“I can’t believe we’re going to be on TV.” Harvester, whose given angelic name was actually Verrine, grinned at Reaver as they waited for their cue to join Suzanne on the set of her cooking show, Angel in the Kitchen.
“I can’t either,” he muttered. “The producers of this show must be insane.”
Harvester blinked at him, but her wide-eyed innocence was as fake as the fruit in the bowl next to them. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She knew exactly what he meant, but he played her game and explained. “Viewers think the people on this show are human actors playing characters. So if one of us, for example, you, goes off script, it could put not just the show, but all of Heaven’s carefully laid plans, in jeopardy.”
“You worry too much.” She reached up and gave him a playful love tap on the nose. “You’re so not the angel I fell in love with all those thousands of years ago.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Her voice went low and smoky, a tone she usually reserved for the bedroom. Or for when they were in public and he couldn’t do anything about the arousal she stirred up in him.
“Oh, no,” she purred. “I love what you turned into even more.”
They’d had a long, hard road to get to where they were, but every agony they’d been through had been worth it. And there had been a lot of agony, some of it at each others’ hands.
Most of it, actually. Like back when she was evil and she’d collapsed a mountain on top of him. Or the time she’d kept him chained and drugged after sawing off his wings. Or when he’d tried to kill her once or a dozen times. But really, who was counting?
A lighted sign came on, indicating that filming was about to commence. Everyone hushed as Suzanne greeted the audience and introduced her first guest, Harvester.
This was going to be interesting. The hold-your-breath-in-anticipation-of-disaster kind of interesting.
Harvester, dressed in a sleek black pantsuit with a peek-a-boo red bra and matching high heels, strode onto the kitchen set, and after a little introductory banter, she and Suzanne settled into the business of cooking.
“So, before we get started,” Suzanne said, “I’d like to ask about your own background in the kitchen.”
Harvester smiled. “I don’t have much. My mate does most of the cooking. Honestly, I don’t even understand that. We can eat out anywhere in the world, after all. Why spend time in the kitchen?”
“So you aren’t one for a personal touch, then?”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me,” Harvester said brightly. “I’ve made revenge food. That’s very personal.”
Suzanne’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you asked for this episode to feature spicy food?”
Harvester’s smile turned as black as her hair. She might be a fully-restored Heavenly angel, but eons spent in hell had given her a wicked sense of humor. “Absolutely.”
“Well, we can do that.” Suzanne turned to the camera. “Today we’re going to spice up your life with a little sweet, a little salty, and a whole lot of spicy.”
Reaver stood back, watching as Suzanne and Harvester prepared dark chocolate chipotle brownies. Harvester wanted to add more spice in the form of Diablo Claw peppers from one of Sheoul’s arid agricultural regions, but Suzanne insisted that underworlders could make the substitution in their own kitchens. Which sounded reasonable, given that when cooked, the gas released by Diablo Claw peppers could melt human eyeballs, and several crew members wouldn’t appreciated being blinded by brownies.
After the brownies came out of the oven, Harvester tasted one and moaned. “It’s incredible. Reminds me of a dessert I had in New Orleans once.”
“I love New Orleans. There’s so much great food there. So,” Suzanne said, “what’s your opinion of beignets?”
“Bidets?” Harvester reached for the glass of wine Suzanne had poured a few minutes earlier. “Life changing.”
Suzanne laughed. “No, not bidets. Beignets.”
“Oh. Well, I like those too. But bidets? So refreshing.”
“Yes, I’m sure—”
“And after sex?” Harvester made a sound of pure pleasure, familiar enough to Reaver to make him wish they were near a bed. Or a wall. Or... well, anything would do. “Oh. My. God. Like I said, life changing.”
“I...ah...” Suzanne swallowed, clearly flustered. “I don’t think bidets are exactly a cooking show topic...”
“Hmph. Then they shouldn’t make ‘em so great. And seriously, bidets are a forbidden subject? You’ve had demons on your show.” Harvester shrugged. “But sure, you wanted to talk about beignets?”
Suzanne breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, please.”
“Little pillows of fried dough?” Harvester made another, smaller, moan of pleasure. “You eat enough of those and you’ll be happy you have a bidet, let me tell you.”
Delicate blooms of pink colored Suzanne’s cheeks, and the mischievous twinkle in Harvester’s eyes had Reaver deciding it was time to rescue poor Suzanne. He signaled to the producer, who nodded vehemently.
