Immortal Rider

Seventeen

In hindsight, Arik figured he should have had Kynan take him to his apartment. Instead, he’d asked Ky to take him to R-XR headquarters, which had been a colossal mistake. They’d immediately rushed him to medical for a full exam and every kind of test known to both human and demon science. Then he’d been isolated for questioning and another battery of tests, this time to assess his mental health.

He should have known he’d be held prisoner—he’d helped draw up the SOPs for any military member who had been captured and held by demons.

The questions were endless, repetitive and, sometimes, ludicrous. Are you sure you didn’t give up any sensitive information? Yes. Did any demon possess you? No. Were you impregnated? Jesus, he hoped not. Did you grow attached to any demon? No.

As long as Limos didn’t count, damn her.

When the interrogators moved past his time in Sheoul and started on his time with Limos, Arik became a lot more selective in what he told them. No way in hell was he going to share how he’d been in a constant state of lust around her, or how he’d been so afraid to eat food that he’d only eaten when he thought she was bringing him dog food. Or how he still refused to say her name.

Or how she’d fucked with his memory.

He also left out the part where Pestilence drank him like a milkshake, forced Arik to drink him in return, and gave him the curious side-effect of being able to sense spies and kill them with a touch.

The R-XR would have him splayed open on a dissection table for that one.

The upside to all the questioning and tests was that it kept his mind off what he’d done to Runa. Shade’s words kept clanging in his head, a brutal thump against the inside of his skull that he deserved. He’d sworn to protect Runa. He’d sworn to never become the monster their father had been. And what had he done? Become the monster who used to haunt her dreams until Shade took them all away. Now Arik wondered if he’d reversed all Shade’s progress.

It didn’t matter that he’d attacked Runa while he was out of his mind. Their father had often delivered his most brutal beatings while out of his ever-loving mind, three sheets to the wind. It wasn’t an excuse, and Arik wasn’t going to make excuses for himself, either.

Man, he needed a vacation, but that particular line of thinking always took him to a tropical beach that looked suspiciously like Hawaii, complete with a certain raven-haired Horseman. Not that he was taking a trip anytime soon; he’d been released from the R-XR medical facility and put into one of the Fort McNair dorms, and though he was free to come and go within the facilities, he still wasn’t cleared to leave the base.

Which sucked. He was a soldier, and the human race was at war. He needed to do something. Needed to fight for his team, which was Team Human, not Team Horsemen. Sure, they were on the same side, but definitely not on the same team.

Except ze=Surit had felt great to fight next to Limos against the khnives, hadn’t it. She’d had his back, and their moves had been in sync in a way he hadn’t experienced with anyone but Decker.

He caught himself rubbing his chest, as if trying to soothe his aching heart, and what the hell? Had demon Alcatraz turned him into a lovesick puppy? Annoying.

A pounding on his dorm door jolted him out of his pathetic musings, and then Ky and Decker strode in before he even had a chance to tell them to come in. He forgave them because he really needed to get his mind off Runa and Limos. And because they brought beer.

Decker pulled a bottle of Bud out of the six-pack and tossed it to Arik. “You can take the redneck out of the country…” Arik said.

“… but you can’t take the Bud away from the redneck,” Kynan finished, and Decker shot them both the bird.

“The way I see it,” Decker drawled, “you can drink warm water from the tap, or you can drink an ice cold Budweiser.” He held up the six-pack, minus one, dangled it in front of Kynan.

“Yeah, yeah. Give me the damned beer. But don’t think I’ll spontaneously start watching NASCAR or something.”

“I’m telling ya, you’d love the short-track racing,” Decker muttered, tossing him a beer.

“Only if the drivers are demons,” Kynan said.

Decker shrugged. “There’s been speculation about the Busch brothers. They ain’t right. And Jimmy Johnson. He wins too much for it to be natural.”

Rolling his eyes, Kynan took a seat in one of two chairs, and Arik took the other. Like old times, Decker threw himself on the bed and sprawled out like he lived there. Their friendship had been an easy one… sure, there had been moments of tension, but didn’t every relationship have them? It hadn’t even occurred to Arik that he’d need more in the way of relationships, not when he had good friends and a tight military community around him.

