Reaver

Harvester, who had always loved torturing him, wound her long hair around her finger and made a long production out of studying the seashell paintings on the walls.

“Harvester…” At his growl she smiled, and then she was on him, throwing her arms around his neck and hanging on for dear life.

“I hope you know what you’re getting into,” she murmured in his ear. “I love you, Reaver, but if you piss me off, remember that I can chain you with your own bones.”

Damn, that was sexy. Oh, at the time when she’d actually done that to him, it had hurt like hell. But he loved that her shiny new halo hadn’t crushed her horns.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “But you should keep in mind that with my new powers I can f**k you until you pass out, and I don’t even have to be in the same room.”

To prove his point, he sent a stroke of sensation between her legs. All he had to do was think about what he wanted to do, and she’d feel it as if he were there with his hands, his tongue, his cock. He imagined licking her from her cl*t to her core before thrusting his tongue deep, and she had to bite into his shoulder to keep from crying out.

“That,” she breathed, “was evil. Do it again.”

He laughed. “Later. I promise.”

They pulled apart, their secret smiles and her passion-glazed eyes sure to give them away, but Limos and Arik were too busy texting—presumably their brothers, sisters, and in-laws.

“Yay!” Limos tossed aside her phone and called for one of her servants to bring Champagne. “You know, Harvester, I kind of hated you before. You were such a bitch.” Limos wasn’t exactly known for her tact. She looked down at her belly, her expression steeped in contemplation. “But I know what it’s like to live in Sheoul. I know what it does to you. And I know that if it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of my betrothal with Satan.” She looked up, her eyes glistening with happy tears. “So even if you hadn’t given me my baby, I’d still welcome you to the family.”

Harvester gave Limos a hug—brief and awkward, but Reaver had a feeling it was the first time she’d initiated an embrace since she’d been a young angel.

“Thank you, Limos.” Stepping back, Harvester cleared her throat of an emotional hitch and glanced down at Limos’s newly restored baby bump. “Do you want to know? Boy or girl?”

Limos and Arik exchanged glances, and then they both shook their heads.

“We’ll wait. You can taunt me for the next few months.”

Harvester snorted. “You really do know me.”

Limos scanned Harvester from head to toe as if deciding how true Harvester’s observation was. “It’s going to be weird having you be our Heavenly Watcher after centuries of being our Sheoulic one.”

“Speaking of your Sheoulic Watcher,” Reaver said, taking Harvester’s hand, “you should probably know that Revenant is my evil twin brother.”

“What?” The question came as a chorus from Arik, Harvester, and Limos.

“Yeah. Long story. I’ll tell you all over margaritas.” Reaver grinned. “Let’s get this party started.”

Thirty-Five

The sunset ceremony, performed by Idess on the beach outside Limos’s house, was perfect. Harvester had never been into “girly wedding dresses and crap,” so she wore a slinky black and white—the white part at Limos’s insistence—sundress with stiletto-heeled black boots that Reaver wanted her to wear later.

“Just the boots,” he’d whispered into her ear.

“What about the garter,” she whispered back, and he’d groaned. “That can stay.”

And just for him, she’d worn skimpy hot pink panties under the dress. He was going to eat them off of her.

Now the Horsemen and their families were partying into the night with the Underworld General crew. Hellhounds patrolled the perimeter, although Cara’s hound, Hal, and Thanatos and Regan’s son’s pup, Cujo, were in the center of the action and creating trouble, as usual. Currently, Cujo was playing keep away with the pit-roasted pig’s head while Hal chased after, knocking over people, tables, and chairs.

The Horsemen had all taken an opportunity to welcome Harvester to the family—even Thanatos, who had more reason than any of them to harbor a grudge. Reaver suspected it would be a while before he trusted Harvester completely, but she was okay with that.

Reaver watched her from the deck, where he’d come to check on Tavin. Earlier, Harvester had confirmed Blaspheme’s theory that the symbol was an ancient fallen angel assassination curse, and now that Reaver knew the truth about himself, he understood why he’d been able to conjure a fallen angel curse. As a Radiant, he possessed both angel and fallen angel powers, so even though he hadn’t been Raised at the time, the ability had been inside him and released thanks to the lasher implants.

Not that the reason for Reaver’s ability to create an ancient assassination symbol meant anything to Tavin. It wasn’t all bad news, though. According to Harvester, the snake curse had to be programmed to kill at a specific time.

