She tapped the spike against her chin as if deep in thought. “Do you find it odd that Pestilence just happened to trace Thanatos’s movements at the right time to find headquarters?”
Yes, actually, he did. The Horsemen could cast a gate to take them to the last place a sibling had gone to, but by all accounts, Thanatos hadn’t been at headquarters for long. Pestilence would have had maybe a five minute window in which to trace Than to headquarters.
“Why?”
Gethel’s gaze locked on him, and her voice lowered, as if she were letting him in on a secret. “I believe it was Harvester who told Pestilence to trace Thanatos to Aegis Headquarters.” She turned back to her gruesome work, and Reaver drew to a shocked halt at the sight of Harvester strapped to a table, her body impaled by five treclan spikes. “But I don’t think she’s going to admit to it. She also won’t tell me who ordered her to hold you prisoner nine months ago.” She jammed a sixth treclan into Harvester’s pelvis, and the scream that came out of the fallen angel’s mouth made the entire building quake.
As much as Reaver wanted revenge, this wasn’t the way.
“Why are you doing this? You aren’t the Horsemen’s Watcher anymore.”
Black storm clouds passed over Gethel’s expression, disappearing almost as fast as they’d blown in. “This goes beyond Watcher business. Her treachery is expediting the Apocalypse.”
Bullshit. This was personal somehow. “And? There’s something you aren’t telling me.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.” Gethel summoned another spike. “Harvester and I have … history. But trust me, she knows exactly what this is about.”
Reaver wondered how much trouble he’d get into if he popped Gethel a good one. “Do you have permission to kill her?” As the Horsemen’s evil Watcher, Harvester was in a protected position, subject to execution orders only by mutual consent from agents of both Heaven and Sheoul.
“Unfortunately, no.” Gethel said. “I have to release her when I’m finished.”
“Release her now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You said yourself you won’t get anything from her. Release her.”
Gethel rounded on him. “She tortured you. Held you so Pestilence could maneuver The Aegis without interference. Because she kept you out of the game, Regan is pregnant, and the Apocalypse may be only days away. Yet you want this evil…thing…released?”
“I want you to release her because I want to be the one to make her suffer. Her suffering, and her death, when ordered, will come at my hands. No one else’s.”
For a long moment, Gethel stared at him, her eyes burning into him as if trying to see all the way to the truth. Which was that yes, he wanted revenge against Harvester, but they would battle it out as equals. She’d been horrible to him, but she’d also been oddly … tender at times, as if she’d regretted her actions. He wouldn’t afford her the same tenderness, but neither would he torture her while she was helpless.
Finally, Gethel shoved the spike into his hand and flashed away in a huff. Harvester, her eyes too swollen to open to more than mere slits, shuddered so violently that the table shook.
Holy hell.
Warring with the side of himself that wanted to leave her to rot and the side that wanted to relieve her suffering, he tugged free five of the treclan spikes, leaving the last to hold her in place while he unbuckled the straps that secured her arms and legs to the table. Once those were removed, he yanked the last spike from her shoulder.
Before he could stop her, Harvester rolled off the table and landed in a heap on the floor. As he came around the table, she dragged her body toward a dusty desk in the corner of the room. When he reached for her, she scrambled beneath the desk and curled into a ball.
“Fallen.” Reaver used the derogatory nickname for fallen angels as a command, putting an edge on it to piss her off and bring her back to her normal nasty self.
Instead, she cried out at the sound of his voice, and her entire body began to tremble. Gethel had done a number on her.
Sinking down on his haunches, he reached for her. “Harvester?” This time, his voice was softer, but she still flinched, and he drew his hand back.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She hissed. “Why not?”
“Because it looks like Gethel has done enough already.”
“She’s not … right.”
“If she is right, you’ll be destroyed for helping Pestilence.”
“No, I mean …” A tremor racked her and her gaze turned haunted. “Never mind.” Her voice was a raw rasp, shredded from screaming. “You must be loving this.”
