Eternal Rider (32 page)

Cara leaped to her feet, put herself between the two-thousand-pound warhorse and the iron cage.

“
No!”
Ares’s shout came out in a deep, horrified rumble as Battle came down hard enough to make the ground tremble.

He’d stopped mere inches from crushing Cara. She stood there, not even flustered, and took Battle’s face in her hands. The horse calmed immediately, but Ares was shaking like a leaf, and his fear morphed abruptly into anger.

“Goddammit,” he snapped. “What the fuck were you thinking, Cara? He could have killed you.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.” She glared at him while stroking Battle’s cheeks. “Obviously, I’m fine.”

The Guardians shrunk back, twitchy fingers poised over their weapons. Great. They now thought he was not only incompetent, but an asshole as well. Snarling, he held out his arm. “Battle, to me.”

The horse let out a furious whinny that lingered in the air even after he’d settled on Ares’s skin.

“That,” Cara huffed, “was unnecessary.”

“No,” he ground out, “it wasn’t. When you released the mongrel, there would have been trouble.”

“I could have handled it.”

“
I
handled it. Now let’s do this.” He turned to the Guardians. “You had best watch from inside the house.”

They retreated, and he gave Cara the go-ahead. “Lever on top should open the cage.” Casually, he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, even though he couldn’t injure the animal for fear of affecting Cara.

She gave the lever a shove, and the door rattled open. The hellhound bounded out, pounced, and took Cara to the ground. Ares’s heart jammed into his throat, but when Cara let out a delighted squeal and the dog bathed her face in sloppy kisses, it became clear that there was no danger here. No danger to her, anyway.

Hal lifted his head momentarily to peel back his lips in a silent warning aimed at Ares, and Ares returned it, hoping his hatred came across loud and clear. Dealing with this bastard was not going to be fun.

“Cara, let’s go. I don’t like you being this exposed.”

She told Hal to let her up, and he tore off across the lawn. “He needs to run. Maybe we could walk to the gate instead of ride? Give him a chance to stretch his legs?”

“Cara—”

“Please?”

It went against his better judgment, but Cara had been through so much, with little of it in her control, that he could do this one thing for her, he supposed.

Two heartbeats later, his own words, barked out at soldiers, rang through Ares’s head like a death knell.
Never let a woman sway you. Never. Or I promise you’ll regret it
.

Cara and Ares strolled across the grounds toward the gate, his pace purposeful, hers more leisurely, and he kept having to slow down and wait for her. But dammit, this was the first time she’d felt a little normal in days, and walking across a huge expanse of grass while Hal bounded around chasing birds just felt good. Relaxing, even.

“Why don’t you like hellhounds?” she asked, and Ares let out a soft growl.

“I don’t not like them.” Even loaded down with armor and weapons, he moved like a predator down the drive, his sharp eyes in constant motion, nostrils flaring as though seeking the scent of danger. “I hate them with every cell in my body.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

He swung around to her, his big body pulsing with menace, but she was instinctively aware that his mood wasn’t directed at her. “One of them killed my brother and sons.”

“How awful.” A lump clogged her throat, and she had to swallow a couple of times before she could speak. “What did you do?”

“I chased that motherfucker through the centuries. Slaughtered some of his packmates, but never managed to kill him. Eventually, he and his pack got one up on me, paralyzed me with a bite, and then spent days eating me alive.”

Oh, God. “They…
ate
you?”

“Thanks to my ability to regenerate, yes. I fed them well, and I felt every bite. When one of them ripped my leg off at the hip joint, I couldn’t even pass out from the agony. And then I got to watch them gnaw on it, right beside my head.”

Nausea bubbled up in her throat. She couldn’t imagine Hal, that sweet puppy who was rolling around in the grass, doing that.

“Yeah, he’d do it,” Ares said, somehow knowing what she was thinking. “He’s just a pup, but when he’s full grown, he’ll be as big as a damned buffalo with an appetite for cruelty to match his size.”

“Like the one who attacked you at your house? Hal’s sire?”

“Hal’s sire is the very hound who killed my sons and brother.”

Oh…
damn
. “Hal… he wouldn’t… I mean, look at him.”

Hal leaped into the air, his jaws snapping as he caught a bird he’d flushed. The poor bird was gone in an instant, an explosion of feathers floating around Hal’s head.

“Sure,” Ares said wryly. “Look at him.”

“Bad dog,” she scolded. Hal wagged his tail and cocked his head, all flopping ears and drool. How could a
puppy like him become the demon beast Ares was talking about?

Ares snorted. “Just wait until he’s catching people instead.”

“Is that…” She swallowed sickly. “Is that what they eat?”

“Not usually. They’re Sheoul-dwellers. They rarely travel to the human realm unless they’re summoned or brought here.”

“So he can travel back and forth? Do his hunting in Sheoul?”

Ares inclined his head in a brisk nod. “They don’t need Harrowgates, and usually they’re invisible to humans when they’re aboveground. He might be invisible now, in fact. We can see him because we’re part of the supernatural world.”

She trailed her fingers over her chest, feeling the raised lines of the new mark through her sweatshirt. “Because of this.”

“And the bond to Hal.” His gaze dropped to where she was rubbing the marking, and the energy coming off him shifted from menacing to erotic.

Back at Than’s place, he’d said he felt things he shouldn’t. That he wanted to keep her alive for more reasons than protecting his Seal. And that he wanted to throw her down and take her until they were exhausted.

