by Larissa Ione
Snapping himself back into warrior mode, he assigned guards to the patio, the roof, and within sight of each of the windows. Once he was satisfied that nothing, not even one of Pestilence’s rats, could sneak into the room, he texted Limos and Thanatos. Both arrived within an hour, and he met them in the great room.
“Tell me you have the human,” Thanatos said, by way of greeting.
He was dressed for battle in his demon-bone plate armor, and his boots boomed like thunderclaps as he strode across the floor. He’d pulled his pale hair back with a leather thong, but the two thin braids on either side of his temples tapped loosely against his face as he walked. In his hand was an icy can of Mountain Dew. He was addicted to the stuff.
Limos entered behind him in orange board shorts, a yellow, orange, and blue Hawaiian print tank top, and floral flip-flops. She even had a yellow flower tucked into her black hair. She was such a girl.
“Hey, bro.” She patted Ares on the chest as she walked past him. “What’s up?”
“I have the human. She’s sleeping.”
“Good.” Than tossed back half his soda. “Are you having trouble with her?”
More than you know. “If you’re asking if she’s combative in my presence, no.”
“What about the effect the agimortus has on you?”
Ares clenched and unclenched his fists. Of everything he’d been saddled with when he’d been cursed to be a Horseman, the loss of powers and potential weakness was the one that chafed the most. “When I fought Reseph in York, my armor and sword failed, but I haven’t needed to make use of any of my skills since grabbing Cara.”
Liar. His reflexes had been slow in the hotel, the proximity to her dulling his ability to sense impending danger. But he couldn’t admit his failings, not even to his brother and sister. He could list all the logical arguments—that it wasn’t his fault, that it wouldn’t have happened with anyone else, yadda-yadda. But bottom line? It was humiliating.
Li shot him a skeptical look, as if she wanted to offer him supernatural Viagra for his agimortus issues, but wisely, she kept her trap shut. “How’s she dealing? She can’t be happy to suddenly be the underworld’s most wanted dead.”
“She’s dealing about as well as she can.” He moved to the wet bar near the fireplace. Tequila had a way of replacing the raw burn of shame with its own brand of fire. “For now, at least.”
“Is she showing signs of weakness?” Li’s violet eyes lit up as Ares ducked behind the granite counter. “Yes, please. Something fruity.”
“You want an umbrella, too?” She flipped him the bird. One of these days, his sister would learn to like proper drinks, not sugary girly crap. “No weakness that I can tell yet. The bond with the hellhound is going to keep her strong for a little while. We need to find the animal, though, because if it dies, so does she. I have a place for us to start—a street in York, and we can go door to door if we have to. We also need to hunt for a fallen angel so Cara can transfer the agimortus, and we’ll have some breathing room.”
Limos sighed. “I’ll go home and pack some things. You need at least one of us here to help you protect the girl.”
“Good. I’ll go after the mutt. Than, you hunt for an Unfallen. I’d start at the Temple of Lilith. I found Tristelle there.” Ares hoped she had been stupid enough to stay.
“Done.”
“I hope so. She said that there were only a dozen or so fallen angels left. They’ve all either been killed by Pestilence or entered Sheoul to escape his blade.” When Than let out a raw curse, Ares couldn’t agree more. “Any other news?”
Thanatos tossed his can into the garbage. “Reseph tried to convince one of my vamps to slip an aphrodisiac into my drink.”
“Ares is quite fond of the orc-weed,” Vulgrim called out from the kitchen, and yeah, there was a set of chains in the dungeon with his name on them.
Limos scowled. “What did your demon say?”
“Nothing,” Ares muttered. He lobbed an ice cube at Than, who was frowning, clearly trying to puzzle out what the Ramreel was blabbing about. “Obviously, Reseph’s plan didn’t work?”
“I suspected he’d try to get to me through my staff, so I warned them that I had a stake waiting for anyone who betrayed me.”
