Revenant(92)

“I don’t believe you.”

“No? Well believe this. He cried like a baby. Said he could tell me where his mate and vyrmin daughter were if I would just spare his life.” Revenant spat the words like bullets, each striking a vital organ and making her stumble backward. His massive shoulders rolled as he prowled after her, pressing, stalking, never letting up. “Said he could tell me all about the machinations your mother fell into with an angel named Stamtiel. Now, how would I know that if your father hadn’t blabbed like a frightened child? He was ready to give you up to save his own skin. That is who I killed. A pathetic coward who didn’t deserve a family. Not an angel who fathered a vyrm.”

“No,” she whispered.

The backs of her knees bumped into a chair, and she nearly fell. Rev’s hand shot out to catch her, and wasn’t it gentlemanly of him to prevent her from being hurt before he killed her? But, she supposed, even death-row prisoners got a last meal before they faced the executioner.

“Yes,” Revenant whispered back as he released her arm. “He was scum, and he doesn’t deserve your denial.”

She wanted to deny it. Needed to deny it. But even as she shook her head in stubborn refusal, things started making sense. Something about the way her mother had talked about her father had been off. And that was on the rare occasions in which Blas had been able to get her to discuss him.

Deep down inside, Revenant’s version of Blaspheme’s father’s life and death resonated with her.

But if Revenant was telling the truth, it meant that her father had been alive longer than what her mother had claimed. Blaspheme could have met him. Known him. Maybe she could have saved him.

“Even if I believed you, you still killed him. You said yourself you used to hunt vyrm. Did you really expect me to assume you wouldn’t kill me if I told you the truth? You know damned well that vyrm aren’t safe from angels or fallen angels. That there’s a standing order on both sides to kill us. It’s a rule, Revenant. A fucking rule. So tell me, Destroyer, if you were me, what would you have done?”

A brittle silence fell, interrupted only by the voice on the intercom warning of a disturbance in the cafeteria. She hoped no security forces would try to get inside, because she didn’t doubt Revenant’s ability to slaughter every one of them with a mere thought.

Finally, the oily black pools in his eyes receded, and he gave a slow, shallow nod. “I’d have done the same thing,” he said gruffly.

She blew out a relieved breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. She’d gotten him to chill on the lie, which, admittedly, she’d started to feel guilty about. Until she learned he’d killed her father. But just because he was no longer spinning up hurricane-force winds didn’t mean he wasn’t going to slaughter her where she stood.

“So where do we go from here?” She eyed the exit, as if she had any chance at all of escaping. “Are you going to kill me?”

His spectacular wings folded against his back and disappeared. “For deceiving me or for being a vyrm?”

“Either, I suppose.” How nice that they could so civilly discuss her demise.

“Three weeks ago I’d have killed you for either,” he said, his voice as cold and sharp as a frozen blade. “I thought I was a fallen angel with a directive to kill vyrm… and all beings considered to be abominations. Satan hates half-breeds.”

“And now?” A shiver racked her body, and she hated herself for it, because fear wasn’t the only thing running the show. Just standing near Revenant made her heart flutter and her sex ache, and how crazy was that? Talk about your mixed messages. Please don’t kill me. But if you do, can you give me an orgasm first?

And she couldn’t even blame her False Angel enchantment, because if Gem was right, there was very little left of it. A glance at the scar on her wrist confirmed her worst fear. It was all but gone; only a pinprick of faded white flesh was visible above a blue vein at the base of her palm.

“Now… I don’t know.” He clenched his fists as if doing so would keep him from wrapping his hands around her throat.

Closing her eyes, she rubbed her temples in hopes that she could massage her brain into thinking more clearly.

“What did you mean when you said you saved my soul?” She opened her eyes and met his gaze, which flickered with some unidentifiable emotion.

“I stopped you from killing Lucifer.”

Her heart plummeted to her feet. Oh, gods. He knew? How? She opened her mouth to deny it, but that would just be another lie. Instead, indignant anger gave her a voice.