“No program, no kill,” she’d said. “You should be safe.”

“Bullshit. The f**ker is trying to kill me,” Tavin ground out.

“That’s because you haven’t made friends with it.”

Tavin swore. “How the f**k am I supposed to make friends with an assassination snake that’s permanently attached to me?”

“I have no idea,” Harvester said. “Good luck. I have to go get mated now.”

Getting her angel wings back hadn’t changed Harvester’s personality much. And Reaver was fine with that. She wouldn’t be the same frustrating, bold, sexy angel if it had.

She’d left Tavin to hang out with his brothers, who were all surveying the female guests and calculating their odds of getting laid.

Too bad Tav was still pissed about the whole “ruining his life” thing, and he’d let Reaver in on that fact by punching him in the face. The dude hadn’t even cared that Reaver could destroy him with a mere thought.

Seminus demons were seriously the most obnoxious species of demon ever.

Reaver made an attempt to repair the damage he’d done, but it turned out that Metatron was right, and he couldn’t channel any kind of positive energy into the demon. In fact, when he tried, Tavin had screamed in agony and the snake had bitten into his throat. Reaver had been forced to fork the serpent in the eye to make it let go.

Tavin punched Reaver again and muttered something about trying to tame a pissed-off fork-faced snake.

You couldn’t please some demons.

But Reaver would make it a priority to help the guy. Without him, Reaver never would have been able to rescue Harvester. They both owed him their lives.

As if she heard his thoughts, Harvester looked over her shoulder at him, her ebony hair cascading over br**sts he couldn’t wait to have all to himself very soon. Maybe now, if the naughty glint in her eyes was telling him something.

He was about to kidnap her for a quick repeat of the pool incident when Eidolon came over and clapped him on the shoulder. The clap was followed by a hiss and an abrupt step back.

“Damn,” he said, shaking out his hand. “Angels give me the willies. And you’re an angel on steroids now. Reaver 2.0.”

“Wraith called me Angelicus Prime. I’m not sure if that’s an insult or not.”

E laughed. “It’s from Wraith and Stewie’s current obsession with the Transformers.”

“Ah.”

Eidolon gazed out at the cast and crew of one of the strangest and most amazing episodes in Reaver’s life. “It’s kind of crazy how everything has worked out, isn’t it? When I first met you, you were angling to get your wings back, and I was up to my eyeballs dealing with two brothers who couldn’t have been more messed up.”

Yeah, Reaver could now relate to the messed up brother thing, and the strangest part was that he wasn’t reeling in surprise over it. Or over anything Metatron had told him. Once his memories had been restored and after the initial shock of each memory’s revelation, it was as if they’d always been with him. As if he’d always known that during the five thousand years Harvester was in Sheoul he’d been assigned to odd jobs around Heaven. As if he’d always known Harvester liked to swim in the nude—because he’d spied on her when she was Verrine. As if he’d always known he had a brother.

But where did they go from here? How did he deal with an evil brother who clearly hated him? He’d have to ask Eidolon how he’d done it someday.

“We’ve come a long way,” Reaver agreed.

“I can’t believe we’re all mated now.” Eidolon grinned, and Reaver went on alert. That was E’s evil grin. “Which means you have to tattoo my caduceus on your ass.”

Reaver groaned. “You’re going to hold me to that, aren’t you?”

Eidolon shrugged. “Tell you what. Get it anywhere you want. I’m generous that way.” Near the surf, Tayla held up their son, Sabre, and waved his little hand at Eidolon. E waved back, a fiercely proud smile on his face. “So… now that you’re all Angelicus Primed, will we still see you?”

Reaver scowled. “Are you taking back your job offer?”

A volleyball came at them, and E batted it back to Wraith and Than, who were having a one-on-one no one seemed to be winning.

“I assumed you’d have other duties. And angels can’t enter the hospital.”

Reaver grinned. “I can enter anywhere I damned well please. That’s the thing about this Radiant gig. I can do whatever I want.”

Eidolon raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And what you want is to work at a demon hospital?”

Yeah, Reaver was surprised by that, too. He turned to the doctor, propping his hip against the deck railing. “When I lost my wings again, I thought I’d be miserable. But the screwed-up thing was that I was actually kind of relieved.” He’d loved the power that went with being an angel, but not the regiment. He’d liked the responsibility, but not the rules.