It was a stupid, sentimental thing to want, but the Horsemen were the closest thing she had to a family. She’d observed them in secret for three thousand years, and she’d been involved with them as their Watcher for two thousand. She’d watched them grow, watched their failures and successes, their joys and miseries. On hundreds of occasions she’d even healed them or their friends and staff, and all without them knowing.
So yeah, she couldn’t expect them to welcome her with open arms, but she’d like it if they didn’t hate her.
“I think they’ll get it,” Reaver said gruffly, almost as though he was choked up.
“Reaver, are you okay—shit, Slag’s turning.”
Reaver stopped moving just as Slag looked them up and down. Harvester waved and gave him a Cheshire cat smile. Asshole.
“He turned back,” she said quietly.
A low rumble boiled up from Reaver’s chest, startling the crap out of her. She risked a peek at him, but that only made things worse. His head hung low, his blond hair falling across his handsome face. His big shoulders heaved with breaths that made his entire body shudder.
“I’m sorry, Harvester,” he said in a broken whisper. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. You need to know that in case I don’t get out of here. Promise me you’ll tell my kids I’m dead, even if I’m taken alive.”
“What?” she whispered harshly. “No.” How could he even ask that? “And Slag’s looking.”
She shot him the finger. He returned the gesture, and then he made a show of using his fuck-you finger to swipe his bracelet. Ten million volts set fire to her blood, her muscles, her brain. Agony shrieked through her in an inferno of lightning. Flashes of light and dark tapped on her eyeballs, and her surroundings became a blur.
When she was done seizing, she found herself in Reaver’s arms, his hands stroking her back. She tasted ash and ozone, and her ears rung, but she was relieved that she wasn’t the flaming ball of fire she’d thought she was.
Reaver bent to speak into her ear, making it appear as though he were giving her a kiss, and an unbidden shiver of pleasure went through her.
“Are you okay?” At her nod, he continued. “I got the key out of my pocket. Now I need you to sit up a little so I can unlock your collar. Then you’ll unlock mine.”
“What then?”
“I’ll create a distraction. I want you to run. Get inside the Harrowgate and get out of Sheoul.”
“Are you insane?” She started to twist around, but he held her tight. “I’m not abandoning you.”
“Shh.” His hand slid up to the back of her neck, and the collar loosened. “Don’t draw Slag’s attention.”
She felt him slip a tiny, smooth object into her palm. The key. Casually, he pushed her off him and shifted so she could reach his collar. It took only a mere swipe of the key over the metal and the thing popped open.
“We can do this together,” she whispered.
“Trust me, I don’t have a death wish, so I’ll try for the gate. But if something happens, don’t play the hero. Get the f**k out of here.”
“Reaver—”
“Hey.” He silenced her with a kiss that stunned her into silence and that she felt all the way to her bruised, scarred soul. “Tell the Horsemen everything. About you. About me. You need them, and I don’t want them to hate you.”
She swallowed a tangled lump of grief and fear, and not a little yearning. She might hate him sometimes, might not ever be able to trust him, but she also didn’t want to be separated from him. Didn’t want to lose him. It had taken five thousand years to find him again, and even though Reaver wasn’t the Yenrieth she remembered, that turned out to be a good thing.
“Okay,” she lied. “I’ll head straight for the Harrowgate.”
“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you for… everything.”
She didn’t have time to reply. Hell, she didn’t have time to blink. In a blur of motion, Reaver was across the room, his fists and feet putting Slag and the bug-headed freak into the wall.
“Go!” he shouted.
And that was when she felt it. Terror. Horror. A malevolent, oily sensation that permeated every organ and that meant only one thing.
Her father had arrived.
Twenty-Four
Fuck. In an uncoordinated scramble, Harvester came to her feet as demons swarmed into the mansion like an army of ants protecting their hill.
The Harrowgate was just yards away, and even though she’d have to knock a few demons aside to get to it, she could get there.
