Reaver

Eidolon frowned. “You said this happened when you killed a demon?”

At Tavin’s nod, Eidolon strode to the door and shouted at a nurse to fetch Idess, another in-law. As an ex-angel of sorts, she was the closest thing to an expert on an angel-powered… whatever-it-was plaguing Tavin.

While he waited, he helped Forge heal Tavin, who spent the entire time bitching about angels. Eidolon said a silent thanks when Idess showed up, her chestnut hair secured in a long, tight ponytail by a series of gold metal bands.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Eidolon pointed to Tavin’s symbol. “Do you recognize that?”

Narrowing her honey-colored eyes, Idess leaned in close. But not close enough to get bitten, he noticed. “That looks like a patron cobra.”

“A what?” Eidolon and Tavin asked in unison.

She inhaled a deep breath. “It’s a symbol angels used to brand people requesting protection from demons. But this makes no sense. Not only is it slightly altered—this snake has fangs—the symbol hasn’t been used in thousands of years.” She frowned down at Tavin. “How did it get there? Only an angel could do this.”

“Reaver did it.”

She blinked. “Reaver?” She looked as baffled as Eidolon felt. “Why would he do that? The patron cobra can’t be used on demons.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Tavin said. “His powers are all f**ked up.”

“Oh.” Idess’s expression went slack. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?” Tavin croaked. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Neither did Eidolon.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that instead of protecting you, it’s fighting you. See, if the symbol is cast on a human, it gives the bearer strength and focus and the ability to fight demons with extra skill. The snake also comes alive and fights the enemy. But because you’re a demon, it’s battling you, too.”

Tavin closed his eyes. “That’s great. That’s just fan-fucking-tastic.” When he opened his eyes again, they’d gone gold with anger. “So you’re saying that every time I fight a demon, this is going to happen?”

“I can’t say for sure,” she said, “but I’d guess that’s the case. It might attack you randomly, as well.”

“Found that out already.” Tavin uttered a juicy Sheoulic curse. “I have decades left on my assassin contract. This… this is not good.”

Red lights flashing on the wall indicated that an ambulance was arriving with a critical patient, and Eidolon’s adrenaline spiked. He loved a good emergency.

“I gotta go,” he said to Tavin. “I’ll work on this, see if we can come up with a way to reverse it.” He glanced at Idess. “Can you look into it as well?”

“You bet.” She smiled reassuringly at Tavin, but the look she gave Eidolon was the exact opposite. Basically, poor Tav was screwed.

Reaver, what have you done?

Reaver, what have you done?

Plugging into Reaver’s vein was like plugging into an electric socket. Harvester had fed from an angel before, but to her relief, this was different. Better. Way better.

No longer worried about turning into a heinous beast, she drew deeply, greedily.

Hot blood splashed into her mouth, a silken cascade of the most coveted substance in the underworld. It was as if Harvester had bitten into a live wire while orgasming. Wetness flooded her sex as blissful effervescence flowed through her veins and ecstasy sizzled over the surface of her skin.

Clinging tightly to Reaver’s shoulders and clamping him firmly between her thighs, she swallowed, her pulse growing stronger with every pull on his vein. She’d only ever experienced this once before.

With Yenrieth.

This was what sex between angels felt like. This was what Neethul marrow wine was created to imitate. Harvester used to guzzle the stuff like iced tea on a steamy day in the Styx river basin. Now she realized that marrow wine was a massively pathetic substitute for the real thing.

This was sensual. Decadent. Literally divine.

If Heaven could be summed up as a flavor, it would be Reaver’s blood. She needed more.

“Easy, sweetheart.” Reaver’s husky voice rumbled through her, adding another layer of euphoria to her senses. “You can take more later. I’m not going anywhere.”

You promise? The question popped into her head as if it were a natural thing to ask. Whatever. She’d be horrified later. Right now, all that mattered was how Reaver’s lifeblood made her feel. How he made her feel.

He’d broken another huge rule for her, and he’d done it so easily, as if he weren’t committing a wing-severing offense. The knowledge laid her out, gutted her emotionally.

And it made her so hot she wanted to rip his clothes off with her teeth. Moaning at the thought, she rocked against him, letting her sex roll back and forth over his erection. She thought she heard him moan, too, and was his breathing as frantic as hers?

“Hey, Harvester.” Reaver stroked her back as he spoke, breathless and hoarse. “You need to stop now.”

