Didn’t matter that Reseph understood their reluctance to embrace him as if nothing had happened. It still stung.
He found his siblings and their families hanging out in front of the house, and they weren’t alone. It looked as if half the Underworld General staff was there, too. Kids were everywhere, playing on the beach with a couple of hellhounds chasing after them, and Limos was running the portable bar.
One of the hounds, Hal, saw him and turned into a black, sharp-toothed bullet. Shit. Reseph couldn’t risk a battle with the thing, not when he needed to prove he wasn’t an evil bastard. Pestilence had killed enough hellhounds as it was. He threw a gate, but before he could step through, Cara’s command stopped Hal in his tracks.
Still, the canine snarled, his eyes glowing red, and one of the other hounds began a slow crawl toward Reseph as well.
Cara called them both back. Reluctantly they obeyed, although they put themselves between Reseph and Cara and the kids.
Limos put down the margarita blender, and suddenly the music went off and all went silent.
“Well, this is awkward.” Reseph strode across the stretch of beach he’d spent so many happy hours on in the past. “I didn’t mean to crash the party.”
“It isn’t what it looks like,” Limos said, and Reseph didn’t miss the way his brothers moved closer to their wives. Arik casually set down his drink and settled his hand at his hip, where he was no doubt concealing a weapon. The hatred in that man’s eyes could burn a hole through titanium.
“You don’t have to explain,” Reseph said, hating himself for the tremor in his voice.
Ares spoke up. “We were planning on getting together to find you a place to live, since Harvester destroyed your cave. And then Regan suggested inviting over the UG staff as a way of thanking them for everything they did during the hell the Apocalypse brought down on us.”
“It was an impromptu get-together,” Limos explained.
“Stop.” Reseph held up his hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation.” He approached, pretending not to notice how tense people became with every step he took. “I have news. Lilith is dead.”
“What?” Thanatos sounded strangled. “How do you know?”
“Because I’m the one who killed her.”
“Oh my God.” Limos grabbed the margarita pitcher and drank straight from it. When she was through, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Do you know what you’ve done? She was on Satan’s council. Lucifer relied on her for the intel she got from the demons she screwed. Jesus, Reseph. There’s going to be retaliation. Big retaliation.”
“Good. I’ll have more people to kill.” Reseph walked toward Reaver, who was leaning against a tree trunk, legs crossed at the ankles. “Where is Revenant?”
“Nursing his wounds. Why?”
Reseph moved in a flash, grabbing Reaver by the throat and slamming him into the tree. “Because I found our father,” he bit out. “And I want to know how much our Watchers knew.”
Limos was there in an instant, Ares and Thanatos providing backup. She laid her hand on Reseph’s arm and squeezed. “You found him? How?”
“Lilith drew a picture of the angel who knocked her up, and she was kind enough to give it to me.”
Reseph leaned into the angel, getting nose to nose. “Tell them, Reaver.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell them,” Reaver growled.
“Bullshit. Why have you kept it from us? Thanatos spent centuries trying to find our father, so why the f**k did you not tell him the truth?”
Reaver’s voice went deep and low, carrying an edge of calm that was dangerous. “And what truth is that?”
Reseph released Reaver and shoved the parchment into his hands. “That you are our father.”
Thirty-one
Reaver stared at the sketch in his hand, his head spinning. He heard voices around him, but everything was jumbled together and he couldn’t pick out anything specific. Finally, he looked up. Reseph was glaring at him in anger, and the others in confusion.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Reseph demanded. “You’ve been our Watcher for what, three years now, and not once did you chime in with, ‘Hey, I was your sperm donor.’ Where the f**k have you been for five thousand years? You let Lilith abandon us, and you let her corrupt the hell out of Limos.”
Reaver glanced back down at the drawing. “This has to be a mistake.”
“Are you denying that’s you?”
Reaver looked up from the parchment at Reseph and everyone else who had crowded around.