But not without Reaver.
Reaching deep for every drop of power she could find, she let out her inner demon, gray skin, sharp claws, horns… the whole package that she rarely brought out on purpose. With a roar of fury, she hurled a shockwave of energy that knocked the invaders into walls and pillars. Reaver got caught in the blast, but in a stroke of badly needed luck, he tumbled through the arched opening that went straight to the Harrowgate.
She charged after him, but she skidded to a halt as chaos erupted in the courtyard below. Darkness fell in the distance, screaming toward them like the blackest storm cloud. Giant bolts of crimson lightning zapped anyone who was unfortunate enough to be in the path of the chruning tempest. Bodies exploded like bags of liquefied hamburger, splattering the street, buildings, and other demons.
Here comes Daddy.
Harvester let out a juicy curse, but it was nowhere near adequate to describe the terror turning her marrow to jelly and her bones to rubber.
She seized Reaver’s wrist and dragged him to his feet. “Come on,” she shouted over the din of screams, shouts, and the rumble that came with the storm and her father’s approach.
They limped toward the Harrowgate, joining the mass exodus of demons who were desperate to escape the great and terrible king of demons they both worshipped and feared.
“I told you to run,” Reaver yelled. “You agreed.”
“I lied.” She elbowed a dozen different demons, who were either trying to kill them or shoving their way to the Harrowgate.
Suddenly, Reaver became a dead weight. Pivoting midstride, she slipped in a pool of blood. Reaver’s blood.
His face was a mask of agony as he went down, a sword impaling him between the shoulder blades. The blade tip erupted from his chest, the telltale sparkle of an aurial weapon twinkling even through the wetness of his blood.
“No,” she gasped. “Oh, shit no.”
“I have another blade with your name on it, Daughter.” The ominous, rumbling voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Unless you give yourself up without a fight.”
In the center of town, the hideous, horned monster that was her father was coming fast, carried by a hell stallion twice the size of a normal beast. Every footprint left a fiery hole in the street, and every puff of breath sent flames at anyone stupid enough to still be in the path.
She eyed the Harrowgate. She could be inside in a few heartbeats, but only if she abandoned Reaver, who would be dead in minutes if he didn’t get help.
“Harvester.”
Satan’s voice rattled her to her core and kicked her into high gear. In a frenzied, clumsy rush, she grabbed Reaver’s arms and dragged him toward the gate. Something sliced into her back, making her stumble and nearly lose her grip on Reaver. Gritting her teeth against the agony, she battled a storm of daggers, razor discs, and throwing stars, too many of them taking bites out of her flesh.
She risked a look back… and wished she hadn’t. Satan and Gethel’s minions were almost upon them, smashing through the crowds of panicked demons.
It was a messy mass of confusion that saved Harvester, and even though she was bleeding so badly she could hardly see for all the blood in her eyes, she hurled both herself and Reaver into the gate. An ugly tusked demon slipped inside at the last second and slammed his palm onto the wall map.
“No!” she shouted, but the gate closed with a glittering flash of light.
A heartbeat later, the gate opened, spilling them in a heap onto a grassy mountainside.
In the human realm.
Holy hell, they’d done it. Harvester sat up and held Reaver close as she let out a sob of relief. Tears and blood stung her eyes as she inhaled a breath of fresh air she thought she’d never take again.
The demon who’d hitched a ride with them snarled, the tusks jutting from his lower jaw dripping with pink-tinged drool. Bits of raw meat were stuck between his teeth.
“Looks like I brought supper with me.” His lips peeled back in what she thought was a smile.
She rose and limped toward him, hoping the fact that she could barely walk didn’t diminish her powers of intimidation.
“You will step aside and allow us to leave, or I’ll destroy you.”
His snarl-smile grew fiercer. “Private Harrowgate, bitch. Anyone can come here, assuming they know the right map sequence, but no one but me can leave.”
