Immortal Rider

Fourteen

Arik lost it. It was fucking great news that he was no longer in Sheoul, but now he was a big head case. Chunks of his memory were gone, and what was there seemed fuzzy, dreamlike, and he couldn’t tell memory from dream. Christ, he hated that, had always prided himself on having a damned good memory, especially after intensive military training that helped him recall minute details following encounters with demons. Now he wondered how much of his life he’d lost, and if any of it would come back.

In his freaked-out state, he’d gone to his room—Limos’s room, he guessed—but claustrophobia had wrapped around him tighter than a bulletproof vest, and he’d gone for the sliding glass door—only to find that it had been locked. From the outside.

Panic set in, and he’d smashed a chair through the glass, leaped over the railing, and whacked the male who’d been standing guard below. Arik ran, barefoot, into the jungle behind the house. He didn’t know how far he’d gone when he heard Limos calling to him, but he didn’t stop until his lungs were burning for oxygen, his skin was damp with sweat, and the path was blocked by a waterfall that split the jungle in half.

Panting, he bent over and braced his hands on his knees as Limos came up behind him.

“I’m impressed.” Her voice was soft as her hand came down on his shoulder, and now that he knew she was real, her touch felt bette

“I’ve been fighting demons since I was a kid, first in my own house, and then for the military. I’m not a total slouch.” God, he couldn’t believe he’d just brought up the kid thing, and if Limos possessed a single female gene, she’d latch onto that like a tick on a hound.

“I don’t think you’re a slouch.” Her hand fell off him as he straightened and turned to face her. “You managed to knock me off my feet once, if I remember right.”

A glint of amusement flashed in her eyes, and he snorted at the memory of gripping her ankle and tugging her feet out from under her so she landed on top of him.

“There are some serious holes in my memory, some doubts about what’s been real and what hasn’t, but I do remember that.” He inhaled a shaky breath. “Was the stuff you told me about your… fiancé… real?” Limos’s gaze skittered away. “Horseman?”

Her eyes shifted back to him and narrowed. “Say my name.”

“Answer my question.”

“Say. My. Name.”

Frustration spiking, he bent down, getting right in her face, nose to nose. “Answer the fucking question.”

Clearly, they were at an impasse, and he was not going to back down. If two dozen ugly-ass demons with meat hooks, sledgehammers, and skinning knives couldn’t make him say Limos’s name, she didn’t stand a chance.

She must have realized that, but not wanting to concede defeat, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked to the edge of the crystal pool at the base of the waterfall, where she looked down at her fingers. “Dammit. Broke a nail.”

“Jesus.” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Can you ever focus on one subject or take anything seriously?”

“I take my nails very seriously.” She huffed. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn to enjoy the little things. Speaking of which, I have something of yours. I don’t know how important they are to you, but I’ve kept them with me.”

She held out his dogtags, the silver chain dangling from her closed fist. He took them, another small connection with reality, and when he looped the chain around his neck, he almost felt whole again. Now he needed his weapons and Army ring, and he’d be good to go. Unfortunately, his captors had taken his ring, so there was no getting it back.

“Thank you.” His voice was humiliatingly hoarse.

Limos had guarded the dogtags, which he could replace for a few bucks, as if they were a treasure. And she’d treated him equally as well, he realized. She could have dumped him off at Underworld General or handed him over to the R-XR or The Aegis, but instead, she’d nursed him back to health herself. She’d done what she had to in order to get him to eat. She’d engaged all his senses to bring him back to reality.

Arik had no doubt that if she’d left him with the military or The Aegis, he’d be strapped to a bed, attached to IV lines, and doctors would be poking, prodding, and digging into his brain. Hell, they could have made him worse.

“You still don’t believe this is real, do you?” She looked down at the water swirling around her feet and bubbling around the smooth pebbles.

Reaching out, he hooked his finger beneath her chin and lifted her face to his, needing the sensation of touching her warm skin to make absolutely, one-hundred percent sure that he would be telling the truth. “I believe it. Nothing in that hellhole was as warm as you.”

She swallowed. “Then why won’t you say my name?”

