Eternal Rider

Twelve

Hellhound breath was foul.

Cara had no idea why, as she was staring at razor-sharp teeth that belonged to a beast that looked ready to eat her, she could only think about its breath.

“Back toward me, Cara.” Ares’s command came from behind her. “Slowly.”

The hound’s sinister snarl told Cara exactly what he thought of that idea, and she planted her feet so firmly on the floor that she might as well have grown roots.

In her peripheral vision, she saw Ares and Thanatos prowl along opposite walls to flank the hound. With another snarl, he snapped his paw out and hooked her around the waist, his serrated claws ripping into the jersey. She cried out, more from surprise than pain, though the beast’s claw tips were now digging into her skin.

“Release her.” Ares’s deep voice was warped with rage.

A sudden vision of herself, decapitated and disemboweled, the hound feeding on her corpse, flashed in her head. She’d always possessed an empathic ability to sense an animal’s emotions, but this went beyond feelings. She was reading the animal’s thoughts, what he wanted to do to her. Another flash went through her brain, of Ares, screaming silently, his body mutilated, his bones shattered as a pack of hounds fed on him. Around his neck, his Seal was broken, and across the dark space was Pestilence, smiling.

The hellhound’s plans for her and for Ares kept coming. Swallowing bile, Cara fought to keep from vomiting.

The mark on her chest flared hot, and her gift, usually buried deep, rushed to the surface. It wanted to kill, was somehow connected to the agimortus, and she had a sickening feeling that as powerful as her ability used to be, it had now gone atomic.

“Release her,” Ares growled, “or I swear to you, I’ll skin you alive and spend weeks making you die.”

It wasn’t a threat. He’d do it, and a wave of dizziness came over her at the savagery winging through the air. She had to do something. Anything. Her hand tingled as her power condensed in her palm.

Violence is for those who don’t have the intelligence to find another way.

Right. Okay… think. She sifted through what she knew about hellhounds… which was nothing. But she’d saved one’s life. Could she tell this beast that? She’d never communicated with an animal before, at least, not with words, until Hal. But that had been in her dreams. Would it work with a hellhound she wasn’t bonded to?

Tentatively, she smoothed her hand over the wiry fur on his shoulder. “Hey, big fella. Let’s calm down, okay?”

She heard the buzz of Ares’s voice and the deadly rumbles in the hound’s throat, but she ignored all of it to focus, praying he’d tune in to her wavelength. Almost instantly, the beast stilled, and his memories ran through her head like a movie on fast-forward. So much data downloaded into her brain that she couldn’t process it, could only take in the scenes involving Pestilence, Ares, and even Hal. So much death and destruction…

A howl pierced her eardrums in a painful boom. He flung her across the room, and the floor came at her in a rush. Thanatos moved like a cat, scooping her up before she hit the tile. The sound of furniture breaking and bodies thumping against walls broke through the ringing in her ears.

Thanatos had barely set her on her feet when she twisted around to see Ares on the floor, his armor crumpled, his broken sword beneath the hellhound’s hubcap-sized paw. Thanatos shoved Cara behind him and lunged for the hound, his blade coming down in an arc.

The blow would have severed the beast’s head if the hound hadn’t suddenly disappeared.

Thanatos tore out of the room, shouting for Vulgrim and calling for a search of the property. When Ares didn’t immediately stand, Cara offered her hand to him. “Are you okay?”

He ignored her offer and exploded to his feet. He let loose a tirade in a language she didn’t know as he gripped her shoulders and yanked her close. “Did he hurt you?” His voice was harsh, clipped, and Cara moderated her own in hopes of calming him.

“He wanted to at first, but no.”

“How did he find me?” He released her, jamming both hands through his hair over and over. “How the fuck did he—”

“Your brother,” she murmured. “Pestilence told him how to find you. And me.”

“How do you know?” His question was more of a demand, his cold gaze that of an interrogator.

“He told me. I’m not sure how, but he told me. He—his name is Chaos—wants you dead.”

“I’m aware of that,” he barked. “The feeling is mutual. So why didn’t he kill you?”

“Because Hal is his son.”

His expression turned thunderous. “He’s what?”

