Eternal Rider

Eight

Cara didn’t sleep. She couldn’t. In a daze, she’d called down to the B&B owner for an extra blanket, showered, tried to scrub the weird mark off her chest, and when that didn’t work, she’d put on pajamas and tried to call Larena again, but it figured that she was unreachable.

She sat on the creaky bed in her rented room and stared at the TV. BBC was covering rivers in Africa that were running red with poisonous algae, but Cara barely heard any of it. She was too numb, her mind disconnected from her ears. The last time she’d felt like this was after the breakin.

After she’d killed the man.

The official coroner’s report had cited heart attack, but she knew the truth. She’d seen a heart attack firsthand, when her father had collapsed in front of her.

God, she missed him. He’d loved her even if he’d been wary of her ability. All she’d have had to do was call, and he’d have been on the next plane out of the States.

His death, just one month before she’d moved to South Carolina, had crushed her. She’d only started to get her life back together when, four months after that, the men had broken in.

And now this. She’d finally lost her hold on reality.

Her cell phone rang, and she grabbed it off the nightstand. “Larena?”

“No.”

The deep, resonant voice echoed through her ears and brought an instant surge of both relief and anxiety. “Jeff?” she whispered.

“Where are you? I need to see you.”

See her? “This is going to sound crazy, but I saw you… or thought I saw you. Earlier. On a horse—”

“Cara, listen to me.” His voice was no-nonsense, sharp, commanding, and she couldn’t have put down the phone if she wanted to. “You’re in danger, and I have to find you. Your message said you were in England. Where?”

She shouldn’t say anything. She knew it. But at this point, she was desperate, with no one to turn to, and he was the only link she had to whatever was going on with the dog. “I’m at a B&B in York.” She fumbled through the bedside drawer for the brochure and gave him the address.

“Thanks.” He hung up before she could ask any more questions.

Now what? Even if he caught a plane right now, it would be late tomorrow afternoon before he could get to York. And did she truly expect any answers from him?

A knock on the door had her leaping off the bed. Calm down, just breathe. It’s just the extra blanket.

She opened the door. And stared in disbelief.

“Jeff—”

“Ares.” He stepped inside, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t invited him in. It didn’t escape her notice that he had to duck to avoid cracking his head on the doorframe. Or that his broad shoulders brushed the sides.

He couldn’t have gotten here that fast. And… Ares?

Unless he had been here. On the horse.

He closed the door quietly behind him, trapping her.

“Stay where you are.” She scooted around the bed, putting it between them. “Don’t touch me.”

Ares held up his hands in a nonthreatening gesture, but it didn’t help. If he wanted to, he could have her in two strides.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Cara. I’m here to help.”

“Can you wake me up? Because the only way you can help is if you wake me so this nightmare is over.”

“It’s not a nightmare. What you saw tonight was real.”

Her hand went to her chest, where the weird mark was throbbing. “So… some bloody guy branded me with his palm, and then you and some other guy came out of thin air, on horseback, and fought? Time stood still? I saw people turn into monsters? You really want me to believe that?”

“It would be helpful. Sooner would be better than later.”

She shook her head, even though denial was becoming something that wasn’t worth the effort anymore. This was all real, and she knew it.

Ares cocked an eyebrow. “You have another explanation for the mark you now have between your breasts?”

Of course she didn’t have an explanation. If an alien spaceship landed outside the window, she wouldn’t have an explanation for that either.

“Who are you?” She took in his combat boots, black leather pants, and black AC/DC tee beneath a black leather biker jacket. “Why would you be riding a horse and wearing armor?”

“We can discuss it after I get you to safety.”

“Are you mad?” She stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His hand sliced through the air in a silencing motion, and he stalked to the window. “Have you seen any rats?”

Her mind spun at the sudden shift of subject. “Rats?”

“Rodents that resemble large mice.”

“I know what rats are,” she gritted out. “Why?”

“They’re spies.” He peered through the curtains into the darkness. Thick fog diffused the yellow lamplight, creating an eerie glow on the street below. “Have you seen any?”

Rodent spies? The man might be hot as hell, but he was a loon. As inconspicuously as possible, Cara inched toward the door. “I didn’t see any furry little James Bonds.” When he leveled a flat stare at her, she added, “Yes, there were things scurrying in the shadows, but I saw a lot of weird stuff tonight.” More inching.

“You won’t make it.”

“Won’t make what?”

