Revenant (12 page)

“Okay, fine,” she said. “It was something, but it’s none of your business. That’s not a lie.”

He pegged her with his black gaze. “I’m not the enemy. You know that, right?”

“Actually, no, I don’t.” She smoothed a bandage over his wound. “You’re a fallen angel. You, more than anyone, should know that fallen angels aren’t exactly honorable.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” The bottle he seemed to have forgotten about became his best friend again, and he took a swig. “I’m not fallen. I’m a one hundred percent, full-blown, Heavenly angel.” His voice lowered, became thick with liquor. “What a fucking joke.”

Now he was making no sense. She reached for the bottle. “Let me just take that —”

He jerked it way. “Mine.”

She huffed. “As your doctor, I’m ordering you to give that to me.”

“Mine.”

“Hand it over,” she said between clenched teeth.

His gaze roved over her in a frank, unhurried sweep. “
Mine
,” he growled, and her body flushed with heat, as if it thought he was referring to her.

“I give up,” she muttered as she shoved her medical supplies back into her bag.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “I like that you give in to me so easily.”

“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to give in to anything else. If you want a hangover for the record books, that’s your problem. Don’t come asking me for aspirin.”

Half-lidded eyes swept her again, and the heat intensified. “There’s a pub song about how women get better looking at closing time.” He held up the bottle in salute. “You’re already hot as hell. But now you look like an angel.”

“Aw, I’ll bet you say that to all the doctors who sew you up.”

“Nope. Just you.” He squinted at her. Looked at the bottle. Looked back at her. “I don’t know what’s in this booze, but I swear it’s making you look different. Like an angel is trying to break through some sort of blurry overlay.”

He frowned again at the bottle, completely oblivious to the fact that she was on the verge of hyperventilating. Had the alcohol given him the ability to see through her disguise?

Do something. Fast
.

“Ah, hey.” She gestured to his wound. “You need to get some rest now. The wound should be healed by morning.”

Standing, she held out her hand to help him up, but he popped to his feet without her. And then, as if his legs were made of rubber, he collapsed. Only the wall and her quick thinking kept him from crashing to the floor.

“Criminy, you’re heavy.” Holding him with one arm slung around his waist, she casually took the liquor from him and set it on the coffee table.

He leaned heavily on her as she made her way past unpacked boxes toward her bedroom. “She gave up everything for me, Blaspheme,” he mumbled. “She… she… aw, fuck.” His big body trembled, and his voice, which was so deep and powerful, shook as hard as the rest of him. “It’s my fault. Everything that happened to her… it’s on me.”

“Shh.” Wondering who he was talking about, she eased him toward the bed. “It’s okay.”

“No,” he moaned. “It’s not okay. It’ll never be okay. She told me not to break the rules, but I did it anyway. She paid for it, over and over. And then she died at the hands of a monster.” He glanced down at his own hands as if they didn’t belong to him.

“Come on, Rev.” She pushed him down onto the mattress. He sat heavily, remaining like that, his head hanging on his shoulders, his chest heaving as if he’d run a marathon. She lifted his feet and swung him around so he was forced to lie back, his gorgeous ebony hair spreading out over her robin’s-egg blue sheets. “Get some rest.”

“Lay with me.” He stared up at her, his glazed eyes going in and out of focus. She’d seen enough pain and intoxication to know that those things could be the cause of his visual responses, but this went deeper than that. Behind the alcohol muddle and the haze of pain was an open wound no medicine could touch.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she murmured.

“
Please
.” There was so much vulnerability in that one simple word that she couldn’t turn away.

Wondering how the hell she’d gotten herself into this mess, she climbed onto the opposite side of the bed and stretched out next to him. Naturally, he flipped over, slung his arm around her, and tucked her against him so they were spooning. Despite his condition, she expected him to try something sexual, but within a few heartbeats, his body had stopped shaking, and he was breathing in strong, even respirations.

As she relaxed in his powerful arms, she realized he was right. She did give in to him easily.

Too easily.