“They were chasing Sestiel when The Aegis shot Hal. That’s how he ended up at my house. I didn’t get much more than that from him, but I think he’d planned to kill me… until he learned that his pup is bonded to me.”

“Son of a bitch.” Ares swept up his broken sword and hurled it against the wall. When he swung back around to her, every part of his body reflected his anger, from the way his brows punched down over flashing eyes to his clenched hands to the way his feet were spread wide in an aggressive fighting stance.

And yet, there was a sensual electricity in the air, and the longer they faced off, the more intense it became, until the air grew thick and hot, and her body flushed with sudden fever.

His gaze darkened dangerously… and then it dropped, traveling down her body as if mapping every curve. “You’re wearing my shirt. Take it off.” His voice was low, husky, little more than a rumble of thunder.

She stiffened. “Maybe I should have asked, but you were gone, and I didn’t have anything else to wear.”

“Take. It. Off.” Ares’s nostrils flared, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “I need you naked.”

Oh. A serious case of cottonmouth stole her voice. But anger gave it back. “Don’t order me around. You’ll get nothing from me like that.”

Too late she realized she’d thrown a gauntlet, and this was not a man to back down. Her challenge lit up his eyes, and he moved toward her, big shoulders rolling with every silent step. Her heart went ballistic, and with it came a zing of excitement, a growing desire to let him do what she thought he was going to do.

I need you naked.

Wait. Need. Not want.

I need you to shut up and strip. Her attackers had said that. One of them, anyway. She could never remember which.

The agimortus throbbed, and though she was getting a load of that pleasant sensation she’d gotten the last time Ares was near, a suffocating tightness clamped around her chest. What if her power surfaced at the wrong time? Ares said he was immortal, unkillable, but she’d seen what her ability could do. Terror shrunk her skin.

“Stay away from me!” Blindly, she swept up a clay bowl off his dresser and heaved it. Ares was nothing but a blur as he knocked it aside with his forearm and lunged with the grace of a pouncing panther.

A scream escaped her as she scrambled backward. Her foot caught on the towel she’d dropped to the floor. She stumbled into a wooden chest, and the floor fell away beneath her. Arms closed around her and jerked her up just before her head hit the floor.

“Ares!” Thanatos’s roar vibrated the very air, and with a snarl, Ares tucked her against his chest and whirled to face his brother, two powerful, lethal animals readying for combat.

Cara might as well have been a rag doll with the way her feet hung off the floor. The jersey had ridden up uncomfortably high, allowing her bare butt to feel the impressive bulge behind the fly of Ares’s pants and probably exposing a lot more than she wanted anyone to see, but the two brothers were too engaged in their stare-off to notice.

“Let her go, man,” Thanatos said, his voice now a soothing, silky drawl. “You need to get to the pub. Or find yourself a brutal, bloody war.”

Ares’s muscles twitched, his grip loosening slightly.

“That’s it,” Thanatos continued. “Go take care of yourself. Limos is fetching a sorcerer to lay wards around the house. No hellhound will get inside again.”

There was a heartbeat of hesitation, and then Ares peeled away from her. “Sorry… I wouldn’t have… fuck.” His skin glistened with a fine sheen of sweat and his eyes were wild, reminding her of a trapped animal, or of one in pain, terrified, and not understanding what had happened to it. She couldn’t have imagined Ares being terrified or trapped, but there was something going on inside him, a vulnerability she doubted he could name, and it bit right into her heart.

“Ares,” she murmured, in the voice she used with Hal, “it’s okay.”

He focused on her, and gradually, the feral light in his eyes faded, darkening to a smooth ebony. At the same time, the agimortus buzzed more urgently, becoming a tether that compelled her toward him. It tugged on her skin, walked a line between pleasure and pain as she stepped closer to Ares. He jerked as if she’d slapped him.

“I have to go.” He stalked out of the room without looking back, leaving her with Thanatos.

She wanted to go after Ares, but all she could do was breathe deeply, unable to shake the notion that they’d been skirted by a hurricane. “What… what was wrong with him?”

Thanatos’s expression gave away nothing, but he stared at her with a predator’s interest, and it struck her that maybe the hurricane hadn’t passed. Maybe only the eye had. “His demon half was pulling his strings.”