His voice was a curious mix of bored and amused. “You won’t make it to the door.”

Yeah? Well, she could try. She measured the distance, figured she could sprint the rest of the way, but she froze solid when his massive body went taut. “What is it?”

“I heard a horse.”

She swallowed, remembering the scary white stallion with the malevolent ruby eyes. “A… bad horse?”

“Pestilence,” he hissed. Wheeling around in a blur of motion, he came at her. “We’re out of here.”

He threw out his arm, and a strange doorway of light appeared in the center of the room. His hands clamped down on her arms, and just as an ear-shattering boom rocked the building and an explosion of heat and fire roared at them, Ares dove with her into the light.

Chased by demonic flames of infernal fire, Ares hurled himself and Cara out of the Harrowgate and into his great room.

Shit, that was close. Too close. His instincts should have warned him sooner than they had, but thanks to his limitations when in close proximity to the agimortus, he’d been hobbled like a brood mare waiting to be mounted by a randy stallion.

Heat seared his ankle, the fingers of fire nearly closing on him before the gate sealed. Ares hit the marble floor on his shoulder, rolling to take the brunt of the fall. Cara clutched him tightly, preventing her limbs from flailing and striking the hard surface.

Unlike the last time he’d had her on the ground, this time she ended up on top of him, her arms wrapped around his waist, her face buried in his neck. She smelled like flowers and vanilla, and it probably wasn’t appropriate to notice, but it had been a long time since he’d had a woman’s soft body wrapped up with his.

The erection that popped in his pants was even more inappropriate, especially given that they’d almost had their skin seared off like suckling pigs in one of Limos’s Hawaiian barbecue pits.

Oh, yeah, great time to throw wood, asshole.

“This nightmare really bites,” Cara muttered against his throat, and he hoped to hell she wasn’t saying that because she felt his hardening cock prodding her.

Ares pushed her off him and came to his feet. She sat there in her pink flannel pajamas that were spotted with puffy white sheep. Ares hated pink. And soft, fluffy crap. It was a miracle this woman had survived even the human world—she wouldn’t last five minutes in his. Though he had to give her credit for a couple of sharp comebacks and trying to sneak out of the hotel room.

He’d have had her pinned to the wall before her fingers touched the door handle.

“It’s not a nightmare,” he barked, and no, he didn’t feel bad at all when she flinched. She needed to toughen up, and fast. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

“Then maybe you could tell me what’s going on.” Her chin came up defiantly. Good girl. “You said you brought in the dog. You said you were visiting cousins—”

“I lied.” He crouched beside her, waved his hand in front of her face, and unlocked the memories he’d buried in her brain.

She gasped, her eyes going wide as she scrambled backward. “What did you do? Oh, my God, what… who are those men in my house?” She grabbed her head, the memories hitting hard, a flood of data that would lock up even the most advanced computer.

“They were human warriors.” He moved toward her, slowly, herding her in a pink, fluffy cloud toward the corner. “Demon slayers. I suspect they were tracking the hellhound you treated.” He practically spat that last part, unable to believe anyone would help one of those nasty-ass things.

“That’s what they kept saying. Hellhound.” She peered at her bare feet, her sandy brows pulling into a frown. “Wait. The man who came out of thin air in my office. He took Hal, and later, I saw him in the dream.” Her hand went to her chest. “He’s the one who gave me this mark.”

“His name was Sestiel. He was a fallen angel.”

“F-fallen angel?” She swallowed, licked her lips, and naturally, his gaze was drawn to her mouth. She might be soft, but when it came to females, sometimes soft was desirable. “Why did he want a… hellhound?” She stumbled over the word, licked her lips again. He wished she’d stop doing that. “Um, Hal.”

“He took the hound because proximity to them can mask a fallen angel’s whereabouts.” They were also an effective weapon against the Horsemen, but she didn’t need to know that. “I think he was hoping he could tame it and get it to bond with him. He must not have known that it had already bonded to you.”

“Bonded?”

Cold, stale hatred fisted Ares’s heart. “Hellhounds are vile, evil creatures. They live to slaughter and maim, and they feel no remorse. So whatever you did to him, saved his life or something… it made him grateful.” The very idea made Ares ill. He’d rather eat ghastbat guano for the rest of his life than be bonded to a grateful hellhound. “You’ve been dreaming about him, except they aren’t dreams. Hellhounds can communicate through the bond using astral projection. You go to him while you’re sleeping, but it can be dangerous, because in that dream world, angels and demons can capture you, keep you with them until your physical body dies.”

