Reaver (Lords of Deliverance 5)

“He told me to keep an eye on Yenrieth, which I did, in between my Justice duties and looking for his children.”

“And you found them?”

“I found all but Limos,” she said. “I knew where she was. I just couldn’t get to her.”

Lilith had farmed out three of the four children to human parents, swapping their human infants for hers. Years later, Harvester learned that Lilith had sold the human babies to demons. For what purpose, Harvester didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know.

The fourth child, Limos, had remained with Lilith. Limos had been raised to be evil and had been betrothed to Satan as a youth. It wasn’t until Limos left Sheoul to find her brothers that Harvester had finally seen Yenrieth’s daughter for the first time.

“Raphael told me you saved Reseph’s life once. Is that true?”

“Maybe. There’s no way of knowing if he’d reached immortal maturity at that point. But yes, I took him from a burning building when he was a child. His human mother was a worthless priestess whore who left him to fend for himself for days at a time.”

Reaver’s jaw clenched, but what he’d just gotten angry about, she had no idea. He was pretty attached to the Horsemen, so maybe he didn’t like the idea that Reseph and Limos had gone through tough childhoods. Ares’s had been brutal as well, being raised as a warrior, but his parents had, at least, cared for him. Thanatos had been the lucky one, gifted with wonderful parents in a tight-knit community.

Too bad he’d gone crazy and killed most of his clan after being cursed as a Horseman. Thanatos might have had the best childhood, but he’d been given the worst curse and had suffered the most because of his actions.

The carrion wisps were closing in again, their agitation growing as the orangeish light that gave the region its extra-eerie atmosphere began to dim for nightfall. She picked up the pace as much as she felt she could.

“So,” Reaver said, his square jaw still tight, “when did Yenrieth finally learn he had three sons and a daughter?”

She shivered despite the arid heat in this horrid place. “Not until after they were cursed as Horsemen. Limos told him. I’m still not sure if she did it to be cruel or if something deep inside her really wanted a father. At the time she was still very much under the influence of her evil upbringing.”

Again with the tightness, except now it was Reaver’s entire body that had gone as taut as a Darquethothi hide bow string.

“What did he do?” Reaver’s voice was little more than a growl.

“Today’s humans might say that he went… ballistic.” The memory made her sweat, not because of the fact that he’d practically gone into orbit with rage, but because that was just the beginning. “Raphael tasked me with trying to calm him down, and it worked… until I admitted that I’d known about Lilith’s pregnancy since conception.”

Reaver’s footsteps became heavier, striking the stones under his soles with such force that the ground shook. “Was he angry with you?”

Her shiver turned into a full-body shudder. “He would have had to come down a hundred notches to be merely angry.”

“You knew? All this time you knew I was a father, and you didn’t tell me? I trusted you. I’ve trusted you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “At first, I didn’t want you to get yourself killed. Then I found Lilith seducing a human. I tried to force her to tell me where the children were, but she was furious that I knew about them in the first place. She threatened to kill them if I told anyone. I had to wait until they were old enough to take care of themselves. But then Limos wreaked havoc with the boys and it all went so badly. She told you before I could.” She fell to her knees in front of him, tears streaming down her face. “It was all for you. I wanted to tell you sooner, but—”

“But what?” He seized her biceps and lifted her roughly to her feet. “You had no right, Verrine. None. I would never have betrayed you like that. This is payback, isn’t it? Payback for f**king Lilith instead of you.”

“He hated me,” she whispered. “He was so cruel.”

“What did he do?” Reaver stopped in the middle of the road as if there weren’t hundreds of demons slinking closer and closer. “Harvester? What did he do to you?”

She kept walking. It was stupid to have told him any of this. Now all that shit she’d worked so hard to bury was surfacing again, and it hurt more than anything Satan’s torture crew had done to her.

Reaver grasped her arm and swung her around, and she clenched her teeth at the stab of fire that shot through her wing anchors. “Tell me.”

“Why? Why do you give a shit what happened?” She jerked out of his grip, earning another searing blast of pain. “Are you getting off on knowing I lost the only male I’ve ever loved? That he crushed me under his boot like garbage? Is that fun for you?”

“No.” Reaver reached for her again, this time to brush his knuckles over her cheek. “I just want to know what kind of person he was. He sounds like an asshole.”

She slapped him. She slapped him before she even knew what she was doing, and when the crack of flesh on flesh echoed through the village, everything stopped. The creatures froze, and so did she and Reaver.

“Don’t say that,” she rasped. “You didn’t know him. He trusted me, and I betrayed that trust.”

“You did it to protect him.”

She barked out a bitter laugh. “Or maybe I did it to have power over him, like he said. Or maybe he was right when he told me I did it to punish him for f**king that demon bitch instead of me. I am Satan’s daughter, after all.”

“Harvester might have done that, but not Verrine.”

She snorted. “You didn’t know Verrine. How can you say that?”

“Because Verrine sacrificed herself for Yenrieth and his children. She wouldn’t have done that if she was the kind of person who would betray him out of a power trip or revenge.”

“Whatever.” Suddenly feeling the weight of the last four days without rest, she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms as she started down the road again. “Can we just drop it?”

Reaver fell in beside her. “We can’t drop it. I want to know what he did to you.”

“You really are a hellhound with a bone, aren’t you?” He didn’t reply. Not that she expected him to. “Fine. You really want to know? Yenrieth, that bastard, after he was done ripping me a new one, disappeared for months. When he finally came back, he was his normal self again.” She grimaced. “That should have been a clue.”

“How so?”

“He… pretended to want me. I still loved him, so I gave in.” She closed her eyes, trudging blindly on the bumpy road.

