Reaver

Revenant once told them he could blow them up inside their armor and pour them out like a liquid.

Lorelia had just done that.

Fury built in his chest. “Lorelia! We have rules.” He stalked her, the anger bubbling up and getting hotter with every step. “You can’t wreck the Horsemen just because they piss you off. You broke the rules.”

She came to her feet and didn’t meet his gaze as she tucked something into her pocket. Then, before he could grab her, she flashed away. But that didn’t mean she was getting away.

Rules meant order. Without order there was chaos, and unlike most Sheoul denizens, Revenant hated chaos.

So Lorelia was going to pay for what she’d done to the Horsemen. Not because he liked them, but because what she’d done to them was against the rules. And rules must be followed.

But so must orders, and after he found Lorelia and beat the truth of why she’d made toast of the Horsemen out of her, he had an appointment to make. An appointment he dreaded.

With Satan.

The emergency department was slammed.

Medical staff rushed to triage incoming patients, mostly innocent victims of Satan’s armies as they chewed a path through Sheoul. From what Eidolon could gather, the armies were both searching for “Satan’s renegade daughter” and preparing for a battle with Heaven. Refugees were fleeing Sheoul if they could, and if they couldn’t, they were holing up and trying to keep out of the path of the Dark Lord’s war machine.

Apparently, Satan’s troops didn’t differentiate between friend and enemy when they were on the move, and the ED was stretched beyond its limits with survivors. The hospital hadn’t been this packed since the apocalyptic events brought about by Pestilence. Even the parking lot was once again packed with the wounded.

Gem, his mate’s twin sister, jogged up to him with a clipboard, her black and blue hair pulled into two pigtails on either side of her head, exposing the enchanted tattoo around her neck that helped keep her from shifting from her human form to her demon one.

“Remember that wolf shifter you treated last week?” she asked. “And the month before that? She’s back. Broken leg. I think her mate might be responsible, but she won’t say much.”

The Justice demon in him clawed at his chest, battling with the doctor he’d become. The winner would be the doctor though; the patient’s injuries came first. The mate could be dealt with later. That was Wraith’s specialty.

“I’ll check her out.” Eidolon took the clipboard, but before he could glance at the patient’s paperwork, the emergency room’s Harrowgate flashed, and a mostly human male, Arik, burst out of it. His mate, Limos, was in his arms.

At least, Eidolon assumed it was Limos. The female looked like she’d gone through a paper shredder before being glued back together by a blind person.

“Help,” he croaked. “Help her.”

Eidolon shoved the clipboard at Gem. “Have Grim handle the shifter.” The Sem, one of Tavin’s brothers, hadn’t been here long, but the guy had a powerful healing ability, and Eidolon trusted him to be sensitive to abused females.

“You got it.” Gem took off as Eidolon sprang into action, ushering Arik to the closest open exam room.

Blaspheme joined them, holding Limos’s head as Eidolon helped Arik settle what was left of the Horseman onto a table. Gods, she was messed up. He’d been a doctor for decades and had never seen anything like this.

“What happened?” Eidolon let Blas perform the ABC’s—airway, breathing, and circulation—but the procedure was more protocol than necessary in this instance. Limos was immortal. Fucked up beyond recognition, but immortal.

“I don’t know.” Arik was trembling so hard his teeth chattered. “We were going to have a party. I got back to our place with a keg.” He inhaled a shaky, tormented breath. “I found her like this. Her brothers… they’re the same. I couldn’t… I couldn’t bring them all… f**k…”

Eidolon didn’t bother gloving up. He placed his hands on Limos’s torso and channeled his power into her. His dermoire glowed as his healing gift winged its way down his right arm. There was too much damage to focus on a single injury, so he spread the healing wave evenly through her body. In his mind’s eye, he could see internal organs plumping up, muscle fibers knitting together, and bones fusing.

Sweat beaded on Eidolon’s brow as Limos started to come together like a jigsaw puzzle, but he didn’t have enough power to bring her even halfway back.

Blaspheme knew. “I’ll get Shade.”

She took off like a shot, leaving him with Arik, who was about to come apart at the seams. Eidolon got that. Didn’t matter that Arik’s mate was immortal. Arik saw only her pain and misery.

“She’s in bad shape,” Eidolon said, “but she’s going to be fine. I’ll have Shade or Forge help to get her back with a minimum of suffering.”

Arik nodded, but he was still shaking like a leaf. “What about the baby?”