So yeah, everything felt the same. Natural. And yet… there was the sense that something was missing.

You miss Limos, idiot.

Fuck, he was screwed.

“So,” Decker said. “You look pretty good for being in hell’s belly for a month.”

Arik downed half his beer. “I don’t recommend it as a vacation spot.”

“You okay?” Kynan asked, his voice low, gaze serious.

Arik was tired of that question. There’d been way too much doom and gloom and are you okay.

“Couldn’t be better.”

“Runa wants to see you. Said you aren’t returning her calls.”

“Been busy.” Busy avoiding her.

Ky got the hint and didn’t push the issue. Decker didn’t either, took a swig of beer and changed directions, bless his little ole redneck heart. “So… what possessed you to kiss a Horseman and earn yourself a ride on the long black train?”

Man, sometimes Decker needed a translator. “Long black train?”

Kynan beaned Decker with his bottle cap. “It’s from one of Decker’s country songs he forces me to listen to. Something about a train to hell.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no train. Just big, thorny arms.” Arik shut down that memory and downed the rest of his beer.

“Well?” Decker tossed him another cold one. “Why’d you do it? I didn’t think you swung that way.”

“I kissed the female Horseman, you idiot. I’m not gay.”

“Duh. I know you’re not gay.” Decker propped himself up on an elbow. “I was talking about supernaturals. I didn’t think you walked on that side of the tracks.”

Kynan snorted. “Train metaphors aside, if you saw Limos, you’d walk there too, Deck.”

Arik sighed. “You two meatheads here for a reason?”

“You have something better to do?” Kynan asked.

“No, but you didn’t come here to bring me beer and sit around taking up space. So you’re either here to gauge my mental fitness, or you’re here to bring me up to speed on Aegis and R-XR shit. Which is it?”

“Both,” Decker admitted, falling into pro mode. He came across as a big, slow hick at times, but Arik wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t an act. The guy was sharp as a stang blade at times.

Arik sat forward in his chair. “What’s up?”

Kynan kicked his booted feet up on the desk. “When you were with Limos, did she give you any information about her agimortus?”

Arik filled them in on the stuff about the Isfet demons, which was all new to Kynan. “Damn,” he breathed. “All we’ve had to go on are the lines in the Daemonica. A Horseman, should he drink from the Cup of Deception and Lies, will loose Famine to ravage the earth. Did she give you anything about Thanatos?”

“They’ve been tight-lipped about him,” Arik muttered. “The world is screwed. Unless you brilliant minds have come up with some sort of plan while I’ve been at Disneyland.” Kynan and Decker exchanged glances, and Arik got a bad feeling in the base of his gut. “What? What are you guys not telling me?”

“Did Limos give you any insight into Thanatos and his… ah…” Kynan trailed off as if looking for the right word, which was strange, because the guy rarely beat around the bush.

Decker rolled his eyes. “What do you know about his sex life?”

Arik froze with his beer an inch from his lips. “His sex life?”

“Yeah. You know, what’s he into? Men? Kinky shit? Dangerous shit? Or is he like you and all vanilla?” Decker delivered the last bit with a teasing smirk.

As if he was one to talk. The dude had dated the same sweet, missionary-only girl since high school until last year when he couldn’t take lying to her about his job anymore, and broke up with her. It had come down to keep lying or leave the R-XR. Decker had chosen his career, and Arik couldn’t blame him. Now was not a good time to lay down weapons, for sure.

“Do I look like I’m the guy’s confessor? How the hell should I know what he’s into? And why are you asking?” Arik eyed the two males, who were squirming like schoolboys who’d been caught with their hands down their pants.

“Because we sent Regan to seduce him.”

Arik choked on his beer. “Regan?” he wheezed. “She’s got the feminine wiles of a rabid cactus.”

Decker frowned. “I don’t think cacti can contract rabies.”

Kynan shot Decker an are-you-kidding-me look before turning back to Arik. “Listen, this has to be kept between us. It doesn’t leave this room. Only a handful of Elders know.”

Still floored, Arik sighed. “Okay, I give. Thanatos said you’d sent her, but he thinks it’s because The Aegis wants to fill in historical blanks or something. Why did you send her to sleep with the guy?”