God, she’d been a fool. Yenrieth had found her in her quarters. There had been no talk. Yenrieth had simply blown in as if he’d belonged there, swept her up, and kissed her until she opened up like a night-blooming rose. She’d been so happy, so filled with love for him that she hadn’t even considered any possibility other than that he’d finally come around and realized they were meant to be together.

What a f**king stupid, blind twat she’d been.

“I gave him my virginity. And he…” Heat scorched her cheeks. She opened her eyes, wishing she’d done the same thing back when Yenrieth had come into her room to seduce her. But truly, would anything have changed? She’d wanted it, and like a spineless fool, she’d been weak enough to take it any way he’d give it. “I’m done with this conversation.”

Reaver ignored her. Shocking. “He used you and threw you away, didn’t he?”

I’ve f**ked demons who were less disgusting than you.

Pain lanced her, as fresh and raw as the day he’d said those words to her.

“What a bastard,” Reaver growled, taking her nonresponse as a yes. “After what he did, why would you have been willing to fall? Why would you have given up everything for a jerk like him?”

“I told you,” she said quietly, “you didn’t know him. He wasn’t always like that.” They were almost to the village boundary. The forest beyond would provide some cover and escape routes. “And I made a promise. Pathetic as I was, I loved him in spite of everything. He came to my rescue so many times when I got in over my head with demons. And he always brought me my favorite rare irises to cheer me up. And once, when I caught him mourning a child he was too late to save from a demon, he told me that every child who died on his watch took a piece of his soul. I think I fell for him that day.”

She inhaled a shaky breath. “He loved children… and I should have told him about his own sooner. If I had, maybe he could have saved them before the curse was cast upon them.”

She’d waited until they were adults for their own protection, but by then Yenrieth had forgotten about his vendetta against Lilith, and he’d also seemed to have lost a lot of his powers. Harvester had kept putting off telling him out of fear that he’d go crazy again, and this time, he’d truly end up dead. She shouldn’t have allowed her fear to rule her head. How many people had paid horrible prices because of her actions?

She searched Reaver’s face for judgment, but his expression was blank. Scarily blank. “So what it comes down to is that I kept my oath to watch over his children, and I volunteered to become a spy. After I was cast into Sheoul, I never saw him again. I don’t even remember what he looks like.” The tears she’d been trying so hard not to shed stung her eyes. “Reaver? How can I remember every cutting word he said, every warm touch of his fingers, and not remember what he looks like?”

Fifteen

Reaver’s stomach rolled. He was responsible for what Harvester had become. As Yenrieth, he’d been a real piece of work, hadn’t he?

And how messed up was it that he hoped Yenrieth had gone through centuries of hell for what he’d done to Verrine. But screw it, aside from the brief memories that had come to him in the caverns Reaver didn’t remember anything, and to him, Yenrieth was a stranger. Hell, Yenrieth was a stranger to everyone except Harvester.

But why? What had Yenrieth done to deserve such an extensive memory wipe? If what he’d done was that bad, why had he not been simply cast from Heaven and straight into Sheoul?

“I’m sorry, Harvester,” he murmured.

“I didn’t tell you any of that to get your pity,” she said sharply, but the bite was dulled by the hitch in her voice. “I told you because you rescued me, and you deserve to know why I did what I did. But it was a long time ago. I’m over it.”

Clearly. He kept his opinion to himself, however. Being kind to Harvester always ended badly.

The howl of a hellhound rose up, followed by another… and another. The carrion wisps began a frantic squirrelesque chatter.

Up ahead, dark shapes began to take form as they crept out of the forest shadows. The telltale outline of buffalo-sized hellhounds grew into fully realized forms that shot toward the village like giant, furry bullets.

Crimson eyes zeroed in on Reaver and Harvester.

“I don’t think they’re here to hunt carrion wisps,” Harvester whispered.

Reaver cursed. He didn’t have enough power to slow a single hellhound let alone an entire pack.

“I have an idea,” he said, keeping his gaze on the rapidly approaching predators. “Do you have enough power to put up a shield between us and them?”

“Yes, but it’ll be good for only a moment.”

“Do it. Stay behind me and don’t say anything.”

Her eyes flashed with temper. “Excuse me?”

“Do you want to be eaten or dragged back to Satan… or both? No? Then shut up and get behind me.” Yeah, he was going to pay for that later, but for now, she glared daggers and obeyed.

The hellhounds came at them, their long strides eating up the distance. Reaver squared his stance and waited as Harvester cast an invisible shield between them and the hellhounds. The first wave of beasts hit the shield and bounced off like rubber balls on a window.

The shield collapsed and before the animals could recover, he grabbed the leader around its thick neck and wrenched it to the ground. He sank his fingers into the hellhound’s fur at the base of its skull and used the last of his power to project images of the hellhounds that protected the Horsemen’s families, followed by an image of their queen of sorts, Ares’s mate, Cara.

Hot, fetid breath and serrated growls surrounded him as the other hounds crept in close. Gaping jaws dripping with drool opened near his head. Reaver tensed, waiting for the thing to clamp down.

For a long time, nothing happened. And then, as if he was at ground zero for a nuclear blast, the lead hellhound forced images back at him. Reaver’s mind reeled, spinning inside his skull and careening around so fast he couldn’t pull the images together. He gripped his head and fell back as everything the hellhound had seen in the last few days downloaded into his brain.

“Darkmen,” he gasped, releasing the beast.

Harvester’s hands framed his face, and her gaze searched his. “Reaver? What about darkmen?”

He shook his head to clear it, but he could still see the black-robed hunters in his head. “The hellhounds saw darkmen. Nearby.”

“Nearby?” She whistled through her teeth. “This is bad.”

On that, Reaver agreed. Darkmen weren’t something anyone wanted to deal with. The conjured, shadowy men carried with them the powers of angels, which was no surprise, since they were controlled by them.