Maybe he should test the waters a little.
“Wouldn’t you rescue someone you hated if they saved all mankind and prevented an apocalypse that would have killed countless angels?” he asked.
“No.”
“Not even if that someone was Yenrieth?”
She hissed, baring her fangs, and he knew Raphael hadn’t jacked him around on how she felt about Yenrieth.
“Especially not him.” Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “Why would you even bring him up to me?”
“You gave up your wings to take care of his kids. He must have meant something to you, even if you hate him now.”
“He did mean something to me, but that was in the past. Now I would rather see him rot for all eternity than save his miserable soul,” she growled, and he wondered what he’d done to her to make her hate him that much. “So shut up about him and tell me why you did this. You’re not an angel of justice. You’re a battle angel.”
“So I can’t want to make sure someone who does a great service is rewarded for their actions?”
“Oh, I think you absolutely want that,” she said. “But it’s not your priority. You were bred for war, so it’s in your nature to write off people as collateral damage if their lives are sacrificed for the greater good. If the archangels didn’t want you to come, then they’re well aware that the greater good will be served by my being tortured for all eternity.” She stood in a fluid, lithe movement that drew his appreciative gaze. “So why would you, a battle angel who should consider me a casualty of war and an acceptable loss, risk starting a war to save someone you hate?”
“You aren’t an acceptable loss, and I don’t hate you,” he said, surprising even himself with his honesty. But that didn’t mean he liked her. His feelings for her were as complicated as the history between Heaven and hell.
Her snort of derision set his teeth on edge. “Even if you loved me, I wouldn’t understand why you saved me.”
“Have you ever loved someone?” he blurted out, and whoa, that came out of left field.
But suddenly, he wanted to know the answer. He couldn’t imagine her in a relationship, and he was beginning to wonder how prickly she’d been even as an angel. Who in their right mind would put up with her?
As Yenrieth, I must have.
The thought sucked the air right out of his lungs. It had popped into his head as easily and inexplicably as his question to her about loving someone. Being in Sheoul must be getting to him.
“Irrelevant,” she said. “You don’t love me, so that’s not why you did this.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“And I have a simple answer. Fuck off.” Harvester even offered him a helpful visual aid in the form of a hand gesture.
He flopped onto his back and stared up at the craggy ceiling. “If you keep saying that, you’ll forget how to talk like a polite person.” Something whacked him in the head. “Ow.” He sat up and glared at the stone wobbling next to him. “What was that for?”
“For fun.” She scooped up his backpack. “Are we leaving or what? I’m tired of waiting for Calder.”
Despite his curiosity, he welcomed the change of subject from past loves, because he definitely didn’t want to get into why he’d rescued her again. He wanted to tell her that he was the angel Yenrieth, to explain that the Horsemen were his children and he was grateful for what she’d done, but now wasn’t the time. He had a lot of questions about his past and who he’d been as Yenrieth, and until he broke down the massive wall around her, he couldn’t expect any real answers. If anything, giving her important information like that would hand her a huge advantage over him, and that was something he couldn’t risk. She was far too unpredictible and, likely, unstable after months in Satan’s dungeon.
Of course, Reaver thought she’d been unstable before her own father imprisoned her.
“We don’t know where Calder went.” He gestured to the far side of the cavern, where two different tunnels meant two different possibilities. “We could guess, but if we choose wrong, we’ll lose him.”
They couldn’t afford another loss. Reaver hadn’t known Matt well, but he hoped the guy was okay. Tavin, though… Reaver was going to steep in guilt until he got confirmation that the Sem had made it to Underworld General.
Harvester hadn’t moved.
“Harvester?”
She still didn’t move. In fact, he thought she might be shaking.
“Harvester,” he prompted, more urgently this time.
Her gaze flipped up to his. “We have to find him, Reaver.”
She licked her lips, and he caught a glimpse of her fangs, longer than usual, and he felt like a dolt. She needed to feed, and they were out of time.
He shot for a tone that wasn’t dripping with sympathy—she’d hate that—or that wasn’t overflowing with impatience. “You can feed from me.”
“No.” She backed up, crying out when she bumped her wing anchors into a stalactite that hung so low it nearly touched the ground. When she spoke again, her voice was laced with pain. “I might lose control. And it’s against Heavenly law for you to willingly give your blood for food.”
The control thing was an issue for sure, but since when did she care about Heavenly law? “As you’ve pointed out before, I tend to bend rules.”
“Bend? You wouldn’t be bending a rule. You’d be breaking it over the ass of an archangel.”
The visual almost made him laugh. “Don’t worry about that.” After what he’d done, what was one more broken law?
“I’m trying,” she said tightly, “to not make things worse for you with the archangels.”
He actually did laugh at that, even as he appreciated her concern. “I hit the height of worst when I rescued you.”
Her chin came up, and he braced himself for a mulish conversation. “I’m not feeding from you.”
He wasn’t worried about a broken rule that no one would find out about anyway. His concern was that drinking his blood could, potentially, drain his powers as it replenished hers. He could scarcely afford to lose any strength, and he wasn’t sure how much he could trust Harvester if she was significantly stronger than he was.
“Why are you being so obstinate? A year ago, you’d have jumped at the chance to suck me dry.”
“A year ago, I was pretending to be an evil bitch.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what I am!” she shouted. “I used to know, and now I don’t, and it’s all your fault.”
Ah, damn. For so long after he’d lost his memory, he’d wandered aimlessly, not knowing who he’d been and unclear on who he was, other than an angel who had been given the boot from Heaven for saving the life of a human child who had been fated to die.
So yeah, he’d been directionless, but at least he’d been able to start life with a clean slate. Harvester didn’t have that. In her case, she’d spent the majority of her life in the service of Sheoul. She might have fallen from Heaven on purpose, but she’d truly become a fallen angel. Was she going to be able to re-adjust?
One thing was certain. Offering to help her was only going to send her into retreat mode, and arguing with her would do the same. All he could do was give her space, something he was so not good at. So screw it.
“You’re a fallen angel, Harvester,” he said. “But you aren’t evil.” Hopefully. “That means you can be whatever you want.” He moved toward her, noted the way her breaths came faster as he drew nearer. “But you can only be what you want if you survive. Which means you need to feed from me. No more bullshit. Do it or give me a damned good reason why you can’t.”