Li studied her alternating pink and yellow nails. “You’d better avoid the Four Horsemen pub. Apparently, Reseph stopped in and promised an eternal place at his side after the Apocalypse to anyone who could get you on your back. The females are already looking for chains that can hold you. There are even a few males who plan to get in on the action.”
“Nice.” Thanatos’s eyes glinted like canary diamonds.
Ares splashed rum in the blender for Limos’s girly drink. “Do you see now that we have to destroy him?”
“I said no.” A brief flicker of shadow darkened the area around Than’s feet. “We’ll find another way. Reaver offered to help.”
Limos rolled her eyes. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“I hear that,” Than muttered. “But technically, he won’t be helping. He suggested bringing representatives from The Aegis to meet with us.”
“Meet with us? They probably want to kill us.” Limos had had a nasty run-in with a group of Aegi a couple of hundred years ago, and they’d informed her that killing Horsemen would prevent the Apocalypse. Somehow, they’d known about the effects of a hellhound bite and had shot her with an arrow coated in hound saliva. They’d kept her paralyzed for a full week before Reseph rescued her, and though what they’d done to her couldn’t match Ares’s own experience with hellhound paralyzation, it had still taken her weeks to shake it off.
Yeah, Aegi were, technically, the good guys, but they were definitely not friends.
Ares added fresh strawberry daiquiri mix and ice to the alcohol. Yuck. “If they are still up on our vulnerability to hellhound bites, we could be walking into a trap.”
“Or they could help us,” Than said. “I hate to agree with Reaver, but at this point, we can’t afford to turn down any offer of assistance. Besides, they might be able to help us get our hands on Deliverance before Reseph gets the dagger.”
“I don’t like it.” Limos tapped her foot, making her flip-flop slap on the floor.
Ares considered their options, and unfortunately, they didn’t have many. “We need to talk to them, but we’ll do it on our terms. Than, tell Reaver we’ll meet with them at your place.”
“What,” Limos said, “a whole freaking squad of them?”
Ares shook his head. “There are three of us, so we’ll allow no more than three of them. Cara will be with us, and I can’t risk her safety.”
“How will they get there?”
“That’s Reaver’s problem.” Ares flipped on the blender.
“I still think this is a mistake,” Limos said, after the noise stopped.
“Li, we’ve been searching for your agimortus for thousands of years, with no success. If we haven’t found it by now, we never will. But The Aegis has assets we don’t. We don’t have a choice. Reseph has the backing of evil now, including their resources. If he finds your agimortus before we do—”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. But I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either, but—” A scream cut Ares off.
Cara. He tore off down the hall, Than and Li on his heels. He burst through the double doors into the bedroom, where Cara was sitting up in bed, her eyes wild, face drawn. Her fingers clutched the sheet so tightly to her chest that her knuckles were white.
“Ares,” she gasped, and then her mouth dropped open at the sight of Than, his sword in hand, and Li, who had armored up in her Croix viper-skin samurai-style tunic and breeches. Ares had, at some point, suited up as well, and his armor creaked as he strode across the room.
“These are my siblings.” Instinctively, Ares scanned every inch of the room before putting his back to the wall next to each window, where he peered out into the night. His Ramreels were standing at attention, undisturbed. “
What happened?”
“Someone took Hal.” Cara inhaled raggedly. “They hurt him.”
Thanatos sheathed his weapon, the slice of a blade sliding into its housing cutting through the tension in the room. “Hal?”
“The hellhound she’s bonded to,” Ares explained, his voice as sharp as Than’s sword. “Who took him?”
Cara tugged the sheet up to her neck, her gaze darting between Thanatos and Limos. “There were six of them. Five men and a woman. He didn’t want to go. They jabbed him with spears… he was inside the cage and couldn’t get away.” A tear squeezed from her eye, and he had the absurd urge to wipe it away. It was a feeling he shouldn’t experience while wearing his armor, but being this close to Cara had turned the hard leather to supple doeskin, and emotions that would normally be blocked were annoyingly close to the surface.
“Can you tell us anything about what they looked like?” Than propped himself against the dresser, getting too comfy in the bedroom for Ares’s liking as he grilled Cara. “Their weapons? What they were wearing?”