He joined Suzanne and Harvester, and fortunately, the talk turned almost exclusively to food, and by the time the show was over, he’d gotten his fill of brownies, Spicy Sticky Ribs, and something called Salsa with a Vengeance, which Harvester thought needed a lot more “vengeance.” The Diablo Claw peppers came up again, and naturally, so did bidets.
Ah, well. Inappropriateness was part of Harvester’s charm. She certainly kept things interesting, which she proved when the show ended and she dragged him into the green room for some post-taping fun.
It was only as they were readjusting their clothes that a sudden suspicion came over him. He couldn’t even say why. Harvester wasn’t behaving strangely at all. And maybe that was the problem. She’d actually been on her best behavior for days.
“Is everything okay?” he asked as he unlocked the green room door.
She frowned. “Of course. Why?”
“Because you’re being extra normal.”
Her eyes shot wide in mock horror. “Oh, no. Maybe I should see a doctor.”
“I wouldn’t put any doctor through that. Not even Eidolon.” He actually considered the demon doctor and his ex-employer to be one of his best friends, but it was fun to torment the guy now and then. “Seriously...is there anything you want to talk about?”
“As a matter of fact, there is,” she said. “We need to discuss a baby shower gift for Cara and Ares.”
Yes, they did. But shopping for the perfect present wasn’t the topic that was scratching at the edges of his angelic intuition. On the other hand, Harvester wasn’t going to open up until she was ready, so for now he let it go.
Still, something told him he’d better buckle up and hold on to his halo.
* * * *
Harvester glanced at Reaver as they materialized inside their Heavenly palace. His face was still flushed from the sex in the green room, and he looked as handsome as ever in fitted black slacks and a sapphire shirt that matched his eyes. His shoulder-length golden hair, which she’d tousled with her fingers, was silky smooth again, making her itch with the desire to muss it up. She liked it when her perfect angel was a little rough around the edges. A little dirty, even.
“I really think that went well,” she said as she tossed her shoulder bag onto the couch.
“Any time you don’t destroy a building or kill someone, I consider it having gone well.”
She snorted. “I’m not that bad.”
“You’ve gotten better,” he conceded. “You haven’t killed another angel in months.”
“See? Progress.” She went up on her toes and gave him a playful kiss, getting him ready for the topic she was about to bring up. She hadn’t wanted to talk to him yet, but damn him, he could read her like an ancient text from the Akashic Library. “What do you say I pour a couple glasses of Champagne and we hop in the hot spring?”
Their luxurious tub, carved from crystal and fed by a natural effervescent spring, overlooked the majestic Blue Mountains of Trinity in the distance. During her time as a fallen angel Harvester had spent thousands of years in the ugly gloom of hell, and now she took every opportunity to soak in the magnificence of Heaven.
Reaver frowned. “Did you forget? We’re supposed to be at Reseph and Jillian’s place in five minutes.”
Shit. She’d totally forgotten. Or maybe she’d blocked it out. “Why did we agree to go again?”
“Because Jillian said there’s something weird going on with her bond with Tracker.”
Oh, right. She vaguely remembered Reaver telling her the slave bond Harvester had transferred to Jillian had been acting up. The bond connecting Jillian to a werewolf named Tracker wasn’t meant to be hosted by humans, so it wasn’t surprising that Jillian would experience glitches.
“Damn,” she sighed.
Reaver caught her by the arm. “Hey, seriously. What is it? Something to do with Reseph?”
Bingo. She just hated discussing the Four Horsemen with Reaver. He always took their sides over hers, and as their father, he was a little overprotective and blind to their faults. Maybe because he hadn’t even known they were his children until recently, and guilt probably played a role in his feelings toward them.
“It’s just...” She squared her shoulders and spit it out. “I have a feeling he’s going to do something stupid.”
Reaver cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “You say that all the time.” Yeah, she did.
But this was different.
“This isn’t my Watcher spidey-sense. And it isn’t my wicked step-monster bias.” She loved the Horsemen, but that hadn’t always been the case. And while she did love them, she didn’t always like them.
And the feeling was generally mutual. Her relationship with Reseph was particularly complex given that, after Reseph’s Seal had broken and he’d become the evil being known as Pestilence, he’d tortured and abused her like none ever had. Not in her thousands of years of being an angel, and then a fallen angel, and now an angel again.
“Okay, so what do you think he’s going to do?” Reaver folded his arms over his chest as he shifted into his overprotective father mode. “Something you’ll get to punish him for?”