Hours after Revenant had flashed himself away, Reaver was still staring out at the charred landscape. He had no idea how to handle his brother, no idea how to get through to him. Revenant was angry, hurt, and he possessed way too much power to be so unstable.

Reaver knew firsthand how badly
that
could go, and he had a lifetime of regrets to prove it.

Reaching out with his senses to locate Harvester, he flashed himself from the New Mexico badlands to the sandy beach of a Greek island he knew well.

Harvester was wading in the crystal surf, her blue-and-white-striped sundress catching the waves as they lapped at her ankles. She wasn’t one for soft, feminine styles, so the fact that she was dressed like she should be at a polo match in the Hamptons was a clue that she was having a difficult day.

That made two of them.

Silently¸ he sat down in the sand, prepared to simply watch her. They’d been separated for five thousand years, and sometimes, like now, he wanted nothing more than to soak up her beauty and marvel at the angel she’d become.

Sure, she was still ornery, maddening, and sometimes, downright mean, but he wouldn’t have her any other way.

She slid a glance at him from underneath the wide rim of her floppy straw hat. “Hey, you.”

“Hey.” He leaned forward and braced his arms on his knees. “What’s wrong? You don’t usually hang out at Ares’s place without a reason.”

Ares, Reaver’s son and the second Horseman of the Apocalypse, known to many as War, didn’t mind anyone in the family hanging out here. But Harvester’s relationship with the Horsemen was complicated, starting with the fact that she was their Heavenly Watcher… and she’d once been their Sheoulic Watcher.

She smiled sadly, and was it his imagination, or was she even paler than she’d been this morning? “I saw Whine today. He goes by Tracker now, but it seems so strange to call him that.”

“Do you regret giving him up?”

“Never,” she said with a brisk shake of her head. “My father would have tortured or killed him to hurt me. Besides, he has a better life with Reseph and Jillian than I ever could have given him.”

“Then why are you so upset?”

She sniffed, got that muley look he knew so well. “I’m not upset. When have you ever known me to be sentimental?”

“Never.”

“There you go.” She started toward him, kicking through the waves. “But while I was waiting to talk to Tracker, Revenant showed up.”

Reaver went on instant alert. He was trying to be patient with Revenant, to give his twin a behavioral pass because he’d truly been given the shaft, but Reaver wouldn’t tolerate anyone messing with his family.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “It was something he said about how it’s easier to be evil than good.”

“And?”

“And it reminded me how close I came a few times to giving in to evil instead of staying on the path I’d intended.” She sank down in the sand beside him, the warm breeze bringing her sun-kissed scent to him. “What if I’d done it? I mean, I left Heaven with a goal, but there were times when I lost sight of that goal. When it seemed like the very side I was fighting for was fighting against me, I kept wondering why I was sacrificing myself for people who hated me.”

Reaching for her, he took her hand. “But you stayed strong, and in the end you managed to do exactly what you set out to do. You saved the world, Harvester. Don’t let the
what-ifs
drive you crazy.”

“I’m not. But what about Revenant?”

He blinked at the sudden change of focus. “What about him?”

“He’s lost. He just found out he’s an angel. An angel who was forsaken by the people who should be welcoming him. And now that he knows the truth about himself, he’s struggling with who he was, who he is, who he wants to be, and who he thinks he should be. He doesn’t know if he’s good, evil, both… I know how that feels, and I know it can send you down a road to the wrong place.”

Baffled by her out-of-character compassion for someone she hated, Reaver just stared. “Why do you care?”

She laughed, but she sounded tired. “I don’t. He’s a jackass.” Her fingers were warm as she squeezed his hand. “I care for you. He’s your brother, and no matter what I think of him, I know that if you don’t try to help him down the right path, you’ll regret it forever.”

“You’re pretty amazing, you know that?”

She gave another haughty sniff. “Of course I know that.”

Nope, the transformation from fallen angel to haloed angel hadn’t changed Harvester a bit. He shifted, putting his face to the salty breeze. “How are you feeling?”

