I KNEW YOU WERE TROUBLE
I stare like a pathetic teenager completely entranced by some gorgeous rock star. Awestruck and useless. It makes me instantly livid, because I know this isn’t about the man in front of me, but this Godforsaken place. It plays tricks with the senses.
River’s brows both lift in amusement, and a close-mouthed grin spreads across his lush lips.
Damn it … he’s trouble. I’m in trouble.
Mix him in with this lust-inducing Hell pit, and I’m on a one-way train to Doomsville, Population: Me.
The image of him on his knees at my feet floats through my mind and my cheeks warm just considering what he could’ve done. What Nolda could’ve done. At that moment, I would’ve allowed it. I begged for it.
I have to get out of here.
River coughs, smothering it with a fist.
His boyish grin shows he’s finding too much humor in all of this.
“It isn’t funny!” I cry, but it sounds more like whining than anything else. It grates on my ears and prickles my already frayed nerves.
“Sorry,” he practically chokes. “I forgot about how … swaying Hell can be. Especially for the likes of you.”
I bristle at his insinuation that I’m weak because I’m fallen. “For the likes of me?” I glower.
“You know what I mean.” He says it so offhandedly that I have to force my jaw to unclench before I break off a tooth.
“I most certainly do not know what you mean.”
He motions around the room. “You’re not used to this place.
I am. It’s just like adjusting to Earth’s emotional pulls.
” He shrugs. “Eventually you get used to it. Until you learn to temper its effects, you’ll act like …
well, this.” He gestures with his hands toward me, and I have the urge to dislodge both arms from his body and beat him with them.
A deep rumble bubbles from my chest and out through my clenched jaw. He knows he’s hot, and my reaction to him only gives him more reasons to gloat. It pisses me off because he also knows this place is making it ten times harder for me to ignore the fact, yet he’s still teasing me about it.
How damn embarrassing that I’m stepping right into Hell’s snare. Me—an angel. I might be fallen, but I’m no less angelic.
You have no power here.
I growl again, and this time, River throws his head back and laughs.
Damn him and damn this place.
“Too late for that, princess. That ship sailed millennia ago.”
“Are you reading my mind?” I snap.
“Nope. You said it out loud. Would you like an up close and personal demonstration on just how damned I am?” He walks toward me with a swagger that’s lethal to a woman’s willpower. “I could help you with your current problem.”
His words curl intimately around my body, warming me from the inside out. My legs clench together tightly, and a harsh breath escapes my parted lips.
“You … animal,” I hiss. “You are reading my mind.”
River shakes his head. “I’m reading your body. It’s pretty clear how you’re feeling.” His eyes glimmer with something like amusement. “Who exactly has you so paranoid where mind reading is concerned? They did quite the number on you.”
I hate him.
River halts his approach, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth trying not to laugh, likely realizing how on fire I am and how badly I want to injure him.
I don’t want him or anyone else to see me like this. It’s humiliating.
Nobody here is worth my attention. Not even a being who doesn’t belong to Heaven or Hell. Keep telling yourself this.
Reapers are their own entity. They simply place souls in their destined location. They don’t have allegiances with either side of the good-and-evil paradigm. Some choose to live on Earth, while others float between dimensions.
They’re wanderers. Loners. Untouchables.
You wanna touch him.
“Ugh!” I bellow.
River loses the battle with himself and chuckles. I turn my death glare back on him. His hands raise in surrender.
“Breathe, Victoria.”
The way my name rolls off his tongue, husky, alluring … sexy as sin, scatters shivers over my skin.
“God. This place is doing a number on you.” He says this absently, not directly to me.
I ignore his words, focusing on the fact he knows my name.
“How do you know me?”
He frowns, looking at me like I’d just said the dumbest thing possible. “Everyone knows who you are. The angel who grabbed Lucifer by the balls is a pretty big deal.”
“I didn’t … grab him anywhere.” I roll my eyes. “Well … maybe once, but it wasn’t like that.”
He smirks. “I really don’t need to know.”
I take a deep breath, nodding my head.
“I mean … unless you’re needing to atone. If you want me to play priest and hear about all your sins, I’ll gladly hold a confession right here.” His grin lights up his face and both dimples pop. He truly is gorgeous.
We stare at each other for several moments, neither saying a word. The silence presses around us and I can’t take it anymore. I spit out the first thing that comes to mind.
“What are you doing here?”
I hadn’t thought about it before, but now, I wonder what he’s up to, considering he’s here and there isn’t any damned soul to be found. Had he thrown the rules of the reapers aside and joined Nolda? “You sound a little too familiar with that rogue demon.”
He shrugged. “Not sure yet.”
“Not sure why you’re here or if you’re siding with Nolda?” I press, suddenly very interested. If any of the reapers joined Nolda’s cause, it could be very bad for not only Hell, but Earth.
