by Larissa Ione
“How’s he doing?” Runa’s hands clenched together until Shade gently took them in his.
“Physically he’s fine,” Limos assured them. “But I’m having a hard time getting him to eat.”
Shade scowled. “Why’s that?”
“I think the demons tormented him with food.” She hesitated, because this wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to know had been done to a loved one. “I’m assuming they put it out and then punished him when he tried to eat it.”
Horror flashed in Runa’s stunning champagne eyes. “Can I see him now?”
With a nod, Limos led them to the bedroom, but before she opened the door, she voiced her concerns. “I said that physically he’s fine. But mentally… he’s confused. He still believes he’s in Sheoul. He thinks demons are in his head and controlling what he’s seeing and who he’s talking to. I’m hoping you can convince him he’s free.”
They entered, and Arik, who had been standing at the patio door and gazing out at the ocean, swung around. He’d changed into a pair of black BDU pants and a black T-shirt that probably fit a little looser than it used to, but still emphasized his broad shoulders and thickly muscled arms. A neutral mask slipped over his expression, but his eyes sparked with anger when he saw his sister.
“Arik.” Runa started toward him, but Shade grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“Don’t.” Tension rolled off the big demon in waves that scorched Limos’s skin. “I don’t trust him.”
“You’ve never trusted him.” Runa shook off her mate’s hold and moved toward her brother, who stiffened as she got closer. “Arik? It’s okay.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you tell me who the fuck you are? Okay?”
Her step faltered, but she kept moving forward. “It’s me,” she said softly. “Runa.”
“You do not get to say her name.” His mask of calm shattered into a million pieces, and in an instant, his face contorted with fury, and he let out a murderous, animal growl. “You are not my sister.”
k" woutHe struck, slamming his fist into Runa’s cheek and then driving a spin-kick into her gut. She flew across the room and landed in a heap on the floor.
And then the shit hit the fan.
As Limos darted toward Runa, Shade morphed into a massive black werewolf, his roar of rage joining Arik’s as they came together in a storm of fists, claws, and teeth.
“No!” Limos entered the fray, desperate to separate them before Shade killed Arik, and then there was another furry blur, as Runa, now a toffee-colored werewolf, took Shade to the ground, her mouth around his throat. What the hell? Werewolves were bound by the moon, unable to change at will. Mature Seminus demons could shapeshift, but what in God’s name was Runa?
It was a question for later. Right now, she had to subdue Arik, who was diving for Shade and Runa, his intentions as clear as a neon sign that flashed KILL.
Limos caught him around the waist and wrestled him onto the bed. A fist caught her in the side of the head, and his knee drove so viciously into her stomach that she grunted, but she managed to pin him. He was strong, much stronger than she would have guessed, and when he bucked, she had to put effort into staying on top of him and avoid being thrown. Maybe the blood exchange with Pestilence had given him an injection of Superman.
A big, tattooed hand came down on Arik’s shoulder, and Shade’s dermoire lit up with a bright glow. Almost instantly, Arik calmed, his eyelids drooping and his expression going slack. Within seconds, he was out like a light.
“What the fuck happened?” Shade snapped, as he stepped back. Runa was dabbing blood from her mouth with the back of one hand and holding her ribs with the other.
“I told you,” Limos said. “He thinks he’s in hell.”
Shade swung around to his mate and enveloped her in his arms. “I’m sorry, baby,” he murmured. “He was hurting you—”
“I know.” Runa’s gaze met Limos’s as she pushed off of Arik. “Can we go outside?”
They all filed out the door, and as soon as it closed, Limos slumped against it. “Shit,” she breathed, more shaken than she’d cared to admit. “I hoped seeing you would snap him into reality.”
“This is going to kill him.” Runa’s voice was shattered, her expression just as cracked. “When it dawns on him what he’s done…” Runa licked the blood from her lips. Shade reached for her, but she pushed his hand away. “He swore he would never hurt me. Or any woman. Not after what our father did.” Shade kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair, but instead of soothing her, it seemed to have the opposite effect, and she flinched. “I’m going to just… get some air.” She took off like the house was on fire, leaving Limos with Shade.
