Reaper Read online

  She launched herself across the distance and into his arms, desperate to comfort him, to keep him from falling into self-destruction. “It’s okay, Azagoth. I’m okay.”

  “Your wings,” he croaked. “I’m so sorry. I’m so…sorry.”

  “Shh.” She framed his face with her hands, forcing him to look at her. “They’ll grow back. It’s okay,” she said, even though it wasn’t.

  Her wings wouldn’t grow back until she got out of Sheoul, and she wasn’t one hundred percent sure they’d fare better in Sheoul-gra.

  “I know how much it hurt—”

  She hushed him with a kiss. “I didn’t feel anything.” Another lie. She wondered if he’d taste the deception on her lips. “Flail did something to dull my senses.”

  “Why?” His voice rang with justifiable skepticism. “Why would she do that?”

  Lilliana thought back to Flail’s visit the other day in the cell. The fallen angel had come back twice more with edible food to convince Lilliana to call Azagoth, and both times, she’d refused. Flail’s pattern had been the same, first to plead, and then to get angry and throw around insults—and some of Lilliana’s dinner.

  But she hadn’t once hurt Lilliana. During Moloch’s sadistic taking of Lilliana’s wings, as she was being held down by half a dozen handsy demons, Flail had even threatened them all with disembowelment if they hurt the baby.

  “Because the baby can only be used against Azagoth if it’s healthy, of course.”

  Those had been her words, but every once in a while, between screams, Lilliana had caught a glimpse of Flail, and she hadn’t seemed to be enjoying herself like everyone else in the chamber.

  No, it had been so exciting for some of the demons that her de-winging had turned into an orgy.

  She hated Hell. A lot.

  “I don’t know why Flail would do anything to help me,” she said, and that, at least, was the truth. “She’s been oddly nice. I’m sure she wants something.”

  “Fuck.” Azagoth wheeled away, his gaze cast down at the sand. “I’ve failed you in so many ways.”

  “Failed me?” She moved around to face him. “None of this is your fault, Azagoth.”

  “All of it is my fault.” He looked up, but not at her. His gaze, burning with pain and a tiny, alarming crimson spark of hatred, took in the crystal-blue-green sea, going somewhere she couldn’t follow. “The things I’ve done, the enemies I’ve made, all of it has led to this. I’ve endangered you and everyone I care about.”

  “You can’t think that way.” She gripped his arm, wanting his full focus, but he was still somewhere over the water. “You’re the Grim Reaper. You had a job to do, and you’ve done it well and without any incidents for thousands of years. You’ve done things the way you had to. The battle between Heaven and Hell is what stirred things up. They are the ones changing the rules of the game.”

  “This game,” he spat. In the distance, steam rose from the sea. “I’m so tired of it.”

  “You’ve been dealing with life and death for so long—”

  “That’s not the game I’m talking about.” He broke away to pace the beach. “Death…that makes sense to me. Physical forms only last so long. At some point, they have to release the soul. It’s so…basic.” He jammed his hands through his hair and snarled. “But the rest of it, always having to watch your back, always being pressed between two powers and millions of factions. If I could run away with you, build a life somewhere together where no one could touch us unless we wanted that…” His gaze lit on the sea again. “Ares has it right.”

  He was dreaming of something they could never have, and it broke her heart. “His island is crawling with Ramreel demons and hellhounds,” she pointed out in a sad attempt to make Ares’ island sound less great than it was. “Not to mention all the friends and family that pop over at all times of the day and night.”

  She shut up, realizing that she was actually making the opposite argument. Fortunately, Azagoth didn’t seem to notice. He’d stopped pacing and was back to making the water steam.

  “Ares isn’t responsible for millions of souls or keeping the balance between good and evil. The people who visit him do so because they want to, not because they need to. He doesn’t have to spend eighteen hours a day with evil souls so contaminated with filth that it makes him feel dirty no matter how many showers he takes.” The surface of the sea began to boil, and his voice lowered, scraping the bottom of the deep trenches below. “Sometimes, after I’ve wrung information from a really foul, fucked-up demon, I can’t even touch you. I’m too…stained, and you’re too pure.”