“I can only hope,” she said, joking. Mostly. “But I have no idea. Like I said, it’s just a sense I get.”
“Well,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s see if we can figure it out. Just try not to antagonize him.”
“Me? Pfft. Never.”
He ignored that, and a heartbeat later, they were standing at the door to Jillian and Reseph’s Colorado cabin, where Jillian met them with a smile and mimosas. Ah, the human female knew Harvester so well.
“Thanks for coming,” Jillian said as she closed the door. She was wearing jeans and a light green sweater, perfect attire for the chilly fall weather. Her dark bob just brushed her shoulders, pulled up in a clip on one side. She was adorable, smart, and sensitive; the exact opposite of the skanky females Reseph had sleazed around with in the past.
Jillian was the best thing that had ever happened to Reseph, and Harvester swore that if he screwed things up with his mate, Harvester would fry him with a Heavenly tempest that would take decades to recover from.
“Hey.” Reseph strode out of the bedroom, his big body encased in armor, his white-blond hair tied back with a leather thong at the nape of his neck. “Wish I could stay, but I have to go.”
“Is it something I did?” Harvester asked innocently.
Reseph’s blue eyes, usually sparkling with mischief and humor, shifted to her, bloodshot and swimming with shadows. Before Harvester became the Horsemen’s Heavenly Watcher, she’d been their evil Sheoulic Watcher, and she recognized that look. A plague somewhere on the planet was drawing him so intensely that it hurt. He could only resist for so long, and if he was armored, he was on his way to the outbreak.
His voice rumbled, thick and raspy with exhaustion and pain. “What, you think I need to go just because you cursed me with Khileshi cockfire last month?”
Hilarity. Pure hilarity. “You’re just lucky I didn’t opt for the extra ooze upgrade.”
“Well, why the hell not?” He drew his sword from the scabbard at his hip to test the edge. “Boils and burning flesh that peeled like a flambéed banana wasn’t enough?”
Harvester took a sip of her mimosa. “I do adore Jillian. I didn’t want to distress her too much.”
Reseph gaped. “Distress Jillian?”
“Ahem.” Reaver’s voice was mild and pleasant. Which meant he was reining in his annoyance. Yeah, well, when he interfered in her Watcher business, she had to rein in her annoyance. “You gave him a demonic venereal disease?”
“Oh, chill out,” she sighed. “It was Watcher punishment. And it was pathetically mild. I mean, how long did it take to run its course? Twelve hours?”
“Fifteen. And a half. And my piss burned like acid for three days afterward,” Reseph grumbled as he shoved the sword back into the scabbard.
He swung around to Jillian, and his tone softened. “I gotta go, Jilly.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her long enough to make Harvester and Reaver turn away. “I’ll miss you.”
With that, he stalked outside and threw open a gate to wherever he was going.
“There’s a plague in China,” Jillian explained. “He’s been resisting the call to go, but we both knew he couldn’t wait another day, let alone another hour.”
As the Horseman associated with disease and pestilence, Reseph was drawn to outbreaks, just as his sister Limos was drawn to famine, Ares was drawn to war, and Thanatos was drawn to death. Poor Thanatos had it the worst of all of them, since death was the result of disease, famine, and war, so he often haunted the same scenes as his siblings.
“I didn’t know about this plague,” Reaver said to Harvester. “I’m going to check it out while you two do whatever you need to do. I’ll meet you at our new condo.” He flashed out of the house, leaving Harvester with Jillian.
“I am sorry about the Khileshi cockfire,” Harvester said. “Well, I’m sorry for you. Reseph deserved it.”
Jillian eyed her skeptically. “Did he?”
Harvester shrugged. “He slaughtered a demon who was under Memitim protection. Truly, I went easy on him.” She took another sip of her mimosa. “Now, let’s take care of your problem. What’s happening with the bond?”
“I used to be able to feel when Tracker was in pain.” Jillian glanced out the window at the small cabin she and Reseph had built as a residence for the werewolf. “But during the last full moon when he shifted, he got into a battle with some other werewolves and he nearly bled to death. I didn’t feel a thing.”
“Huh.” Harvester put down the glass and pressed her palm against Jillian’s breastbone. Closing her eyes, she let herself feel for the energy signature that was unique to both Jillian and Tracker, and once she found it, she discovered that one of the “tethers,” as she called them, had frayed. With a punch of energy, she repaired the thread. “There. It’s fixed. Let me know if this happens again.”
