Reaver (The Blood Angel Chronicles #7)

PROLOGUE

REAVER

Treachery Prison – Date unknown.

All I can do is tug at my metal bonds and listen as they clank and rattle against the damp stone wall behind me.

I imagine that the dampness is just water, but I’ve been here long enough to know better.

When you were imprisoned in the deepest, darkest part of Hell, the saying Shit flows downhill takes on a whole new meaning.

Whatever this pathetic excuse for existence is, it’s been my life for so long that I don’t even remember what life is like outside these walls.

Can I even call this living, for that matter?

It’s more of a cruel joke by the gods than anything else.

Here, you have no purpose. You are nothing, not even a number.

How long have I been here? This question is constantly rattling around in my head.

Occasionally, when I’m feeling particularly lucid, I like to try and calculate how much time has passed. Fuck. I don’t even know… a long ass fucking time, or maybe it was just yesterday. The concept of time, much like living, means nothing.

My brother, Barachiel, was supposed to put me out of my misery and give me a permanent death. We had the perfect plan, or so I fucking thought. Even now, I can feel the anger boiling up inside me. Leave it to my twin to fuck up something as simple as killing me.

Every time I breathe, I can still feel a twinge of pain where Barachiel’s angelic blade pierced my chest. If I weren’t chained to the wall, I’d rub the scar his blade left as it seared through my flesh.

It feels like it was a millennium since I felt joy, even my dreams now shrouded in darkness.

My nightmares continue to be plagued with horrific images from my final day as a warrior and Archangel.

With nothing left to do, I let my head lull forward, and the barrage of memories pour through me.

A battle raged around us as we swung our flaming swords and took down our enemies one by one.

My brother and I were always unstoppable.

A team since the day we were conceived, born only minutes apart—each of us born with the unmistakable golden wings of an Elite Archangel.

We were unique in so many ways. Twins are seldom born, and if they are, they are never Elite. But Barachiel and I were.

The gods themselves came down from their golden thrones to see the miracle of all miracles. They stood in awe of the twins that would set forth a new age for the Archangels.

We trained together, fought, and protected one another as only brothers could. That was why I asked him to take my life and why he agreed, because that’s what brothers do. They have your back when no one else does. His betrayal is still a raw, open wound, left to fester.

Now, I wake up and hang around, quite literally, and wait for the torture to begin. Treachery prison isn’t where I should have woken up. I shouldn’t have woken up at all. Nonetheless, here I am.

I don’t know what comes over me as I hang here thinking about shit I have no business thinking about, but uncontrollable laughter bursts from me.

Great. It’s only taken half of fucking eternity, but I’ve finally gone insane.

“Swing low, sweet cherry tree…” I bellow through my bouts of hysterics.

“Shut the fuck up!” I hear someone yell from another part of the prison.

Fuck them. It’s not like my voice is terrible. I have a fantastic voice. Angelic, if you will. It’s deep and sultry, not unlike myself.

“I’m also taking requests!” I holler back as I try to adjust against the cell wall.

The shackles that have adorned my wrists for the better part of forever are practically part of me now.

The enchanted metal has embedded into my flesh over the years, so much so that I hardly even notice them any longer.

What I do see, however, is the fucking putrid stench that wafts up from the lower levels.

As far as I know, there are at least two below me.

Those cells remain reserved for the vilest of criminals.

Thankfully I don’t fall under that category—at least, I don’t think I do.

Maybe the stench is coming from above, and I am on the lowest level, which would make sense.

An Archangel in Treachery would fall under the terms of being one of the most despicable creatures ever to exist.

“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” I continue to sing. After all, I don’t fucking care what the masses have to say about it.

“We all know!” another disembodied voice yells from the pits. “And we don’t fucking care.”

“Sing, Brittany,” another voice echoes, and a slew of screaming retorts follow, begging me not to continue for another note.

Not wanting to disappoint my fans, I belt out my best rendition of “Oops, I Did It Again”. I’d like to imagine the screaming and shouting of my fans begging me for more, not telling me how they will rip me limb from limb and toss what’s left into the pit of souls.

“You really do have a good voice,” a sultry, distinctively feminine voice purrs from the entrance to my cell.

My first thought is that I must be hallucinating…again.

No one besides Azazel has come to my cell, and that was only to gloat and give me false hope that I would be released soon. But that was decades ago… or maybe yesterday. I don’t fucking know anymore.

Instead, I make a feeble attempt to blow my matted strands of hair out of my face in order to see. It’s a useless attempt. So instead, I shake my head and try to get my brain to stop playing tricks on me.

“Do you take requests?” she asks, this time closer.

Peering out one eye, I search the darkness and see the tip of a red stiletto heel. Maybe this hallucination won’t be so bad after all. I make one last attempt to blow my hair away from my face, but the strands have become so filthy and matted that the effort is futile.

I feel her gentle fingers push the oily strands from my face and tuck them behind my ears without a word. “There, now I can look at your… handsome face,” she chokes out.

Now I know she’s lying. The centuries here have not been kind to me, so I very much doubt that handsome would be a word anyone would use to describe me at this point.

Even at my best, when I fought side by side with my brother, I was not deemed conventionally handsome.

I’m scarred and battle-worn, and I wouldn’t trade any of them for a pretty-boy face.

The only reason to butter me up by calling me handsome would be because she has something to gain. But I have nothing to give, so this should be a short conversation.

With my matted hair out of my face, I can finally get a decent look at the woman standing before me. She’s tall, blonde, and lost, because no one who looks like her would be randomly wandering around Treachery.

Squinting my eyes, I try to place her. She looks vaguely familiar, though I haven’t seen a female in centuries. She’s stunning, and even in my semi-lucid state, I would most definitely have remembered her.