Strangely, no, he wasn’t loving this. He wished he could, and maybe if she’d launched herself off the table and freaked out on him, he would have. But he disliked seeing anyone as powerful as Harvester reduced to a helpless puddle.
“Come out. I won’t hurt you.”
“As if you could,” she shot back, but the shivers traveling over her skin negated her bravado.
“So defiant,” he murmured.
A tangled lock of hair had fallen across her face, and without thinking, he reached to brush it back. The moment his fingers touched her, she curled up even tighter, her hands coming up to shield her head, but not before he saw a single tear form in one eye.
That one tear took Reaver down hard. Harvester could be faking her pain and fear, trying to play it all up to gain his sympathy, but he doubted it. She was truly afraid for her life.
“What was Gethel talking about when she said you knew exactly what this was about?”
Harvester flinched, a barely noticeable tightening of her muscles, but Reaver didn’t miss it. “Nothing,” she rasped. “Leave me. If you’re not going to kill me, go away.”
She didn’t want him to see her in this state, exposed, weak, and terrified. Reaver couldn’t blame her. “I’ll go,” he said, standing. “But Harvester? Fuck with me again, and next time, I won’t stop Gethel. And if I find out that you were in any way involved in trying to break Thanatos’s Seal or leading Pestilence to Aegis Headquarters, I’ll be the one holding the treclan spikes.”
The baby woke Regan with a series of kicks. No doubt he was annoyed by her growling stomach. She was just happy the little pony was kicking. Last night had been terrifying, and as she’d writhed on the floor, all she could think about was the baby. Had he been in pain? Had he been afraid?
And when she’d told Thanatos to kill her in order to save the baby, her one regret was that if she died, she wouldn’t have ever been able to hold her son.
Her son. Dear God, she couldn’t afford to think like that. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to do what was best and give him to someone who could keep him safe.
The baby rolled, and a warmth settled into her heart. Had her mother felt Regan moving around inside and smiled every time, the way Regan caught herself doing? Or had her mother been afraid of the baby conceived with a demon-possessed Guardian? Had it been easy for her to give up Regan? Because for the first time, Regan was imagining handing over the child… and already her eyes were stinging. Could she actually do it?
If Thanatos was able to destroy Pestilence, Regan wouldn’t have to give up the baby, though. Right? Maybe she and Thanatos could… could what? Share custody? Not likely. He wasn’t exactly the sharing kind.
A buzz started up in her brain as her OCD switch flipped on. Everything was so out of her hands right now, and she had no idea how to harness even a little control.
Breathe. Count. Breathe.
The baby jammed a foot in her ribs at the same time her stomach growled, breaking her concentration. Cradling her midsection in an attempt to still both the baby and her rumbling gut, she opened her eyes. Even though she’d known where she was, her heart sank a little. She’d never again wake up in the room she’d kept at Aegis Headquarters. Then again, maybe that was a good thing. When The Aegis moved to their new location, maybe this time she’d take an apartment of her own.
Of course, if Thanatos had his way, a move wasn’t going to happen for another eight months.
Where was he, anyway? The other side of the bed was undisturbed.
I guess it’s no surprise that you recognized betrayal before I did.
Well, that explained why he wasn’t in bed. She’d really thought, when he held her so tenderly and didn’t jump on the offer to kill her for the sake of the baby, that his hatred had eased. When her agony had been at its worst, she’d taken comfort in his change of heart.
Clearly, she was a fool.
Sighing, she sat up and drew a startled breath when she saw him in the corner chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms folded across his bare chest, an open book cradled in his hands. His eyes were closed, but on his arm, Styx was tossing his head. Maybe the stallion was as impatient to be fed as the baby was.
Wait…did Styx even eat?
With as much grace as she could muster, she stood on feet that were swollen and would no longer fit into her shoes.
As she padded over to Thanatos, the floor was as freezing as an ice rink on the soles of her feet, but after the agonizing fever from the poison she welcomed the cold.
