by Larissa Ione
“Arik!” she yelled. “We have to go!”
He wheeled around, his fists tangled in the soldier’s shirt. “I’m not leaving.”
She ran to him, followed by Bones, who struck out at demons that tried to attack her flank. “The demons are here because of you. If we go, they’ll go. It’s the humans’ only chance.”
Arik only hesitated for a second before cursing and shoving the stunned soldier away. “Let’s do it.”
Limos opened a gate, grabbed Arik’s hand and Bones’s reins, and darted through the portal. Their feet hit the warm, white sand on Ares’s Greek island, a hundred yards from where she’d killed Sartael. She so did not want to be reminded of that incident, and she prayed Ares and Thanatos would let it go.
“Son of a bitch,” Arik snapped. “How did the demons get on base? It’s warded.”
“Not from underneath,” she said. “And not from the kind of power Lucifer wields. Once the demons came up from below, they disabled the wards, which is how we and the fallen angels got in.”
“Lucifer?”
She nodded. “He told me he’d found you and was going to grab you. Those demons had to be his, and trust me, your people have never come up against anything like him before. And the fact that he can extend his power into the human realm means that the barrier between realms has been compromised. It won’t be long until it falls and every demon in Sheoul will escape.”
“I thought the Seals had to break for that to happen.”
She dug a piece of elk jerky out of Bones’s saddlebags and fed it to him. “The more powerful Pestilence becomes, and the more human earth he claims in the name of Sheoul, the weaker the barrier becomes.”
“That’s fantastic.” Arik carefully tucked his stang in his pants pocket. “So why are we here?”
“Cara sent hellhounds to my island to root out anything that could potentially be a threat or a spy hoping to learn where you are. I need to check with her to make sure it’s clear before I take you back there.” She sighed. “I just hope the helldogs don’t eat any humans.”
Arik gave her that stare that said “dumbass” without words. “Yeah. That would be a bonus.”
She held out her arm. “Bones, to me.” The stallion, his jaws still working on the jerky, dissolved into smoke ed him and settled into her skin without protest.
“Then what?” Arik asked, as he wiped away a stream of blood on his temple. “You gonna take me back to your house and lie to me some more?”
She started toward the front door. “I’m sure you’re a pillar of truth, Arik.”
“I’ve never stolen someone’s memories and lied about it.” Arik fell into step beside her, his combat boots making heavy thuds on the pavers.
“Oh, right. So holier than thou. You’re saying you’ve never lied? Do you tell everyone you meet who you are and who you work for?”
“That’s different. My job is beyond top secret.”
“And what do you tell the women you meet? Do you have to lie to them about your job? About who you are? Do you fuck them with all those lies between you?” When he stiffened, she snorted. “That’s what I thought.” And worse, she was so freaking jealous about it.
“There’s a huge difference between lying to hurt someone and omitting information to protect someone.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Pinocchio.”
Arik wiped blood from his nose. “How did you find me, anyway?”
“Runa told me when I explained you were in danger. She also said you haven’t returned any of her calls.”
“Tattletale,” he muttered.
Cara, looking freshly showered with her hair wet and clad in her usual flannel pajamas, met them at the door. “The hounds have cleared your island. There was one… mishap, but other than that, you should be good to go. Six hounds will be outside your house at all times.” She bit her lip. “If they want in, though, I wouldn’t argue. You should probably put a sheet over your couch. Dog hair.”
Great. Just great. Limos had never even had a normal dog as a pet, and now she had a pack of hellhounds to deal with.
A Harrowgate opened, and Ares stepped out, his armor dripping blood and gore. Arik jogged over to him. “How’s the base? The soldiers? Ky and Decker?”
“Kynan is on his way to UG. Decker’s helping to triage the injured. There were a lot of casualties. Enough that Than is hung up there.”
“Damn,” Arik breathed. “I need to help—”
“You can’t.” Ares’s voice was intense but level, a sign of respect from one warrior to another. “You’ll only lead the demons back to them.”