“You mean, is Lucifer sucking my energy?” She shook her head. “I can barely feel him at all. I’m feeling better, in fact.” He thought she might be lying, but then she smiled, the sultry one that made his blood run south and his brain stop functioning. “Now, let’s go home and I’ll show you how much better I’m feeling.”

There was nothing he’d like more, but there was something he had to do first. “Rain check? I need to speak with the archangels.”

“Hurry,” she said in her husky bedroom voice. “Or I’ll start without you.”

Erotic images flooded his brain, and he groaned. No doubt this was going to be the briefest meeting in angel history.

“Fuck me, Revenant.”

Blaspheme’s husky voice rolled through Revenant in a silken caress. Naked, she lay beneath him, thighs parted, her sex glistening with honey as she waited for him to sink his hard cock into her tight sheath.

It was about damned time. He could take her now, get her out of his system, and move on to his next conquest.

He frowned. Why didn’t his usual pattern sound so easy this time?

“Fuck me, Revenant,” she repeated.

Reaching down, she fingered herself, and he damned near came. He’d been with a lot of females in his life, but none of them made him feel as though he needed to be inside them or he’d die. Just fall over dead.

“Anything for you, babe.” He mounted her, guiding his cock to her dripping entrance, but before he could sink into her slippery heat, she slapped her palms against his chest.

“Be careful of your wound.”

His wound? He looked down, saw the bandage wrapped around his torso. How had that happened?

“That’s what happens when you let emotion rule. That’s what happens when you start thinking you belong in Heaven. That’s what happens when you think you can be happy.” She was rambling now, her words coming faster and faster. “That’s what happens when you deal with archangels. That’s what happens when you confide in your brother.”

“No,” he croaked. “That’s not… that’s not how it happened.” How was she tapping into his thoughts and dreams he didn’t even know he had?

“That’s what happens when you remember your mother. That’s what happens when you realize she suffered for nothing. That’s what happens when you understand what a disappointment you were to her. She sent Reaver to Heaven because he was the good twin. She didn’t even give you a proper name.”

Rearing back, he covered his ears. “No!” His breath burned in his throat as he said it over and over. “No, no, no…
noooo
!”

Suddenly, Blaspheme was gone, and he was panting as he lay on a strange bed in a strange room. How the ever-living fuck had he gotten here? And where
was
here?

Forcing himself to calm down, he inhaled slowly. Blaspheme’s clean scent filled his nostrils, and things started to come back to him.

He’d been wounded… he slapped his hand on his torso, felt the very real bandages under his palm. So that part wasn’t a dream. She’d sewn him up, cared for him, tucked him into bed. Reaching over onto the other side of the mattress, he felt for warmth, but if she’d been there, she was long gone.

There was a note on the nightstand.

I’m in the rooftop garden having my morning coffee. There’s a carafe and mugs in the kitchen if you want some
.

Cool. He loved coffee.

With a thought, he cleaned up, which was an awesome bennie of being a Shadow Angel. Instant shower and change of clothes. He went with black leather pants and a black tank top under a leather jacket today, poured himself a cup of hazelnut coffee, and flashed himself to the rooftop. Which was another bennie. As a regular fallen angel, he could only flash to places he knew. Now he could pretty much wish himself anywhere.

Yep, very awesome.

“Hey, Blas —”

A scream made his chest go cold.

Dropping his mug, he bolted around the shed he’d materialized behind, and what he saw at the front of the building turned the ice in his chest to lava-hot fury. Rage consumed him. He didn’t think. Didn’t so much as breathe.

He slammed into the angel who had Blas pinned to the side of the mechanicals building and was about to plunge a dagger into her heart. They both hit the rooftop, grunting as about five hundred combined pounds of angel crashed into the structure. The dagger, an ancient
aurial
forged specifically to kill angels and fallen angels, clattered to the ground.

Revenant could have demolished the fucker, incinerated him, blasted him to bits, yanked him apart like a good old medieval draw-and-quartering. But Rev had too much rage stewing inside him to use his powers. He needed a brawl. Needed to feel bone splinter and flesh pulverize under his fists.