“What’s going on, demon?” Limos crossed her arms over her chest. “What does she mean about their father?”
“He was an abusive monster.” The expression on Shade’s fac kShap>
Limos’s jaw tightened. “Arik and Runa?”
“Yeah. I don’t know much about what happened to Arik, but Runa said he tried to protect her and their mother. So either he’s turned out like his old man, in which case I’ll kill him for hitting Runa—” Shade slammed a frustrated fist against the door, as if sending a warning to Arik “—or he’s not going to like himself much when he comes around, and I’ll let him live.”
“You won’t touch him. My brother tethered his soul. Arik can’t be allowed to die.” She wouldn’t let it happen anyway, and she’d kill Shade if he tried, simple as that.
“Your brother is an asshole.”
She stiffened. Yes, Pestilence was an asshole, but he was her brother, and this demon didn’t know what kind of man he’d once been.
“Watch your tongue, Sem.”
Shade glanced in the direction Runa had gone before turning back to Limos. “Look, I had a brother like that once. He lived to torment us, and we had to destroy him.” He eyed her speculatively. “Are you and your brothers close? You’ll need to bond yourselves together stronger than ever to stop Pestilence. Don’t hesitate, and don’t let sentiments get in your way of what needs to be done. We made that mistake, and a lot of people died because of it.”
“It won’t be easy. Reseph was the most decent of all of us. He wasn’t always evil.” She didn’t know why she was defending Pestilence, except that no matter how much she hated him now, she’d loved Reseph for thousands of years, and she just couldn’t let go of that.
“Then what is your guilt about?”
She blinked. “What?”
Shade moved closer. “I can sense darkness… guilt… in females. You, Horseman, are drowning in it.”
She felt a tremor of unease that went all the way to her soul. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know I’ve never encountered anything as intense as what you’re giving off. I know I would have had to go through hell in order to coax it out of you.” His voice was a disturbing, dark rumble, and what did he mean by coax it out of her? “But, thank gods, it’s not my problem.” He started off after Runa. “Keep us updated.”
Shade’s order should have raised her hackles, but what he’d said about both her and Arik shook her to her marrow. What did Shade know about her guilt? Could he read minds? Okay, she could seriously go into a panic about this, but now wasn’t the time. She had to focus on Arik, because yes, she was being crushed under the weight of her guilt, but right now, the human was her first concern.
If he realized what he’d done to Runa, how would that affect his recovery? Her brothers had never once struck her in anger—even though she deserved it… more than they knew. But she could only imagine how they’d punish themselves kh t inif they ever hurt her.
And the idea that Arik had been abused as a child… God, she’d always been numb to such horrors, or, more accurately, she’d never allowed herself to become sensitized to it. But picturing Arik bruised and bleeding under the fists of his own father tweaked a nerve somewhere deep inside her.
She’d been raised like a
princess, encouraged to be petty and cruel, while at the same time, never knowing how it felt to be beaten or betrayed. She’d always thought she’d been treated like royalty because her mother loved her and other demons revered her… but what if her treatment had been about making sure she’d never feel empathy, since she hadn’t experienced pain?
The very idea made her ill, but again, this wasn’t about her. She’d never suffered, especially not at the hands of her own father. Hell, she’d never even met her father.
For a moment she wondered if Arik’s father was alive, and then realized that Shade would never have allowed the man to live, and yet another stirring of jealousy went through her at what Runa had that Limos never would.
Shaking off the useless self-pity, she entered Arik’s room again. He was still out cold, sprawled on the bed as if he were sleeping off a wild bender. Right now, it didn’t seem as if he’d ever come out of the hell that he was living with inside his skull.
