His clean scent invaded her senses, permeating every cell in her body. He always smelled good, even when he was covered in dirt, ash, blood, and the remnants of battle. It never took long for that honey-spiced angel fragrance to saturate his skin and obliterate everything else.
She wanted to kiss him. To taste those full lips again. The weird thing was that she always took what she wanted, but for some reason, she was hesitant about this.
Kissing Reaver would annoy him. Maybe even piss him off.
Right. Decision made.
She sealed her mouth against his. Months ago when they’d kissed to seal the sex deal there’d been an instant sense of familiarity the moment their lips touched, a bizarre and disturbing rightness that shook her to the core.
Nothing had changed. The feeling was still there. The strange rightness should scare her, and it did, but it also felt so good she wanted to weep, and that was something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
It was almost as if she was Verrine again, and she and Yenrieth were lying in a meadow together, soaking up the sun. She’d been so happy at times like that, and the only thing that would have made her happier was if she’d been sure he felt the same way about her as she felt about him.
Clinging to those precious memories, Harvester thrust her tongue between Reaver’s velvety lips. For a heart-sinking moment he did nothing, but when she flicked her tongue against his, he responded with a low moan that flowed through her like a caress.
Sliding her hands upward from his shoulders to his neck, she traced the tendons that strained under his skin and the veins that pounded beneath her fingertips. A rumble started low in her belly, the hunger she needed to take care of soon but that always grew worse when she was aroused.
The taste of Reaver’s blood had only whetted her appetite, and the thought of sinking her teeth into Reaver’s warm flesh and taking the ultimate nectar that composed an angel’s blood made her fangs throb and lengthen.
She’d been disgusted by the idea of feeding when she’d first fallen, but gradually, she’d learned to tolerate it. Then like it. And now it was a pleasure she looked forward to.
Especially if she got to feed from an angel.
She didn’t care that drinking from an angel brought out her evil side.
A shudder of anticipation ran through her, followed by unwelcome reservations. She no longer had to play fallen angel, did she? Yes, she was technically a True Fallen, and she had all the needs that came with it. But she was supposed to be a good guy underneath her evil veneer. Shouldn’t she be at least trying to be decent?
Reaver’s teeth pinched her bottom lip, gently, and all her self-doubt faded into the background.
“Reaver,” she whispered against his mouth.
The next thing she knew Reaver flipped her onto her back and slammed his heavy body on top of her. His smile was cold as he looked down at her.
“Come on, Harvester,” he said, his voice husky, unused, and so damned sexy even when he was trying to intimidate her. “Did you really think I’d let you get the upper hand?”
“Of course not,” she said bitterly. “The great Reaver doesn’t let anyone get the upper hand. He doesn’t let anyone in, does he?”
He frowned. “Where is that coming from?”
A sudden stab of anxiety pierced her gut. Where, indeed. She had no idea if Reaver let people in or not. And why in the realm of fuck would she care, let alone be bitter about it?
Something was happening to her, and whatever it was, she didn’t like it. She used to know exactly who and what she was. Even when she was hanging from hooks in Satan’s living room, she knew what she was, even if what she was amounted to nothing but a slab of meat.
But since the moment Reaver stormed into her life to rescue her, everything she knew was turned upside down. Was she good? Was she evil?
Only one thing was certain: For the first time in her life, she was lost.
Very little could confuse Reaver. Harvester not only confused him; she twisted him into knots. His body reacted to her even as his brain tried to make sense of the things she said and did. No one else had ever done that to him. At least, no one whom he could remember.
“Well?” he prompted. “What makes you think I don’t let people in?” She was right, but how did she know that?
“I don’t want to answer,” she said crisply. “Now who has the upper hand?”
She shoved against him, a halfhearted effort. She was testing the waters, determining if she was strong enough to unseat him. She wasn’t, even though his body was still recovering from the paralyzation and was numb from the thighs down. Everything above that was in full operational mode. Everything was working too well, in fact, leaving him breathless, hot, and aching after Harvester’s kiss.
“I’m still on top of you,” he said. “So I wouldn’t get too cocky.”
She arched under him, blatantly rubbing against his erection. Oh… yeah. Forbidden pleasure jolted him all the way to his balls.
“I’m not the cocky one.” She smiled, all innocence and sugar. “So now that you have me under you, what do you plan to do to me?”
Plan? Or want? “I don’t plan to do anything to you.” He started to push away, but she grasped his biceps, digging her nails into his skin to hold him.
“Wait.”
Tired of her games and her taunts, annoyed with himself for becoming aroused by the one person in the universe he knew would use it against him, he snapped. “What?”
Hurt darkened her eyes but was gone so fast he’d have missed it if he blinked. “Nothing. Get off me.” She shoved at him, this time in earnest, but he didn’t budge.
He made an effort to soften his tone this time. “Tell me what you wanted.”
“Fuck off.”
He looked down, trying to get a read on her, but he kept getting derailed by the dark circles under her eyes. She was healing from her torture experience, but far too slowly, and they might still have a long way to go.
“Tell me, Harvester, how did you perform Heavenly good deeds for five thousand years and not get caught?”
She laughed, but he failed to see what was so funny. “Easy. I didn’t perform any good deeds. I fell from Heaven in order to gain a position as the Horsemen’s Watcher and derail the Daemonica’s Apocalypse if and when the time came.” She dug her nails into his chest, and he swore she purred when he felt a twinge of pain. “If something wasn’t related in some way to the Apocalypse, I ignored it. It would look pretty suspicious if I ran around rescuing kittens and defending humans from demons now, wouldn’t it?” She writhed, struggling to escape his hold. “Release me.”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what you want.”
“I don’t want your help.”
So damned stubborn. “You might not want my help, but you need it.” He shifted his weight and eased to the side, giving her some room so she wouldn’t feel trapped. “We need to work together to get out of here alive. You know that, right?”
She sprang away from him like a frightened rabbit and settled on her haunches a few feet away. “Of course I know that.” He thought her face was a shade paler than it had been a moment ago. “I just don’t like it. And I don’t trust you. I don’t understand why you would risk so much to rescue someone you hate.”
Because you watched over my children. Remembering why he was here erased all his animosity. She was difficult, volatile, and infuriating as hell, but he owed her a million times over, and so did every human and angel in existence. But could he risk telling her the truth? If what Raphael said about her hating Yenrieth was true, she’d blow a gasket if she found out Reaver was the very angel she detested.