“I can’t take the chance that anyone will hear it. You said it has to be uttered while I’m in misery, but I won’t risk it.”

“Why? After everything you’ve gone through because of me, why don’t you want to say my name and watch me get what I deserve?” Her words were bitter, her voice hard, and he wondered what kind of life she’d had to make her think he’d do something like that.

“I won’t tell you I didn’t think about it,” he admitted. “When I was in Sheoul, all I could think of was revenge. But I know you didn’t mean for what happened to happen, so no, I can’t do that to you.”

She reached up to play with her Seal pendant. “And why, when you were dreaming of revenge, did you turn the demons down when they offered you a deal… my torture for yours?”

Ah, damn, he wished she didn’t know about that. He didn’t need anyone knowing what he’d endured down there. Torture, it turned out, was a deeply personal, albeit, horrible, experience that he’d rather not share.

“I couldn’t take the deal because I couldn’t have lived with myself.” A sudden, gory image of Limos being brutalized at the hands, claws, and tools of those demons flashed in his head, and he had to tamp down a growl. “I know what those fuckers were capable of, and I would never wish that on you.”

Her throat worked on a swallow. “What do you wish on me?”

“Me,” he said with brutal honesty. “Fool that I am, I wish me on you. Like, on you. When I said in the bedroom that I’d have had you under me in a heartbeat, I meant it.”

She blinked. Opened her mouth. “But h—” He didn’t give her a chance to say anything. He grabbed her shoulders and hauled her against him. She let out a little gasp, but she didn’t refuse him anything as he took her mouth the way he’d fantasized about every time he closed his eyes.

Water splashed around them, tiny droplets of mist blanketing their faces as their tongues met. Limos’s lips were soft, her body hard, her fingernails sharp as she dug them into his biceps. But, like before, when she slid her hands up to his shoulders, her touch was tentative, halting.

He wasn’t so reserved.

He dropped his hands to her thighs and then dragged them up and under her wrap, but she grasped his wrists and stopped him.

“Why,” he murmured against her mouth. “Why are you so skittish?”

“Because I’ve never done this.”

He whipped his head back. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re saying you’re a virgin? You’re five thousand years old and you’ve never had sex?”

“How could I?” A bird fluttered past, and he wasn’t surprised when Limos’s attention went with it. He waited impatiently for her to turn back to him. “I was betrothed when I was a child. You experienced what happened when I kissed you.”

God, he hadn’t even thought of that. Of course she wouldn’t have been able to be with anyone if her fiancé took jealousy to a galactic extreme.

“Why me?” he asked, dying to know why, after all that time, she had finally given up a kiss. “Why did you give in to me that night?”

Her entire body began to tremble, and he held her tighter. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, she stopped shaking. “Because I’d been drinking.”

Instant bullshit flag. He’d been watching her all night, and yeah, he’d seen her suck down some nasty-looking blue drink and later, a slushy pink one, but no, she hadn’t been drunk.

“You’re lying.” He palmed the back of her neck and massaged, urging her to come clean.

“I’m not.”

“That’s a lie too. There’s nothing I hate more than lying, Horseman.” Leaning in, he kissed her throat to soften his words, though nothing would ever soften how he felt about lying. He’d fallen for far too many of his father’s lies, had seen his mom and sister deeply wounded by those same lies. “Tell me why you finally gave in.”

A soft cry escaped her, almost as if telling him the truth pained her, and for a terrible second, he was afraid she’d say that she’d done it on a whim. To satisfy her curiosity. That he could have been anyone and that he’d been the chump who’d rolled the crappy dice.

“Because in all those centuries, you’re the first male I’ve wanted that badly.”

Masculine pride puffed him up at her answer. “That’s really cool to hear, but why me?”

Her lips, swollen from his kiss and dewy from the waterfall’s mist, turned up in a dazzling smile. “Do you remember the first time we met, at Than’s place? And you were all in awe of us?”

“Awe is a strong word,” he muttered, and she laughed. She was beautiful when she did that.

“You amused me. Not many people do that. And you took having your ribs broken really, really well.”