Demon half? She didn’t want to know. “Why?”

His pale eyes dropped to her bare legs, and she resisted the urge to tug the jersey down. There was a tormented hunger in his gaze she didn’t understand and wasn’t sure she wanted to. “How much has he told you about us?”

“Pretty much nothing.”

The tendons in his neck strained, making the tattoos dance. “Cover yourself.” He turned away.

“Gladly.” While he was examining the wall, she stepped into her pajama bottoms. “So what’s the story?”

He didn’t turn back around. “Short version: Our mother was a succubus demon, our father was an angel. With the exception of Limos, we were raised on Earth as humans until we learned the truth. We didn’t take it very well, and our actions led to mass human casualties. As punishment, we were cursed to be the keepers of the Seals of Armageddon. And with that honor came side-effects, hints of what we will be once our Seals break.”

“And Ares’s side-effect is…”

“Humans get aggressive and fight in his presence. In turn, he’s affected by human turmoil. When mankind is at war, or there are large-scale conflicts going on, he’s drawn to them. He’s compelled to fight, needing the physical release. Fight, or… because mommy dearest was a sex demon, he needs to have sex. And when it gets bad, he has a hard time controlling himself.”

Didn’t it figure that the thing she feared and hated the most was violence, and the Horseman she was stuck with was violence personified. “So where did he go?”

“To find a female or a fight.”

Oh. A twinge in her chest at the thought of Ares with a woman freaked her out a little. She wasn’t jealous… had no right to be. So why did the image of his naked body entwined with another woman give her heartburn?

Change the subject. Fast. “And, ah, who are you? What Horseman, I mean.”

Thanatos swung around. “Death.”

Cara swallowed. Audibly. “As in, the Grim Reaper?”

He snorted. “That poser. He deals with evil souls. He guides them to Sheoul-gra, which is sort of a demon holding tank, until they can be reborn. I won’t be escorting souls anywhere. I’ll be doing the killing that releases the souls from their bodies.”

She considered that. She also noticed that she hadn’t batted an eyelash at the fact that the Grim Reaper was real. “So, Ares has all those issues to handle. What is it that you have to deal with?” Besides tattoos that seemed to move in 3-D.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“I see.” She studied Thanatos, trying to get a read on him, but the tall warrior was even harder to pin down than Ares. His face wasn’t quite as cruel, his eyes not as calculating, both of which probably made him more handsome. But there was definitely a darkness in him, and she sensed that it ran so deep that no amount of excavation could uncover it all. “So it’s okay to spill your brother’s secrets, but not your own.”

Inky storm clouds brewed in his eyes, and all around him, shadows she swore hadn’t been there before writhed. The brand between her breasts flared hot, and it took everything she had to not step back. “I told you because you’re going to be stuck with him, so you need to understand why he behaves the way he does. You don’t need to understand me.” He stalked toward the door, but halted at the threshold. “What I’ve told you tonight isn’t for outside ears. If you tell anyone, you’ll answer to me, and not as Thanatos. As Death.”

A lick of fear lashed at her heart, but she met his gaze, refusing to flinch. “I can’t be allowed to die.”

“That’s the thing about living for as long as I have and being drawn to great suffering,” he said in a voice as cold as a grave. “I don’t need to kill to cause misery. I excel at making people beg for death.”

Ares was fucking wired. He sat astride Battle, his entire body cramped with tension, his panting breaths burning hot in his throat. What the fuck had just happened?

Before he’d burst into the room to find the hound about to rip Cara’s throat out, he’d been crazed with lust. Then he’d been crazed with rage that had only intensified when, in Cara’s presence, he’d been vulnerable to the hellhound. His armor had softened, his sword had shattered, and he’d lost his ability to predict his opponent’s next move.

The hound had gotten one up on him, and if not for Thanatos…

Mother. Fuck.

Not since his “human” days before the curse had Ares felt so helpless. Oh, he’d been pretty damned helpless when he’d been paralyzed for weeks by the hellhounds, but that was different. No one had been relying on him for protection. But this time… had Thanatos not been there, Ares would have been bitten, and Cara could have been killed. She’d said the beast didn’t harm her because she was bonded to his pup, but hellhounds were deceptive, not to be trusted, and he wouldn’t believe any information gained from the bastard.