Cara backed up a little more. Her eyes had gone unfocused, her brain swamped with information beyond the scope of anything she could possibly understand. “And you—you grabbed me from my house. You kidnapped me.”

“I saved your life,” he pointed out. “The Guardians were going to torture and kill you.”

She buried her face in her hands, and then her head snapped up, her cheeks mottled with red. “You kissed me!”

His gaze dropped once more to her mouth, those lush lips he’d sampled. She’d tasted of mint and hellhound then, and he wondered about her flavor now. “It wasn’t a kiss, human, so don’t get excited.”

She sputtered in outrage. “I don’t know what putting your lips on someone else’s mouth means for your people—whatever they are—but humans call that a kiss.”

“Congratulations, then. You made out with a hellhound.” He raked his gaze over her body, which, though hidden under oversized pajamas, was curvy. He’d never forget the unintentional strip show she’d put on before getting into the shower. “I would avoid that in the future. Hellhounds fuck what they kill. Usually while they’re killing it. No telling what they’ll do to someone they actually like.”

Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. “You’re disgusting.”

He snorted. “I’m not the one who sucked face with a hellhound.”

A tremor rocked her, and for a brief—very brief—moment, he experienced the tiniest bit of remorse for taunting her, and he considered armoring up to counter it. Then she shot him a glare of utter revulsion, and so much for the rare pang of conscience. “Where are we?” When he didn’t reply within the two seconds she apparently allotted for an answer, she huffed. “Well?”

Impressive, how she could flip from looking as if she was going to collapse into a quivering puddle to demanding answers to her questions. “Greece. This is my house.”

“You mentioned Greece when you gave me your phone number,” she mused.

To her credit, she didn’t freak out again. Like any competent warrior, she surveyed her surroundings, taking note of the environment, and he had no doubt she’d logged every exit. Good girl. When she was done, she attempted to get to her feet, but he’d caged her between his body and the wall. He stood, offered her a hand, which she ignored.

So she was skittish and stubborn. Talk about a frustrating combination.

She scrambled to her feet on her own and slid along the wall to put a yard of distance between them. “This is all so crazy. Demons? Hellhounds? Fallen angels? Why am I involved in this? What did I do?”

Good questions. Too bad he didn’t have any good answers. “Wrong place, wrong time. When the hellhound gave you Hell’s Kiss—”

“He didn’t kiss me,” she ground out. “He’s a dog.”

“He’s more than a dog, and at some point, he licked you on the mouth. Do you remember that?”

Frowning, she nodded slowly. “I’d just helped him. He’d been shot and hit by a car. He healed remarkably fast once I removed the bullet, though.”

“Because he’s a hellhound. They’re hard to kill, but The Aegis shot him with an enchanted slug. He would have died if not for you. They don’t give their bond over to just anyone. You made a major impression, and he gave you his life.”

“Gave me his life?”

“Hell’s Kiss bonds your life forces. Any time you’re injured, you’ll draw from him and vice versa. You’ll both heal with supernatural speed. The catch is that if he’s injured, you’ll feel the drain on your energy. The more severely he’s hurt, the worse it’ll be for you. It’s possible that he could completely drain you to death.”

She tugged down one of her sleeves that had ridden up to expose her forearm. “Aren’t you the bearer of fun news.”

He shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, being bonded to a hellhound lengthens your lifespan.” At least, it would if she wasn’t hosting an agimortus, which would likely drain her faster than the hellhound’s life force could recharge her. “He must have been seriously grateful, because hellhounds are immortal, but by bonding to a mortal, he lost his longevity. He’ll still be hard to kill as long as you’re healthy, but when you die, so will he.”

She pondered that. “Are you immortal?”

“Yes. But with most immortals, there are ways to kill them—vampires will live forever unless they’re exposed to sunlight, beheaded, or staked in the heart. But I’m indestructible. I can’t be killed.” Except by Deliverance, the dagger forged specifically to take out the Horsemen.

“Vampires are real?” Cara wrapped her arms around her midsection as though trying to hold herself together. He hadn’t had the same luxury when he learned the supernatural world was real—his arms had been shackled behind his back as he watched his wife tortured and killed. “Okay, so how did my helping the… hellhound… get me involved in all of this?”

“I told you Sestiel took the hound to keep his own whereabouts hidden. He’d been targeted for assassination and needed protection.”

