Reaver knew that, and he was grateful. But he also didn’t see any way for the Horsemen to help. He couldn’t hand an archangel over to the forces of evil, but he couldn’t risk his family, either.
“Ares!” Clutching a cell phone, Cara ran into the great room, wrapped in a fluffy pink robe, her hair dripping wet. “It’s Regan. Than’s castle is under attack.” The cell buzzed before she could say more. She glanced at it and looked at Reaver. “It’s Shade. Underworld General is under siege, too.”
Nothing could attack the inside of the hospital, but if the parking lot filled with demons, they could wreak havoc on the outside. Once the structure was compromised, the antiviolence spell would break, and the hospital, which had barely recovered from Pestilence’s rampage, would fall.
“Are you going to Than’s?” Reaver asked.
Ares threw a gate open. “Yup. Wanna lift?” At Reaver’s nod, Ares turned to Cara. “Call Reseph. Send him to UG.”
“Call Limos, too.” Ares and Cara both gave Reaver looks edged with doubt, but Reaver shook his head. “She’s okay.”
“Ares.” Cara ran over and kissed him, a kiss so full of love that Reaver nearly swayed from the force of it. He thought of Harvester, and how they’d finally found each other… but was it too late?
“Be careful,” she said to both of them. “I’ll send some hounds.”
“If these are Satan’s forces, the hounds won’t fight,” Reaver said.
“I know.” Cara patted Ares on his boiled-leather breastplate. “But they’ll defend. And they look really scary.”
Reaver laughed despite the seriousness of the situation. “They are that.”
Ares cast a personal Harrowgate, and with a wave to Cara, Reaver entered with the Horseman… and stepped out into complete chaos.
Thirty
Reaver stood on the outer wall of Thanatos’s keep, looking out at the charred remains of the evil army that had besieged them. The battle had been tough, but brief… which meant this had been a demonstration of intent, rather than a full-scale assault on Reaver’s loved ones.
But tough, he knew, was a matter of perspective. With no powers, Reaver had been forced to fight with his hands. He was good at it, more than a match for a similarly sized demon, but… he’d hated the way everyone felt as though they needed to protect him.
He felt like such a failure, unable to contribute much to battle. Even Thanatos’s vampire servants had been of more help. Just a day ago Reaver could have crushed any one of them like an insect under his boot.
Now he was the bug waiting for a foot. A foot that was coming for him soon. The attack had made that clear. It had made a lot of things clear, and as he gazed out at the sparse vegetation surrounding the countryside where Thanatos’s children would play, Reaver knew what he had to do.
Footsteps approached, and Reaver turned to see Thanatos and Ares top the stone steps that led to the wall walkway. No longer armed, Ares was in the blue board shorts he’d worn at his manor, and Thanatos was in workout pants and a T-shirt. The 3-D tattoos that covered him from chin to toe shimmered on his skin as he walked.
“Got a text from Limos,” Than said. “Underworld General is safe. Minor casualties.” He smirked. “Eidolon refuses to help the injured enemies. Funny, I’m always torn between wanting to kill that guy and wanting to high-five him.”
“I know what you mean,” Reaver muttered. “All Sems have that effect.”
Than snorted. “I’ve noticed. Which reminds me that I need to text Wraith and cancel our playdate for the kids today.”
Reaver just shook his head. It was so bizarre that Thanatos found the most exasperating of the Sem brothers to be the least annoying. Even more bizarre was hearing the Horseman known as Death talking about playdates.
“Never thought I’d say I was glad to see Harvester show up,” Ares said. “Man, she smoked that ice troll.”
Reaver tried not to be petty and bitter about the fact that he’d barely been able to make the ice troll flinch.
“Yeah,” Than said, “but wasn’t that against Watcher rules?”
Reaver glanced down into the courtyard at the troll, which hadn’t dissolved into a greasy stain yet. In the human realm all demons that didn’t appear human would, upon death, dissappear. But rate of disintegration varied depending on species and where they died.
“She didn’t violate Watcher rules,” Reaver said. “This wasn’t about Horsemen. It was about the conflict between Sheoul and Heaven.”
“Exactly.” Harvester appeared next to Reaver in a glittering shimmer of light, and instant lust kindled in his groin at the sight of her in a short black leather skirt, a black leather bra top, and thigh-high f**k-me boots. Damn, he was happy that her taste in clothing had survived the transition from fallen angel to angel.