Cara replied, but to Ares. “Jeans, mostly. Some were in leather. One had a crucifix and a bottle of liquid.”
“Holy water,” Ares muttered. “What else?”
She reached up to her throat, fingered where she’d been bleeding when Ares took her from the Guardians the other night. “They had the same weird, S-shaped things that cut me. They have blades on each end. One is gold, the other is silver.”
“Stangs,” Li snarled. “Aegis weapons. Fucking human scum.”
“Dammit,” Ares breathed. “Thanatos, talk to Reaver and set up that meeting with the Aegi now. We’re going to get some answers, and we’re going to get that damned hellhound away from them before they kill it.”
Limos’s amethyst eyes glittered. “They won’t kill it right away. They’ll experiment on it first.”
“And I’ll weaken while they do it.” Cara’s eyes lifted and clung to his until he felt as if he was drowning in them. Willingly, the way a human male could be lured to his death by a water nymph. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah.” He could sugarcoat the rest, but she already knew. And he’d never sugarcoated anything in his life. “You’ll weaken until you die and trigger the end of the damned world.”
* * *
You’ll weaken until you die and trigger the end of the damned world.
Cara wondered how many times she’d have to hear that before it truly sank in that the fate of mankind rested with her.
Blindly, she reached for Ares’s hand, not knowing fully why. Maybe because the guy with the pale yellow, hawklike eyes and an eyebrow piercing was staring at her and the raven-haired, violet-eyed woman had snarled about human scum, and right now Ares was the only ally she had.
If he could truly be called an ally.
She slid covert glances at the newcomers. The guy wasn’t as broad in the shoulders as Ares, a little slimmer all over, and his hair was much lighter and longer, but the similarities in the commanding way they held themselves, their angular features, and their intense expressions were striking. The girl was one of those women Cara had always hated; flawless skin, long, black lashes framing stunning eyes, and drop-dead gorgeous without a touch of makeup.
“So this is your brother? And sister?” Another Horseman And a… Horsewoman?
“That’s Thanatos.” Ares gestured to Yellow Eyes. “The female is Limos. They won’t hurt you.” Reaching down, he tugged the sheet up to cover her exposed chest. He shot a glance at his brother and sister. “Could we get a minute?” He sounded irritated, which was nothing new, Cara supposed.
“Yeah.” Thanatos eyed her, and she suddenly felt very naked under the sheet. A growl-like noise rumbled out of his throat, and his voice went deeper. Rougher. “I need to… go. I’ll summon Reaver.”
“And I need to pack a few things if I’m going to babysit your human.” Limos adjusted the flower in her hair, and with a swipe of her fingers over her throat, the armor disappeared, leaving her in shorts, flip-flops, and a Hawaiian print top.
This situation just kept getting weirder and weirder. Strangely, Cara wasn’t freaked out by things that would have had her hyperventilating a couple of days ago. Just yesterday, actually.
A moment later, she and Ares were alone, and she peered around the sparsely decorated bedroom. “How did I get here? I don’t remember falling asleep.”
“I gave you a mild sedative.”
Mild? It felt more like he’d clobbered her with a bottle of whiskey. She rubbed her eyes, but it did little to clear away the sleep-haze. She realized she was still holding his hand, but she didn’t let go. In fact, she squeezed harder, needing an anchor. He stood there, looking vaguely confused, as if he wasn’t sure what to do.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” He tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him. He might still be a virtual stranger to her, but he was the most familiar thing around.
“For being here.” Idly, she smoothed her thumb over his. His hands were so rough, and yet, for all the times he’d manhandled her, he’d never hurt her. “Your brother and sister scare me.”
“They should.”
She sighed. “You really aren’t very good at giving comfort, are you?”
“I’m a warrior, not a nursemaid.” His tone was completely void of sympathy.
“No kidding,” she mumbled. “So why do they hate me? Your brother and sister.”
“They don’t hate you.”
