Revenant

There was a note on the nightstand.

I’m in the rooftop garden having my morning coffee. There’s a carafe and mugs in the kitchen if you want some.

Cool. He loved coffee.

With a thought, he cleaned up, which was an awesome bennie of being a Shadow Angel. Instant shower and change of clothes. He went with black leather pants and a black tank top under a leather jacket today, poured himself a cup of hazelnut coffee, and flashed himself to the rooftop. Which was another bennie. As a regular fallen angel, he could only flash to places he knew. Now he could pretty much wish himself anywhere.

Yep, very awesome.

“Hey, Blas —”

A scream made his chest go cold.

Dropping his mug, he bolted around the shed he’d materialized behind, and what he saw at the front of the building turned the ice in his chest to lava-hot fury. Rage consumed him. He didn’t think. Didn’t so much as breathe.

He slammed into the angel who had Blas pinned to the side of the mechanicals building and was about to plunge a dagger into her heart. They both hit the rooftop, grunting as about five hundred combined pounds of angel crashed into the structure. The dagger, an ancient aurial forged specifically to kill angels and fallen angels, clattered to the ground.

Revenant could have demolished the fucker, incinerated him, blasted him to bits, yanked him apart like a good old medieval draw-and-quartering. But Rev had too much rage stewing inside him to use his powers. He needed a brawl. Needed to feel bone splinter and flesh pulverize under his fists.

Needed to protect his female the way males were meant to. It didn’t matter that Blaspheme wasn’t technically his yet. She would be, if only for a night.

One night won’t be enough.

He banished that thought as he smashed his fist into the other male’s jaw. The angel got a good jab in his ribs, but then they both flipped to their feet, and the battle was on.

The angel grinned as he sent a stream of liquid lightning at Revenant’s torso. “Die, Fallen.”

Searing heat bored into Rev. Hurt like hell, but even as smoke rose from his burning flesh, his body healed. Surprise and panic lit the other male’s eyes as Revenant walked toward him, not even slowed by the angelic weapon.

“Revenant!” Blaspheme’s terrified voice came from behind him. “He’ll kill you!”

She was worried. How sweet.

Revenant stopped, letting the angel’s lightning stream into his body, absorbing the power, memorizing the intricate pattern that composed this particular talent. All his life Revenant had been using fallen angel weapons, never knowing he had the ability to use angel weapons as well.

Now he could. All he had to do was learn them.

The other male, a bald dude with mink wings, stared in disbelief as his weapon failed. Not just failed, but backfired.

“Get used to it, fucker.” Rev reversed the angel’s stream of lightning and sent it back at him, a hundred times hotter.

Baldie screamed and fell back, his body sizzling and smoking. Never one to waste an opportunity, Revenant went in for the kill. Scooping up the dagger the angel had been ready to use on Blaspheme, he rushed the angel.

A whip appeared in Baldie’s hand, a whip that burned like a stream of lava. Molten orange drops plopped to the rooftop, burning holes in the asphalt as he cracked the whip in an arc meant to take Revenant’s head off. He ducked, the tip of the weapon glancing off his shoulder in a hiss of fire meeting flesh.

This dude was so dead.

Revenant leaped and spun, landing a kick in the other angel’s throat that crushed bone, tissue, and esophagus. Baldie hit the ground in a crumpled heap, but his unconsciousness wasn’t going to save him.

“Say good night, motherfucker.” Straddling Baldie’s unconscious form, he plunged the blade downward.

“Revenant! Stop.”

The blade flew from his hands. Then, as if a massive fist had closed around him, his breath was squeezed out of his lungs and his body crumpled in on itself.

Reaver.

His twin stood on the rooftop, his eyes flashing blue fire. Blaspheme had palmed the blade meant to end her life and was standing against the rooftop door, her gaze flitting between Rev, Reaver, and the unconscious angel.

With a roar, Revenant broke out of his brother’s magical hold and sent an invisible punch of energy back at him. Reaver grunted and flew backward, blood spraying from his mouth and nose.

“Revenant, no!” Blaspheme rushed toward him. “He’s a Radiant —”

“Get back!” Reaver threw out his hand, and a tornadic blast of wind pinned her against the door.

“Don’t touch her.” A black veil of hatred filled Revenant’s vision, until all he could think about was dealing out pain to the male who was holding Blaspheme against her will.

He came at Reaver with a sword of flame and spark, and with a single mighty swing, he cut his brother in half from the shoulder to the hip. Blaspheme’s horrified scream rang out, but Reaver recovered in an instant and returned the favor, slicing through Revenant’s thighs with a low, spinning chop of his own blade.

Revenant hit the ground, the agony short-lived as his body regenerated.

“This fighting is pointless, brother,” Reaver yelled. “We’re equally matched.”

“It’s not pointless if you’re in pain,” Revenant yelled back.

But at least Blaspheme was free of Reaver’s hold. In fact, before he could stop her, she yanked open the stairwell door and fled. Good, now she was off the battlefield and wouldn’t become collateral damage.