Eidolon sucked in a sharp breath. He’d forgotten Limos was pregnant. The last time he’d seen her, she hadn’t been showing yet. He drew back his power and focused it in a concentrated laser into Limos’s womb.

“Oh, shit,” Arik breathed. “You’ve got to save it.”

Eidolon wanted to. Gods, he wanted to. “How far along is she?”

“Almost five months.” Arik spun around and jammed his hands through his short brown hair as he walked back and forth across the obsidian floor where Limos’s blood was pooling in shiny wet puddles. “Fuck, I’m going to destroy whoever did this. Fuck!”

The curtain swished open and Shade entered, his dark head bent, his gaze glued to his phone. “Blas said you needed me. And why did I just get a text from Thanatos’s mate saying the Horsemen had been attacked? Limos is missing—” Shade cut off at the sight of the female on the table. “Hell’s fires, is that her?”

At their nods, Shade raced over and palmed Limos’s forearm. His biceps glowed along the lines of his dermoire as he channeled his power into her.

Eidolon eyed his brother, but he couldn’t get a read on him. Shade’s gift wasn’t the same as Eidolon’s and wasn’t as useful for healing, but it was powerful in its own right. Shade was able to manipulate bodily functions, to make a heart start beating or force bone marrow to create red blood cells.

Eidolon glanced at Arik, judged him to be justifiably unstable, and lowered his voice. “Remember, she’s pregnant.”

Shade’s head came up. “Fuck.” Closing his eyes, he concentrated.

Eidolon kept his healing energy spreading through Limos as Shade probed her womb. Her skin and extremities had almost fully formed now.

But there was no baby bump.

“Well?” Arik gripped the table near Limos’s head so hard his knuckles turned white. “How’s the baby?”

Very slowly, Shade’s eyes opened. Eidolon didn’t like what he saw.

“I’m sorry, Arik,” Shade murmured. “The baby is gone.”

Seventeen

Revenant stood outside the exam room where Limos was being attended by Underworld General staff. The baby was gone? Lorelia had killed Limos’s child? Revenant felt the blood in his veins begin to steam, and as usually happened when he was pissed, his hair went from the sandy color he’d chosen today to jet black.

When Lorelia was punished for what she’d done, he wanted to be there. He wanted to see her bleed.

He hadn’t been able to make that happen earlier; the angel had flashed from Hawaii, and Rev hadn’t been able to follow her Watcher signature. Which meant the cowardly bitch had gone to Heaven.

A blonde female in ridiculous purple scrubs dotted with blue hearts came out of the exam room, and he grabbed her arm. “You. When will Limos be released?”

She rounded on him, a nasty smile curving her bloodred lips. “Let go of me or you’ll lose your hand.”

An idle threat, given the hospital’s antiviolence ward, but it was cute that she tried. He let his gaze travel down the length of her voluptuous body. Her scrubs and lab coat didn’t hide nearly as much as she probably thought they did. Nice br**sts. He could even admire them while pretending to be fascinated by her name tag.

Very deliberately, he held her arm for another five seconds, and then he dropped his hand. “Answer me, Dr. Blaspheme.”

“Fuck off.”

She strode away, and damn, her ass was so fine that he wasn’t even angry. No, he was intrigued. No one told him to f**k off. At least, not if they weren’t sure they could match his strength.

Or his cruelty.

When she reached the end of the hallway, he flashed in front of her, halting her in her tracks. “Answer,” he repeated.

“I neither work for you nor am I mated to you, so I don’t have to respond to your rudeness. And if I was mated to you, I’d respond with a blade to your balls. So I repeat, f**k off.”

He got hard. Brutally, painfully hard. He could so easily imagine this hellcat in his dungeon, her wrists bound with silk, her skin pink from his leather lash as she submitted to him in every way he asked her to.

“What species are you?”

She stiffened as if he’d offended her. “I’m a False Angel. Not that it’s any of your business.”

False Angel? Odd. She didn’t read like one. Didn’t act like one. False Angels were known for their teasing, seductive natures and malicious tricks. Not to mention their sex drives. This female should be creaming herself over him, drawn to his darkness and his power.

Time to try another approach. “If you answer my question, I’ll let you suck my cock.”

Mostly, he was testing her with his crude suggestion. Mostly. If she wanted to give him a bl*w j*b, he wouldn’t object. He’d tell her exactly how to do it. How to lick him from his balls to his crown. How to swallow him deep and hum on the backstroke. How to use her teeth to balance pleasure and pain.