Revenant

They materialized in the grand living room, which was little more than a giant fireplace. Four lit hearths took up four walls, and in the middle, a chaise lounge faced a torture rack.

A torture rack from which some poor shapeshifter hung, his lifeless, broken body dangling loosely from the wooden slats.

“What the hell.” Blaspheme jerked her hand out of his, her horrified gaze glued to the dead guy. “Where are we?”

“Squeamish? I wouldn’t have expected that of you.”

She rounded on him with a snarl, and bless her little False Angel heart, she was pissed. “I’m a doctor for a reason.” She threw her arm out in the dead male’s direction. “That is not cool.”

She started toward the stiff, no doubt to check his vitals, but Rev stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Trust me, he’s long dead.”

He released her before she shrugged away from his touch; for some reason, the thought of her rejecting him again made his chest ache.

Idiot.

“Take me back to the clinic,” she snapped, but that wasn’t going to happen. He needed Lucifer to die, and he couldn’t do it himself.

He was spared the ugliness of having to refuse her request when a solid gold door at the other end of the room opened with an ominous creak, and a very pregnant female entered, her tattered white gown stained with blood and who-knew-what-else. Her stringy hair fell in matted clumps around her thin shoulders, and the dark circles raccooning her eyes made her pale face appear almost ghostlike.

“Oh, my,” Blaspheme whispered.

“I’m assuming this is my new obstetrician?” Gethel smiled, but even though he suspected her smile was genuine, her thin, chapped lips and sharp, blackened teeth only made it come off as creepy.

And Revenant had an extremely high threshold for what he considered to be creepy.

“I’m not an obstetrician,” Blaspheme said, sounding impressively authoritative and shit, “but I’ll do what I can to help you.” She started toward Gethel. “What’s your name?”

Gethel sank down on the chaise. “Revenant didn’t tell you?” She gave him a look of mild consternation, which he blew off. “I’m Gethel. And you are?”

“I’m Blaspheme.” She slowed as she approached the chaise. “Gethel… that sounds familiar.”

Crap. This wasn’t going to be good. Revenant helped Gethel ease back on the pillows, not because he gave a crap about her comfort, but because he needed Blas to not feel threatened. And if she realized who Gethel was and who the baby she was carrying would grow up to be… yeah, he needed to play this off as no big deal for a while.

“Of course it sounds familiar, you pathetic fool,” Gethel snapped. She glared at Revenant. “You brought me a quack with no understanding of the earth-shattering momentousness of this situation?”

Blaspheme dropped the duffel with a thud. “Quack? I’ll have you know that I’ve been working at Underworld General Hospital for over five decades now, and I’ve worked my way up from paramedic to medical doctor in charge of UG’s new London clinic. As far as the rest, I’m sure the earth-shattering momentousness of your pregnancy is important to you, just as it is with every mother, and I’ll treat you and your child with equal care.”

“Bitch,” Gethel hissed. “You will treat me —” Revenant clamped his hand around her throat and cut her off cold.

“You will speak to Blaspheme with respect,” he growled.

“Revenant!” Blaspheme grabbed his wrist and yanked it away. “How about we set some ground rules.” She jammed a finger at Gethel. “You. Call me a bitch again, and you can find a doctor elsewhere. And you” – she stabbed Rev in the chest with the same finger – “try to strangle a pregnant female again, and I’ll take a scalpel to your balls. Got it?”

He grinned. Damn, her fire was awesome. Usually False Angels were more timid. He wondered if she’d be less aggressive outside of work. More pliable. Easier to get naked.

Gethel jackknifed into a sit. “You still have no idea to whom you’re speaking, do you?”

“No,” Blas said, “and I don’t give a hellrat’s ass. I’m here to do a job, so why don’t you quit being a diva and tell me what’s going on with this pregnancy.”

Revenant really, really needed to get Blaspheme into bed.

Gethel looked to him for help, but he just shrugged. Satan had given him orders to bring a doctor to Gethel, and he’d done that. If Gethel screwed things up, he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.

With a snarl, Gethel flopped back down on the chaise and placed her hand on her belly. “Everything was proceeding normally,” she said. “I was feeding off infants to nourish the spawn, and his power grew within me every day.”

There was a heartbeat of dead silence. “You were eating babies?”

Gethel sneered. “Of course. My son is a reincarnated fallen angel. It’s required.”

Blaspheme gave Rev a you-are-so-going-to-pay-for-this look. Excellent. He’d happily take anything she wanted to dish out.

Hopefully she wanted to dish out sex. False Angels were notorious for getting revenge through drawn-out, torturous sex.

Imagining the possibilities, he propped himself against a pillar and watched Blaspheme unhook her stethoscope from around her neck.

“I’m going to check your heartbeats, but first, finish telling me what’s going on. How many months along are you?”