Reaver (42 page)

Okaaaay
. Reaver hadn’t seen that coming. “Why you?”

“Because,” Metatron replied, “Sandalphon was my brother. As I said, twins run in the family.”

So Metatron was Reaver’s uncle? It was a good thing he was still seated. He should probably just

stay that way. He had a feeling the shocks were going to keep knocking him on his ass.

“Did I know about my real parents?”

“You believed my mate and I were your birth parents.”

Reaver closed his eyes, trying to find even the smallest sliver of memory to help him sort this all

out, but he might as well have been feeling around inside an empty box. “So I didn’t know about my

brother, either?”

“No.” Metatron flared his wings just a little, a sign of his irritation with the matter. “We raised you

as a battle angel, suspecting you were the potential Radiant. Your powers, even as a child, were

stronger than most fully trained adult battle angels.” He smiled fondly. “You were a handful.”

Somehow, Reaver wasn’t surprised by that.

Metatron took a deep breath, and Reaver braced himself for whatever was coming next. “Your

temper was legendary. Let me repeat the handful thing.” He shot Reaver an accusing look, as if Reaver

could do anything about being a pain in the ass when he was young. “By the time you started battle

angel training, we had to curb your powers. Then, when you were taken to Sheoul for your first lesson

in fighting in the demon realm, we learned that you had the ability to draw power from evil sources.

Again, a talent unique to Radiants. We had to seal it to prevent you from abusing the ability.”

Harvester had said she’d noticed something similar. “Sounds a little extreme,” Reaver muttered.

He got a full-fledged
you’re a dumbass
look from the archangel. “Have you even met yourself?”

Metatron sighed. “Things went well until you slept with Lilith. When you learned what you’d done,

you went on a bender, destroying every demon you came across, disobeying direct orders, and, in

general, being an asshat. Verrine was the sole calming influence on you, but after you learned that she

kept the existence of your sons and daughter from you, we lost even that.” He blew out a long breath.

“Then you met your brother, and that was the beginning of the downward spiral no one could pull you

out of.”

Thirty-Two

Reaver could really use a bottle of tequila right now. Maybe two. He stared at Metatron, the male who

had raised him as his own, and then decided he didn’t need the alcohol, because his head was already

spinning.

“So I met my brother. Did I know he was my brother at the time?”

“No, but he knew you,” Metatron said. “He, too, had been raised to think he was an only child. But

somehow he learned about you, and he arranged a meeting. We don’t know what went down between

the two of you, only that your anger was so formidable that you leveled entire cities at the height of

your wrath. Your brother, too, was angry, and he barged into Heaven as if he’d lived there all his life.”

Reaver frowned. “How could he get in? Fallen angels can’t enter Heaven.”

“Ah, but think about it. He wasn’t fallen. He was a full angel raised in Sheoul, but the fact that he

could also draw power from Sheoul made us suspect that you were both Radiants.” Metatron went

back to wearing a path in the dirt. “One of the terms in the deal that gave you to us said that what was

done to one of you must be done to both, so his ability to draw power from Heaven was sealed… and

then we erased you both from all memories.”

Reaver’s stomach churned. “So he forgot who I was, and I forgot him?”

“Exactly.” Metatron’s boots hit the hard-packed earth with the force of thunderclaps.

“But why? I get that I deserved punishment, but why the memories?”

Metatron’s expression turned sour. “Because people began to talk. They began to suspect the truth,

including the fact that one or both of you were potentially Radiants. We learned our lesson with Satan.

He was a potential Radiant, but his anger over not being Raised—promoted—to Radiant status filled

him with hatred. His hatred leaked out of every pore, and those around him began to resent his power

and his potential. Envy is poison for angels, infecting huge populations like decay. We couldn’t afford

another internal uprising, so we did what we had to do.”

Reaver supposed that made sense. “Then what?”

“Angels cannot be
given
the honor of becoming a Radiant; they must earn it. You weren’t going to

earn it until you learned to control your temper and your powers, and the only way to do that was to

give you a clean slate and let you reinvent yourself. We named you Reaver and let you continue on

with your life.” He shook his head. “You were still a challenge. Maybe even more of one. You were

like a dog that doesn’t get enough exercise or discipline and turns destructive. There wasn’t a rule you

didn’t break. And when you transferred the Marked Sentinel charm from Serena’s mom to Serena

thirty years ago, it was the last straw. We took away your wings and once again took your memory,

and that of your brother, and you have both lived without memories since. Honestly, we all wrote you

off. None of us believed you would earn your way back into Heaven by saving the world with that

Seminus demon.”

Reaver had offered himself up as a meal to Serena’s mate, Wraith, allowing the demon to destroy a

fallen angel who was hellbent on opening a portal from Sheoul into Heaven. He hadn’t counted on

surviving, let alone being raised to full angel status again.

“Bet you didn’t believe I’d manage to lose my wings again, either.”

