by Larissa Ione
“I was supposed to hurt you more than I did. I was supposed to blind you.” She brought her palm to his cheek and smoothed her thumb over the sensitive skin under his eye. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking I held back out of compassion. I have none.”
Maybe not right this minute, but he was still going to call bullshit. He’d been on the receiving end of her care after Pestilence had beaten him half to death. He wondered if she was even aware that she was lying.
“I held back because I dislike being told what to do.”
Well, they had that in common. But he still didn’t buy that she’d spared him pain out of an unwillingness to follow orders. But why the hell was she yammering on like this? Although he supposed there was nothing else to do while they waited for his paralysis to wear off.
“So,” she said, as if she hadn’t just rehashed one of the weirdest and worst times of his life. That he knew of, anyway. Anything could have happened during the thousands of years that were a black hole in his memory. “What shall we do to pass the time?” She grinned, a real wicked I’m-a-naughty-girl special. “I wonder if every part of you is as hard as your limbs.” Her gaze traveled down the length of his body, and if he hadn’t been stone-cold frozen, he’d have hyperventilated.
She wouldn’t.
Would she?
“Oh, chill out, you uptight pile of feathers. I’m not going to take advantage of your… stiff… condition. We have a little pact that will address that, don’t we?”
Yes, they did, but why she’d made him agree to pleasure her was still a mystery. He’d nearly vomited at the time he’d sworn to uphold the deal, but now that he knew the truth about her… okay, he still wasn’t thrilled. But the more she stroked his skin, the more she watched him with those half-lidded eyes, the more he wanted her to keep doing it.
And when she leaned even closer, until her lips were a mere feather’s width away from his, the more he wanted. Period.
Ten
Harvester really liked having Reaver at her mercy. He’d always driven her crazy with his pompous holier-than-thou attitude, and while she would never admit this to him, he usually seemed to have the upper hand when it came to their verbal sparring. It was a rare treat to have him silent and unable to argue.
Plus, the taste of his blood had been like a one-two punch of lust and loathing, reminding her how much she both despised him and wanted him. She hated that she wanted him, so she was going to punish him for it and take full advantage of his unfortunate circumstance for as long as it lasted.
“You think I’m an evil, skanky bitch, don’t you?” she asked, relishing the fact that he couldn’t answer. Smiling, she brushed his silky hair back from his eyes—a face like his should never be obscured.
“I’ll bet you’re wondering if I’ve been corrupted by all those centuries spent in Satan’s service. Am I right?”
Even though he was paralyzed, the whip’s effect was wearing off, and his expression was enough to let her know that yes, she was spot-on.
“Let me satisfy your curiosity.” She trailed a finger over his satiny lips, remembering how they’d felt on hers when he’d kissed her to seal the deal they’d made in Sheoul-gra.
Good grief, the boy could kiss. The last time she’d been brought to her knees by a mere kiss was with Yenrieth.
Funny how she couldn’t conjure up an image of what he looked like, but she most definitely recalled how he made her feel. Most of the memories were good ones that made her smile and made heat bloom between her thighs.
The rest… she couldn’t go there. Not only was it pointless, because he was gone and wasn’t ever coming back, but her time with him had been so long ago. She needed to concentrate on the future, uncertain as that may be.
“But I’m not sure corrupt is the word we should focus on,” she said. “I prefer… grow. I had to grow up fast down here.”
Reaver’s blond eyebrows climbed.
“Yes, I was an adult when I fell. But I was so naive. I wasn’t a battle angel like you, so I didn’t have the kind of contact you have with demons. I mostly dealt with humans. Stupid, evil humans I was charged with delivering justice upon, but humans nonetheless.” She trailed her finger from his mouth to his ear and spent a moment stroking the soft skin of his lobe. He was so… warm. “As you can imagine, I was in for a bit of a shock when I entered Sheoul. Looking back, I can see that I should have thought the whole thing through a little more. I definitely should have prepared better.”
Her cover story explaining her expulsion from Heaven, that she’d killed humans for fun, had been a good one, and the fact that Satan was her father only made it more believable. Bad genes and all that. But the reality of life in Sheoul had been more of a shock than she’d expected. The realization that her father truly was the epitome of evil had been devastating. For the first few decades as a fallen angel, on some lofty level she’d actually believed there was a kernel of good in him, a remnant of who he’d been as a Heavenly angel.
Not so much.
But what did that mean for her? Sometimes she didn’t know if there was any good left in her, either.
“Ah, well.” She dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand, not wanting to delve too deeply into questions she was afraid to be answered. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”
Reaver took a deep, shuddering breath as his lungs unfroze. She didn’t have much time to drive him crazy. Which was fun. Maybe a little therapeutic, too. Oh, she wasn’t baring her soul or some shit, but since he already knew she’d fallen on purpose and with the cooperation of three archangels, he might as well know some of the story.
Let him see for himself just how evil she’d let herself become.
“The first two hundred years were the worst. Demons and other fallen angels love to torment the newbie, you know.”