No stopping. Her entire body vibrated at a frequency that threatened to blow her apart in a dark, seething storm of ecstasy…

Dark… seething… no, that didn’t seem right. Her angel-blood-addled brain couldn’t focus anymore. Reaver’s Heavenly light and power was infusing her, making her strong. Warping into darkness and evil and—

“Harvester.” Reaver’s voice, more urgent, rolled through her. “Stop.”

His hands, which had been caressing her back and running through her hair, were suddenly on her shoulders in a biting, painful grip. Growling, she doubled her efforts to take his blood. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she should stop, but she crushed the thought with coldhearted ruthlessness.

She was a fallen angel, after all. Evil. Satan’s daughter.

Suddenly, Reaver tore away from her. Blood sprayed from his torn throat, calling to her like a juicy hamburger called to a starving man. She dove for him, but he wheeled out of the way.

“You… I remember—holy shit.” He stared at her like she was both a stranger and an old enemy as he slapped his hand over the wound in his neck. “Something’s wrong with you.”

Something was wrong with her? She laughed, and even to her own ears it was a sinister sound.

“Nothing’s wrong with me, angel.” Her voice was warped. Guttural. Demonic surround sound. “It’s you. You’re glowing. You’re an angel in hell, and now everyone is going to know it.”

Twelve

Metatron barreled through the halls of the Archangel complex, his heart racing, his powers skating on the surface of his skin. Screams reverberated off the walls and pillars, and under his feet, tremors rocked the ground.

He skidded around a corner at the entrance to the Crystal Chamber, and for a moment, he froze at the incomprehensible sight of a Soulshredder tearing apart an angel.

A demon.

No demon had ever set foot in Heaven, let alone inside the Archangel buildings.

“Metatron!” Raphael’s shout rang out from somewhere behind him.

Metatron hurled a flaming dagger at the Soulshredder, taking it out with effortless ease. The thing shrieked as its body combusted, raining greasy ashes onto the gold-and-gem-tiled floor.

Whirling in the direction of Raphael’s shout, he ducked the swing of another Soulshredder, but before he could destroy it, a sword cleaved the evil beast in half. It collapsed, and with its death, the overwhelming, almost crippling sense of evil in Heaven vanished.

Behind the creature, spattered in demon blood, was Raphael. Disbelief and anger etched deep lines in his face, and Metatron wondered if he looked as shaken as Raphael was.

“This is madness,” Raphael breathed, his voice laced with a rare note of fear.

Oh, he didn’t fear demons; he feared for the future, just as Metatron did. Not since Satan led a rebellion that divided Heaven and cost thousands of angel lives had an event of such proportions rocked Heaven.

“This goes beyond madness,” Metatron said grimly. And, he could admit it, shakily.

Raphael recovered his sword and cleaned it with a mere thought. “There’s no way Lucifer has been born already.”

Metatron reached deep into his rattled psyche for an elusive measured calmness. “This isn’t Satan’s doing.”

Raphael frowned. “Then whose?”

“There’s only one answer.” Metatron didn’t even have to guess at this. He knew.

Raphael’s eyes shot wide. “Reaver.”

“And Harvester. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Raphael’s face mottled with anger, but the emotion was a lot milder than Metatron would have expected. The other archangel had always hated Reaver, but Metatron had no idea why.

“He did it. I actually went through with it. He rescued her and put us all at risk. That fool!” Raphael made the sword disappear, though Metatron suspected he’d like to run it through Reaver’s chest. “We have to post combat units at every mass exit point from Sheoul, and we have to get structural teams to find the weak spots in the Heavenly membrane.”

He groaned out loud at that last part, because Heaven was… huge. It would take thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years to inspect every nook and cranny.

“It’s time to tell the others,” Metatron said grimly.

Time to let all the other archangels in on what Metatron, Raphael, and Uriel had done five thousand years ago when they’d erased all memories of Yenrieth. No one else knew that Reaver was Yenrieth, father of the Horsemen, destroyer of entire villages and towns. No one knew how truly powerful Reaver was, and that Metatron had been forced to bind his powers when Reaver was very young.

And no one except Metatron knew that Reaver and Harvester, as Yenrieth and Verrine, had blood-bonded.

Under normal circumstances and with their memories intact, they’d have felt each other no matter where they were in the universe.