One

Revenant was one fucked-up fallen angel.

No, wait… angel. He’d only believed he was a fallen angel.

For five thousand fucking years.

But he wasn’t an angel, either. Maybe technically, but how could someone born and raised in Sheoul, the demon realm some humans called hell, be considered a holy-rolling, shiny-haloed angel? He may have a halo, but the shine was long gone, tarnished since his first taste of mother’s milk, mixed with demon blood, when he was only hours old.

Five thousand fucking years.

It had been two weeks since he’d learned the truth and the memories that had been taken away from him were returned. Now he remembered everything that had happened over the centuries.

He’d been a bad, bad angel. Or a very, very good fallen angel, depending on how you looked at it.

Toxic anger rushed through his veins as he paced the subterranean parking lot outside Underworld General Hospital. Maybe the doctors inside had some kind of magical drug that could take his memories away again. Life had been far easier when he’d believed he was pure evil, a fallen angel with no redeeming qualities.

Okay, he probably still didn’t have any redeeming qualities, but now, what he did have were conflicted feelings. Questions. A twin brother who couldn’t be more opposite of him.

With a vicious snarl, he strode toward the entrance to the emergency department, determined to find a certain False Angel doctor he was sure could help him forget the last five thousand years, if only for a couple of hours.

The sliding glass doors swished open, and the very female he’d come for sauntered out, her yellow-duckie-spotted blue scrubs clinging to a killer body. Instant lust fired in his loins, and fuck yeah, screw the drugs, she was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Take her twice and call me in the morning.

Since the moment he bumped into her at the hospital a few weeks ago, he’d been obsessed, and now, as Blaspheme’s long legs ate up the asphalt as she walked toward him, he imagined them wrapped around his waist as he pounded into her. The closer she came, the harder his body got, and he cursed with disappointment when she dropped her keys and had to stop to pick them up. Then he decided she could drop her keychain as often as she wanted to, because he got a fucking primo view of her deep cleavage when her top gaped open as she bent over.

She straightened, looped the keychain around her finger, and started toward him again, humming a Duran Duran song.

“Blaspheme.” He stepped out from between two black ambulances, blocking her path.

She jumped, a startled gasp escaping full crimson lips made to propel a male to ecstasy. “Revenant.” Her gaze darted to the hospital doors, and he got the impression she was plotting her escape route. How cute that she thought she could get away from him. “What are you doing lurking in the parking lot?”

Lurking? Well, some might call it that, he supposed. “I was on my way to see you.”

She smiled sweetly. “Well, you’ve seen me. Buh-bye.” Pivoting, her blond ponytail bouncing, she headed in the opposite direction.

Back to the hospital.

With a mental flick of his wrist, he changed into jeans, cowboy boots, and a NASCAR T-shirt, and turned his shoulder-length hair from black to brown before flashing around in front of her, once again blocking her path. “Maybe this is more to your liking?”

She gave him a flat stare. Clearly, rednecks weren’t her thing.

Giving it another try, he went ginger and short with the hair, and decked himself out in a business suit. “How about this?”

More staring. He switched back to goth biker chic and stopped fucking around. “Come home with me.”

“Wow.” She crossed her arms over her chest, which only drew his attention to her rack. Niiice. “You get right to the point.”

He shrugged. “Saves time.”

“Were you planning to wine and dine me at least? You know, before the sex.”

“No. Just sex.” Lots and lots of sex.

He could already imagine her husky voice deepening in the throes of passion. Could imagine her head between his legs, her mouth on his cock, her hands on his balls. He nearly groaned at the imaginary skin flick playing in his head.

“Oh,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re charming, aren’t you?”

Not once in his five thousand years had anyone ever called him charming. But even uttered with sarcasm, it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him.

“Don’t do that,” he growled.

“Do what?” She stared at him like he was a loon.

“Never mind.” Dying to touch her, he held out his hand. “You’ll love my playroom.”

She wheeled away like he was offering her the plague instead of his hand. “Go to hell, asshole. I don’t date fallen angels.”

“Good news, then, because it’s not a date.” And he wasn’t a fallen angel.

“Right. Well, I don’t fuck fallen angels, either.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Go away.”

She was rejecting him? No one rejected him. No one. Having been raised in a dungeon, with torture specialists and executioners as his playmates, he hadn’t exactly learned the art of seduction or even polite conversation. But sex… he spoke that language fluently.

She started to take off again, and he blinked, confused. This wasn’t right. He had his sights set on her, and she was supposed to surrender. This was something new. Something… titillating. The confusion morphed into a sensation he welcomed and knew well; the jacked-up high of the hunt.