She sank down on the bed beside him and offered what little comfort she could, smoothing his shirt and brushing his hair off his forehead. She’d done the same for her brothers when they’d been injured in battle, hoping they’d find peace in her touch. Sure, they regenerated quickly, but if the injuries were bad enough, they suffered in misery for hours, even days while they waited.
This sucked. She felt so helpless. No matter what she did, things continued to get worse for Arik. Though… wait… maybe she could help. If he never remembered hurting Runa…
Yes. Smiling, because she could finally do something for him, she thumbed open his eyelids and stared into his glassy eyes. Very carefully, she reached into Arik’s mind with hers and snipped the pesky memory of striking his sister away. Unlike Ares, she couldn’t restore the missing memory, but she wouldn’t need to.
Runa’s visit was something he was better off never remembering.
Eleven
Kynan sat in the conference room at The Aegis’s Berlin headquarters, his head spinning. His mind was still trying to wrap itself around the information revealed in one of the three scrolls he’d brought to his fellow Elders with the other treasures in the vault Limos had taken him to.
The little artifacts had, so far, turned up nothing, but one of their historians was still researching their origins and could yet discover something useful. Similarly, two of the scrolls had been accounts of battles with demons—interesting, but ultimately, not great archaeological finds.
But the one scroll… Jesus. If what it said was true, it could alter the course of human history.
“So.” Valeriu, an elder who was distantly related to Kynan by marriage, lifted his glasses and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. They’d been studying the scroll nonstop, searching for related texts in their libraries, trying to hash out some of the most cryptic phrases. “We think this could be the key to stopping the Apocalypse. But do we want to risk an Aegi’s life on a hunch?”
Malik, who had fought demons for thirty years throughout the Middle East before being promoted to the Sigil, shook his head. “I do not like it. We have asked Guardians to do things we knew might end in their deaths, and they understand that danger comes with the territory. But this…”
Lance, a Canadian who lost his fashion sense somewhere in the 80s, spun a coffee stir stick on the table. “The Guardian would be a volunteer. She’ll know there’s no guarantee of success.”
Yeah, and that was assuming they’d get a volunteer for this secret plan. What they were going to reveal to the Guardian waiting outside the room was going to knock her on her ass.
Fuck. Ky didn’t like any of this. Life had been much less complicated when he was nothing but a soldier on the Aegis’s front lines. He’d been in charge of a large cell of Guardians, but mainly, he fought demons. Kill or be killed. Simple shit.
Now he was manipulating fate and lives, and none of it sat well with him.
Valeriu leaned back in his chair and stared at the painting depicting a battle between angels and demons. “We have to have faith that this will work.”
“Faith?” Decker, who was usually easygoing, sat in his chair, stiff as a board, his hand skimming back and forth over his blond high-and-tight. “Faith is for people who want to believe in something they can’t prove. I could have faith that I’m invisible, but that wouldn’t make it true.” He shook his head. “You people are making me nervous. You’re dealing with magic and prophecy and shit none of us understand.”
“And you think the military could do any better?” Malik asked.
“I didn’t say that.” Decker’s Southern accent grew more pronounced as he grew more agitated. “But you have no safeguards in place. Until you—we—do, you shouldn’t put a plan in motion.”
Decker had a point. The military’s paranormal unit dealt in the same things The Aegis did, but because it was the military, the R-XR had strict procedures to follow, a chain of command that didn’t allow for deviation, a firm distrust of magic, and safeguards on top of safeguards. The Aegis relied on what the military feared—magic—and had a tendency to act more spontaneously.
Which could be a good thing… or could be very, very bad.
Right now, the R-XR was preaching caution in every move, insisting that now was not the time to be rash. The Aegis took the opposite tack—with Armageddon on the horizon, there was no time for slow and careful.
“All I’m saying,” Decker said, “is that maybe we should concentrate on finding out what Thanatos’s Seal is instead of this cockamamie backup plan.”
“He won’t tell us.” Lance shook his head. “So unless you can translate his weird prophecy, we don’t have a lot to go on.”