“Are you sure the bond can’t be destroyed?”
“We’ve been over this,” Harvester reminded her. “The bond is part of Tracker. Destroying it will kill him. It can only be transferred. Do you have someone you want to transfer it to?”
“No.” Jillian glanced out the window again. Tracker was out there now, raking leaves. He was never idle, a trait beaten into all bond-slaves from infancy. “I just want him to be happy.”
“Are you?”
Jillian blinked, taken aback. “What? Happy? With Tracker?” “With everything.”
Something in Jillian’s expression triggered Harvester’s alarm bells, but it was gone as fast as it came. “I’m very happy.”
“I see.”
“You don’t believe me?” Jillian sank down on the couch, annoying her cat, Doodle, who reached out to swat her before curling up again.
Harvester wasn’t sure how to answer. She knew Reseph and Jillian were happy with each other, but something told her a big change was in the wind. She couldn’t tell if it was going to be a good change or a bad one, but she had no doubt it could be traced back to her sense that Reseph was going to do something dumb.
“I don’t have any reason not to believe you,” Harvester hedged. “But if there’s anything you ever want to discuss, I have a willing ear.”
“I appreciate that.” Jillian patted the chair next to the couch. “Now, tell me about Suzanne’s show. Was it fun being a guest?”
Harvester laughed as she sat down. “Absolutely. But I doubt Suzanne will invite me back.”
Jillian smirked, a reliable sister in mischief. “What did you do?”
“Me?” Harvester smiled into her champagne flute. “Nothing. She’s the one with silly rules. Can you believe you’re not supposed to talk about bidets on a cooking show?”
“You didn’t.”
“Oh, please,” Harvester said with a dismissive wave. “You can talk about food going in but not coming out? In any case, she’s sparked my interest in cooking. I think I’ll give it a shot. I’m going to make some homemade treats for Cara’s hellhounds, too. I’m becoming quite domestic.”
Jillian clearly wasn’t buying it, but then, being mated to Reseph had given her a lot of practice sifting through bullshit.
“Well, if you need some easy recipes, let me know. Reseph would rather eat hearty meals at home than go out, so I do a lot of cooking.”
“Does Reseph cook?”
“Actually, he does. He grills a lot, and he bought a smoker a few weeks back. We now have enough smoked meats in the freezer to feed Ares for a year.” Smiling, Jillian toyed with Doodle’s paws. “He actually wanted to give some ham and sausages to Cara as a baby shower gift.”
“I doubt Ares would complain. He eats more than a dozen men can eat at a sitting.”
Jillian nodded absently, her gaze turned inward, and Harvester frowned. There was something bothering the other female, but Harvester wasn’t sure if she should press more. She wasn’t very good at coaxing information from people. Her style was more along the lines of torturing or, at the very least, annoying her target until they talked, but obviously, that wasn’t an option.
Cautiously, she dipped a toe in. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong? Nothing you want to talk about?”
“I’m sure,” Jillian said, a little too cheerily. “But you know what I’d like to do?”
“What’s that?”
“Shop. If you’re not busy, want to go do a little baby shower shopping in Paris?”
Harvester grinned. She wasn’t much into girl stuff, but she loved going to hoity-toity, upscale shops and floofing with snotty employees and haughty, self-important customers.
What a perfect ending to a perfect day.
* * * *
Reaver hated plagues. The stench of sickness and death burned the nose, and the sights and sounds of human suffering couldn’t be wiped from memory.
He wished he could interfere—and he could, if the plague was of demonic origin. But no, this was an old-fashioned viral hemorrhagic fever originally caused by an animal bite. Not long ago, he might have snapped his fingers and ended it, but now that he was privy to what he called the Universal Plan, he understood why these things happened.
And needed to happen.
But that didn’t change the fact that the human realm could be an awful place.
A wave of power engulfed him from behind, spiderwebbing across his skin in streaks of electricity. He didn’t have to look to know an archangel had just paid him a visit.
“Yenrieth.”
Grateful for a distraction, he turned away from the tragic scene in the village below. “’Sup, Mike.” Reaver flared his gold wings, a reminder that he outranked and outgunned the archangel by a factor of about a thousand. “And it’s Reaver. Not Yenrieth.”
“Yeah, well, it’s Michael, not Mike.”
Mike seemed testy today. “Now that we’re clear on names,” Reaver drawled, “wanna tell me why you’re here?”