“Obviously, the drawing is of me.” He cleared his throat. “But I didn’t… I don’t think I would have slept with Lilith.”
“What do you mean you don’t think you would have?” Limos asked. “Isn’t that something you’d know?”
Reaver blew out a long breath. There were things he “knew,” but this wasn’t one of them. “I told you my memory was taken away from me almost thirty years ago. No one else remembers me, either. I doubt Lilith would have remembered if she hadn’t drawn a picture.”
“So you could have slept with her, then.”
“No. Impossible.” Reaver’s throat squeezed shut, the protest sounding hollow. He couldn’t imagine getting intimate with someone as vile as Lilith, but he also knew he had a rebellious streak, and if someone had said not to bed the succubus, he might have out of spite.
“I can prove it.” Reseph’s tone had softened now that he realized Reaver hadn’t been keeping this massive secret. “I have a birthmark in the shape of a single wing on the inside of my left thigh. Lilith said our father, the angel in that drawing, has a matching one.”
Reaver froze. Locked up so hard he couldn’t even hyperventilate.
“Well?” Anticipation radiated from Ares, who rarely got worked up about anything. “Do you have this mark, Reaver?”
A mixture of terror and joy tripped through him as he looked each Horseman in the eye. And then he nodded. Now he knew why he’d felt such a close connection with these four. Why he’d risked spending an eternity trapped in Sheoul-gra when he’d cast Reseph out of there. And why, right now, his eyes stung.
“Yes. It…” He cleared his throat of its hoarseness. “It appears that I’m… your father.”
Limos threw herself at him, wrapping herself around him and squeezing so hard he could barely breathe. “I knew it,” she whispered. “I knew there was a reason I loved you from the beginning.”
“Damn, Reaver,” Eidolon said. “You’re full of surprises.”
Shade, one of Eidolon’s brothers, snorted. “The only way you can top this one is to tell us you’re a Shadow Angel.”
It was Reaver’s turn to snort. Only one Shadow Angel, a being who had access to both Sheoul and Heaven and could utilize the powers of both, had ever existed at any given time, and there hadn’t been one alive in centuries.
Wraith, blond brother to Shade and Eidolon, clapped Reaver on the back. “Be glad you missed the potty-training stage.” He gestured to the Horsemen. “I’ll bet these assholes could blow out diapers made of Kevlar.”
Thanatos beaned Wraith with a corn chip. Thanatos… Reaver’s son.
Reaver was a father.
But how? And who in Heaven knew? Had he been given Watcher duty by someone who was aware that the Horsemen were his offspring?
Reaver suddenly had a lot of questions… and an uncomfortable feeling that he wasn’t going to like the answers.
Thirty-two
Reseph was so out of there. On the beach Reseph had practically called home, he felt like a stranger.
Hell, the people from Underworld General were more a part of his siblings’ families than he was.
No one to blame but yourself, asshole.
Well, Pestilence could shoulder a lot of the blame, too.
Cursing, he strode up the beach to find a safe place to throw a Harrowgate.
“Reseph, wait!” Limos caught up to him and took him by the elbow. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged, putting on his best old-Reseph face. “Yep. I’m just going to go get myself a place to live and then maybe hit the Four Horsemen.” Lie. Huge f**king lie.
Yes, he needed a place to live, but he was never again stepping foot in the underworld pub where he’d spent countless hours doing countless females. He only wanted Jillian, so more than likely he was going to go hang out in her barn like some sort of creepy invisible Peeping Tom.
“Don’t give me that crap,” Limos said softly. “I know you too well. You miss Jillian, don’t you?”
Sure his voice would crack like a pubescent teenage boy’s, Reseph merely nodded.
“Then get her back.” Limos looked down at the sand for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts. “If you’re worried about Pestilence, maybe you should consider the way you came out of your torment when she was around. Maybe she can help keep you level and in control.”
He shook his head. “Even if that was true, she’ll never forgive me for what happened to her.”
