Page 101 of Legacy of Temptation

“Excuse me? I need to be able to communicate with the Horsemen—”

“You are no longer their Watcher. You have no need to see them.”

“They’re my family, asshole.” She shoved aside a Power who tried to play peacemaker and get between them. “They’re Reaver’s children and grandchildren. I definitely have need to see them.”

“And seek their help to move against us?” He grabbed her arm. “I don’t think so. We’re temporarily blocking all travel between realms.”

“Release her!” A great roar shook the building, accompanied by a blinding flash of light and a clap of thunder so powerful it blew everyone yards away from the epicenter.

Which was Reaver.

Harvester picked herself up off the floor and glared at Zaphkiel as she shot into the air. “Fool! No one touches me. Did you not learn from Raphael’s mistake? Now look what you’ve done.”

A swarm of angels attacked Reaver, who had somehow freed himself from his restraints, but he remained in the power restrictor. Harvester threw a bolt of lightning into the crowd, scattering them. She did it again and again, but supporters of the old regime were outnumbered ten to one, and as an army of Powers and Thrones came at her, she had one last play.

If she couldn’t get help from the Horsemen or, better yet, Revenant, she could at least send a message. She stroked her fingers over the Gaiaportal pendant Amber had given her.

I saw this in a vision.

As the traitors reached her, Harvester shot upward, gathering speed and summoning every drop of power she had. She shot through the top of the dome, hundreds, maybe thousands, of angels on her tail.

Her wings beat furiously, keeping her at the front of the pack, but she could feel the desperation from the other angels as they began to realize where she was going.

“Don’t do it, Verrine!” Zaphkiel screamed. “Do not!”

A searing bolt of angel fire struck her thigh and put her into an uncontrolled dive. She spiraled between two great ivory pillars twice as tall as Burj Khalifa, pulling up a millisecond before she crashed into the crystal pool at their bases.

She put on a burst of speed, barely avoiding another bolt of angel fire. And another. And ten more.

They came at her as she dodged and weaved through the air on her way to the Gaiaportal.

“Don’t do it!” Zaphkiel screamed again. “Harvester! It will kill you.”

Would it? Perhaps.

But it would also send a message.

She just had to hope it got to the right people.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Aleka!” Logan jogged up to Sabre and Aleka as they huddled together under a tree beyond the view of the house.

Sure, it looked like they wanted to be alone, but they also looked like they would be sneaking off in a few, and Logan needed to talk to Aleka first.

She leaped away from Sabre, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. As if he gave a shit that she was hot for the Seminus demon. They’d just better hope Ares didn’t catch them.

“Hey,” she called out, all nonchalant. “What’s up?”

He dug a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I was wondering if you could research this for me.”

She stared down at the sketch. “What is it?”

“It’s a tattoo. One half is a ward against a nightmare demon, but I don’t know what the other half is, and I couldn’t find anything relevant in DART’s database.” Granted, he’d only performed a cursory search. His time after leaving Eva in bed had mostly gone toward finding Draven. “I was hoping you could use your resources at the museum to find out what those symbols mean.”

“Sure.” She frowned down at the drawing. “Part of it looks kind of like Dawn’s restraining glyphs.”

Now that she said that, he realized she was right. The differences were subtle but still seemed to be from the same magical family. Restraint, containment, tethering. But pairing something like that with magic that also repelled didn’t make sense.

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