The battle angel in Reaver leaped into action, rapidly taking a tactical measure of their surroundings, escape routes, and potential weapons. He and Harvester had the advantage if they struck first, hitting the enemy as they filed out of the crevice that opened up into the cavern.
He glanced over at Harvester, and for a brief moment he drank in the sight of her facing in the direction of the enemy, her expression feral, her lithe body squared for battle. The clothes he’d chosen for her left little to the imagination, clinging to every curve, every muscle. And to every bone that lay too close to the surface of her skin. He hated that her hips and ribs stood out so starkly.
But she wasn’t afraid. After all she’d been through at the hands of demons, the only vibe she was giving off right now was the electric tingle of anticipation.
She wanted revenge.
When she shook her head with obvious reluctance, he held out a dagger. “It’s a—”
“Dragon Biter,” she finished. “I know. Goes through thick hide and scales like butter. I used to have one before it was stolen by a Bathag I let get a little too close to me.”
“Why?”
She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Why do you think? I wanted something from him.”
“Sex?”
She snatched the dagger from him. “Why does sex automatically come to mind?”
The bear-toads howled, their bloodthirst carrying through the tunnels like a banshee’s wail and sending a chill up Reaver’s spine. “Maybe because you blackmailed me into having sex with you for twenty-four hours at some random time of your choosing?”
A thick shock of hair fell over her eyes, and she thrust it back with an impatient shove. “You know, most males wouldn’t whine about having to have sex.”
“Most males wouldn’t be having sex with you,” he pointed out, and were they really doing this when demons were almost on them?
“Most males should be so lucky.” She reached into her boot and fished out a stone. “But does it really matter if I wanted sex from a Bathag?”
No, it didn’t. But for some reason, he didn’t like the image that was now searing itself into his brain, of her rolling around with some pale-skinned, silver-haired mine-dweller.
“I don’t care who you sleep with.” Another howl rang out, chillingly close, and he summoned his power, what little there was, readying it for battle.
“You sound a little grumpy for someone who doesn’t care.”
Her tone was singsongy, meant to goad him into a fight, but they’d have one of those soon enough. The steady pounding of running footsteps came from only a few yards away, and he put himself in front of Harvester.
Who, naturally, moved into the path of the enemy.
A bear-toad burst into the cavern a split second ahead of its master, its gaping maw exposing several rows of sharp teeth. Reaver hit it with a blast of balefire as it leaped at Harvester. The thing screeched and went off course, crashing through a stalactite before crumpling into a steaming pile of goo.
The bear-toad’s handler, a fifteen-foot-tall demon from a species Reaver couldn’t identify roared with fury. Harvester hurled her blade, catching the creature in its throat. The Dragon Biter sprouted claws from the handle and sank them into the demon’s elephant-like hide. The dagger would now use its claws as leverage to push deeper and deeper, until either it came out the other side or the demon died.
The demon didn’t seem inclined to die anytime soon. It came at Reaver with a weapon that looked like a crude cross between a sword and an ax, and with the first swing, it nearly caught Reaver in the chest. He leaped back, shoving Harvester out of the way as he fired off another round of balefire.
The demon swung his blade, deflecting the cylinder of balefire and sending it into a stalactite hanging low from the cave ceiling. The other demons and their bear-toads charged into the cave, and suddenly the battle turned violent, bloody, and desperate. A blade came out of nowhere, spinning wildly through the air at Harvester’s head. Reaver flew upward in a flare of wings and knocked the sword away, but a crushing pain and tug on his leg brought him crashing down on top of the bear-toad clamped down on his calf.
He kicked the bastard in the head, then jackknifed up and slammed his fist into its jaws to deliver a one-two punch of physical strength and angelic power. The animal released Reaver’s leg, its skull crumpling like an eggshell.
Reaver didn’t have a chance to bask in victory. Across the poison pond, the demon Harvester had impaled with the Dragon Biter finally went down, but that still left her battling the remaining two demons with nothing but her fists and feet, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t be easy. Harvester’s weakened condition left her on the defense. The remaining bear-toad was in a full-out charge, her throat in its sights. She was holding her own, but barely, her graceful spins and leaps slowing with every move.
One of the demons got in a lucky strike, nailing Harvester in the sternum. With a grunt, she crashed to the ground, only to be stomped on by the second demon.
“Harvester!” Reaver bolted to his feet, ignoring the pain in his leg, and flicked a shower of drill sparks at the demons even as he took flight. He went for the closest target, the bear-toad, reversing course at the last second to drive both boots into its hindquarters. The creature flipped head over paws and splashed down in the poison pond.
Reaver didn’t give the thing a glance. He went after the demons, who were now swatting at the sparks, but wait… why weren’t the fiery pinpricks drilling into their flesh?
He got his answer when one of the sparks came at him. No longer pure spark, it had warped into a winged insect with a needlelike spike protruding from its eyeless face. Son of a bitch. Now he and Harvester had to battle not only the demons but whatever new hell had been bastardized by his magic.
Extending his wings, he shot upward into the stalactites, drawing off a swarm of the sparks. The massive effort of flight down here slowed him as he flew toward the ceiling and at the last second, he banked hard and dove. The sparks spattered all over the rock like paintballs, leaving behind tiny wisps of sizzling smoke.
He used his downward momentum to skim the ground and scoop up Harvester a millisecond before one of the demons brought a sledgehammer down on her head. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight, her fiery skin burning against his.
“Thank you.”
Her barely audible words of gratitude astonished him so completely that he pitched forward and nearly did a header into the poison pool. He recovered just before he hit the dissolving body of the bear-toad, and in one seamless swoop, he dropped Harvester on her feet and slammed into a demon. They both tumbled like bowling pins into a pile of boulders.
Reaver, panting with exhaustion, still managed to recover first and swipe the male’s sword. Spinning, he brought the blade down on the demon’s thick throat, severing its ugly head. He pivoted, ready to make a matching set of headless hellspawn, but midturn, a searing, biting agony ripped through his back.
Muscles locked, he went down, catching a glimpse of a shiny black rope in the demon’s giant fist. What the hell? A whip that could paralyze an angel? Not good.
In his frozen position he couldn’t see Harvester. The demon with the whip took off, leaving Reaver to stare at the ground, helpless to do anything but blink his eyelids.
The sound of fighting rang out, the clang of metal on metal, grunts of pain, thuds of dull objects striking flesh. And finally, a splash and a scream.
Harvester? He thought his pulse was racing and his heart was pounding, but he couldn’t feel anything. All he knew was a breath-strangling anxiety he couldn’t quell no matter how many times he told himself that it must have been the demon that went into the pool.
Footsteps approached. Reaver swallowed. The paralytic agent was wearing off, but it was taking its sweet time.
“Reaver?” Harvester kneeled next to him, and he would have breathed a sigh of relief if he could. She rolled him so he was on his back, looking up into the blackness. “You were hit with an anti-angel weapon my father