She thought about that. Reaver had lost his wings once, booted out of Heaven and into the human realm as an Unfallen. But he hadn’t entered Sheoul, which would have turned him into a True Fallen, a fallen angel with no hope of ever being redeemed. Remarkable, really. Few Unfallen lasted long in the human realm. The temptation to enter Sheoul and be given new wings and powers as a True Fallen was too great.
“No, you wouldn’t know. Just trust me.” She smiled down at him. “You don’t trust me though, do you? Is it because I’m a fallen angel, or is it because it’s not in your nature to trust easily? Either way, you’re right not to trust me.”
She shoved to her feet, wincing at the multitude of bumps and bruises she’d taken during the battle. Worse than all of it, though, was the throbbing ache in her wing anchors. Unlike her other injuries, the pain of her wings trying—and failing—to regenerate was going to intensify and spread through all of her bones until she was crippled with the agony of it.
Harvester dug the canteen from out of Reaver’s backpack. Returning to him, she straddled Reaver’s body and sank down on his hard abs. “Are you tired of my talking yet?”
Reaver’s expression softened, but was she reading him wrong? He couldn’t possibly like hearing her ramble. Could he? Because if he did, she’d have to stop.
Except she kind of liked that he was listening.
Way down inside the murky deep freeze that was her chest, something stirred. Something bad, like angry wasps. Or butterflies. If she were human, she’d think she was getting sick.
She popped the cap on the canteen and carefully tilted it against Reaver’s lips. Water spilled into his mouth, and he swallowed eagerly. She kept giving him drinks in small doses until he blinked at her.
“Is that a ‘no more’? One blink for more water, two for no more.” He blinked twice. “You do know that if I was feeling evil I’d keep making you drink, right? It would be like angel waterboarding. We could make it a sport. How entertaining.”
Reaver rolled his eyes. No sense of humor, that one.
“You’re going to be talking soon, and that’ll ruin all my sinister plans to torture you with inane babbling, you k
now.”
One corner of his mouth turned up, knocking loose a crystal bead of water that had lingered on his bottom lip. The drop ran along the seam of his lips, drawing her gaze. Never in her life had she wanted water as badly as she did at this moment. His lips parted, and his tongue swept out to capture the drop.
She swallowed as if she’d been the one to taste the glistening bead, and she found herself leaning into him, rolling from the hips to slowly plaster her upper body against his. Was it her imagination or were his eyes darkening from radiant sapphire to a bold, lavish navy blue? Could he actually be turned on?
His clean scent invaded her senses, permeating every cell in her body. He always smelled good, even when he was covered in dirt, ash, blood, and the remnants of battle. It never took long for that honey-spiced angel fragrance to saturate his skin and obliterate everything else.
She wanted to kiss him. To taste those full lips again. The weird thing was that she always took what she wanted, but for some reason, she was hesitant about this.
Kissing Reaver would annoy him. Maybe even piss him off.
Right. Decision made.
She sealed her mouth against his. Months ago when they’d kissed to seal the sex deal there’d been an instant sense of familiarity the moment their lips touched, a bizarre and disturbing rightness that shook her to the core.
Nothing had changed. The feeling was still there. The strange rightness should scare her, and it did, but it also felt so good she wanted to weep, and that was something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
It was almost as if she was Verrine again, and she and Yenrieth were lying in a meadow together, soaking up the sun. She’d been so happy at times like that, and the only thing that would have made her happier was if she’d been sure he felt the same way about her as she felt about him.
Clinging to those precious memories, Harvester thrust her tongue between Reaver’s velvety lips. For a heart-sinking moment he did nothing, but when she flicked her tongue against his, he responded with a low moan that flowed through her like a caress.
Sliding her hands upward from his shoulders to his neck, she traced the tendons that strained under his skin and the veins that pounded beneath her fingertips. A rumble started low in her belly, the hunger she needed to take care of soon but that always grew worse when she was aroused.
The taste of Reaver’s blood had only whetted her appetite, and the thought of sinking her teeth into Reaver’s warm flesh and taking the ultimate nectar that composed an angel’s blood made her fangs throb and lengthen.
She’d been disgusted by the idea of feeding when she’d first fallen, but gradually, she’d learned to tolerate it. Then like it. And now it was a pleasure she looked forward to.
Especially if she got to feed from an angel.
She didn’t care that drinking from an angel brought out her evil side.
A shudder of anticipation ran through her, followed by unwelcome reservations. She no longer had to play fallen angel, did she? Yes, she was technically a True Fallen, and she had all the needs that came with it. But she was supposed to be a good guy underneath her evil veneer. Shouldn’t she be at least trying to be decent?
Reaver’s teeth pinched her bottom lip, gently, and all her self-doubt faded into the background.
“Reaver,” she whispered against his mouth.
The next thing she knew Reaver flipped her onto her back and slammed his heavy body on top of her. His smile was cold as he looked down at her.
“Come on, Harvester,” he said, his voice husky, unused, and so damned sexy even when he was trying to intimidate her. “Did you really think I’d let you get the upper hand?”
“Of course not,” she said bitterly. “The great Reaver doesn’t let anyone get the upper hand. He doesn’t let anyone in, does he?”
He frowned. “Where is that coming from?”