Ky ran his fingers over the page in the Daemonica, the demon bible, that outlined the four prophecies for the Horsemen—the four prophecies that would turn them to evil. The Aegis now understood three of the four. Thanatos’s was the wildcard, and all the Horseman would say was that his Seal was in no danger of breaking.
Behold! Innocence is Death’s curse, his hunger his burden, a blade his Deliverance. The Doom Star cometh if the cry fails.
What. The. Hell.
“We don’t have a choice,” Val said. “It’s now or never. Humans are dying by the hundreds of thousands. The R-XR itself has calculated that if Pestilence continues the way he has, in a year, half the world’s population will be dead. Our plan is a Hail Mary move for sure, but it’s all we have.”
“For the record,” Decker said, “I don’t support it.”
For the record, neither did Kynan. But Reaver was MIA and not available for advice, and The Aegis was going to move ahead on this, with or without Kynan’s approval. Ky might as well be there to make sure no one got hurt.
Lance snorted. “Funny hearing a military guy being so squeamish.”
The light blue in Decker’s eyes turned icy, and before tempers went out of control, Val cleared his throat imperiously. “Bring in Regan.”
Kynan refilled his coffee mug while the only female Elder was called into the meeting. She entered, her dark braid hanging over her shoulder, the ends frayed, and he knew she’d been toying with it while she waited outside the conference room. She took a seat, her model good-looks in no way taking away from her natural warrior aura. She was a fighter through and through, literally born into The Aegis.
“Okay,” she said, in her smoky voice. “What is this about?”
Malik cast her a grim look. “First, you must keep this secret, even from the other Elders.”
Regan frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“What we’re about to tell you can’t get out,” Val said. “Of course we trust all our Elders, but the fewer people who know our plans, the less chance of being discovered. Once the first part of the plan has been carried out, we’ll let the other Elders in on what’s going on.”
Lance gestured at the scroll with his coffee stir stick. “This document was discovered in an ancient Aegis vault. We believe that it may hold the key to stopping Pestilence.”
“And wha
t do I have to do with any of this?” Regan asked.
E snt aveveryone exchanged glances. Just when Kynan thought no one was going to speak, Malik chimed in, his voice as grave as the look he was giving her. “Kynan and Arik have been our middlemen for dealing with the Horsemen. But, obviously, Arik can no longer function in that capacity.”
“So you want me to play Horsemen jockey.”
Val choked on his coffee, and Kynan came close to doing the same on his own tongue. “That,” Val wheezed, “is incredibly accurate.”
Regan huffed. “Spit it out, people. What are you saying?”
“We need you to be more than just a middleman. We’ll arrange for you to stay with one of them.”
“Who?”
“Thanatos,” Kynan said.
Lance jumped in before Ky could soften the coming blow. “And we want you to seduce him.”
Regan sucked in a harsh breath, and her normally bronze skin turned pale. “You… what?”
“You need to get him into bed.”
She shoved to her feet. “What the hell is that scroll? Some sort of Aegis romance novel? Underworld erotica? Screw you all.”
“I told you she wouldn’t do it,” Lance said. “She hates men.”
“Just because I shot you down doesn’t mean I hate men, you asshole.”
Lance’s face turned red. “You turn down everyone.” He glanced around the table. “Have any of you ever seen her with a guy?”
No, Kynan hadn’t, but he didn’t give a shit about her love life or lack of it. “Calm down, both of you.”
“I just don’t understand why it’s so important that I climb into bed with… with… a Horseman.” She practically shuddered out the last word.
“Because,” Val said quietly, “that’s the only way you’ll get pregnant with his child.”
Pregnant. Her colleagues wanted her to get pregnant with Death’s kid.
Regan’s first instinct was to start yelling. Or to maybe storm out of the room. But twenty-five years in The Aegis had given her more discipline than that, and she tamped down her angry instincts the way she’d been taught since the day she’d come to the demon-hunting organization as a newborn infant still covered in her mother’s birth blood.
