted.
That wasn’t going to happen to Revenant. He was stronger than that. If Blaspheme thought she could play him, she was going to be brutally disappointed.
He clothed himself in an instant, going with jeans and a black Four Little Ponies of the Apocalypse T-shirt, and then he watched her finish dressing, wondering if she’d make some sort of flirty play to draw him in even further. Sure enough, as she slipped on her shoes, she shot him a teasing smile.
“That was fun.” Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she strutted over to him and drew her finger down his chest, halting at his waistband. “Interesting T-shirt choice.”
“It annoys the Horsemen’s stallions.”
“I have a feeling you like poking dangerous things with sticks, don’t you?”
“If the stick is sharp enough, no thing is dangerous.”
She cocked a blond eyebrow. “Really? Because I don’t think I could find a stick sharp enough to make you less dangerous.”
“I’m not a danger to you, Blaspheme.” Putting his fingers to her throat, he stroked the silky skin right over her jugular vein. “Not if you’ve been honest with me.”
In an instant, her demeanor changed, intensified, almost as if she had a split personality, and the other one had come out to play. Gone was the easygoing, flirty doctor, and in her place was a temptress with pouty lips and half-lidded eyes. Her delicate wings flared out and tucked away again, and in the smoky light from the wall sconces, he could see glittery particles floating in the air.
Aphrodisiac powder. She was attempting to enchant him with it. And okay, he suddenly felt a little amorous, but it didn’t overshadow the disappointment rolling through him that she’d so blatantly use a False Angel trick on him. Did she really think he’d fall madly in love with her and then collapse in a sad little puddle of grief when she left him high and dry?
“I am what I am,” she said in a low, smoky voice that filled his brain with fantasies of doing her in front of a roaring fire. A campfire, a forest fire, a freaking fire in the Pits of Pain, he didn’t care. “Thank you for the distraction. Now I need to get back to the clinic.”