“Both? I did deliver a soul, but I’m sticking around for reasons I don’t quite understand yet. Nolda wants an audience, and here I am,” he says, lifting his arms out to the side.
His honesty takes me by surprise. He’s not trying to deny that he’s considering an alliance.
“You understand what working with him would mean, right?” His eyes narrow in consideration, and I plow ahead. “He’ll end humanity. Hell will bleed into Earth. Is that what you want?”
He bites his bottom lip, eyes still narrowed.
“I’m not sure that it concerns me or any of the reapers.”
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Don’t you live on Earth? Last time I checked, that’s where most reapers choose to reside.”
“Keeping tabs on the reapers, princess?”
“Ugh, don’t call me that. If I weren’t without my powers, I’d kick your ass and you know it.”
He chuckles. “It would be a decent fight, but I’m pretty sure I’d come out on top.”
“Care to wager?” I snarl.
He shakes his head, laughing. “I’ll take your word for it. But to answer your question, yes, I do live on Earth.”
“So you’re fine with demons taking over the place. You don’t care that Earth as you know it—your home—will be destroyed.”
“A house is just a house, Victoria. I have other places to go. Reapers don’t put down roots, so no, I don’t really give a shit.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I just said I could care less about my home being destroyed. Don’t get my words twisted,” he says in a low, threatening voice. “I’ll hear out Nolda and then make my choice.”
A pit forms in my stomach as his final words flow through me. He does plan to choose a side. The balance of the universe rests in the hands of River and his kind, and here he is, hearing out the opposition.
“I thought you said you were here at the request of your queen?”
“I am, but if I had pushed back, she would’ve followed my lead.
For the record, Nolda is the only one who’s reached out.
He seems to actually care about the future of Hell.
It’s more than I’ve seen from Lucifer, or God for that matter.
Lucifer’s absence has already caused a shift in and of itself.
There has to be order, and if Nolda’s plan brings that order back, he’ll have my allegiance. ”
I feel sick. He didn’t have to say the words; his intense stare said it all. This is in part my fault. If Luke’s words were true, he was absent because he was watching over me. He wanted to be close to me even when I wouldn’t allow it.
If Earth falls, I share a large part of the blame.
“Don’t shoulder the burden for someone else’s decisions, Victoria.”
I appreciate his giving me a pass, but I can’t help it. It’s hard not to blame myself.
“How can I not?”
“It’s not your fault that Lucifer couldn’t stay away from you. The reapers certainly don’t blame you.”
It’s worse than I thought. One reaper on Nolda’s side is bad. The entire race of them? Catastrophic.
“I thought you all worked alone. No?”
“There’s a hierarchy. We’re run similarly to a monarchy. Each reaper manages their own territory.”
“So you’re a duke?” I ask to clarify.
“No.”
“Ever the conversationalist,” I huff. “Is this top-secret information or are you just trying to be obtuse?”
“You’re prying into my life. If you haven’t noticed, I like my privacy and so do the other reapers. If you want to know the ways of the reapers, read a fucking history book.”
I guffaw at his sudden hostility. What did I say that has him so up in arms? And what book? There aren’t books written about reapers. When he sees my look of confusion mixed with irritation, his severe frown softens.
“Shit. I’m … I’m sorry. I forget that you were largely sheltered. There are … books written about our kind. I’m sure Lucifer has them here in the library. It’s a long history, Victoria. Too much to cover in one conversation.”
My shoulders sag a little. “I only asked about the hierarchy. You’re the one who brought it up.”
He sighs. “That topic is a bit of a sore subject at the moment.”
My eyes narrow in on him and I want to press. But something in his expression stops me.
“Let’s just say I’m at the top of the chain. Second only to the queen.”
I raise a brow, wondering what exactly this man is to the queen.
“She’s guarded well. Most have never even seen her. Many believe she’s the last of her line.”
“You don’t sound like you believe that.”
He shrugs. “Not my current concern.”
“Did she send you here to gather information?”
“Princess,” he croons, “I’m nobody’s errand boy.”
Good grief. If he calls me princess one more time I might combust.
“Stop calling me that.”
His nose scrunches. “Call you what?”
“Princess. I’m not anything to you,” I snap, sounding unhinged by a simple pet name. “Now, help me find my way out of here,” I say, moving toward the door.
He laughs. The son of a bitch actually laughs at me as though I’m ridiculous.
“I’ll keep that in mind, and for the record, you’re not getting out of here.” He shakes his head, moving in between me and the door. “I’m sorry about this.”
He lunges toward me, lifting me in one swoop. I don’t even have a chance to realize what’s happening and fight before I’m back in that cage, locked away again.
“Wait,” I bark out, grabbing the cage bars with both hands. “Don’t you dare leave me. Get me out.”
His head turns over his shoulders, eyes gleaming as they run over the parts of me he can see. “You’re not anything to me, princess, and I don’t owe you a damn thing.”