“Do I know you?” I ask, still racking my brain for a connection.

“Oh, Reaver, what have they done to you?” she replies, and her voice is almost sad as she caresses my dirty cheek with her hand. As she pulls her hand away, I notice that she wipes it against her thigh and cringes. I can’t say I blame her. Dirt isn’t the only thing caking my body.

“I’ll ask again. Who the hell are you? Or are you part of the new succubus release program here to give me a happy ending massage? If that’s the case, I’ll apologize for being a minute man. Probably less. It’s been a long time.”

I watch as an expression of disgust washes over her face. I can’t say as I can blame her… I am pretty repulsive. The lack of a shower has taken its toll. I’m shocked that the stench alone isn’t causing her to vomit.

“Revulsion doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling,” she snaps, and I have the feeling of knowing her. Age-old glimpses of a time long gone start to flash in my memory. Gabriel and Alastor… what the fuck was her name? As quickly as the flash of memory comes, it’s gone.

All I can do is watch as she paces back and forth in front of me. Occasionally, she glances back over her shoulder to glare at me. I watch her ass pass back and forth—I’m still a man, after all. She’s mumbling to herself in a language I can’t remember. Whatever it is, she’s not happy.

Finally, she stops, again standing directly in front of me. “You’re repulsive. You know that, right?”

“I thought you said I was handsome,” I snap, my dry throat causing my voice to crack.

“I was being nice,” she sneers. “Calling you repulsive is also me being nice. I don’t think there’s a description icky enough to adequately describe your current state of being,” she adds while wrinkling her nose.

“Ouch., That’s harsh. After all, I’ve been chained to a fucking wall forever!” I yell, watching droplets of spit fan forward in her direction. “And it’s the maid’s century off, so excuse the mess.”

I watch as she shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Don’t you want to hear how I plan to get you out of this miserable existence, or do you want to continue to watch my ass?”

Maybe she’s the delusional one, not me. “Honey, don’t you think if there were a way for me to get the fuck out of here, I would have figured it out by now?

So, unless you get on your fucking knees and suck me off, you can leave.

” I do my best to move in the direction of the door with my chained hand, a poor effort at best.

She lets out an audible sigh. “I only have two words for you. Fighting pits.”

I heard rumors about the fighting pits where you would be granted freedom if you won, but no one ever won, or even came back, for that matter.

But the draw was presumably not being here any longer.

At some point, the prospect of a permanent death becomes appealing.

I can’t say that I am not at that point.

“Rumors,” I mumble. “Besides, I don’t know if I’m just yet at the point of a death wish.”

She lets out a loud cackle of a laugh. “Do you think I would be here, in this literal Hell hole, if my offer weren’t one hundred percent legitimate? I’ll let you think about that for a minute,” she whispers.

“Fine. What would I have to do and how? Because, if you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit tied up at the moment.”

“You always were the funnier of the two of you. I don’t think Asher has a sense of humor, at least not one that anyone is aware of,” she quips, as if I have any idea to whom she’s referring.

“Who?” I ask because the name Asher isn’t ringing any bells.

“Your brother goes by Asher now. Once he fell, he changed it,” she spouts very matter-of-factly, giving me a dismissive wave of her hand.

The news that my brother Barachiel has fallen from grace pulls at my heartstrings… momentarily.

I’ve spent countless years wondering if he knew that the blade to my heart didn’t actually kill me.

We had a plan, one I was comfortable with, which he reluctantly agreed to.

He would plunge his angelic blade into my heart, giving me the permanent death I so badly wanted.

He must have changed his mind, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.

For nearly a millennium, I’ve wondered if he knew where I would end up. My nightmares have plagued me for decades, reliving the night he should have taken my life. Instead, he damned me here for eternity.

I can feel the anger inside me begin to boil at the thought that Barachiel had fallen, which could only mean one thing –he knew his actions wouldn’t kill me.

“So what would I have to do besides win?” I growl.

“Well, there’s a little more to it than just winning one match. You’d have to win three in a row to —”

My laugh cuts her off mid-sentence. “You’re fucking crazier than I am.

Are you telling me to win my freedom—something no one has done, by the way—I don’t only have to win once, but three times.

In case you haven’t noticed,” I continue, “I’m a fallen Archangel, not exactly the prizefighter I used to be. ”

I watch as a smile spreads across her crimson lips. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. You aren’t a fallen at all. The only thing keeping you here are these.” She runs her finger along the metal shackle at my wrist, careful not to touch my dirt-laden skin.

“Do you have a key?”

“When the time is right, I won’t need a key,” she answers with a smile. “And you won’t even need a weapon.”

“And where is this illustrious fighting arena? It’s not like I can just waltz right out of here.” The number of questions I have for this mysterious woman increases the more she speaks.

“Well, that’s the only snag in my plan.” She begins to pace my cell. “The proprietor and I don’t exactly see eye to eye, so I won’t be there when you win your freedom.”

“Really? And why is that? Did you leave him hanging as well?” I snicker at my joke. After all, all I’ve been doing is hanging around.

“The pits are located at a bar called The Firehouse. All you have to worry about is winning. Kill anything that enters the ring… three times,” she says very matter-of-factly.

Her proposal seems simple enough, although from what I’ve learned from my time in Treachery, nothing comes for free. There is one blaring question, so I ask it with a deep sigh and a healthy curiosity. “What’s in it for you?”

I watch as she makes an exaggerated pout. There is no doubt that the action has gotten her way more than once, and that’s when I realize who she is. “Fuck,” I say, letting my head lull forward. “Pestilence.”