should have prepared better.”
Her cover story explaining her expulsion from Heaven, that she’d killed humans for fun, had been a good one, and the fact that Satan was her father only made it more believable. Bad genes and all that. But the reality of life in Sheoul had been more of a shock than she’d expected. The realization that her father truly was the epitome of evil had been devastating. For the first few decades as a fallen angel, on some lofty level she’d actually believed there was a kernel of good in him, a remnant of who he’d been as a Heavenly angel.
Not so much.
But what did that mean for her? Sometimes she didn’t know if there was any good left in her, either.
“Ah, well.” She dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand, not wanting to delve too deeply into questions she was afraid to be answered. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”
Reaver took a deep, shuddering breath as his lungs unfroze. She didn’t have much time to drive him crazy. Which was fun. Maybe a little therapeutic, too. Oh, she wasn’t baring her soul or some shit, but since he already knew she’d fallen on purpose and with the cooperation of three archangels, he might as well know some of the story.
Let him see for himself just how evil she’d let herself become.
“The first two hundred years were the worst. Demons and other fallen angels love to torment the newbie, you know.”
She thought about that. Reaver had lost his wings once, booted out of Heaven and into the human realm as an Unfallen. But he hadn’t entered Sheoul, which would have turned him into a True Fallen, a fallen angel with no hope of ever being redeemed. Remarkable, really. Few Unfallen lasted long in the human realm. The temptation to enter Sheoul and be given new wings and powers as a True Fallen was too great.
“No, you wouldn’t know. Just trust me.” She smiled down at him. “You don’t trust me though, do you? Is it because I’m a fallen angel, or is it because it’s not in your nature to trust easily? Either way, you’re right not to trust me.”
She shoved to her feet, wincing at the multitude of bumps and bruises she’d taken during the battle. Worse than all of it, though, was the throbbing ache in her wing anchors. Unlike her other injuries, the pain of her wings trying—and failing—to regenerate was going to intensify and spread through all of her bones until she was crippled with the agony of it.
Harvester dug the canteen from out of Reaver’s backpack. Returning to him, she straddled Reaver’s body and sank down on his hard abs. “Are you tired of my talking yet?”
Reaver’s expression softened, but was she reading him wrong? He couldn’t possibly
Except she kind of liked that he was listening.
Way down inside the murky deep freeze that was her chest, something stirred. Something bad, like angry wasps. Or butterflies. If she were human, she’d think she was getting sick.
She popped the cap on the canteen and carefully tilted it against Reaver’s lips. Water spilled into his mouth, and he swallowed eagerly. She kept giving him drinks in small doses until he blinked at her.
“Is that a ‘no more’? One blink for more water, two for no more.” He blinked twice. “You do know that if I was feeling evil I’d keep making you drink, right? It would be like angel waterboarding. We could make it a sport. How entertaining.”
Reaver rolled his eyes. No sense of humor, that one.
“You’re going to be talking soon, and that’ll ruin all my sinister plans to torture you with inane babbling, you know.”
One corner of his mouth turned up, knocking loose a crystal bead of water that had lingered on his bottom lip. The drop ran along the seam of his lips, drawing her gaze. Never in her life had she wanted water as badly as she did at this moment. His lips parted, and his tongue swept out to capture the drop.
She swallowed as if she’d been the one to taste the glistening bead, and she found herself leaning into him, rolling from the hips to slowly plaster her upper body against his. Was it her imagination or were his eyes darkening from radiant sapphire to a bold, lavish navy blue? Could he actually be turned on?
His clean scent invaded her senses, permeating every cell in her body. He always smelled good, even when he was covered in dirt, ash, blood, and the remnants of battle. It never took long for that honey-spiced angel fragrance to saturate his skin and obliterate everything else.
She wanted to kiss him. To taste those full lips again. The weird thing was that she always took what she wanted, but for some reason, she was hesitant about this.
Kissing Reaver would annoy him. Maybe even piss him off.
Right. Decision made.
She sealed her mouth against his. Months ago when they’d kissed to seal the sex deal there’d been an instant sense of familiarity the moment their lips touched, a bizarre and disturbing
Nothing had changed. The feeling was still there. The strange rightness should scare her, and it did, but it also felt so good she wanted to weep, and that was something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
It was almost as if she was Verrine again, and she and Yenrieth were lying in a meadow together, soaking up the sun. She’d been so happy at times like that, and the only thing that would have made her happier was if she’d been sure he felt the same way about her as she felt about him.
Clinging to those precious memories, Harvester thrust her tongue between Reaver’s velvety lips. For a heart-sinking moment he did nothing, but when she flicked her tongue against his, he responded with a low moan that flowed through her like a caress.
Sliding her hands upward from his shoulders to his neck, she traced the tendons that strained under his skin and the veins that pounded beneath her fingertips. A rumble started low in her belly, the hunger she needed to take care of soon but that always grew worse when she was aroused.
The taste of Reaver’s blood had only whetted her appetite, and the thought of sinking her teeth into Reaver’s warm flesh and taking the ultimate nectar that composed an angel’s blood made her fangs throb and lengthen.
She’d been disgusted by the idea of feeding when she’d first fallen, but gradually, she’d learned to tolerate it. Then like it. And now it was a pleasure she looked forward to.
Especially if she got to feed from an angel.
She didn’t care that drinking from an angel brought out her evil side.
A shudder of anticipation ran through her, followed by unwelcome reservations. She no longer had to play fallen angel, did she? Yes, she was technically a True Fallen, and she had all the needs that came with it. But she was supposed to be a good guy underneath her evil veneer. Shouldn’t she be at least
Reaver’s teeth pinched her bottom lip, gently, and all her self-doubt faded into the background.
“Reaver,” she whispered against his mouth.
The next thing she knew Reaver flipped her onto her back and slammed his heavy body on top of her. His smile was cold as he looked down at her.
“Come on, Harvester,” he said, his voice husky, unused, and so damned sexy even when he was trying to intimidate her. “Did you really think I’d let you get the upper hand?”
“Of course not,” she said bitterly. “The great Reaver doesn’t let anyone get the upper hand. He doesn’t let anyone in, does he?”
He frowned. “Where is that coming from?”
A sudden stab of anxiety pierced her gut. Where, indeed. She had no idea if Reaver let people in or not. And why in the realm of fuck would she care, let alone be bitter about it?
Something was happening to her, and whatever it was, she didn’t like it. She used to know exactly who and what she was. Even when she was hanging from hooks in Satan’s living room, she knew what she was, even if what she was amounted to nothing but a slab of meat.
But since the moment Reaver stormed into her life to rescue her, everything she knew was turned upside down. Was she good? Was she evil?
Only one thing was certain: For the first time in her life, she was lost.
Very little could confuse Reaver. Harvester not only confused him; she twisted him into knots. His body