She shouldn’t want any of that. Well, maybe the sex. Opening her heart up again could be a colossal mistake. But every time she caught a glimpse of the man behind the sword, every time he wrapped her in his protective arms, it tapped into the part of her that wanted to be cared for and kept safe. Ares knew about her ability, knew what
she’d done with it, and he didn’t treat her like she was a freak, and that alone scored him a lot of points.

“What is this, Ares?” She probably shouldn’t have asked, but she’d never been good at subtlety, and with all the uncertainty in her life right now, she wanted to be clear on this, at least. “I can’t read your signals, and I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m a warrior.”

“Yes, I know who you say you are, but why do you say that? Are you a warrior by birth? By choice? By circumstance?”

“All of the above.” He cocked his head toward the exit. “We should go.”

She grabbed his wrist, and he stiffened, but he didn’t shake her off. “When were you born?”

“Dammit, Cara, we don’t have time for this.” The words were angry, but he let out a long-suffering sigh, and she knew she had him. For a moment, at least.

“Humor me. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Give me this.”

One eyebrow arched. “The orgasms weren’t enough?”

A pleasant fluttering filled her belly. “Women like pillow talk to go with them, and you denied me that.”

“I at least got you a pillow.” At her flat stare, he rolled his eyes. “I was born around the thirty-second century bc.”

“Did you know what you were?”

He looked up at the gray sky. “For twenty-eight years I thought I was human. My demon mother snatched human babies out of their cribs and replaced them with us. She used some sort of enchantment to arrange for our human parents to name us what she’d chosen.”

“What happened to the babies she stole?”

He hesitated. “You don’t want to know.”

No, she probably didn’t. “Where did you grow up?”

“Egypt.” He looked past her at Hal, his gaze sharpening with hate. “Now, we’re going.”

Pretending she didn’t hear him, she continued. “You had kids. Did you have a wife?”

“I’ve humored you for too long as it is—” He whirled so suddenly she yelped. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

Cara heard the crunch of gravel, as a man peered around the estate’s iron gate. “I-I’m David. I’m a Guardian.”

A deep, rumbling growl came from behind her as Hal, crouching flat on the ground, eased up to them. She dropped her hand to his head, soothing him with her touch. “It’s okay, Hal. Shh.” The last thing they needed was the hound tearing apart one of The Aegis’s demon slayers.

Ares took her hand and led her to the road. Hal followed, though his ears were still back, and his teeth were bared in a silent snarl. The Guardian wisely backed away, hands up.

The moment they stepped outside the Aegis property, the forest erupted to life. A scream caught in Cara’s throat as creatures appeared from out of the woods, out of the ground, and out of thin air.

In a graceful surge, Ares simultaneously drew his sword and threw open a Harrowgate. “Cara, go!” He leaped and spun, taking off a demon’s head as she scrambled toward the opening.

Something wrapped around her throat and jerked her backward. Gasping, she reached up to yank on the rope, digging in her heels as a gray-skinned demon reeled her
toward him. A flash of black fur, teeth, and claws sailed past her, and the demon who had captured her screamed as Hal tore him apart.

“Cara!” A creepy demon with hooks for hands swung at Ares, one hook burying itself in his armor. Ares fell backward as he struck out with a dagger. It didn’t even scratch the creature. “Your presence is—” He broke off to slam his fist into another demon’s flat face. “—Affecting my ability to fight.”

She made a run for the gate, but two feet from the entrance, a green-skinned, scaly demon tackled her. She hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs. Fire replaced air as she struggled to breathe, and then terror iced down her blood at the sight of a wicked, serrated blade slicing in a downward arc toward her throat.

A roar blasted through the air, and then Ares was there, his foot smashing into the demon’s head. The blade flew out of his clawed hand, and Cara rolled out from under the now-bloody demon. She grabbed the dagger, shoved it upward as another demon swung at her. It caught the spindly creature in the gut. It screeched and fell, and another replaced it. Once more, Ares took the demon’s head off, and if that was how he fought while handicapped, she couldn’t imagine what he could do normally.

Hal ripped into another demon that launched itself at her, and blue blood splattered on the ground. A rain of arrows fell, and she looked up at Guardians running toward them, some firing crossbows and others wielding bladed weapons.

“Gate!” Ares shouted, and yes, she was trying. In the midst of the bloodbath, she crawled, finally reached the shimmering curtain of light, and went through.

She came out on Ares’s Greek island. Hal followed, landing on top of her. He was covered in blood, and she immediately put her hands on him, seeking injuries. He had a few minor cuts, and without even summoning her ability, it flashed hot and channeled into him. She hissed in both surprise and brief pain as Ares’s staff came running, and how crazy was it that demons were coming at her, and all she could feel was relief?

“Cara!” Limos ran toward her, still in her armor. “Where’s Ares?”

Cara pushed to her feet. “Demons attacked us. He’s fighting them—”

“Okay, let’s get you inside.” She grabbed Cara’s arm, and Hal let out a vicious snarl. Dancing aside, Limos went for the dagger at her hip.

“No!” Cara seized Limos’s hand. “Don’t provoke him. Hal, it’s okay. Be good. These are friends.”

A blast of annoyance came off him, but he stopped growling.
Where are we?

“Safe,” she replied, blinked when she realized she’d understood him. Just like in the dreams. “This is Ares’s island.”