“So when can I go back?”
“Don’t you get it, Arik?” Limos asked softly. “Lucifer is after you. My brother owns your soul. You will forever be a liability to your own race. You belong with us now.”
* * *
The last time Reaver had experienced the loss of his wings had been when he’d fallen. The removal had been painless—physically, anyway. There were two levels of punishment for angels, and an angel drop-kicked out of Heaven to the earthly realm felt his wings shrivel and disintegrate on the way down. These angels, the Unfallen, could earn their way back into Heaven, as Reaver had.
It was a very different story for the second level of punishment. An angel who was cast from Heaven to go straight to Sheoul had his wings torn off by other angels. The unlucky bastard was then dragged to a hellmouth or Harrowgate and tossed inside, where, like Harvester, he would be called a True Fallen, and he’d eventually grow new wings—leathery batlike things with claws.
An angel’s wings were the main source of his power, which was why an Unfallen who existed in the state Reaver had been in for decades couldn’t draw on the power of either Heaven or hell. And now that Reaver’s wings had been cut off with an incredibly dull bone saw, he felt as powerless as he had back when he walked the earth, toeing the fine line between good and evil.
He sat on a cold floor wearing only his slacks, blood still trickling down his back at the places where his wings used to be, his feet secured with chains to hoops embedded in the stone. He’d discovered that the chain holding him had been constructed from the bones in his own wings. Some sort of evil magic had been used to soften and mold them, and when they were locked around his leg, they sank into his flesh and fused with his ankle bones. His own body was holding him prisoner, and putting strain on the chain caused agony so intense that he’d passed out from the pain.
Ingenious. Twisted and sick, but ingenious.
He looked up as Harvester appeared in the doorway, a sheer black robe draping her sleek body. In her hand was a bottle of what he thought might be red wine. “Good. You’re awake.”
“Good,” Reaver mimicked. “You’re still a bitch.”
She sauntered into the room. “I think someone woke up on the wrong side of his chains.”
Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the wall, which hurt like hell, but he wouldn’t give Harvester the satisfaction of knowing that. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I’ve always wanted a pet angel.”
He snorted. “Who helped you, Harvester?” He opened his eyes. “Obviously, you had help, because you couldn’t have taken me by yourself.”
“Taken you?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Now, that’s something I might have to consider. I’ll bet you’re great in bed.”
He fought a wave of revulsion. “I am. But you’ll never know.”
“Oh, I could know if I wanted to. I saw the way you looked at me. Do you know how easily distracted you were? All I had to do was show a little ass, and you were panting all over yourself.”
“I was disgusted, and I looked away.”
“You were turned on, which is why you looked away, and it was exactly what I was counting on. It allowed me to activate the spell I used to incapacitate you. It was in the ring I gave you.” She sighed dramatically. “Males are so easy. Doesn’t matter if you’re demon, human, or angel. Show you guys a little
snatch, and you go brain-dead. And you? You think I haven’t noticed the way you look at females who dress like porn stars? You think I didn’t ask around about the type of females you fucked when you were fallen?”
He clenched his fists, wishing her neck was between them. “Jealous?”
She laughed. “Hardly. Apparently, you stayed away from humans, but no shifter, were, fallen angel, or succubus was safe if she was wearing a short skirt and thigh-high stockings.” In a fluid, sensual movement, she straddled his legs, causing her robe to part and reveal way too much thigh. “And apparently, you’re a real fan of a good blow job.”
He gave a casual shrug, which wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done, because it caused his wing wound to rub on the wall. “What guy isn’t?”
“I suppose that’s true.” She sank down to perch on his legs, and involuntarily, his gaze dropped. Instantly, he raised it again to focus on her face, but it was too late—he’d gotten an eyeful of deep cleavage and a tantalizing glimpse of the shadowy feminine place between her thighs. “Don’t even think about trying to overpower me, or I’ll yank those chains so hard your femurs will slide out of your skin.”
