Reaver

“Liar! You’ve lied about everything else, you fucking asshole.”

She rocked her head up to bite his shoulder, and shit, that hurt. He shifted to gain leverage and muscled her into the mattress with his forearm over her throat. He kept the pressure light, not wanting to hurt her, but he also didn’t need to have any bites taken out of him.

“Listen to me,” he said roughly, because it wasn’t easy to talk when you were fighting off a snarling hellcat. “I’m not lying. I didn’t even know the truth about myself until a few months ago, after you were taken to Sheoul.”

Eyes shimmering like wet emeralds, she glared up at him, practically frothing with rabid fury. “What,” she ground out, “do you remember?”

“Not much. I can get brief glimpses of my past with you, but most of it is jumbled together. There’s no context.” He paused as a strange vibration began to buzz the air outside. The sharp, shrill sensation of terror skated over his skin.

“It’s night.” Harvester’s gaze tracked around the room as if seeking the source of the vibration. “Nothing can move now. We’re safe for a couple of hours.”

Safe. He was stuck inside a twelve-by-twelve shack with a fallen angel who hated him. There was nothing safe about any of this. Not for him.

“Now get off me,” she snapped.

“Do you promise you won’t try to kill me?”

“No.” If glares were daggers, he’d be bleeding out from massive trauma right now. “But if I wanted to kill you, I’d have given you the Calder treatment already.”

She had a point. He eased off her, but he braced himself for a possible surprise attack. Harvester had always fought dirty. Instead, she sat up calmly and tugged on her tank top.

Now what? He’d rather have her upset and yelling than eerily silent, like a dormant volcano on the verge of a catastrophic eruption.

“Damn you, Reaver.” Harvester scooted to the far side of the mattress and sat there, staring at him with glassy, bloodshot eyes. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He wanted more answers about his past.

And he wanted her forgiveness for what he’d done to her as Yenrieth. The anger over the secret she’d kept from him still lingered, but it was nothing compared to what she must be feeling. He’d had five months to come to grips with who he was. She’d had five minutes.

“You don’t want anything from me.” Acid dripped from her voice. “Just like old times.”

“Don’t,” he said as he reached for her. “Don’t do this.”

She jerked away from him. “Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me.” She flopped down on the mattress, putting her back to him and shutting him out as effectively as a brick wall. “Leave me alone.”

“Harvester—”

“I said, leave me the fuck alone!” She didn’t turn over, just kept up the impenetrable wall routine. “Just give me some fucking space. Can you do that? Can you follow a command for once in your life?”

The pain in her voice flayed him to the bone. He might be feeling residual hate, but the love he’d had for her was there, too, and while both were tempered by his experiences with her as Reaver, that only seemed to make it worse.

Because as far as he could tell, he’d been a major dick as Yenrieth, and Reaver had no idea how to reconcile who he’d been with who he was now. All he knew was that he was the source of Harvester’s pain. Every single stitch of pain she’d endured for the last five thousand years could be laid on his shoulders.

Bracing his back against the wall, he searched his brain for more memories as he waited for Harvester to process everything. He figured he had about five minutes before she ripped into him again, and sure enough, she sat up with a snarl, her eyes flecked with black.

“How did you learn the truth?”

“Reseph told me.” Man, he couldn’t have been more shocked. “He found out from Lilith.”

“Lilith,” she spat out, and beneath her skin, her veins began to blacken and rise to the surface. “I want her dead. I want her to suffer—”

“She’s dead,” he said before she got more worked up. “Reseph destroyed her.”

A low, menacing growl came from deep in her chest, and the tips of her horns erupted through her hair. “I hope he tortured her. I hope he did to her what he did to me.” A shudder shook her, and he reached for her again, but she hissed and knocked his hand away with a flare of power that singed the hair on his arm. “Were you upset about losing your lover?”

Shit. She was starting to go over the edge, and once that happened he’d be screwed. As calmly as he could, he said, “You know I wasn’t. I hated her, remember?” He doubted she saw the irony in him asking her if she remembered.

“You fucked her.” Suddenly, pain clamped down on his skull and pressure compressed his chest. “You hurt me.”

“Harvester,” he croaked. “Stop.”

She didn’t listen. Her eyes went ebony with irrational fury as she slammed her hands into his ribs and sent a blast of electric agony into his body. Clenching his teeth, he groaned and dug deep for the last drop of power he had.

With a whispered command, he released it into the air, enveloping them both in a bubble of exhaustion. It was a last-ditch move that affected them both, and even as she began to return to normal, he felt his eyelids droop.

Harvester slumped to the mattress. “What,” she said tiredly, “did you do?”

Oh, nothing. I just made us both vulnerable to anyone or anything that happens upon us. He just had to hope she was right and that nothing moved during the night in this realm.

Her eyes closed, and she let out a delicate snore. He tried to stay awake, but he was definitely falling victim to his own weapon. His muscles turned to pudding and he fell onto the mattress next to her. With another little snore, Harvester rolled over, bumping her forehead against his. Closing his eyes, he listened to her breathe. He was willing to bet that very few males had ever listened to her sleep. She wouldn’t want to be that vulnerable.

How lonely would that have been? He reached out and carefully tucked her closer, until she was curled into his chest, her arm across his waist. This felt familiar, and when a memory of them lying, fully clothed on a beach of white sand, popped into his head, he knew why.

Damn, but she’d been warm back then.

Floating on a raft of regret, he drifted off…

And woke to the sound of screams. Harvester jackknifed into a sit next to him. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” He leaped off the bed and threw open the door. Outside it was dawn, and a mob of carrion wisps were screeching at something that seemed to be fighting its way from the center of the group.

“A darkman,” Harvester breathed. “Impossible. How the hell did he find us? My wards should have thrown him off track for days.”

“Worry about that later.” Reaver scooped up the backpack. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

She grabbed his wrist in a bruising hold. “Wait. Something’s not right.”

“Maybe your wards were defective. It doesn’t matter. We have to go.”

“My wards were fine. The darkman tracked us somehow.” She scowled. “Did anyone give you anything for the journey?”

“The lasher implants. Why?”

“Because supernatural objects can be enchanted to become homing beacons for darkmen. Only an angel could do that. Did the lasher implants come into contact with any angels that you know of?”

He shook his head. “Wraith would never have let them out of his sight once he had them. There’s no way—” He broke off as the answer hit him like a punch to the gut. “That bastard.”

“What is it?”

“The sheoulghuls.” He dug the crystals out of his pocket. “Raphael gave me one.”