She turned to him, and although his pain must have been off the charts, he smiled weakly at her, his sapphire-blue eyes glinting with satisfaction. But her own satisfaction was fleeting. She couldn’t celebrate, not when Reaver was suffering. Not when he’d just lost everything.

“But,” Raphael continued, his tone turned grim, “there is a price for your return.” In a coordinated move, both he and Uriel produced golden scythes Harvester knew too well.

“No!” she cried out in horror, her joy forgotten. “Don’t—”

The two angels brought the scythes down in silent swoops, and in an instant, Reaver’s wings were severed, and with them, the blood-bond sensation she’d gained only seconds before.

Reaver’s scream of ultimate agony, of soul-wrenching misery, rocked the entire plateau in an earthquake that would register on the Richter scale. Above them, clouds roiled from out of nowhere, bringing thunder and lightning, and a torrential downpour. The rain came down in buckets, but an angel-made dome over the mount left everyone but Reaver dry.

“Reaver.” Harvester ran toward him, her feet slipping in mud created by the rain and his blood. She threw herself at him, tearing at the treclan spikes. No one stopped her, and Reaver didn’t move. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t there.

When she’d pulled free all of the spikes, she gathered him in her arms and held him against her, rocking him, stroking his hair, not caring that her pristine white clothes were now ruined.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She glared at the archangels through the rain that pelted her and Reaver. “You bastards. You f**king bastards.”

Temper flashed in Raphael’s eyes, little bolts of crimson lightning. “You may be my consort, but you will never speak to an archangel like that again.”

“Don’t bet on that,” she shot back. “You’re right; you should have gotten me thousands of years ago, when I was meek and biddable. Big mistake, Raphael. Huge.”

His expression darkened. “Come. We’re done here. You’re not to see him again.”

When she didn’t move, he threw his head back and roared. The storm Reaver had created with his agony grew ten times worse, spawning tornadoes that circled the hilltop.

“Now,” he growled, his voice amplified to a near-deafening pitch. “Now, or I will pluck Reaver from your arms and dump him in Sheoul.”

To do so would complete Reaver’s fall from grace, allowing him no chance of redemption, because somehow, she doubted that he’d ever be raised the way she had. She was the first, and likely, the last.

With a sob, she laid Reaver carefully on the ground. Bending, she brushed her lips across his, taking a perverse pleasure at Raphael’s growl of jealousy.

“Now!”

Harvester came to her feet slowly, defiantly, and without sparing Raphael even a glance, she spread her new wings and took flight.

“Forbidden to see Reaver again? WWRD, asshole,” she muttered as she shot upward into a black cloud. What would Reaver do, indeed. He’d break the rules.

So would she.

Twenty-Six

Blaspheme hated days off work. Days off meant she had to find something to do with herself, and she’d rather not be that creative. But when Eidolon promoted her from paramedic to doctor a few months ago, she’d been given more duties, and she’d been put on call on her days off.

Awesome. She loved getting called into work, and with all the turmoil going on in Sheoul right now, there was plenty of work to go around.

She’d barely stepped out of the Harrowgate and into the packed emergency department when Eidolon pulled her aside. “Glad you’re here. I need you to take a look at Tavin.”

“Tavin? Wasn’t he released days ago?”

“Yeah.” Eidolon frowned. “But he’s got something weird going on with his dermoire.”

She automatically glanced at the sleeve of dermal glyphs on his right arm. “Shouldn’t that be your area of expertise?”

“His personal symbol changed. Idess says it’s angelic in nature, but there’s something wrong with it.” He lowered his voice as a Ramreel patient limped past, his hoof wrapped in bandages. “I was hoping you might have some insight.”

She stiffened. What would make him think she could give insight into something angelic in nature? False Angels were like false morels. Poisonous copies of the real things and related only in appearance.

“Do you mean False Angelic?”

“No.” He looked beyond her for a moment before meeting her gaze. “And on the subject of angels, stay away from Revenant.”

She frowned. “Who’s Revenant?”

“The male who was here about Limos. Tall. Lots of leather. Long black hair. Asshole.”

Right. Asshole. Now she remembered him. He’d generously offered to let her suck his cock. As if. Sure, he’d oozed danger and sex, and if she’d met him at a club, she’d probably have taken him home. Except he’d be the one doing the mouth workout. Not her.

“I wasn’t planning on hanging out with him or anything. Why do I need to stay away from him?”

The doctor’s voice went low again. “He’s a fallen angel.”

Her gut did a slow slide to her feet. She had a fallen angel interested in her. As much as she didn’t like the idea that Eidolon had seen through her False Angel facade, at least she trusted him. But fallen angels were hazardous to people like her.

They hunted her kind for sport.

“Understood,” she whispered.

E nodded briskly. “Good. Now go check on Tav. He’s in exam three.”

Knees wobbling, mind spinning in a haze, she made her way to Tavin’s room. He was sitting on the exam table, his black fatigues covering him from neck to ankles. Black combat boots completed his assassin attire. Well, the weapons completed it.

He looked tired, the dark crescents under his eyes swollen with exhaustion. He also looked ready to butcher something.

Just the way Revenant would look if he learned she wasn’t really a False Angel.

Stop it. You’re worried about nothing. He hasn’t been around in days. He may never come around again.

She squared her shoulders and put on her cheery doctor face. “Hi, Tavin. Eidolon said you have something to show me.”

“You could say that.” He tugged down his collar to reveal his personal Seminus symbol, the one his offspring would inherit just beneath their own symbols.

The markings would continue all the way to their fingertips, revealing the history of their paternity for dozens of generations. It was kind of cool, really. One glance at another Sem, and a Sem like Tavin or Eidolon could determine their relationship to each other. Tav and E, in fact, were related by a star symbol far back in their family dermoire.