“But I’ll still get in trouble.” A breeze made her ebony hair swirl around her slender shoulders, and Reaver’s fingers flexed with the desire to wrap her silky locks around his hands and hold her for a sensual onslaught. “I’m not supposed to be on the front lines, since I’ll be a target for capture or kill.”
“Then why are you here?” Ares asked. “It’s a foolish risk. You never expose your most important assets to the enemy. That’s how wars are lost.”
“Foolish?” Harvester cocked a dark eyebrow. “I swore an oath to watch over you. Not to put up with your shit. I’m not evil anymore, but I’m still not nice. Keep that in mind.”
Well, that wasn’t going to help the relationship between Harvester and the Horsemen at all. “He’s right,” Reaver said before Ares could blow his stack. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Would you have come?” she shot back. He didn’t need to answer that, and she knew it. “Thought so.” She looked past Reaver at Than and Ares. “Boys, can I have a minute with your father?”
Warmth engulfed Reaver at the way she’d said your father. His family had begun with one impulsive roll in the grass with a demon, but Reaver couldn’t be sorry. The Horsemen’s existence had caused countless tragedies and measureless destruction, but angelic intuition told Reaver everything had happened the way it was supposed to.
Than and Ares left, miraculously without an argument, leaving Reaver in the cool Greenland breeze with the female he wanted to prop against the battlements and ravish. The burn of battle still rushed through his veins, heightening his senses and laying a fine line between bloodlust and good old-fashioned sexual lust.
Fuck it. He wasn’t an angel anymore, didn’t have to play nice. Not that he ever had.
Before Harvester could so much as blink, he lifted her onto a merlon and stepped between her legs to kiss her.
“Now this,” she murmured against his mouth, “is the way to come down from a fight.”
He couldn’t agree more, and while she tore open his jeans, he shoved up her skirt. They didn’t waste time with foreplay; this was going to be raw and swift, as much a needed release of tension as a way to mark his female in a way she’d never forget.
Because this would be the last time.
He entered her in a powerful surge that made them both cry out. He didn’t pause, didn’t let either of them get accustomed to her tightness or his size. There was only a single, driving instinct to possess. As if she felt his desperation, she clung to his neck with her arms and wrapped her legs so tightly around his h*ps that he couldn’t have broken free if he’d wanted to.
He thrust against her, fueled by the way she met every pump of his h*ps with a frantic roll of hers. And when she whispered hot, dirty things in his ear, things she wanted to do him and that she wanted him to do to her, he nearly short-circuited with lust. She wanted to do what with a pair of stiletto heels? Harvester might have a halo, but dear, sweet Lord, she was no angel in the sack.
Awesome.
Voices drifted from below, but he wouldn’t have cared if they were coming from a few feet away. Nothing was stopping him, nothing was getting between him and the female he loved. Not yet. Right now, in this very moment, she was his, and he didn’t share.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Oh… yes.” She wedged her hand between their bodies and cupped his balls. A wicked vibration hummed through his sac and up his shaft, and holy… damn, he nearly went over the edge.
“I’m glad,” he said between panting breaths, “that you still have that power.”
“Oh,” she purred, “you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Groaning, he melded their mouths together as he rocked against her. Sweat broke out all over his body and his pulse drummed loudly in his ears. They were out in the open, in a precarious position and right there for anyone to see, but it was perfect. He had no doubt that no matter where or when he and Harvester made love, it would always be perfect.
Except that it wouldn’t happen again.
Harvester clung to him as if she heard his thoughts, her nails digging into his back. Stiffening, she clenched around him and let out a keening cry of sheer pleasure. Her core rippled along his c*ck as she came, and he was done for.
The orgasm tore him in two. He threw his head back and roared her name, engulfed in an churning maelstrom of ecstasy that went on and on. Harvester came again, arching her spine so violently that she tipped backward, her upper body hanging perilously forty feet above the ground. Panicked even though he knew the fall wouldn’t kill her, he gripped her thighs tight as her wings shot out, leaving her supported on a raft of air. He hissed with pleasure, the crazy position forcing him so deep inside her that he swore he felt her soul.
“Mine,” he moaned. Another release gathered, his come boiling in his shaft as his balls pulsed, filling her again. “You’ve always been mine.”
Harvester panted through yet another cl**ax, and this time when she finished, she sagged in his arms and let him haul her back up onto the castle wall.