Prologue
A mere century ago, if someone had told Harvester she’d enjoy babysitting, she’d have decapitated them and impaled their head on a pike.
But damn, she loved her grandchildren, and she volunteered to watch them whenever she got the chance. Her only regret was that she wasn’t their biological grandmother. No, their bio-granny was a twisted, evil succubus, and the verythoughtof Lilith brought bile to Harvester’s mouth. That skank didn’t deserve such delightful children in her life.
Watching Aleka and little Scotland play, their red heads bopping in their mother’s flower beds under the watchful eyes of a couple of hellhounds, warmed her heart, which had been frozen for so many centuries. She just wished Reaver could be here. But no, he’d been restricted to Heaven while the angelic leadership contemplated punishment for hisminorrole in the destruction of Sheoul-gra, the underworld realm that’d once held the souls of dead demons and evil humans.
Fools. Reaver, one of the most powerful angels to have ever existed, shouldn’t have to explain his actions. The ruling body needed to get over itself. It had been nearly a decade since Azagoth destroyed Sheoul-gra, and Heaven hadn’t dished out judgment or punishment yet.
Well, there had been judgment. Lots of it. The holier-than-thou crowd, which consisted of the majority of Celestials, excelled at looking down their perfect noses at others.
Angels were the worst. Which was why Harvester didn’t count herself as one of them, even though she’d recently had her wings andGrace restored. Before that, she’d spent most of her thousands of years of life as a fallen angel, and frankly, it was hard to shed that past. She’d been powerful. And fearful of nothing—except her father, Satan, anyway.
Now, she was a full-fledged Heavenly angel again, but her halo was tarnished and mangled—something other Celestials never let her forget.
Which gave her some insight into Revenant’s plight. Like her, Reaver’s brother had been born an angel. But unlike her, he was born in Sheoul, the demon name for Hell, and raised at Satan’s side. He’d never even set foot in Heaven until a few years ago. But thousands of years of living in the demon realm had corrupted him, and he wasn’t welcome there. The joke was on Heaven, though, because Revenant ran Sheoul now, and he held a grudge.
Harvester couldn’t stand the guy, but she could sympathize with his position. He was an angel…yetnotan angel…and scorned by those in HeavenandHell. He was, in fact, trapped in Sheoul the way Reaver was trapped in Heaven. But hopefully not for much longer. Surely, the Council of Orders would give Reaver and Revenant stern warnings and leave it at that.
“G-ma!” Scotty shouted and waved from where she sat in the crook of a tree, much higher up than most five-year-olds could achieve. The child was part monkey. “Can I have a cookie?”
“What did your mom say?”
A warm breeze ruffled Scotty’s hair, which probably hadn’t seen a comb today. She reminded Harvester of Scotty’s favorite Disney princess, Merida, with her unruly locks and rebellious nature. Aleka, as different from her sister as night and day, favored the free-thinking Disney princess, Belle, with her curiosity and love of books.
The old Harvester would have hated that she knew anything about Disney princesses. The new Harvester enjoyed watching the movies with her granddaughters. She always rooted for the villains. Somehow, she could identify with their plights.
Except for Cruella de Vil. What a cunt.
“Mom says we can have as many cookies as we want,” Scotty said matter-of-factly.
Suspicious, Harvester glanced over at seven-year-old Aleka, who was as bad at lying as Scotty was good at it. “Is that true?”
Shaking her head, Aleka kneeled to pick a couple of flowers that lined the boundary surrounding the island’s Harrowgate. “Mom said we can have one after lunch and one after dinner.”
Scotty stuck out her tongue at her sister before turning a sugary smile on Harvester. “Pretty please?”
Harvester couldn’t resist any of her grandchildren, but she tapped her chin and pretended to think about it. “Hmm, I don’t know…”
“Pleeeeeease?” Scotty clutched her belly with the dramatic flair of a stage actor. “You don’t want me to die of hunger, do you?”
“You won’t die of hunger. You’re immortal, sweetheart.” The breeze picked up, stirring the gardens with a fresh wave of fragrant marine air. Harvester had always loved the way Greece smelled like sand, sea, and herbs, layered over the peppery notes of an ancient, bloody history. “I suppose you can haveone. But you have to promise to eat all your dinner.”
“Even if it’s yucky?”
“Even if it’s yucky.”
“Okay, I promise,” Scotty swore solemnly. The girl had inherited Ares’s faithful conviction to keep his word when he gave it. She might be admirably skilled at lying, but when she made a promise, she kept it.
Standing, Aleka swept dirt off her skirt. “I don’t want one. I told Rath I’d help him polish his horns this afternoon.” She clapped her hands in excitement. “They grew another inch! The left one is still shorter, though, and he’s all emo and sensitive about it. So, if you see him, don’t mention it, okay?”
Ares and Cara had adopted the goatlike Ramreel demon as a toddler and raised him as Aleka and Scotty’s older brother. He was a randy teen now, proud of the horns that had just started to emerge at his temples.
“I won’t say a word.”
Aleka darted off toward the guard quarters, where Rath had recently moved when the first nubbins of his horns had come in. He’d grown up in the main house with his sisters until, in accordance with Ramreel tradition, he’d “joined the herd,” leaving to reside with the other Ramreel warriors on the island to begin training as a member of the island’s elite security force.
“G-maaaaaa!” Scotty swung her little legs in frustration, her sandaled feet clicking against the tree trunk. “You said I can have a cookie.”