The archangel growled deep in his chest. “I still don’t know how it came to be that you were raised to Radiant status.”
Yes, he did. He was just being an ass. “I could remind you, but we both know you’re too envious to care.”
All angels were envious that Reaver, who had once been punished with expulsion from Heaven and centuries of memory loss, had been awarded the status of the Radiant. Only one Radiant existed at a time, more powerful than all the archangels put together, and there wasn’t an angel, fallen or not, in Heaven or Sheoul, who believed he deserved the position.
Reaver didn’t really believe it either, but who was he to question the Almighty? Besides, it was floofing awesome being at the very top of the food chain. So he rolled with it. Times like this, when he had to deal with angels who had once treated him like dirt, he reveled in it.
Michael exhaled in a huff. “You’re...exasperating.”
“Harvester is rubbing off on me.” At the sudden glint in Michael’s eye, Reaver went taut. “That’s why you’re here. It’s about Harvester.”
Dipping his head in acknowledgment, the archangel clasped his hands in front of his purple and gold robes. “The Watcher Council has agreed to consider your request,” he said. “I believe we’ll vote to remove Harvester as the Horsemen’s Watcher.”
“What?” Reaver cursed. “I didn’t ask you to remove her. I asked you find a replacement for her.”
“How is that not asking us to fire her?”
“I just want her to have an option.”
“Why?”
Because she hates the job.
She was always complaining about it, and in Reaver’s opinion, she enjoyed taking out her frustration on the Horsemen. She wasn’t harsh with them...in fact, Reaver had gone harder on them when he’d been their Watcher. But she was just...mean.
“It doesn’t matter why.”
“Then it won’t matter if we replace her.”
Reaver stepped closer, his wings flaring of their own accord. “Don’t do it, Mikey. Not until I make sure it’s what Harvester wants.”
“You have twelve human hours to decide. If we don’t hear from you, Harvester will be reassigned.”
“No, you’ll hear from her. This is her decision, not mine. Also,” he said in a voice that resonated through the air like thunder, “you will not reassign her. The sacrifices she made for Heaven and mankind can’t be overstated. She’s earned the right to do any job she wants...or to not have a job at all. Is that understood?”
Michael might be an arrogant ass, but he wasn’t stupid or petty, and he respected what Harvester had done to save the world. He nodded. “She deserves to be revered in every corner of the universe.” His mouth quirked. “It would be nice if she made it easier to do.”
Yeah, that was Harvester. Reaver had penetrated the layers of walls she’d put up, and many of them had come down. But those that remained were as tall and thick as ever, and few made it past them.
“Twelve hours, Radiant.”
Michael shot upward in a flurry of wings and light, disappearing a split-second later.
What a weird ending to a weird day.
* * * *
Reaver materialized in the living room of the Spanish condo he and Harvester had acquired a few months ago. Her goal was to have a house or apartment on every continent and eventually in every country. For her, there wasn’t enough time to do and see everything she wanted, and seeing how she’d spent thousands of years in the hell realm of Sheoul, Reaver didn’t argue with her frantic need to do it all. Even if she wanted to do it all at once.
He started to call out to her when he turned to find his son-in-law, Arik, sitting in Reaver’s favorite recliner, his dark head bent over his phone. From the sounds coming from the device, it appeared he was playing Candy Crush.
“Hey, Pops,” he said, not looking up. “Harvester’s in the kitchen. She said I could wait.”
“What’s up?” Reaver took a seat across from Arik and then shouted to Harvester. “I’m in the living room with Arik.”
Something clinked from the kitchen. “I’ll be right there,” she replied. “I just need to wash the penis off my hands!”
“Can you bring me a beer when you come out?” He looked at Arik. “Want one?”
Arik stared at him. “Aren’t you even going to ask?”
Laughing, Reaver kicked his feet up on the glass coffee table. “I’ve been with Harvester long enough to know better.”
Arik shook his head in dismay.
“You wanna ask?” Reaver said with a gesture toward the kitchen. “Go ahead.”
As predicted, Arik, ever the warrior, couldn’t resist the challenge. “Harvester? Did you say you have to wash the penis off your hands?”
“Yep.”
“Um...why?”
There was another clink. “Do you want me to bring you a beer with penis juice on my hands?”
“No, I mean—”
Reaver gave him a “told you so” look and tried to keep a straight face.
Arik cleared his throat and tried again. The fool. “Why do you have penis, uh, juice, on your hands?”