  He was going to a dark place, and if she didn’t drag him toward the light, he’d get lost in it.

  “Darling?” She moved to him, willing away her swimsuit as she walked. “I don’t know how much time we have. Make love to me.”

  It wasn’t an offer. It was a command, meant to snag his attention and trigger his natural impulse to meet a challenge.

  He swung around, and she willed away his clothes, as well.

  Holy damn, but he was remarkable. Supple, bronze skin stretched tight over lean muscles that rippled in all the right places and begged to be kissed, squeezed, scratched, and bitten. Powerful arms and shoulders that flexed as he squared his stance in the sand.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” She sauntered up to him, planted her hand on his breastbone, and rolled her hips, brushing them up against his. “Make love to me.”

  His eyes, once aflame with anger, now smoldered, and his arousal stirred against her belly. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “And what is that?” She trailed her fingers downward, tracing his ribs and abs.

  His chest expanded on a sound that was something between a purr and a growl. “You’re distracting me.”

  The pad of her thumb brushed the tip of his erection, and he hissed. “Distracting you?” she asked, a mix of innocence and vixen.

  He pushed his erection into her belly, but it felt almost mechanical, like his body was on board, but his mind was still mired in darkness. “From my anger.”

  Dammit, he wasn’t giving her anything to work with here. “Your anger is what’s going to save me,” she said. “All I ask is that, no matter what happens, you don’t become the monster you used to be.”

  “I won’t.” He took her hand and pressed a deep kiss to her palm. “I promise.”

  She believed him. At least, she believed he intended to keep his promise. For now, that would have to be good enough.

  Slowly, deliberately, she licked her thumb, watching his expression grow hotter as she smoothed it over the head of his cock. And yet, there was still a distance in his gaze that she couldn’t close.

  She could fix that.

  Taking him in her fist, she dropped to her knees. She held his gaze with hers, wanting him to see everything she was going to do to him. She’d give him a show that would fill his memories with more than regrets.

  Her mouth watered as she pressed a lingering kiss to his shaft. The taste of him, smoky and hot, sent a shiver of lust straight to her core. She tongued him, little dabs up and down the length of his thick erection.

  “Darling,” he whispered, his voice fading to a moan when she took one plump testicle into her mouth and sucked gently, well short of the intensity he liked.

  She was going to tease the hell out of him.

  She licked and sucked her way to the other one as she slowly pumped her fist up and down his shaft, the sound of the rolling waves and his short, choppy breaths urging her on. He thrust his fingers into her hair, his touch tender as if he were afraid to hurt her.

  Was that why he was being so distant? He was worried about her fragility?

  That did not work for her.

  She shot to her feet and flared her wings; which, thankfully, still existed in the dream world. Azagoth’s expression turned thunderous, and she knew he was thinking about the fact that they’d been torn off. She didn’t give him time to obs
ess. She launched upward and hooked her thighs around his neck, using her wings to hold her aloft.

  Now he’d be too busy to worry about treating her like she was made of glass.

  He looked up at her, his eyes creased with wickedness. “This is new,” he murmured, his hot breath caressing her sensitive flesh. “Can it still be called sitting on my face?”

  She didn’t answer, was too busy gasping as his tongue pierced her center. Oh…yes! She nearly forgot to flap her wings, but he caught her by her waist and held her upright in his strong grip. It occurred to her that this was a dream, and she probably didn’t even need to use her wings, but it was just so…damned…erotic.

  He purred as he lapped at her, using the flat of his tongue to make slow, long passes from her core to her clit. Waves of pleasure washed over her, intense and hot.

  “Azagoth,” she breathed, crying out when he changed up his torture and concentrated on nibbling at her pulsing nub.