Especially not if he was working with Pestilence.

As Battle cantered across the island, spraying sand in his wake, Ares thought about Cara and wondered how this had gotten so complicated. The pity in her eyes when she’d asked if he was okay had snagged his trip wire, and that, combined with his utter humiliation over being spanked by the hellhound, had lit him up. Oh, and then there had been the fact that he was already running on a full tank of lust, so when he’d gotten a full frontal view of Cara wearing his hockey jersey, his control had disintegrated. Those legs. Holy shit, she was gorgeous. Fresh from the shower, her dewy skin had made his mouth water, her wet hair had made him want to run his fingers through it, and her long, toned legs had made him want to part them and park himself between them.

Something seriously primal had come over him at the way she’d been covered by his clothing, and his brain had gone caveman and started screaming, mine, over and over. There had been no thought after that, just a driving need to claim her.

It was a damned good thing Thanatos had interrupted, though in truth, Cara’s scream had pierced Ares’s fog of lust, and he’d been about to release her when his brother barreled into the room. That had set off another fucked-up reaction, one of fierce protection… as if Than was as much a threat to Cara as the hellhound had been.

Fuck.

The danger she’d been in kept circulating in his head. He kept seeing those teeth at her throat. Those claws wrapped around her waist. She’d been terrified, but she’d also been incredibly brave. The way she’d smoothed her hand over Chaos’s fur and spoken to him in a calm, soothing voice had stunned the hell out of Ares. The terror rolling off her had been incomprehensible, and yet, she’d pushed past it to save them all.

In all his years, he’d never seen anything like it. Her bravery in the face of danger had been something to behold, and the biggest turn-on of his life. She might not know it, might not want to know it, but hers was the soul of a warrior. Oh, it was still leashed, suppressed by the weight of polite society, morals, and probably her upbringing. The problem, he knew, would be that when her inner warrior was loosed, it could prove to be dangerous, destructive, and uncontrollable. He spurred Battle past the vineyard and toward the southern end of the island. The stallion threw his head, jerking the reins so violently they nearly flew out of Ares’s hands. Talk about uncontrollable. The horse was agitated, sensing Ares’s mood.

Ahead, the Harrowgate loomed between two ancient stone pillars. Battle pranced inside, and the dark room expanded to allow for their size. As the shimmering veil solidified, two maps appeared on the obsidian walls; one of Earth, and one of Sheoul. Ares tapped the Sheoul map, and it instantly expanded into a dozen levels. He fingered the third level from the top, outlined in blue light, then kept tapping as the maps rotated and grew more focused until he finally located the Harrowgate that opened up about a hundred yards from the Four Horsemen pub.

Battle leaped out and onto the squishy ground. Ares let the stallion have his head, and Battle, who knew exactly where they were going, took off at a dead run. This was why he’d chosen to use a stationary gate instead of a summoned one—the horse needed to let out some energy, and so did Ares.

Battle’s hooves pounded the ground with massive force, sending powerful shocks up his legs and shoulders, and into Ares’s body. Ares loved this, the rush of the charge, and the only way it could be better was if he was charging into a bloody fray.

Dammit, Cara had worked him into a frenzy, and now his blood pumped hotly through his veins, his adrenaline felt like nettles in his muscles, and his vision sharpened as his body primed for a challenge. The Neethul females would give him a fight, blood would be drawn, and teeth would find flesh.

A shiver of desire went through him. Would Cara give him all that? When he was at his most jacked up, would she give him the battle he craved? Images of him taking her against a wall, on the rocky cliffs, in the temple ruins that littered his island sifted through his mind. In some of them, she was scratching, clawing, biting, even as she screamed with pleasure. In others, she was caressing his shoulders, kneading his muscles, kissing her way down his body.

What would that be like? There’d been no tenderness in any sex he’d had since his wife died. Even with Nera, it hadn’t been a love match. There’d been passion, but no true tenderness. So why the hell was he picturing all the gentle crap with Cara?

With a nasty snarl, he reined Battle to a halt in front of the tavern. He didn’t bother to call the stallion to him. Right now, they were both too worked up, and the writhing marking would only distract and infuriate him. He flung open the door… and walked into the biggest crowd of females he’d ever seen hanging around the pub.