Oh, wasn’t that just perfect. Now what? Reaver was unconscious and would be dead in minutes, and Harvester’s injuries were too severe to get them much farther.
“You do know who the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are?” She pointed to Reaver. “That’s their father. If you don’t go get them and he dies, I promise you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life suffering in ways you can’t even imagine. When they finally let you die, it’ll be Thanatos who slaughters you, and then you’ll spend eternity in the hell of his armor.”
The guy’s mouth snapped shut, and after a mere second of hesitation, he disappeared through the Harrowgate.
Practically collapsing with relief, she settled down in the grass next to Reaver and listened to his shallow, rattling breaths, wishing she hadn’t spent all her power. If she could channel some healing energy into him, maybe she could remove the sword. Right now, the thing was draining his life, but pulling it free could do even more damage. An aurial didn’t allow for healing around the site of the wound, and a bleed-out from one could kill.
“Don’t you die on me, you bastard.” Her voice was shot to hell, thick with emotion that would piss her off if she wasn’t so terrified. “I haven’t had enough time to make you pay for disappearing for thousands of years.”
Reaver didn’t even groan. His heartbeat began to fade, and hers went ballistic.
“Don’t do it,” she cried. “Do not die.” She shook him, hating him for putting her through this. “You son of a bitch! You can’t come back into my life and make me feel something and then go away again. Don’t do this!” She choked on a sob. “Please.”
A low-level buzz filled the air, and an instant later Thanatos and Reseph, fully armored, burst through the gate. Hatred so fierce Harvester felt it as a wave of stinging heat billowed off Thanatos. He glared, and all around him, the inky, shadowy souls of those he’d killed began to circle at his feet.
“What happened?” he barked as he sank down next to Reaver.
“I’ll tell you everything,” she swore, hoping he didn’t strike her down right then and there. “But we need to get him to UG first.”
With tenderness few would expect from the Horseman known as Death, Than scooped up Reaver and cast his own Harrowgate.
Harvester stood, her heart clenching at the sight of Reaver lying limp and pale in Than’s arms. “You’re going to leave me here?”
“That’s up to Reseph.” Than stepped through the gate, leaving her alone with Reseph for the first time since she’d healed his mind by linking it with his mate, a human named Jillian.
And how weird was it that after all the months of torture she’d endured as a guest in Satan’s palace, it was the memory of what Pestilence had done to her that wrapped around her like barbed wire and rendered her nearly unable to stand her ground in front of him.
She actually reached for her power before remembering she was tapped out. Defenseless.
“Take me with you.” She swallowed, but it did nothing to ease the sudden dryness in her mouth. “Please. Reaver went through hell to save me. It’ll all make sense when he’s better.”
Reseph, who had never taken anything seriously prior to his Seal breaking, looked down at her, his expression eerily blank. “If he gets better.”
“He will,” she insisted. “Reaver is too damned stubborn to die.” Please be too stubborn.
“Our Watchers said you were working for Heaven. Is that true?” Reseph’s blue eyes, so like his father’s, were haunted, and she wondered how much of his evil past as Pestilence still had a hold on him.
She understood that more than she’d like to.
“Yes,” she said. “From the beginning.”
“So all the shit you helped Pestilence with? That was all bullshit?”
“Not all of it,” she admitted. “I had to help further his cause sometimes. I couldn’t let him get suspicious.”
Reseph closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, and she knew he was on the fence. As Pestilence, he’d hurt her, and his guilt still ate at him. She hadn’t crossed over into the realm of good so firmly that she felt shame for exploiting his guilt.
“Please,” she repeated. “I’m… begging you. I need to make sure Reaver’s okay.”
“If you’re lying… if you hurt him—”
“I’m not, and I won’t.” She held her breath, waiting for his answer with as much patience as she could muster. Reaver could be dying while he waffled.
He lifted his lids and resolve gleamed in his eyes. “Let’s go.”