She peered closely at the vaguely familiar snake symbol. The horned head rose up from a body coiled around a skull, and as she looked at it, she swore the tail moved. Squinting, she leaned closer.

“It looks like a—” She reared back. What had Eidolon said? An angelic symbol?

“What?” Tav let go of his shirt collar and twisted around to her. “What is it? Idess said it was an angelic protection symbol gone wrong.”

Blas shook her head. “It’s not angelic. It’s fallen angelic.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Angels and fallen angels draw their power from different sources,” she explained. “So they have different abilities and talents. For example, only an angel can create the patron cobra, and only a fallen angel can create what you have. The death cobra.”

Tavin snorted. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but it was an angel who did it. Not a fallen angel.”

She shook her head. “Impossible.”

“I’m telling ya,” he said with a shrug.

She wasn’t going to argue. Not when she knew she was right. “Just for shits and giggles, let’s say it’s the death cobra.”

“But I don’t want it to be the death cobra,” Tavin blurted. “That sounds really f**king bad.”

“It is. It’s a curse.”

“A curse? You mean, like a curse curse. Like, a bad curse?”

There really wasn’t any other kind, but seeing how the patient was getting worked up, she didn’t point that out.

“Yeah. A bad curse.”

Tavin swallowed, and the snake shifted. Damn, that freaked her out. And she was used to weird shit.

“Okay, so what am I cursed with, and how can I get rid of it?”

“I don’t know how to get rid of it. As for the curse…” She blew out a long breath. “Poison. I’m sorry, Tav, but it’s an ancient assassination curse, not even used anymore. Every time you agitate the snake, it’ll bite. You’ll eventually die. “

“Assassination?”

She nodded. “Ironic, yes?” His flat stare said he didn’t appreciate the irony. “I’ll see what I can find out about it. We’ll all work on this, Tav.”

Her name badge should read: DR. BULLSHIT. Curses were not easily broken.

“Fuck.” Tavin scrubbed his hands over his face. “Live by the poison, die by the poison. Awesome. I have a new mantra.”

Well, she thought, it was better than hers: Live a lie, die a liar.

Don’t borrow trouble. You’ve survived almost two hundred years without a problem. Keep your head down and your nose clean.

The curtain swished open, and Gem entered, all perky despite the fact that she’d been on shift for twenty-four hours. She must be getting ready to go home to her hot-as-hell husband and their daughter.

“Hey.” Gem thrust a note and a single black rose into Blaspheme’s hand. “Someone left this for you. Very romantic.” She acknowledged Tavin with a wave. “I’m outta here. See you later.”

Blas barely heard a word. Her gaze was glued to the note, to the block script that turned her blood to ice. No, not ice, because thorns on the rose stem dug into her hand, and blood trickled down her wrist and dripped onto the paper.

I’ll see you soon. Very soon.

It was signed.

Revenant.

Twenty-Seven

“What is it you want, Verrine?” Raphael poured her a glass of ice wine made from the azure grapes that grew in the Demura plains outside Archangel Hall. They were in the expansive kitchen of his palatial home, and she wondered how long she was going to be stuck here.

And what his game was.

They’d just come from the entrance of a hellmouth, where Harvester had been trying to sense Lucifer, but after watching Reaver lose his wings and fall from grace, her heart hadn’t been in it. Besides, it appeared that Lucifer had been moved. Now she had to find a place on Earth where she could get a signal, but it was going to take time.

Time they no longer had. So why were they in Raphael’s home talking as if they had nothing better to do?

“Harvester,” she corrected as she took the glass of the crystal-blue wine without a thank you.

Raphael graced her with a patronizing smile. “You’ll get over that eventually. Harvester.” He sipped his own wine and let out a moan of pleasure. “Now, tell me what you want.”

Your head mounted on a pole. That’s what I want. “That’s a broad question. I want peace on Earth. Three hundred and sixty-five days of Christmas. A ban on all remakes of eighties songs. Oh, and Reaver’s angelic status restored.” She traced the rim of her glass with her finger. “Shall I go on?”

“Sheoul has not positively influenced your personality,” Raphael said, but she didn’t agree. Well, mostly she didn’t agree. But he was still an ass. “Would you like to be the Horsemen’s Watcher again?”

Her heart skipped a beat. Was he serious? He gazed at her with narrowed eyes, clearly waiting for a reaction that he would, no doubt, use to his advantage.

So she didn’t give him one.

With a casual shrug, she tasted the wine. Instant arousal rushed through her veins and concentrated in her br**sts and pelvis. Wow. She eyed the glass. Raphael was a sneaky bastard, wasn’t he? No more of that for her.

“I don’t think the Horsemen would appreciate it.”

“They might not like it, but their opinions don’t matter, and you know them better than anyone.”

“I suppose.”

Raphael took another drink from his glass, and his gaze darkened. He probably shouldn’t have any more of the wine, either.

“We’re going to assign you as Watcher.”

Yes. She gave another shrug. “Whatever. I suppose I need a job. But I’m telling you, they won’t be happy. Not after everything I did as their Sheoulic Watcher.”

“But you were helping them.”

“I doubt they’ll see it that way, and even if they do, it’ll take them a while to get over it. Thanatos especially.”

He gestured to her glass. “Have more.”

“I’ve never been much of a drinker.” Very deliberately, she put the glass on the counter. “Are we done here?”

“Don’t you want to know what will make the Horsemen welcome you back with open arms?”

She resisted rolling her eyes. “I give. What will make them suddenly forgive me for everything I’ve done?”

“A baby.” Raphael’s voice was low, seductive in a nonsexual way. Seductive in that way that promised you everything you ever wanted. She was drawn in, no doubt exactly the way he’d planned, and it occurred to her that she’d never had the upper hand in this negotiation. He’d only let her think she had.