“You will pay for this.” he gritted out.
Smiling wickedly, she traced her tongue around the rim of the bottle, the action no doubt calculated to make him imagine her tongue swirling around something much more personal.
“Do you know how I fell?” She dipped her tongue into the bottle and made a show of flicking it free of the rim. “As a Throne, I was a dealer of justice to humans.” She reached out, used a long nail to nick the skin above his clavicle. “For centuries I only killed murderers and those with evil in their hearts. With each death, the thrill I got from doing it grew. But one day, I accidentally killed an innocent. The thrill turned to flat-out electrifying power. I wanted more. So I started killing for the sheer fun of it.” Leaning forward, she licked the drop of blood that had welled in the tiny cut on his chest. “And when I discovered that dragging humans to Sheoul to kill them allowed me to enjoy the screams of their souls over and over…” She groaned in pleasure. “Oh, the rush is better than an orgasm.”
“Why are you telling me this? What do you want with me?”
“I’m telling you because you need to know how far I’ll go to take the power I want. Which is why you’re here.” She cocked her head thoughtfully. “Well, part of it. I have orders to keep you occupied. And I also need to borrow some strength from you.”
She put the bottle to his lips. “Drink it.”
Clenching his teeth, he shook his head.
“It’s not poison. It’s wine.”
He shook his head again.
“Don’t be so stubborn.” She called out to Whine, and the big male was there in an instant. “Open his mouth.”
Whine wrenched Reaver’s head to the side and jerked hard on his lower jaw while palming his forehead and tugging back. Snarling, Reaver slammed his palm into Harvester’s chest while he rocked his head back, catching the big warg in the mouth. Harvester flew backward and blood splattered on the floor, but Reaver didn’t have a chance to enjoy his victory because Whine’s meaty fist caught him in the jaw so hard Reaver heard bone crack and felt his jaw dislocate.
Harvester cursed… and made good on her earlier threat. With a nasty growl, she yanked on the chains, and his bones seemed to separate from his flesh. Agony blinded him and snatched the breath right out of his lungs. Something slammed into his mouth, and warm, thick fluid flowed over his tongue. Blood?
“There, it’s working.” Harvester was a dim blur in front of him. “Neethul marrow wine. You’ll love it.”
Alarm wrapped around his chest, as restricting and painful as the chains that held him. He’d tried marrow wine once, back during his days as a fallen angel, and after the first sip, he’d plunged immediately into addiction. For months he’d drowned himself in drink, until eventually, some demon had found him holed up in an abandoned barn and had contacted Underworld General for help. Shade and his sister, Skulk, had been the ones to treat him and take him to the hospital, where Eidolon had gotten him clean.
Had it not been for the good Samaritan demon and the staff at UG, he could have ended up in a very bad place. Incapacitated Unfallens were often dragged to Sheoul against their will, completing their fall and turning them irreversibly evil.
“Whine,” Harvester said, and was her voice fuzzy, or was that him? “Drain him. Have the blood delivered to the Orphmage.”
Oh, damn. His blood… what were they going to do with his blood? The question became a non-issue in the next moment as the familiar burn worked its way into his belly and then spread like hellfire. He arched, a wave of pleasure wrenching through his body and relieving the pain. Heat washed through him in erotic waves, and behind the fly of his slacks, his shaft pulsed and his testicles throbbed.
An incredible series of spasms shot into the base of his spine, and then hot liquid ripples rode up the length of his penis and blew past the head as the full-body orgasm took him over and over, an endless wave of pleasure he knew would leave him as helpless and weak as a newborn when it was over.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was in big trouble. But right now, he just couldn’t care.
Eighteen
Thanatos was one grumpy-ass Horseman. He’d asked Regan to feel up a ragged document for him, but he hadn’t explained why, and when all she could tell him was that whoerumver scribbled the writing on it believed they were translating a message from the Dark Lord, he’d nodded and shoved her out of the library. Since then, he’d avoided her unless he needed her assistance or she requested his help to translate something from his collection. Made it hard for a girl to seduce a guy.