“For Cara’s hellhounds. Part of the baby shower gift.”
“Penises?”
She poked her head around the corner. “You know how humans give those nasty dried bully sticks to their dogs? Those are dried penises. Hellhounds like ‘em fresh.”
“You’re right,” Arik grumbled to Reaver. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I can’t believe you doubted me.” Reaver popped his feet back down on the floor and addressed the reason Arik was here. “Is everything okay with Limos and Keilani?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s great. I’m here on DART business. Sort of.” He tucked his phone in his jacket pocket. “Rumor has it that Azagoth has shut down Sheoul-gra. Evil souls are starting to cause problems. I don’t suppose you can maybe have a chat with him?’
This was news to Reaver, but then he and Harvester had been spending more time on the Other Side than in the human realm, and they’d missed a few messages. “I’ll see what I can do.”
That seemed to satisfy Arik. “So have you seen Revenant lately?”
Reaver’s twin brother, Revenant, hadn’t come around in months, but he had a good excuse. “Turns out that running Hell is a big job and it takes a lot of time.”
“Huh. Who would have thought, right?”
Reaver opened his mouth to reply, but a sudden burst of curses and the sound of pots and pans crashing around the kitchen shut him up.
Standing, Arik reached up to rub the back of his neck. “This seems like my cue to go.”
Reaver’s too. “Need a ride?”
“If you’re offering.”
More curses came from the kitchen, and Reaver decided that delaying his chat with Harvester could wait a couple more minutes.
He took Arik by the shoulder and flashed him to the Hawaiian house he shared with Limos and their daughter, Keilani. The baby was sleeping in her playpen and Limos was napping on the couch next to it.
Reaver wasn’t going to stay and wake anyone up, but he did remain there for a minute, just gazing upon the beauty of the little family. Limos was living her dream, and Reaver couldn’t be happier.
“You can stay as long as you want,” Arik whispered, but no, Reaver had to go.
Harvester might not admit it, but she needed him, and he would never not be there for her.
But as he dematerialized, he realized he might need to learn to dodge pans.
* * * *
Food dripped from walls and cabinets, and the beautiful tiled floor was covered in sauce and overturned dishes. At least the kitchen smelled good.
“I can’t do this!”
Harvester never cried, but she was so frustrated that she was on the verge. Reining in her desire to destroy more than she already had, she dialed Suzanne, who answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“It’s Harvester. I need help.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I can’t cook. I just got done with the penises, and now I’m trying to make this dish from a recipe, but it sucks and I suck and I just want to order food and tell Reaver I cooked it.”
Suzanne laughed softly. “It’s okay. I can help you through it. What are you trying to make? Something with...penises? Is it a demon dish?”
“I’m making Coq au Vin and Baked Alaska.”
Harvester heard Suzanne inhale sharply. “Honey, Coq au Vin doesn’t use, um, those kind of cocks.”
“I’m not using penises for...that. Ew. Gross. I have chicken.”
“Oh, good.” Suzanne sounded relieved, but she clearly hadn’t considered the possibilities of using penises in revenge food. “But Coq au Vin and Baked Alaska are two very complicated dishes. Why don’t I send you recipes that are a little more user-friendly? I can even talk you through them if you need me to.”
Harvester hated admitting defeat, but she really wanted to do this. “I suppose that could work.”
“Okay, what is the occasion? That’ll help me find the perfect dishes.”
“No occasion. It’s just that in a couple of weeks we’re going to have to spend an entire day with all his kids at a baby shower, and I think he worries about how we’ll all get along.” Mainly, he worried she’d cause trouble. “So I need to bank some credit.”
On the other end of the line, Suzanne laughed. “I think my Beef Skewers with Wasabi Aioli and the Dark Chocolate Chipotle Brownies we made during your taping will be perfect. I’ll text you the recipes in a few minutes.”
“Perfect. Thank you.”
Harvester hung up just as Reaver walked into the kitchen.
He stopped and looked around, his expression unreadable. “Were you attacked by a horde of demons? Or was this a temper tantrum?”
“It was demons,” she said with a haughty sniff. “Big ones. At least a dozen.”
“I see.” A soft glow flashed around him, and instantly, the kitchen was clean and the pots and pans were stacked neatly in the sink.
“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I’ve been a little stressed.”