“Thanatos?” She knelt next to the chair, but he didn’t stir. Styx bucked… maybe he’d heard her? Very gently, she stroked her fingertip over the stallion’s shoulder. The horse stopped tossing his head, but as she traced the line of his back, he stomped his foot. Did that mean he was annoyed? He was as hard to read as his master.
She drew away from the horse, letting her finger drift up Than’s arm. His body was covered in tattoos, most of which he hadn’t allowed her to touch. Probably a good thing, since she felt emotion in ink… and Thanatos’s tattoos were emotion transferred to skin.
Maybe… maybe this was how she could begin to make things right between them and show him that while he might not care about her, she cared about him and had since before that awful night. If she could learn more about him, learn what he wanted and needed …
Tentatively, she put the tip of her finger to an outline of a skull engulfed by flames above his right pec. Instantly, heat licked up her hand, and as she opened herself to her gift, images swamped her brain. Thanatos, in pain as fiery arrows punched through his armor and into his body. Demons came at him from across an open, grassy plain that was soaked in blood and littered with human and demon corpses. Thanatos’s thoughts raced through her… his unimaginable agony, his fury as he swung his blade, his regret at having released all the souls in his armor, leaving him vulnerable to the fire-arrows.
She recoiled, her skin burning, as if sympathizing with what he’d gone through. She’d always assumed he was immune to harm and physical pain, but he’d experienced his flesh burning all the way to the bone, and his misery had been genuine.
“Oh, Thanatos,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Her hand quivered a little as she moved it to his left pec and feathered her fingertips over the exquisite hellhound design. As if she’d been dropped into a movie, nasty snarls rang in her ears and razor-sharp teeth snapped in her face. Thanatos was in a dark cavern, surrounded by a pack of hellhounds. His souls had already killed a dozen of them, and another dozen lay in pieces on the ground, victims of Than’s massive sword. Behind him, a mountain of bones and bodies formed a grotesque feeding station, and Regan’s stomach heaved.
She shuddered and braced herself to touch the tip of a Celtic-designed sword dripping with icicles on his breastbone. A faint vibration shimmered along her skin, and icy cold seeped into her bones. A stark, wintery landscape opened up before her, and rage… so much rage, rushed through her veins. In the distance, a bizarre forest rose up out of the ice. What kind of trees were those? She squinted, and when the truth hit her, bile washed into her mouth. Not trees—giant wooden stakes, each impaling a body. Good God, hundreds—no, thousands—of men, women, and children had been skewered.
Between the stakes were more dead—soldiers, hacked to death and lying in pools of blood.
“You went too far, Thanatos. Too far.” Gethel stood nearby, her eyes sad as she looked from Thanatos to the forest of dead.
But Than was beyond reason, and with a roar, he launched at the angel, his bloody sword flashing in the streaks of sunlight that penetrated the clouds. Gethel flashed away in a flicker of golden light, but another voice came from behind, and he whirled, sinking his blade into the belly of a female Regan swore hadn’t been there a moment before.
The female demon gasped, her blue lips and frosty skin going even paler. Regan didn’t know her species, but she was definitely a demon.
A silver tear dripped from one gray-blue eye as she looked at Thanatos in shock. “Than …”
Thanatos let loose another angry roar, and in one smooth, powerful move, he jerked the sword out of her body and swung it in a massive arc, separating her head from her body.
Thanatos stood silently, staring at the dead demon as her body disintegrated the way most of them did when they died in the human realm.
And then, as Thanatos’s murderous fury melted away, the reality of what he’d done sunk in. Horror replaced the anger. Sorrow and pain clenched at Regan’s heart as his emotions became hers. The demon had been his friend. In his death-haze, he’d killed his friend.
Tears stung Regan’s eyes. She pulled away from Than, unable to take any more. Cold surrounded her like a chilled blanket, and she made her way to the fire, grateful that his servants had kept it burning through the night.
“Did you see everything you wanted to see?” His low voice drifted to her, and she closed her eyes. She should have known he wasn’t asleep. “Did you like violating me again?”