Immediately, he was surrounded, had hands, paws, and hooves all over him. He didn’t like it. In fact, he nearly turned around and got the hell out of there. But there was a malevolent tang in the air that made his scalp and his skin crawl. Something was off. Very, very off.

He captured the closest female, a slinky, humanoid succubus, by the arm. “What’s going on?”

“Pestilence is here.” The succubus’s pupils dilated and constricted like a cat’s. “He’s hotter than ever, now that he’s got that evil aura.”

Ares’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Where?”

The female rubbed against him, a purr rumbling in her throat. “Out back with Saw and Flail.”

Ares scanned the room, focused on the back door, and bellowed, “Make way!”

Instantly, the demons backed away from him, and as he stalked toward the rear of the pub, they scattered like fish before a shark. As he reached for the door, he paused. The Sora female, Cetya, was sitting on a bench, head bowed, shoulders slumped, her normally bright red skin washed out to a grayish brick color. And her tail… what the fuck? It was in a knot.

“Hey.” He hooked her chin with a finger and tipped up her face, was startled by the tears streaming down her cheeks. “What happened?”

“He’s not the same,” she whispered. She flicked up her tail, her pain obvious in her wince.

“Reseph—Pestilence—did that?” Ares spoke sharply, his already unstable temper wobbling.

Cetya nodded, and his temple throbbed with rising fury. Reseph had never been sadistic. Even when his demon side surfaced, which was rare, women had never been the targets of his rampages.

“Go to Underworld General. They’ll fix your tail—”

“My sister worked there,” she said numbly. “She died.”

“I know you miss Ciska, but you need to go or your tail will die. And stay away from my brother from now on.”

He slammed out of the tavern and into a black forest partly concealed in reddish mist. Silently, Ares drew his sword and moved through the dense foliage and fog.

He smelled blood long before he reached the scene, but he was still startled when he stepped into the clearing. Flail lay lifeless on the ground, her nude form nearly unrecognizable and her throat mangled all the way to her spine. Reseph, his naked body shot through with black veins, held Saw against a tree, his fangs in her throat. Blood covered both of them, and though most of it appeared to belong to the demons, Reseph bore his own fair share of injuries.

The females had fought back.

“You sick fuck,” Ares growled.

Reseph swung around, fangs still buried in Saw’s neck. His eyes glowed evil crimson, and with a smile, he tore out the demon’s throat with his teeth. He dropped her corpse to the ground and stalked toward Ares. His dripping fingers flickered over the glyph on his throat, and plate armor suited his body. The armor, crafted by trolls, was practically impenetrable, self-repairing, and had to be given blood to keep it functional. No doubt it had been well-fed lately.

“War. Why so appalled? You act like you’ve never killed a female—”

“I’ve never had fun doing it,” he roared.

“You will. When you’ve turned, we’ll party. Thanatos can feed on our leavings.” Reseph licked his lips, catching the stream of blood in the corner. “Did your buddy find you?”

A hot breeze ruffled the thorny leaves in the trees and brought the scent of death to Ares’s nostrils. “If you mean the hellhound, yeah. You gave good directions.”

“He has a name, you know. Eater of Chaos. Or Chaos Eater. Something like that. Nice dog. Don’t know why you two have been fighting for so long.” Reseph grinned. “Oh, right. He ate your best friends, your beloved brother, and your sons. Tough break.”

“I can’t believe you went there,” Ares ground out. “I can’t believe you allied with him—”

“And I enjoyed doing it.”

“You know what I’m going to enjoy?” Ares raised his sword. “Opening you from crotch to chin.”

Reseph halted two yards away. “Think hard about that, bro. Because you’re the one who is going to take a beating. And after I pound you to a quivering pudding of organs and bone, I’m going after the human.” His grin was all fang. “I hope she doesn’t die too quickly.”

The image of Cara being subjected to what Ares had seen when he entered the clearing was like Drano in the brain. It burned like a mother, scoured away all rational thought. Snarling, he struck. His sword landed a glancing blow to Reseph’s shoulder as his brother spun away. And then Reseph was holding his bow, and in the span of a heartbeat, he’d launched an arrow. It punched into the unprotected juncture of Ares’s shoulder and throat, and pain lanced him, shooting through the top of his skull.