Needed to protect his female the way males were meant to. It didn’t matter that Blaspheme wasn’t technically his yet. She would be, if only for a night.

One night won’t be enough
.

He banished that thought as he smashed his fist into the other male’s jaw. The angel got a good jab in his ribs, but then they both flipped to their feet, and the battle was on.

The angel grinned as he sent a stream of liquid lightning at Revenant’s torso. “Die, Fallen.”

Searing heat bored into Rev. Hurt like hell, but even as smoke rose from his burning flesh, his body healed. Surprise and panic lit the other male’s eyes as Revenant walked toward him, not even slowed by the angelic weapon.

“Revenant!” Blaspheme’s terrified voice came from behind him. “He’ll kill you!”

She was worried. How sweet.

Revenant stopped, letting the angel’s lightning stream into his body, absorbing the power, memorizing the intricate pattern that composed this particular talent. All his life Revenant had been using fallen angel weapons, never knowing he had the ability to use angel weapons as well.

Now he could. All he had to do was learn them.

The other male, a bald dude with mink wings, stared in disbelief as his weapon failed. Not just failed, but backfired.

“Get used to it, fucker.” Rev reversed the angel’s stream of lightning and sent it back at him, a hundred times hotter.

Baldie screamed and fell back, his body sizzling and smoking. Never one to waste an opportunity, Revenant went in for the kill. Scooping up the dagger the angel had been ready to use on Blaspheme, he rushed the angel.

A whip appeared in Baldie’s hand, a whip that burned like a stream of lava. Molten orange drops plopped to the rooftop, burning holes in the asphalt as he cracked the whip in an arc meant to take Revenant’s head off. He ducked, the tip of the weapon glancing off his shoulder in a hiss of fire meeting flesh.

This dude was so dead.

Revenant leaped and spun, landing a kick in the other angel’s throat that crushed bone, tissue, and esophagus. Baldie hit the ground in a crumpled heap, but his unconsciousness wasn’t going to save him.

“Say good night, motherfucker.” Straddling Baldie’s unconscious form, he plunged the blade downward.

“Revenant!
Stop
.”

The blade flew from his hands. Then, as if a massive fist had closed around him, his breath was squeezed out of his lungs and his body crumpled in on itself.

Reaver
.

His twin stood on the rooftop, his eyes flashing blue fire. Blaspheme had palmed the blade meant to end her life and was standing against the rooftop door, her gaze flitting between Rev, Reaver, and the unconscious angel.

With a roar, Revenant broke out of his brother’s magical hold and sent an invisible punch of energy back at him. Reaver grunted and flew backward, blood spraying from his mouth and nose.

“Revenant, no!” Blaspheme rushed toward him. “He’s a Radiant —”

“Get back!” Reaver threw out his hand, and a tornadic blast of wind pinned her against the door.

“
Don’t touch her.
” A black veil of hatred filled Revenant’s vision, until all he could think about was dealing out pain to the male who was holding Blaspheme against her will.

He came at Reaver with a sword of flame and spark, and with a single mighty swing, he cut his brother in half from the shoulder to the hip. Blaspheme’s horrified scream rang out, but Reaver recovered in an instant and returned the favor, slicing through Revenant’s thighs with a low, spinning chop of his own blade.

Revenant hit the ground, the agony short-lived as his body regenerated.

“This fighting is pointless, brother,” Reaver yelled. “We’re equally matched.”

“It’s not pointless if you’re in pain,” Revenant yelled back.

But at least Blaspheme was free of Reaver’s hold. In fact, before he could stop her, she yanked open the stairwell door and fled. Good, now she was off the battlefield and wouldn’t become collateral damage.

Twisting around, Revenant charged his powers and prepared to fry Baldie. This was going to end.

“Do not kill that angel,” Reaver roared, flashing to intercept Rev’s weapon.

“Or what?” This was Revenant’s ticket to security in Sheoul. The only way he could prove to Satan that he was trustworthy.

Yeah, because being the Prince of Lies’s right-hand man was a dream job.
 

Didn’t matter. He had no choice. Heaven didn’t want him, and if Satan didn’t either, the king of demons would snuff him like a spent cigarette.