She had, at least, determined that he wasn’t gay, if the constant female traffic was any indication. They came at all hours, in various states of dress, but the vampires always turned them away. She supposed that could mean Thanatos didn’t like women, but if that were the case, she’d have thought females would have gotten that news a long time ago. And if that were the case, where were the males?
There weren’t any. So basically, she was pretty sure he wasn’t gay. He was just an asshole who didn’t like anyone.
She had her work cut out for her, for sure.
She wasn’t sure where he spent his time, but it wasn’t at his freezing ice palace. His vampires handled her needs, from food to fresh towels, which had made her uncomfortable at first. She’d been raised to kill the bloodsuckers, not have them wait on her hand and foot. But the weirdest thing was that some of them could walk in the daylight. When she’d questioned them, they’d been silent on the subject. Interesting.
She’d spent most of her time either working out in Thanatos’s amazing gym or going through his library, which rivaled some of the Aegis libraries at the larger regional headquarters. Sure, her primary purpose was to sleep with the Horseman, but she’d also come to make use of his library and his knowledge… both of which were extensive.
She’d also offered some insight into documents he’d already pored over. So far, her help hadn’t provided any groundbreaking discoveries, but she’d been able to assist him in determining which documents had been written with a false hand.
The thing she found most curious was how, while he was obsessed with both finding a way to restore Reseph’s Seal and locating Limos’s agimortus, he seemed to be just as focused on finding his father. The difference was that when it came to the subject of the angel who sired him, he tended to guard his words, as if his personal quest was somehow wrong or selfish.
Or as if he was protecting himself from disappointment.
His search shook something loose inside her, because as much as she hated to admit it, she had a tender, raw spot when it came to fathers. Maybe it was stupid of her, but she’d spent a little extra time going over Than’s material that related to his history, wanting to help him.
Of course, helping wasn’t a hardship when it meant she got to spend
hours in his library, which was stacked from floor to ceiling with books she’d never known existed.
Demon cookbooks. Fiction ranging from children’s’ books to romance and horror novels… all written by demons. And, for the record, demon erotica was freaking gross. She also found books about the Four Horsemen written by humans, demons, and even an angel. Many of the works were fiction—Thanatos seemed to collect everything that had anything to do with the Horsemen, from video games, TV shows and movies, to books—but several—re dozen were non-fiction. Lots of “first-hand accounts” and speculation.
The one that made her blush to her roots, though, was the book written by a succubus who claimed to have had intimate relations with all of the brothers.
The book read like a cross between an urban fantasy novel and a Penthouse Forum letter, and Regan found herself curled up on the oversized leather chair next to the cozy fireplace in Thanatos’s library, flipping pages as fast as she could. God, she didn’t even need the fire, not with the way her blood was running molten in her veins.
The succubus, whose name was Pilani, claimed to know some truly intimate details about the three brothers, had first spent some time with Ares after meeting him in an underworld pub called the Four Horsemen. She described his power, his furious and extremely rough lovemaking, and Regan squirmed. She’d only had sex once, and it wasn’t anything like what Pilani described with Ares. Fast, hard, lots of weapons.
Regan definitely hadn’t had that many orgasms or been that exhausted afterward. No, there’d been the one orgasm, during which she’d felt her power stir, as if it had wanted to snatch her boyfriend’s soul right out of his body. Regan had broken up with him that night and hadn’t risked sex again.
Pilani had moved on to Reseph, who she claimed was playful and gentle when the mood called for it, tireless, adventurous, and risky at other times. And, apparently, he really liked… Regan’s jaw fell open, and she turned the page, skipping past Reseph’s reported willingness to try anything.
Mouth dry and practically panting, Regan flipped ahead to Pilani’s experiences with Thanatos.