“I know.” He strode over to her and folded her into his arms. She loved it when he did that. She used to fight it, but now she knew that taking comfort and relying on someone wasn’t a weakness. It was, in fact, almost a necessity for survival. “But I might be able to help.”
“What do you mean?”
He inhaled deep in his chest, as if he had to brace himself for whatever he was about to say, and she stiffened. “I spoke with Michael. The Watcher Council has agreed to take you off Watcher duty.”
She tore away from Reaver as explosive anger blasted through her, and she suddenly wished the pots and pans were within reach. “They what? You did what?”
“I just thought maybe you aren’t happy doing the job.” He casually put himself between her and the pile of cookware. “You always say you hate it, and you don’t like the Horsemen anyway.”
Her anger veered to hurt and confusion. “I...I...Why would you say that?”
“Why?” he asked, incredulous. “You laughed about cursing Reseph with a disease so painful that some demons amputate their own dicks. You enjoy punishing them.”
“No, I don’t.” She held up her hand to stop him from arguing. “Well, maybe I enjoyed giving Reseph the STD...but come on, that was hilarious.”
She let out a chuckle before clearing her throat and getting serious again. She truly didn’t want Reaver, or his children, to think she hated them, and it was possible—maybe—that she’d been a little too hard on them.
“This might surprise you,” she said softly, “but I don’t like seeing the Horsemen suffer, especially if whatever they did to get into trouble was something I’d do myself. And it usually is. I never lie when I say I hate this job. The rules are stupid.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Then why do you keep doing it?”
Why, indeed. She’d wondered the same thing. At first, she thought maybe it was out of jealousy that the Horsemen weren’t hers. They should have been. Instead he’d knocked up a wretched succubus and ruined everything.
Later she’d realized that she hadn’t felt the need to keep them close because she didn’t like them, but because she loved them. She just had trouble admitting it.
“Harvester?” he prompted, his voice taking on a soothing tone that always took her down a few notches and encouraged her to tell him the truth. To open up.
Not her strong suit.
But he deserved it, so she closed her eyes and ripped her emotions wide open.
“Because I can’t let someone else punish them.” She opened her eyes, catching his surprised gaze. “I don’t mete out even half the suffering another Watcher would. You know that. Historically, each Watcher tries to outdo the last. When I was the Horsemen’s evil Watcher, I did try. And I succeeded.” She’d been harsh and brutal, and at the time, she’d compartmentalized it and let it go. Now...now her actions sat on her chest like an anvil. “I had to because my life, and theirs, and the fate of the entire floofing world rested in my ability to maintain my cover and be the evilest bitch I could be. Now I can make it up to them.” She snorted. “Except Reseph. I’m not done with him yet.”
“So you don’t hate them?”
“No. Not at all.” She took Reaver’s hand and drew him close. “Sometimes I resent it when you take their sides instead of mine, but I love them and would never force you to choose between my love and theirs. Besides,” she said brightly, “eventually we’ll have our own child, and you’ll love it more than the Horsemen...and that’ll be that.” She booped him on the nose. “What do you say we forget that I tried to cook and we go out to eat?”
He stood there like he had been poleaxed. And she knew his poleaxed expression because she’d done it to him once, back when she was evil and he was extra annoying.
“You...want to have a baby?”
“Well, not now. But eventually...yes. I can’t let that whore, Lilith, be the only mother to your children.” She placed her hand on his chest, her pulse quickening to match his as it thudded against her palm. “And no, my jealousy is not truly the reason I want a child. It’s you, Reaver. For the longest time I didn’t think I had enough love in my heart for anything more than what we have. But I keep finding new things to love. My world is getting bigger, and I want my family to do the same.”
Suddenly, she found herself in Reaver’s arms, his strength crushing her to him in a powerful embrace. His magnificent wings wrapped around them both, creating a cocoon of safety and love.
“Me too.” His gaze captured hers, holding her in this perfect moment. And when his warm, firm lips came down on hers, she was reminded that, without a doubt, that he held her heart too...for all eternity.
* * * *
Reaver and Harvester are one of my favorite couples in the Demonica/Lords of Deliverance universe, and if you liked them too, you can read all about their romance in . If you want to go back to their roots, you’ll have to go all the way back to the first book in the Demonica series, , where Reaver is but a mention. But by book 3, , he plays an important role that continues to this day. You’ll meet Harvester in the 1st book of the Lords of Deliverance series, , which is also book 6 of the Demonica series. I know, it’s confusing, but feel free to check out my printable book list, which will help with the reading order!