“Or you’ll never be welcome in Heaven.”

Revenant laughed. Hard. When he finally sobered, he actually felt pity for his brother. “Truly? You think the archangels would ever, in a million years, embrace me like family? You are delusional.”

“I spoke with them,” he said. “They’re willing to make it right. Everything that happened to you as a child… they want to fix it.”

“Fix it?” Revenant practically sputtered as he got to his feet. “How in the grand realm of fuck can they fix what they put me through? What they put our mother through?”

“They said your blood is tainted by Satan, but that the taint can be removed.”

Hope sparked, but he wasn’t going to get too excited. Hope was for fools. “Bullshit.”

“Listen to me,” Reaver said, his voice almost pleading. “I don’t trust Raphael, but if there’s even a chance that you could be admitted into Heaven without the risk of corrupting anything, you have to take it.”

Revenant didn’t
have
to do anything. But he couldn’t resist asking, “What’s the catch?”

“You have to prove your loyalty.”

Gee, that sounded familiar, didn’t it? “And how do I do that?”

Reaver’s hands tightened into fists. “Gethel.”

Of course. “Let me guess. You want me to kill her.”

“No. I want you to bring her to me so
I
can kill her.”

Rev flexed his hands, enjoying the feel of Baldie’s blood drying on his knuckles. “Somehow I doubt the archangels made that part of the bargain.”

“They said they’ll purify your blood when Gethel is in their hands. They didn’t say she had to be alive.” Reaver flared his brilliant gold wings – wings that made him unique among all angels. “Well? What’s it to be?”

“I need to think about it.”

Reaver’s flat stare spoke volumes about what his twin thought of that. “You have to think about it? Seriously? You don’t know if you’d rather serve good or evil?”

“You self-righteous jackass,” Revenant snarled. “It’s so easy for you to judge, isn’t it? You, who grew up in Heaven with a family who loved you. You, who was given every opportunity to achieve greatness, and you still managed to fuck it up. If you’d just listened to me when I came to you at Mount Megiddo all those years ago, if you’d helped me instead of hating me, we could have avoided five thousand fucking years of memory loss and hell!”

“You’re right,” Reaver shot back. “But that was a long time ago. We need to get past that —”

“It was weeks ago!” Not technically, but it was just a couple of weeks ago that the truth had come out and memories had been restored, and Revenant was still sorting through eons of shit. “You got your memories back, along with a mate, children, grandchildren, an aunt, an uncle, and probably a couple of gilded mansions. You know what I got? Threats from both sides. I need to do their bidding or take a hike. So go screw yourself, asshole. I need time to decide which side, good or evil, is going to fuck me over harder.” He started for the door Blaspheme had gone through.

“Rev —”

He whirled back to his brother and jabbed his finger into his sternum. “Don’t. Don’t you dare play nice now. Take your precious angel over there and go back to Heaven where you belong. I’ll give the archangels my decision soon.”

“Revenant,” Reaver said quietly, “there’s an expiration date on this offer. If Gethel gives birth before you deliver her to us, the deal is off.”

Of course it was. Heaven couldn’t possibly offer him sanctuary simply because he was an angel. Nope. There had to be strings attached to something that should have been his by birth.

“Why were you here with Blaspheme, anyway?” Reaver asked.

“What’s it to you?”

“I worked with her for years at Underworld General when I was Unfallen, and I consider her a friend. Don’t hurt her, Revenant, or you’ll answer to me.”

Revenant made a theatrical, sarcastic gesture with his hands. “Ooh, scary.”

“I mean it.”

Whatever. He was sick of this shit. He should just kill the angel who attacked Blaspheme and be done with it. Except that when he looked over at where the bastard had been, he was gone.

Instant, sharp alarm rang through him. Blaspheme could be in trouble.

And God help Baldie if he had her, because this time, Rev wasn’t going to give the fucker the courtesy of dying in the human realm.

Revenant was going to drag that haloed bastard to Sheoul and kill him there.

Where his soul could languish in misery for all eternity.