Page 75 of Hades

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 hadn’t actually killed 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 millennia, 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 for an eternity here.

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 out.

“Well, there is 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 not 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 adds, running 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 increase the more she speaks.

“Well, that’s the only snag in my plan,” she says again, beginning 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 let out a laugh 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. Though 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 loll forward. “Pestilence.”

CHAPTER ONE

REAVER

“Hey, are you even listening to me?” Asher’s voice pulls me out of my daydream, or maybe a day-nightmare. Is there even such a thing? I don’t fucking know. All I do know is that every time I let my mind wander, it goes back to that one day, the day that Pestilence helped free me.

It’s been hundreds of years since the day I won my freedom in the fighting pits of the Firehouse. And every day since, I’ve been waiting for her to call in the payback I owe her. No marker from Pestilence ever goes unpaid, so my life is nothing more than a waiting game.

I’ve been back here for a few months, trying my best to fit in. But the reality of it is, I never will. I don’t understand the need to hide and skulk in the darkness. Well, that’s not entirely true. I know that Asher and the rest of the fallen Blood Angels need to dwell in the shadows or they’ll die in the sunlight. But after spending the last year in a world where non-humans could walk free, here seems underwhelming, even in the relative security of The Black Door.

“Earth to Reaver!” Ash yells from behind the bar. “Where the fuck are you? Have you heard anything I’ve said for the last ten minutes?” Asher criticizes like only a brother could.

I still can’t get used to calling him Asher, or worse, Acheron, the name he chose after his fall from grace for killing me, when clearly, he was unsuccessful.

“Yeah, of course,” I lie, because I haven’t heard anything he’s said since I got here. “You need me to grab a few cases from downstairs. I heard you,” I mumble as I turn to make my way down to the basement and retrieve alcohol for the human patrons who will crowd the bar from sunup till sundown since that’s the only task I seem to be suitable for here.

“Fucking hell, Reav,” Ash scoffs as he yanks at my arm, stopping me in my tracks. “You weren’t even listening. I said I want you to be a partner in The Black Door Clubs. Cain has his hands full with Kat and their brood, and Sloane wants me to spend more time with her and the baby.”

I let out a low chuckle at his audacity. “And what, I have nothing tying me down, is that it?” I retort, more anger boiling up inside me than the situation probably warrants. But I can’t seem to push it down as I had for so long. I yank my arm from his grip. “I’ll go grab the beer. We’re probably low anyway.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” he yells after me. “This conversation isn’t over,” he continues as I round the corner and head to the stairs.

I feel as if my life here has little to no meaning. At least where I was, I could be my own man and not live in the shadow of the great Asher and his band of Blood Angels. He says he’s forgiven me for trying to kill him and almost killing Sloane, something I regret more than anything. But I still feel like I’m sitting on a ticking time bomb, waiting for it to explode and kill me.

The strange portal that allows me to walk between two realities is still open, although I haven’t been back since I brought everyone in Timber Cove the news of Cain and Kat’s litter of half wolf, half demon babies. You wouldn’t think they would be as cute as they are, but man, they are adorable.

I have wanted so much to make this place my home, and Ashhasmade it clear that I am more than welcome. Yet no matter how much I try to forget the life I was leading, there is always something pulling me to go back. There I wasn’t just Reaver the damaged, or Asher’s crazy brother. I was me. For the first time in centuries, I had nothing but who I am defining me. Or, at the very least, I was beginning to figure out who I am.

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