“So you were attracted to me because I have a high tolerance for pain?”

“Well, that’s hot, but you also made me laugh, and you give me butterflies,” she added brightly before sobering. “You also… you looked at me like I was… I don’t know…”

“Wicked sexy?” he offered, and that smile hit him again.

“That, but more. Like I was a puzzle. I liked it. Males usually look at me like I’m good for one thing. Which is funny, because that’s the only thing I’m not good for.” She sighed. “And then at Ares’s party, I saw you watching me. And I saw you coax Rath out from behind the cement planter where he was hiding from all the strangers in the house. It was sweet.”

He shrugged. “He was just a baby, and he was scared half to death. Poor Cara was going crazy looking for him.”

“See? It just… I dunno. It made me want to be near you.”

“So you asked me to spar?”

“It’s all I could do. That’s as close as I could get to any male. But then you got all arrogant and called me a HILF, and as outraged as I was, I was flattered and turned on, and then you tugged me down on top of you and kissed me… and I’m babbling.” She scowled at him. “I never babble.”

It was probably some sort of mortal offense to think of a Horseman as cute, but she was. She might be able to kick his ass to the moon and back, but she was also the most feminine woman he’d ever met. Everything about her appealed to the male in him… the protective side that wanted to cage her in his arms and make sure nothing hurt her, and the carnal side that wanted to push her up against the wet boulder behind her and make her scream his name. Even if all they did was more of what they’d done in her bed, he would coax sweet noises from her lips.

“I like it when you babble,” he said. “It’s cute.”

“Cute?”

Yep, as expected, a mortal offense. He loved it when she had that spitting-mad cat thing going on. He didn’t bother with banter, because frankly, his blood had already started to heat from just thinking about the boulder scenario. How would she react if he grabbed her right now and… fuck it. He’d find out for himself.

Stepping into her, he caught her around the waist and pushed her up against the smooth rock surface and parked himself between her legs.

“Arik,” she gasped, and he went impossibly hard at the sexed-up sound of his name coming from her perfect mouth.

“Shh…” He pressed a series of kisses to her neck, tasting the fresh water and the sun on her skin.

“But I need to—”

He closed his hand over her breast, and she sucked air. “I know what you need,” he said against her throat, and when she opened her mouth to talk again, he bit down, some weird, driving need to possess and d po“ominate taking over his entire body.

She melted against him, and with her capitulation, his inner animal howled in victory. Her hands gripped his ass and dug in as she arched, allowing him unlimited access to her breasts and putting her sex against the ridge of his cock through the fabric of their clothes. They’d been in this position before, on her bed… but he’d been out of it. This was much better. Much more real.

“Do you like this?” He rocked his erection into her, groaning at the hot friction tempered by the cool breeze around them.

“N-no,” she breathed, rolling her hips to increase the sensation.

He licked her neck. “Liar. Remember what I said about that?”

His fingers found the bikini ties around her neck, and in a few nimble twists of his fingers, he had the knot untied, and the top fell off, landing on the ground beside them. He bent to taste her rosy nipples as Limos’s hands slipped under the waistband of his pants to grip his ass. Her nails scored his skin, and he wished she’d do it harder. Or slide those soft palms around front.

As if she could read his thoughts, she sank her nails deep, and then dragged them around to his hips. A low sound erupted from his throat when her thumbs smoothed the sensitive skin of his pelvis on either side of his shaft, and he held his breath, waiting for her to touch him where he needed it so badly.

When her hands stopped moving, he thought he might die of anticipation. For a long, agonizing moment, she didn’t move. Okay, she was afraid. Maybe he was moving too fast. He could do slow, no matter what his body was telling him.

“I’m scaring you,” he whispered.

“I’m… a Horseman,” she whispered back.

He pressed a lingering kiss into the coconut-scented skin between her breasts. “You’re a woman. A gorgeous woman who has experienced everything except this, and you aren’t sure what to do. You’re not used to that feeling.”

“I hate that.” Her voice was a low, pleasured moan. “I hate how you call me out on things, like you know me better than you do.”

