“I’m not going to hand her over to the archangels.”
Reaver closed his eyes. “Then we aren’t the same,” he murmured.
“No shit. One of us isn’t tainted by Satan’s blood.”
Reaver’s eyes shot open, their jeweled depths sparking. “It doesn’t have to be like that! The archangels —”
“Lied!” Revenant shouted. “They lied to me about purging his blood from my system in exchange for Gethel.”
Surprise flashed in Reaver’s expression, but it was gone a moment later. Guess he wasn’t all that shocked that archangels would lie.
“They gave me their word. I won’t let them go back on it,” he said. “Neither will Metatron.”
“Metatron,” Rev hissed. “Does our loving uncle know about this bargain?”
Reaver frowned. “I don’t know. Why do you think they’re lying?”
“Because the archangels’ deal was bullshit,” he snapped. “They brought the offer to the table knowing all along that they couldn’t honor their side of the bargain. Purifying my blood can’t be done.”
Reaver scowled. “Are you sure?”
“Do you think I’d be this pissed if I wasn’t?” He crushed the delicate petals of a yellow-winged rose under his boot, hoping to get some satisfaction out of destroying something, but all it did was make him feel like crap. “They set me up. If I’d brought Gethel to you – or to them – there is no place in the universe where I could hide from Satan. And you know damned well the archangels won’t give me sanctuary in Heaven if my presence kills everything around me.”
Reaver glanced sadly at the destroyed flower as if Rev had slaughtered a lamb. “There’s got to be something we can do.”
Revenant let out a bitter laugh. “I’m open to suggestions.”
“We’ll work together on this.”
“Work together? Why?”
“Because we’re brothers.”
“Really? That’s it? We’re separated by birth and five thousand years. We’re no more brothers than Genghis Khan and Elvis are brothers.”
“That’s crap, and you know it.” Reaver’s voice was a near shout now. “We are brothers, and we can overcome anything. I watched the Sem brothers’ relationship nearly destroyed by their own infighting once, but they managed to pull their shit together and now they’re tighter than ever. The sibling bond isn’t something to be taken lightly. You saw what happened with Reseph.”
That had been some crazy shit. At the time when Reseph’s Seal had broken, Revenant wasn’t yet the Horsemen’s Watcher, and he’d still believed he was a fallen angel, so he’d been rooting for Team Evil when Reseph became Pestilence. Team Evil had lost, but the price of victory for the Horsemen had been high. They were still mending fences, but Rev wasn’t sure he and Reaver could do the same.
“You say we can overcome anything,” he said. “But how am I supposed to get over the fact that we wouldn’t be in this situation if not for you. It was your actions, both times, that caused our memory loss. And then, for five thousand fucking years, I did things that would melt your halo. So tell me, dear brother, how we overcome that.”
“We can’t overcome anything until we talk,” Reaver said, sounding like a damned relationship counselor. “We’ve both done things we regret. We were both given the shaft by archangels. We both lost our parents. We have more things in common than not.”
Reaver’s pretty words didn’t move Revenant at all. “And yet, only one of us can stand in this lovely meadow and not kill everything he touches.”
Reaver jammed his hand through his perfect, flaxen mane. Just to be an ass, Rev changed his hair color to match.
“Why here?” Reaver asked softly. “Why did you choose this place, specifically?”
“Because our mother used to talk about it.” He closed his eyes as if it would shut out the memory, but it seemed that the question had unlocked a door Rev would rather not be opened. “Sometimes, after I was beaten for whatever grave infraction a small boy could commit, she’d try to distract me from my pain with stories of Heaven’s beauty. This, the Meadow of Azna, was one of her favorite places to walk when she was pregnant with us.”
Reaver swallowed. Looked out over the landscape with renewed brightness in his eyes. “Did she talk about our father?”
“Right before she died, she said Sandalphon was a great warrior, and that he would have been an even greater father. She said they used to sit in this meadow and plan for our futures. He made cribs for both of us, and he swore to protect us from all harm.” Revenant snarled. “He was a liar. Same as the archangels.”
“Sometimes it’s impossible to protect those you love.” The regret in Reaver’s voice diluted Rev’s anger a little. Reaver’s own children had been raised without him, and with the exception of Thanatos, their lives had been less than ideal, and in Reseph’s and Limos’s cases, horrific.
In the distance, Singing Lilies started up a lullaby, their song a buzzing tinkle in the fresh air. Revenant’s memories crashed into him so hard he stumbled. His mother had put words to the lilies’ tune as she’d rocked him to sleep.
“Revenant?”
Reaver’s voice droned in the background as Revenant drowned in memories so powerful he couldn’t breathe. Their mother’s voice had been magical, so pure that when she sang, even the demons in the cells next to them would weep and the guards would halt in their tracks to listen.