  She was almost there…almost…

  Suddenly, the island spun, and she was upside down in the air, Azagoth’s mouth still working between her legs as they drifted above the water in a modified sixty-nine. Oh, that clever Reaper.

  Gripping his thighs, she took his cock in her mouth and sucked hard. He bucked his hips with a muffled shout, but the sinful, deep probe of his tongue never altered its mind-blowing rhythm.

  Pleasure spiked, her climax sending her hurtling right to the edge of sanity. A sting of pain as Azagoth bit into her inner thigh amplified her ecstasy and triggered another muscle-melting orgasm.

  He came with her, his hot jets spilling into her mouth, his hips pumping frantically, spastically.

  But they weren’t done.

  He was still coming when he pulled out of her mouth and spun her around so her legs locked around his waist. His come splashed on her belly as his mouth found hers in an urgent kiss that tasted like her blood and arousal. And then they were airborne, his great wings carrying them high into the sky.

  Higher, above the clouds. Through the upper limits of the stratosphere into the eerie silence of space. With a roar, he drew back his hips and thrust inside her. She screamed at the incredible sensation of him filling her, and then she screamed again when he wrapped his wings around them and dove back toward Earth.

  They shot downward like a missile, spinning in a cocoon of uncontrolled lust. He thrashed against her, his cock stroking tissue already primed for him with every rapid-fire thrust of his hips. The whine of the wind and the pressure from the fall overloaded all her senses, freeing her to do nothing but feel this incredible thing he was doing to her body.

  “Lilli,” he shouted, throwing back his head in a display of fierce, male ecstasy, his fangs bared, the tendons in his neck straining.

  She came again just as they hit the low deck of clouds, and once more as Azagoth flared his wings and stopped them from crashing into the ocean. He made a slow, graceful roll and drifted on an air current as they caught their breath and savored the last, waning pulses of pleasure.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you, too,” she said for perhaps the millionth time, but for some reason, this time felt like it was the most important.

  Because it might be the last.

  Chapter 21

  Azagoth held Lilliana as they floated back down to the beach. He wanted to lay in the surf and make love to her again, this time with the waves lapping at their bodies, and the hot wind caressing their skin. What they’d just done had been intense and wild, satisfying a need to release some aggression and passion.

  Now, he wanted slow and seductive, just to show Lilliana how much she meant to him. He’d worship every inch of her body so she’d understand that she was his world. Sheoul-gra, a realm he’d built from the ground up, meant nothing compared to her.

  “That was amazing,” she murmured as they stretched out on the sand. “I want to just lay here and be with you, but we need to talk before something wakes us up.”

  She was right, but damn if that didn’t fuck the mood. He flopped back with his arm behind his head to stare at the sky.

  “I told Hawkyn that if anyone wakes me up, they’ll be welcoming visitors on the landing pad for a month.”

  She pushed up on one elbow to look down at him. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “They’ll be doing it as statues,” he clarified.

  “Ah. So, everyone in Sheoul-gra is being very quiet right now.”

  “Exactly.”

  She laughed but sobered quickly. He wondered if she was thinking about being awakened. The terror she must experience every time she opened her eyes. Anger at the horror she was experiencing rose up, but he tamped it down, not wanting to upset her.

  “I need to know about Flail,” she said. “Do you have any information that will help me dig into that psyche of hers?”

  “Maybe.” He reached over and played with a lock of her silky hair. “Did I ever tell you that Maddox was her nephew? It’s one of the reasons I allowed her into Sheoul-gra.” He’d always been careful about who was granted entrance to his realm, and he’d been extremely particular about those he employed. Flail had done odd jobs, mostly acting as a procurer of things promised, which pretty much meant that she was a glorified collections agent.

  She’d been one of the best.

  But she’d also been a spy for Moloch, and she’d been responsible for dragging Cipher into Sheoul and imprisoning him for Moloc and Bael. So, she had to die.

  “Wait.” Lilliana sat up all the way, her full breasts flushed and bouncing just enough to be a distraction. “You knew she was Maddox’s aunt, and you never told me?”