Metatron shook his head. “You’ve always been unpredictable. But now I’m giving you a choice.”

“And what is that?”

“Do you want your memory back?”

“Is that really a choice? Because… ah, yeah. Who wouldn’t want their memory back?”

“Someone who did terrible things.”

Okay, there was that. Reaver was happy with who he was now. He loved his sons, his daughter, his

grandchildren—born and unborn. And then there was Harvester. The very thought of her made his

heart trip all over itself. Would all of that be ruined if he remembered all his stupid, horrible

mistakes? He thought about Reseph, and how happy he’d been before the memories of what he’d done

as Pestilence turned him into a tortured, drooling mess. If not for his mate, Jillian, Reseph would

probably still be insane.

But Reseph was also making amends. The people Reaver wronged deserved nothing less. Harvester

deserved nothing less.

“I want them back.”

“And that,” Metatron said, “was the right answer. Stand.” He made a rising gesture with his hand,

and Reaver rose to his feet without any effort of his own. “You, Yenrieth, also called Reaver, for your

numerous sacrifices, will be Raised.”

A massive stream of light blasted down from the heavens, bathing Reaver in gold. Ecstasy infused

every fiber with strength and bliss. He swore he could feel each individual cell in his body come alive,

could feel his wings knit back together in a matter of seconds.

The light retreated back into the clouds, and when Reaver took his first breath, it was as if he was no

longer breathing air, but power. It detonated inside him, filling him with electric euphoria. He flared

his wings and nearly dropped his jaw when he took in their new magnificence. No longer layered with

white, sapphire-tipped feathers, they were pure gold, and as he tested their might, golden, glittery dust

settled around him.

An echo of awareness tingled deep inside him, familiar and warm.
Harvester
. Damn, he could

almost feel what she was feeling. Sense what she was sensing. And right now, she was happy, was with

Limos’s child. It was as if she were standing right next to him, and his eyes stung with pure,

unadulterated joy.

“You are a Radiant,” Metatron said softly, and Reaver gasped.

He remembered Metatron. Remembered how the angel had taught him to swim, to heal a rabbit with

a broken leg, to fly when Reaver’s first feathers grew in. He’d loved the archangel like a father.

Then his memories had been taken, and Reaver had lived for thousands of years seeing Metatron

from only a distance, never knowing how important the angel had been to him. Then, thirty years ago,

even those memories had been taken, and Reaver didn’t lay eyes on Metatron again. Not until Reaver

had earned his wings back. His regular wings. Not these golden beauties.

“New memories will come back to you in waves,” Metatron said. “Even a Radiant can’t handle

thousands of years’ worth all at once.”

“What…” Reaver swallowed a rare lump of emotion. “What does being a Radiant mean?”

“It means there are very few whose powers can match yours, let alone exceed them. Those who can

exceed include me, Satan, and God himself.”

Reaver could barely catch his breath to speak. “Who can match?”

Metatron’s eyebrows shot up. “You know that there must be a balance between Heaven and Sheoul.

My equal was Lucifer.”

Metatron, as the Lord’s right-hand man, had always been in an angelic class by himself. A lightbulb

went off in Reaver’s head. “That’s why Gethel is pregnant. Without your equal, there’s an imbalance

that needs to be corrected.”

“Precisely. We need to prevent his reincarnation for as long as possible to avoid destruction and

more demon invasions in Heaven, but eventually, he
will
be reborn or another equally powerful fallen

angel will take his place.” He looked down, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Balance is important, and

part of the deal with Satan when we got you back was that if you were Raised as a Radiant, your

brother must be Raised as well, though in Sheoul they call the equivalent a Shadow Angel.”

Reaver’s mouth went dry. All around, there was a rumble, as if a thunderstorm had started in the

bowels of hell and had broken through Earth’s crust. Suddenly, something streaked out of the sky and

hit the plateau like a bomb. Rock and dirt exploded into the air, and when the dust cleared, the massive

form of a dark-haired male crouched in the center of the crater took shape.

“Reaver, meet your brother.” Metatron gestured to the male, who unfurled to his full height.

“Revenant.”

Thirty-Three

Revenant’s presence triggered another memory blast that knocked Reaver backward several steps.

Images tore through his head, everything from his childhood with Metatron and Caila to his history

with Verrine to his fits of temper that destroyed entire cities. Oh, there were good things, too, like the

time he rescued a village from demons who had been bent on eating the town’s children.

In fact, there was more good than bad in the massive memory dump. But the bad, especially the

things that involved Verrine, ripped his heart in half.

“Reaver.” Gripping his head with both hands, Revenant stepped out of the crater. “Fuck…

Yenrieth… I remember you. I remember… everything.”

So did Reaver. The memories kept coming, and if Revenant’s grunts were any indication, it was

happening to him, too.

In his head, he saw Revenant standing on a boulder in a plain brown robe that matched his uneven