“Right,” she said dryly, as she studied a scar in the web between his thumb and forefinger. How odd. If he was immortal, why would he have scars? “I must have slept through the warm hugs.”
Ares peeled her hand away and stepped back, flexing his fingers as though trying to rid them of her touch. “They don’t trust you. You’re human. Easily corrupted and brainwashed. Weak of mind and body.”
Weak. The word was a spear through the heart, completely obliterating the mild annoyance at the reminder that she’d been drugged without her knowledge. She’d been weak once, but she’d spent two years building herself back up. Therapy. Weightlifting. Self-defense classes. Not that any of her training had come in handy when she’d been attacked by the demon-slayer people. Fear had taken over, and in the midst of the terror, she’d forgotten most of what she’d learned about self-defense.
Well, she remembered now.
The mark between her breasts throbbed as she swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood, not caring that her pajama top had fallen open. “I might not be some sort of biblical legend warrior guy, but I’m not completely helpless.”
“Against the beings in my world, you are.” His gaze raked her, pausing a little too long on her chest, and a sound broke from his lips, a whispered curse, she thought. “So you’ll listen to me and do what I say.”
“So that’s it? You drag me to your island, drug me, shove me in a room, and hold me prisoner?”
“That about sums it up.” He pivoted on his heel and started toward the door. “Go back to sleep so you can contact your hell mutt. We need to find out where The Aegis took him.”
Oh, no. She would not be held against her will again. Fury and frustration at her helplessness, her situation, and Ares made something inside her snap, and she launched herself. He spun and caught her easily as she struck out, and in a heartbeat, she found herself backed into the wall, his body pinning her, one hand gripping her shoulder, the other cupping her chin so she couldn’t so much as turn her head.
“I am the only thing standing between you and death,” he said through clenched teeth, “so I’d be a little more grateful if I were you.”
“Are you completely delusional?” She wriggled, but she might as well have been trying to move a boulder. “You want me to be grateful? Okay, how’s this? I’d be grateful if you’d find someone else to transfer this… this… agiwhatever to. I’d have been grateful if you had protected the fallen angel who had it so he didn’t need to give it to me. And I’d be reall
y grateful if you released me.” She struggled more, and this time, his big arms bucked under her struggles, and after a brief flash of surprise in his expression, his grip grew firmer.
“Listen to me carefully, Cara.” His voice had gone quiet. Chillingly quiet. “Don’t ever use violence against me. Violence… excites me. You do not want to be part of that.”
His dark gaze narrowed, his jaw tightened, and for a moment, she thought she’d gone too far. After all, she didn’t know anything about the Horsemen beyond what she’d seen in the movies, read in books, or heard in Bible school so many years ago, and none of it was very flattering. Her heart pounded as her anxiety level rose, and then a subtle shift in his expression made her heart pound for a different reason.
He’d softened. Even his grip had loosened, and yet, he somehow had gotten closer. The brand between her breasts drummed, and as she studied the pulsing vein in his temple, it occurred to her that the rhythm was the same as her own.
She became achingly aware of a dozen different sensations, including erotic energy radiating off him, and though the room was already warm, his weight, his heat… sent a fluid surge of lust to her very center.
And his mouth… she remembered putting her lips on him. Yes… when they’d been in the room with the ram-demon thing. They’d been talking, she’d had some water, and then… then she’d felt funny. A sudden clarity made her pulse roar in her ears.
“You said you put a sedative in the water!”
“I did.”
“Then why did it make me…” Heat blasted her cheeks.
“Horny?” he finished. “Orc-weed is an aphrodisiac for some species. For others, like humans, it’s a sedative. For you, apparently, it’s both.”
“Oh, isn’t that wonderful,” she snapped. “And you keep this date-rape drug handy… why?” Probably not the smartest thing to say to a man who was three times her size, and whose name was War, but she was tired of being a victim. Of being helpless. Helpless…“Oh, my God, you didn’t—”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, and was it wrong to notice again how good he smelled? Like leather and horse, warm sand and rich spice. “I wouldn’t have had to. You molested me on your own.”
