The green flecks in Scotty’s eyes glittered darkly. “Are you going to kill her?”
My, my, she was a bloodthirsty little thing, wasn’t she? So like Harvester.
“Eventually, my dear. I promise you, she will die for what she’s done. But right now, I’m going to block her from your mind.” She started to reach into Scotty’s head, but the little girl grabbed her wrist in an iron grip.
“Please don’t tell Mommy and Daddy.”
Harvester rarely experienced moral dilemmas. She’d spent too much time as a fallen angel to waste her energy on deciding what was wrong or right. She just did what was best for her and those she loved, ethics be damned.
But in this case, she didn’t know what was best.
She desperately wished Reaver were here to help, but wishing was a waste of time. She could spare a few seconds to curse the angels who had confined her mate to Heaven, though.
“Please,” Scotty begged. “I don’t want them to know I’m so dumb.”
“You aren’t dumb, sweetheart.”
“Yes, I am.” She wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand again. “Aleka’s the smart one. That’s why I must be good at fighting, like Mace and Blade. I need to protect Aleka while she reads her dusty oldbooks.” When she blinked her big, watery eyes at Harvester, her heart melted.
“Please, G-ma. They can’t know I opened a gate.”
They couldn’t know Harvester had given Scotty some of her Grace, either. Grace, in very small amounts, was only to be sacrificed to humans. Too much could go wrong when an angel’s essence was injected into supernaturals. And if the recipient of the Grace turned evil, it could provide a conduit for evil into the donor angel, and even into Heaven itself. If anyone learned of the truth, Scotty would be targeted by angels who would steal the Grace for themselves, or by demons who prized Grace as one of the rarest, most powerful spell-casting elements.
It was such a tiny amount. Undetectable. No one will know. And she’ll be stronger for it. So, it’s a good thing.
“I’ll tell you what,” Harvester said. “They’re going to know something happened. That can’t be changed. But they don’t need to know that you got hurt, okay?” At least, they didn’t need to know the full extent of Scotty’s injuries. She was fine, and there was no sense in freaking them out.
Scotty’s eyes narrowed as she considered her options. “They’re going to be mad at me for opening the gate.”
“Perhaps,” Harvester murmured, but she knew they’d be far more upset that someone, probably Lilith, had gotten to one of their daughters.
Maybe Harvester should put a mind shield on all her grandchildren.
Because if Lilith really was responsible, she wasn’t going to give up.
Not ever.
Chapter 1
13 years ago.
This is it.
Scotty, her face streaked with blood and her clothes shredded by demon claws and teeth, stared down the last obstacle in the test she needed to pass to join the Demonic Activity Response Team’s Special Forces Division. If she took out the ogre in front of her, her dream of working with Blade and Mace in their elite unit would come true.
What if they don’t want me?
She shook her head clear of that idiotic thought. Sure, it had crossed her mind a few times over the last twenty-four months, pretty much from the very first day she’d begun regular training with the two. Unfortunately, she had still been in school, while they’d been employed by DART for years, so she hadn’t been able to do anything but train. No missions, no real battles. Also, no pay.
You’re too young, they’d all said. From her parents to her aunts and uncles, to even Mace and Blade, they told her she wasn’t ready. Didn’t matter that she was trouncing trained Ramreel warriors twice her size by the age of fourteen. Everyone insisted she needed to finish school and turn eighteen. Her father had flipped outhardthat one time she’d said she was going to drop out of school and join DART.
So, the very day she graduated from Hellmouth Academy, she’d moved out of her parents’ island manor and into her own privateresidence next door and applied to DART.
Obviously, they’d hired her. That had been the plan since she was old enough to say, “I don’t wanna be a dumb doctor or astronaut. I wanna be a DART agent.”
But a spot in the Special Forces Division wasn’t a given. There were tests, and if she failed, she’d be washed out of the running and sent to a different DART department.
Screw that. She didn’t want to push paper, work in a lab, or be put on a low-risk investigative team.Bo-ring. She wanted to be on a special forces team. She wanted to be onMace and Blade’steam. They were the best of the best. Seminus demons with extraordinary fighting skills and innate healing—and killing—abilities. And she wouldn’t settle for anything or anyone less.