He smiled. “You love it, and you know it. Keeps you on your toes.” He dragged his tongue leisurely under the swell of one breast, and then gave the same treatment to the other. Limos practically purred, but her hand remained tamely frozen. He repeated the action, this time pausing to suck first one nipple deep into his mouth, and then the other. Another moan, but no movement.

He wasn’t experienced with virgins, but he knew how to loosen up a woman, and he kept up the tongue action, licking and suckling her sensitive skin, her sweet gasps mingling with the calls of the jungle birds and the soothing splash of the water around them. She didn’t seem to notice when he unbuttoned her skirt and unwrapped it, leaving her in a yellow bikini bottom.

Jesus, she was exquisite. A one-two punch of deadly and sexy that made his instincts whack out with the need to rip the bottoms off and take her. But he had too much respecoo quit for women and too much military training to let his base desires rule, and he tugged her against him and bent to put his mouth to her ear.

“I’ve dreamed about this,” he growled. “I dreamed of all the things I’d do to you. But in none of my fantasies were you a virgin.” He nipped her earlobe, and she gasped sweetly. “I would have killed anyone who made my sister regret her first time, so yeah… you call the shots here.”

All of a sudden, she tore out of his arms and scrambled away from him, backing up on a grassy bank, panting and eyeing him as if he’d sprouted horns. “I can’t.”

Confused as hell, he eased up to her, slowly, because with every step he took, she breathed harder and looked like she was going to bolt. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, covering her breasts. “It’s not that. I want to. You don’t know how badly I want to.”

“Then what?” He cursed as the answer popped into his head. “Your fiancé.”

He’d never been one to poach, but this was different. It wasn’t poaching when the male in question was the evilest scumbag to ever exist. Then again, that was about the best reason not to poach there ever was.

“Sort of.” She swallowed audibly, her throat muscles working hard as her hands went to her bikini. Almost mechanically, she shoved the bottoms down and stepped out of them.

Holy shit. The sight took his breath. Her tan skin was perfect, unmarked. Her hips were slim, slightly flared, and the place between her muscular thighs was bare.

And around her hips was the most amazing piece of jewelry, a delicate gold and pearl chain that fit like string thong underwear. How he’d love to run his tongue over every pearl, following the chain to the one pearl that mattered. After he made her come with his mouth, he’d move the chain aside and enter her… God, he could practically feel those smooth little jewels caressing his shaft as he pumped into her.

“You’re gorgeous,” he managed, noticed he’d moved closer.

“Don’t touch,” she said, stepped back and bumped into a tree. “This—” she hooked her thumbs under the chain at each hip—“is a chastity belt. Only my husband can remove it.”

He frowned. “How is it a chastity belt?”

“If any male touches it with bare skin, it turns into something like razor wire. It severs toes, fingers… cocks.”

Well, if that didn’t just shrivel him up and make his balls crawl up inside his body. “What about you?”

“It hurts.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, but given how the thing was placed… yeah, no wonder she didn’t want males to get close.

He reached for her, careful to keep his lower body away from that beautifully deceptive bit of jewelry, but she lashed out, shoving him away.

“Don’t! Don’t you get it? You can’t touch me.”

“Dammit, Horseman, I didn’t get tossed into Sheoul for nothing. We’ll find a way to work around this.”

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “Are you saying I owe you? You want me to work off all your torture?”

“What? No. Jesus, you’re cynical. I’m saying that I’m a stubborn son of a bitch, and I’m not going to let those skin-peeling, razor-slicing, ass-raping bastards win. I wanted you then, and I want you now. You saved my life and you nursed me back to health. I can’t be angry anymore.”

Don’t,” she rasped. “Don’t make me better than I am.”

What the hell did that mean? He was about to ask, when twin flashes lit up the area. Instinctively, he wheeled in front of Limos as two huge, armored males popped out of summoned Harrowgates. Ares and Thanatos looked at him, looked at Limos, and sized up the situation in less time than it took an M-16 bullet to strike a target at thirty yards.

In all the time Arik was in the torture chamber, he suspected he’d die.

This time, he knew he was dead.