She pouted prettily. “Maybe next time?”
“Sure, babe,” he said vaguely. “Next time.”
She grinned, satisfied with his answer, grabbed her beer, and headed for her next mark. As she sidled up to a Ramreel at the end of the bar, the front door opened, and the demon he’d been waiting for walked in.
The Orphmage, a Neethul demon powerful enough to earn the status of Satan’s personal mage, caught sight of Revenant instantly and came over. “I’m surprised you wanted to meet here,” Gormesh said. “It’s very public.”
Which was precisely why he’d chosen this location. Word of this meeting would get back to Satan, and he wanted to make sure it didn’t look like he was trying to hide anything.
A twinge of pain shot through his head, and wouldn’t you know it, Satan was sending a summons. It wasn’t urgent; the pain would increase as the urgency grew, and right now it was merely an annoyance. But still, the timing was curious.
Gormesh took a seat across the booth from Rev and flashed a mouthful of sharp, white teeth. “You know I don’t meet with anyone outside my residence. I almost didn’t come.”
Revenant slammed his fist on the table, startling the cocky bastard. “Don’t fuck with me,” he growled. “You were salivating over the opportunity to meet with a Shadow Angel to see what I want. So let’s cut the shit.”
Gormesh’s sleazy smile made Rev want to rip it off his face. “Let’s do that, then. What is it you want from me?”
“Information. I want to know what you did to Gethel to speed up Lucifer’s birth.” Actually, he didn’t give a shit. But the only way he was going to get the information he needed was to pretend this was about the pregnant fallen angel.
“Ah.” Laylach caught Gormesh’s attention, and he watched her lead the Ramreel into the back room as he leaned back in his seat. “It was a blood spell. But it didn’t work, thanks to the archangels’ interference.”
“Your spell did something,” Rev said. The orgy across the way had gained two more participants. Someone was going to have to disinfect that table. “Lucifer is twice the size he should be.”
Gormesh shrugged. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I want to know if it means he’ll be born soon, or if there’s still three months to go.”
“I have no idea. Have Gethel see a physician.”
“Gee,” Rev drawled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“No need to get pissy.” The air became charged with sex, tangible enough that Rev felt it skate across his skin in an electric tingle. Gormesh felt it, too, and began to rub himself through his muslin breeches. “I’m just saying that I can’t tell you when Gethel will drop the little bastard.”
Shit. Revenant wasn’t ready to make any rash decisions regarding handing her over to Reaver, but he definitely didn’t want to procrastinate and risk her giving birth before he could decide if, when, or how he’d surrender her to Heaven.
At this point, the only thing he was sure about was that if he chose to hand over Gethel, he wanted into Heaven on his own terms, not because a bunch of archangel pricks said they’d purify his blood in exchange for her.
“She had a prenatal checkup a couple of days ago,” Revenant said as Gormesh got more serious with the fondling. “Tests revealed an unknown substance in her blood. Know what it might be? And put your cock back in your pants before I slice it off and feed it to the hell stallion outside.”
Cursing under his breath, Gormesh shoved his pencil dick back inside his breeches. “Fuck if I know. Does her physician think it’s harming her?”
Just the word, physician, gave Rev a hard-on. Blaspheme had gotten way too deep under his skin.
Revenant shifted into a more relaxed pose, giving Gormesh the impression that the next question meant nothing to him, when the exact opposite was true.
“The doctors are stumped. If it is harming her, do you know if it can be removed? If her blood can be purified?”
Revenant didn’t give a shit if Gethel’s blood could be purified. This was all about him. If Revenant could purify his own blood of Satan’s taint, then he wouldn’t need the fucking archangels to do it. Which meant they couldn’t blackmail him into shit, and he could hang out in Heaven as much as he wanted to.
Yeah, it’ll be great to hang out with people who don’t want you there.
So what? He didn’t need to be wanted. He needed to take what was his, whether or not the archangels approved.
Gormesh cast a longing glance at the orgy in the other booth. “Purification depends on what the substance is.”