A sudden stab of anxiety pierced her gut. Where, indeed. She had no idea if Reaver let people in or not. And why in the realm of fuck would she care, let alone be bitter about it?
Something was happening to her, and whatever it was, she didn’t like it. She used to know exactly who and what she was. Even when she was hanging from hooks in Satan’s living room, she knew what she was, even if what she was amounted to nothing but a slab of meat.
But since the moment Reaver stormed into her life to rescue her, everything she knew was turned upside down. Was she good? Was she evil?
Only one thing was certain: For the first time in her life, she was lost.
* * *
Very little could confuse Reaver. Harvester not only confused him; she twisted him into knots. His body reacted to her even as his brain tried to make sense of the things she said and did. No one else had ever done that to him. At least, no one whom he could remember.
“Well?” he prompted. “What makes you think I don’t let people in?” She was right, but how did she know that?
“I don’t want to answer,” she said crisply. “Now who has the upper hand?”
She shoved against him, a halfhearted effort. She was testing the waters, determining if she was strong enough to unseat him. She wasn’t, even though his body was still recovering from the paralyzation and was numb from the thighs down. Everything above that was in full operational mode. Everything was working too well, in fact, leaving him breathless, hot, and aching after Harvester’s kiss.
“I’m still on top of you,” he said. “So I wouldn’t get too cocky.”
She arched under him, blatantly rubbing against his erection. Oh… yeah. Forbidden pleasure jolted him all the way to his balls.
“I’m not the cocky one.” She smiled, all innocence and sugar. “So now that you have me under you, what do you plan to do to me?”
Plan? Or want? “I don’t plan to do anything to you.” He started to push away, but she grasped his biceps, digging her nails into his skin to hold him.
“Wait.”
Tired of her games and her taunts, annoyed with himself for becoming aroused by the one person in the universe he knew would use it against him, he snapped. “What?”
Hurt darkened her eyes but was gone so fast he’d have missed it if he blinked. “Nothing. Get off me.” She shoved at him, this time in earnest, but he didn’t budge.
He made an effort to soften his tone this time. “Tell me what you wanted.”
“Fuck off.”
He looked down, trying to get a read on her, but he kept getting derailed by the dark circles under her eyes. She was healing from her torture experience, but far too slowly, and they might still have a long way to go.
“Tell me, Harvester, how did you perform Heavenly good deeds for five thousand years and not get caught?”
She laughed, but he failed to see what was so funny. “Easy. I didn’t perform any good deeds. I fell from Heaven in order to gain a position as the Horsemen’s Watcher and derail the Daemonica’s Apocalypse if and when the time came.” She dug her nails into his chest, and he swore she purred when he felt a twinge of pain. “If something wasn’t related in some way to the Apocalypse, I ignored it. It would look pretty suspicious if I ran around rescuing kittens and defending humans from demons now, wouldn’t it?” She writhed, struggling to escape his hold. “Release me.”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you want.”
“I don’t want your help.”
So damned stubborn. “You might not want my help, but you need it.” He shifted his weight and eased to the side, giving her some room so she wouldn’t feel trapped. “We need to work together to get out of here alive. You know that, right?”
She sprang away from him like a frightened rabbit and settled on her haunches a few feet away. “Of course I know that.” He thought her face was a shade paler than it had been a moment ago. “I just don’t like it. And I don’t trust you. I don’t understand why you would risk so much to rescue someone you hate.”
Because you watched over my children. Remembering why he was here erased all his anim
osity. She was difficult, volatile, and infuriating as hell, but he owed her a million times over, and so did every human and angel in existence. But could he risk telling her the truth? If what Raphael said about her hating Yenrieth was true, she’d blow a gasket if she found out Reaver was the very angel she detested.
Maybe he should test the waters a little.
“Wouldn’t you rescue someone you hated if they saved all mankind and prevented an apocalypse that would have killed countless angels?” he asked.
“No.”
“Not even if that someone was Yenrieth?”
She hissed, baring her fangs, and he knew Raphael hadn’t jacked him around on how she felt about Yenrieth.
“Especially not him.” Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “Why would you even bring him up to me?”
“You gave up your wings to take care of his kids. He must have meant something to you, even if you hate him now.”
“He did mean something to me, but that was in the past. Now I would rather see him rot for all eternity than save his miserable soul,” she growled, and he wondered what he’d done to her to make her hate him that much. “So shut up about him and tell me why you did this. You’re not an angel of justice. You’re a battle angel.”
“So I can’t want to make sure someone who does a great service is rewarded for their actions?”
“Oh, I think you absolutely want that,” she said. “But it’s not your priority. You were bred for war, so it’s in your nature to write off people as collateral damage if their lives are sacrificed for the greater good. If the archangels didn’t want you to come, then they’re well aware that the greater good will be served by my being tortured for all eternity.” She stood in a fluid, lithe movement that drew his appreciative gaze. “So why would you, a battle angel who should consider me a casualty of war and an acceptable loss, risk starting a war to save someone you hate?”
“You aren’t an acceptable loss, and I don’t hate you,” he said, surprising even himself with his honesty. But that didn’t mean he liked her. His feelings for her were as complicated as the history between Heaven and hell.