  “Why would I?”

  She gave him an incredulous look, the one females always gave when they thought you were an idiot. “You slept with her sister.”

  “And that’s relevant…why?”

  Her mouth opened. Closed. Then she gave a dismissive sniff. “It just is.”

  Interesting. “Does my past still bother you?”

  “Your past? That’s a curious way of saying you fathered thousands of children with hundreds of females.” She was suddenly wearing her fluffy navy robe, and he wondered if she’d done that consciously or not. “And, no, I’m not bothered by your past. I’d just like to know when people are related to you. Or related to the angels you had in your bed.”

  Yeah, it totally sounded like she was cool with it.

  “So, what else do you have on Flail?” she asked, blatantly changing the subject.

  He just wished talking about Flail wasn’t it, no matter how important it was.

  “She was close to her sister Ellandra,” he said. “But after Maddox’s birth, Ellandra apparently became withdrawn. Her family couldn’t help her, and one day, she walked into the Abyss.”

  Lilliana shuddered. “The Abyss,” she whispered. “Oh, my.”

  Yeah, that had been crazy news, courtesy of Reaver. The Abyss was an almost mythical place on the Other Side. It was said that only those who had truly lost the will to live could find it. Anyone who entered was never seen again. Angelically speaking, it was considered suicide, although some insisted that the Abyss wasn’t instant death, but the entrance to another dimension. Basically, it was a way to get a new start.

  “Was Flail an angel at the time?”

  He shook his head. “She was fallen, but she and Ellandra kept in contact. Seems Ellandra wasn’t ready to give up on Flail. In fact, it was Ellandra’s support of her sister that got Ellandra sent to me.”

  Ellandra had confessed that little tidbit to him as she stood, trembling in his bedroom, waiting for him to rape her or something. At that point, he’d told her to go. He wanted his bedmates willing, and if they were sent to him as punishment, there was no consent. He might be evil, but he had standards.

  To his surprise, she’d come back, and when she did, she’d begged for his participation. She’d believed that bringing a Memitim into the world would be her redemption.

 
Turned out, it was her ruin.

  A warm breeze stirred Lilliana’s hair as she turned her face to the sun. She deserved to have this kind of life. She deserved to be in the sunshine whenever she wanted to be. Instead, she was stuck inside Sheoul-gra.

  No, she’s trapped in a dungeon in Hell, and it’s your fault.

  He growled, and Lilliana’s hand came down on his. “Hey.” She tapped him gently. “Tell me why Flail was expelled from Heaven.”

  Grateful for the lifeline, he took her hand in his. “She lost her wings because she was part of a mini-rebellion of young angels who despise humans. She took it upon herself to kill a few she felt deserved to die.”

  She nodded. “I remember that. Well, I don’t remember her, specifically, but I know there’s been a movement brewing for a while. There have been a number of small rebellions over the last couple of centuries. The last decade has been especially active.” She cocked her head and studied him for a moment, the sunlight glinting in her amber eyes. “Did the humans she killed really deserve it?”

  “They were murderers and rapists. So, yeah.” Flail had provided a lot of evil human souls for Hades to play with in the Inner Sanctum.

  Azagoth filled Lilliana in on a few more details he wasn’t sure would help, but he didn’t want to leave anything out, just in case. When he exhausted his Encyclopedia of Flail, Lilli leaned over and kissed him.

  “Now, tell me how you’re doing. How is everyone handling things? I know the loss of Journey and Maddox must be so hard.” She squeezed his hand. “I can’t stop thinking about them. And Wraith. They all died trying to help me.”

  He couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through, having to watch them die, and he cursed. “I hate this. Everyone does. They’re all looking for ways to get at Moloch. Thanatos and Limos are hunting the angels who killed Wraith, while Ares and Reseph are scouting for ways to get into Moloch’s stronghold without a military assault.” He eyed her. “You are at Moloch’s, right? He hasn’t taken you to Satan’s castle, has he?”