Limos stomped her foot. “Bullshit. That human gave you her freaking mind in order to help you, and she did it after learning that Pestilence hurt her. She loves you.”
He swore he heard Pestilence laugh, and the memory of her attack started to spread through his brain like spilled mead. Where had Reseph been? Why hadn’t he fought to stop what had happened to Jillian? Reseph was just as responsible as Pestilence was.
“I know what you’re thinking, but Pestilence hurt her,” Limos said. “Not you. And I realize I sound like a hypocrite, but you have to remember that Pestilence tormented us almost daily for a year.” She glanced back at the group, where pretty much everyone was watching them. “He killed Torrent, who Ares loved like a son. He hung my staff from trees. He stole Arik’s soul. Worst of all, he tried to kill Logan. These aren’t things we’re going to get past easily, even if we know it wasn’t you who did them.”
He closed his eyes, fighting to keep the memory of preparing to slaughter the newborn at bay, but what he couldn’t stop was the nausea. In a clumsy rush, he stumbled to the surf and threw up. Tremors racked his body so violently that he could no longer hold himself up, and he crashed to his knees in the waves.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, head bowed, water lapping at his legs, when arms came around him and lifted him to his feet. Reaver. Reaver was holding him upright.
“I’m sorry, Reaver,” he began, and then paused, because was he supposed to call him Father now? “What I did to you in Harvester’s lair—”
“Stop.” Reaver gripped Reseph’s shoulders firmly and gave him a little shake. “None of us need apologies. We need you to put yourself back together.”
Easier said than done. Tormenting your family and killing millions of people wasn’t an easy thing to put behind you. Although he had to admit that Harvester’s “Sheoul voodoo,” as Limos called it, had gone a long way toward making that happen. But why had she done it? She hated him, and with good reason.
“Reaver… do you know why Harvester was fired as our Watcher?”
“No, but maybe you can shed some light on that. Did she help Pestilence in any way?”
He nodded. “It was her idea to trick The Aegis into taking Thanatos’s virginity so his Seal would break. She wrote the document that made them think a baby was the key to averting the Apocalypse.”
Turned out, the baby had been that key. He’d also been the key to breaking Than’s Seal and starting the Apocalypse. Logan had come into the world with a lot of weight on his tiny shoulders.
Reaver frowned. “Were you aware that Regan can sense emotion when she touches ink on skin or parchment?”
“No, why?”
“Because she confirmed that whoever penned the note believed every word they wrote. So if what you’re saying is true, Harvester knew all along that Than’s virginity wasn’t his agimortus.”
Reseph sucked in a harsh breath. “So she knew the baby was.” He rubbed his temples, trying to get a grip on this new information. If she’d known, why hadn’t she told Pestilence? He hadn’t figured it out until later. Something wasn’t adding up.
“Whether she’d known or not, it’s clear she was helping Pestilence, which is a broken Watcher rule,” Reaver said.
“Maybe that’s why she got taken off Watcher duty and replaced by the douchebag.”
Reaver looked troubled. “Maybe. But it seems like overkill to have her dragged to hell for the punishment.”
“She’s being tortured,” he said. “Lilith said Lucifer wants something from her. Something with the power to draw out Pestilence. Do you know what it could be?”
Reaver’s frown deepened. “No idea.”
The party music started up again, Reseph’s cue to get out of there. A year ago he’d have joined in, started up a game of volleyball or some sort of drinking challenge. Now he wanted to join in, but he wanted Jillian with him. He’d take her out in the waves to surf, and maybe he’d mess with her a little underwater, where no one but she would know what his hands were doing. Later, when everyone was gone, he’d make love to her on the beach with all the reverence she deserved.
A pang of loneliness and loss ripped through him. “Thank you,” he said to Reaver. “Thanks for giving me Jillian for a little while.” He regarded his father, wishing he’d known the truth sooner. Like—when he’d been a child would have been good. “It was you, wasn’t it? The night she was attacked, she said she heard wings. You were there.”