“Because we need her to get pregnant,” Kynan said.

Arik blinked. Hard. “I… don’t think I heard you right.”

“Yeah, you did,” Decker said, his voice going all sorrowful Eeyore. “Fucking sucks, too, cuz I think she might have been sweet on me.”

Kynan drained his beer, and then he explained the situation, which amounted to prophecy, blah, blah, immortal child saving the world, blah, blah, from Death comes life, blah, blah, and a whole lot of buzzing in Arik’s ears because most of what Kynan was saying didn’t compute.

Regan the ice queen was sacrificing herself to bed a Horseman, while Arik couldn’t bed the one he wanted to.

He was about to ask Decker to toss him another beer when Kynan’s cell rang, and at the same time, Decker’s went off. Outside, klaxons blared in shrill alarm.

Decker peeled the curtain away from the window. “We’re under attack. Fuck. How the hell could demons get on base? It’s warded.”

“Son of a—” The sound of gunfire joined shouts and screams, but the soldiers would have no way of knowing that bullets were useless against most demons.

The highest ranking officers on base were in the know about demons, but for the most part, the soldiers here weren’t aware of the existence of underworld creatures. All the soldiers were doiniere kg was angering the demons with their piddly little bullets.

Arik tore open the door as the demon horde swarmed toward the dorms.

“We are so fucked,” Decker muttered, even as he reached under his jacket for a stang. Kynan did the same, tossing one to Arik.

“You guys ready?” Ky said.

Arik tested the gold end of the S-shaped blade, drawing blood on his thumb. “Let’s send these fuckers back to hell, where they belong.”

Limos, Ares, and Thanatos gated themselves right into hell on earth. Literally.

Thousands of demons swarmed Arik’s military base, ripping through the soldiers as if they were made of tissue paper. Gunfire and screams filled the air, and the cloying scent of blood and bowels churned in Limos’s nostrils. Guiding Bones with her knees, she cut down demons as she searched for Arik, while Ares’s great sword cleaved bodies in half. Thanatos’s long-handled scythe sliced heads from shoulders.

Bones, who viewed every battle as an all-you-can-eat buffet, bit the head off some smallish thorny creature and chomped down on it like a normal horse would eat an apple.

“There!” Thanatos pointed toward a huge, boxy building where Kynan, Arik, and a blond male were slashing at their attackers with stangs and daggers. The fighting was bloody, dirty, and Arik, in his black BDUs, was death on legs. His movements were purposeful, economical, and with a few spins, slashes, and kicks, he’d laid out six huge demons like they were scarecrows. The boy could fight.

So. Hot.

Then the tide changed. A duo of fallen angels flashed into the fight from nowhere and tag-teamed Arik, one slamming him to the ground while the other zapped him with some sort of power that had him convulsing, blood shooting from his nose.

Limos had had it up to her chin with fucking fallen angels. She hadn’t made Sartael suffer enough, but she’d make up for that now.

With a roar, Limos charged, kicking Bones into a dead run. They bowled over demons and humans alike, and she didn’t care. No one hurt her male.

Her male. There was no use in denying it any longer. She’d viewed Arik as hers since the first kiss. He’d been right, and he’d called her on it; she’d wanted that kiss. She’d wanted him. And Limos had always considered what she wanted to be hers.

Bones smashed into one of the fallen angels, crushing him beneath his hooves as he tore at its wings with his teeth. Limos was a whirl of blades as she leaped from the stallion’s back and made the remaining fallen angel bleed from two dozen wounds before he even knew what hit him.

Gunfire rang out at close range, and Bones screamed, rearing up and splashing blood from a baseball-sized hole in his side. It healed almost instantly, but she knew it hurt like hot hell. A bullet pll.scringed off her armor, and dammit, the stupid humans couldn’t tell friend from foe. Arik came to his feet, his eyes blazing with fury. At first, Limos thought the anger was directed at her, but when he charged at a soldier whose M-16 was trained on her… well, she melted a little.

Another set of fallen angels interrupted her mushy appreciation at Arik’s defense of her, one hitting Kynan so hard against the side of the building that when he crumpled to the ground, his arm was skewed in an unnatural angle, the end of the broken bone jutting out of his skin.

“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.