“Out!” Reseph launched another arrow as Conquest formed at his side.

Ares whirled out of the path of the second arrow, but it changed course and slammed into his neck next to the first one. The ground shook, and the rhythmic pound of hoofbeats was like an earthquake, and then Battle was there to take the other stallion’s blows. Panting, Ares ripped the arrows from his flesh and froze at the sound of flapping wings. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.

Oh, shit.

They descended like a cloud of locusts. Man-eating demon locusts the size of buzzards. Ghastbats dove at him and Battle, their gaping mouths full of razor-sharp teeth, their claws like needles, a bone spike on the end of each wing. In seconds, Battle was covered, screaming as they tore at him. Conquest kept striking, his hooves hacking at the other stallion and scooping out chunks of flesh.

Ares’s armor shielded him, but the creatures were tearing at his face and shoving their spikes between the leather joints. Battle’s hooves and teeth crushed scores of ghastbats, but there were too many.

“Give up the human, and I’ll call them off,” Reseph called out.

“Fuck you.”

“Incest, brother?” He shrugged. “Well, hell, I’ve tried everything else since my Seal broke…”

Ares hurled his sword, catching Reseph in the jaw. Teeth, flesh, and blood sprayed into the air, and Ares leaped onto Battle before his brother could recover. The ghastbats bit and stung, and he was half-blind from a claw in the eye, but he managed to open a Harrowgate. It sliced a dozen of the little fucks in half, and then Battle catapulted them into it, and they came out near the entrance of his manor house.

Guards charged toward them, swords drawn to destroy the creatures that were still clinging to Ares and the stallion. Battle stumbled, and Ares swung down, relieving the horse of his weight. While the Ramreels were dispatching the ghastbats, Ares led Battle into the house via the arched entrance to his great room.

Battle limped, trailing blood and bumping into walls and furniture. Aw, fuck, the horse was blinded.

Thanatos jogged into the great room from the kitchen. “What the hell happened?”

“Our brother happened,” Ares growled.

Than let out a low whistle. “Reseph did this?”

“Not Reseph. Pestilence. He’s more powerful than ever, and if there was any question left in you before, I can assure you that he’s no longer our brother.”

Ares waited for Thanatos to argue about not giving up on Reseph, and for a heartbeat, his brother’s expression was glacial, a hard challenge. And then Battle began to tremble, and with a crash, he went down.

“Shit!” Wiping blood out of his eyes, Ares sank to his knees and shouted for Vulgrim. “Get towels, water. Needle and thread.”

He assessed the massive, gaping wounds through which muscle, tendon, and bone erupted. Battle looked as if he’d been tenderized by a troll’s giant spiked mallet, and his pain was gutting Ares more than any blade Pestilence could wield. He was stronger than a normal horse, his supernatural connection with Ares giving him similar regenerative powers… but he could die if his wounds were severe enough. Limos had lost her first mount a hundred years into their curse, when a demon had sheared its head clean off. Her replacement had been a gift—one she’d been unable to refuse—and now she was stuck with a carnivorous hell stallion with a disposition that would make a hellhound seem friendly.

Behind him, Ares heard footsteps, too light to be any of the demons, and the constant vibrations that alerted him to worldwide conflicts became muted.

“Oh, my God.” Cara darted toward them.

“Than, get her out of here.”

She skirted Thanatos, twisting out of his reach with surprising nimbleness. “What’s going on?” She kneeled beside Ares. “Dear… Lord.”

Ares didn’t have the time or patience for this. She’d probably start crying or screaming or some crap. He also didn’t need her presence draining him. “Go to the bedroom and stay there.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” He stared incredulously. No one disobeyed his orders.

“I told you not to order me around.” Cara rolled up the hockey jersey’s sleeves in blatant defiance of his command. “I can help. I’ve been working with animals for years.”

“Then help.” Cursing irritably, he flicked his thumb over his throat and rid himself and Battle of their armor, which had softened already, and then he gripped her wrist as she reached for Battle’s flank. “But he isn’t your usual animal.”

“Why,” she muttered, “am I not surprised?”