She looked down at her feet again, which were pale even against the white marble. “Why did someone want him dead?”

Now things were going to get tricky. He gestured to the black leather three-piece sectional sofa that Limos had made him buy. Because every guy needed to seat twelve full-grown men on a freaking couch.

“Sit. I’ll send for some food if you’re hungry.”

“I’m not hungry. I don’t want to sit down.” She crossed her arms over her chest in stubborn defiance. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”

Ares was not accustomed to taking orders, and he made that clear with a firm, “You know what you need to for now.”

“Really?” An angry flush reddened her face to her hairline. “I know everything? You said before we left the hotel that I was in danger. What about the people at the B&B? Did it blow up? Is that what happened? Did people die because I’m the one in danger?”

“Cara—”

“Tell me! I’m still on the fence about how much of this to believe, so I need some answers, and I need them now.”

His feathers ruffled at her command, and okay, if she wanted it, she was going to get it, uncensored and uncut.

“Yes. Those people died because you were in danger. The B&B was engulfed in infernal fire.” Which was forbidden to use in the human realm, but no one was going to police Pestilence. “Spirits straight out of hell hunted down every human within range of the heat and burned them alive while sucking the souls out of their bodies. They would have been seared from the inside out. It’s a fucking hellish way to die, and worse, their souls are now trapped in hell with no hope of ever getting to Heaven.” Her sea-water eyes teared up, and although he had the oddest urge to try to comfort her, he went in a direction he was far more comfortable with; drill sergeant. “Listen up, human. It sucks that you got caught up in this, but you did, and you’re here. There’s a lot at stake, and you’re going to need to do some serious toughening up if you want to survive. A lot of people are going to die before this is over, so dry the tears and deal. Right now you’re the most important human on the planet, so act like it.”

“You bastard,” she rasped.

“Yes, I’m a bastard. Literally. And you are the recipient of Sestiel’s agimortus.” He closed the distance between them in two strides and tore open her pajama top, flinging buttons everywhere. Cara shrieked and tried to get away, but he caught her with one hand around the back of her neck. He jabbed his finger into her chest, over the symbol there, ignoring the way it seared his skin and watered down his muscles. “This is an agimortus. This is something that only a fallen angel is strong enough to bear.”

“Let go, you perv.”

Not happening. Not until he’d drilled his point home. “Think about what I’ve just said, Cara. Only fallen angels are supposed to be marked with this, and all you can think about is your exposed hooters?” And what nice hooters they were. It took every ounce of military conditioning Ares had not to stare. He was a bastard, but he wasn’t a sicko who got off on scaring women.

Cara shoved at his shoulders. “Get your hands off me, and I’ll ask the damned question you want me to ask.”

Stepping back, he watched with amusement as she yanked the shirt back together, the little sheep rippling angrily on the cotton candy flannel. “Go ahead. Ask. Prove you’ve got some brains in that pretty little head.”

“Jerk,” she spat. “I’ll play your game. So tell me, if only fallen angels can have this agimorty thing, why do I have it?”

Smart cookie. He’d have smiled if the answer wasn’t so dire. “Because fallen angels are currently on the endangered-species list. So the only other being Sestiel could transfer it to is a human. Unfortunately, humans can only bear it for a matter of hours, but because you are bonded to the hellhound, Sestiel must have wagered that you’d have a little more stamina.”

She lost a little color, but her expression remained nice and pissed off. Excellent. No wailing or vapors. “Was he right?”

“Yes, but it won’t last. You’re drawing on Hal’s life force to stay alive. If we don’t find a fallen angel to transfer the agimortus to, you’ll both grow weaker, until eventually, he dies.” Ares had to hand it to Cara, because although he saw in her eyes the exact moment what he’d said sunk in, she remained calm.

“And when he dies,” she said flatly, “I do, too.”

Slowly, deliberately, he reached for her, and this time she didn’t protest when he tugged open her top to reveal her breasts. Between them, the brand cut starkly into her skin, the red lines raised like fresh whip lashes. “Look at it. As crimson as fresh blood.” She didn’t flinch as he traced the tip of his finger along the top edge of the shield. “It’s going to fade as the hours pass, as you begin to die. When it’s the same color as your skin, time’s up. It’s a stopwatch, Cara.” He pressed against the very tip of the blade, watching as the flesh turned white and began to refill with blood. “And time is running out.”