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 fuck 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 fuck 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?”