Eternal Rider (44 page)

Tension flared in the sudden silence. “There’s a way out of this,” he began, as he twined his fingers with hers. “There’s a way to ensure my Seal can’t be broken until one of the others is. If I kill you with this dagger, my Seal remains intact, and Pestilence will have no way to turn me.”

“Until another Seal breaks.” Cara didn’t hesitate. “Kill me.”

Ares stepped back. “No,” he whispered desperately. “I can’t.”

“You have to.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “You know you do. Ares, I’m dying. It’s happening. You have a chance to stop the Apocalypse, or at least delay it while you find a way to stop your brother.”

“Cara…”

“But not here. Take me home. And make love to me one last time.”

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Yeah.”

Pestilence was seriously pissed off. Funny how, when he’d been Reseph, he’d rarely gotten angry. Oh, no one wanted to be around when he finally did blow his stack, but it didn’t happen often. Reseph had been such a…
insert something wimpy here,
because Pestilence was too pissed off to come up with anything clever or even crass.

He looked down at the bodies at his feet—three of his
minions who had allowed Ares and the human whore to escape. One of them had dared blame Pestilence… he was missing a few organs, unlike the others, who had merely suffered broken necks.

“The best leaders don’t terrorize their underlings.” Harvester nudged one of the bodies with her foot while looking pointedly at Pestilence. “Ares always had the respect of his army. And their loyalty.”

Steam built in his skull at her taunt. Fucking Harvester. Fucking Ares. How he wanted both of them to suffer. For now, though, he would have to be patient. Casually, he pushed off the post he was leaning against and stared at the bloody battle taking place in the pit below. The hellhound pup was ripping into a
khnive
, a creature about the size of the hound, but resembling a skinned opossum. The
khnive’s
claws raked the hellhound, tearing a massive gash in its side. It was a blow delivered in desperation, and the
khnive
gave a final, gasping breath as it bled out through a gaping throat wound.

“Don’t give the hound time to heal. Throw something else in there. Something big.”

At his side, David, his Aegis spy-slash-gofer, nodded, his glazed eyes bouncing in his head. “Yes, my lord.”

Pestilence rolled the vial of saliva they’d extracted from the hellhound between his palms. “Have you arranged for the venom delivery device?”

David dug a small metal ball out of his pocket. “The warlock assured me that once it’s filled with the hound’s saliva, it will be a potent weapon against your brother.”

That was the first bit of good news he’d had in weeks. “Any chatter from The Aegis?”

“Deliverance has been found.”

Sucking in a harsh breath, Pestilence swung around. “Are you certain?”

“I overheard my father talking about it.”

“It’s true,” Harvester said. “And it has been modified by The Aegis. If Ares uses it to kill Cara, all hope for breaking his Seal is gone.”

A trickle of sweat dripped down Pestilence’s temple. “How long have you known about this modification?”

“Centuries. But it was forbidden to tell you until it was found.”

Of course. Fucking Watcher rules. And now, if Ares killed Cara with the damned thing, it could be months, even years before he was able to break Limos’s or Than’s Seals, since he hadn’t found Limos’s yet, and Than seemed determined to hold on to his.

Pestilence needed that dagger.

Still rolling the vial in his palm, he carefully considered his options, and a plan began to form in his mind. “David, when I found you, you were pathetic. Hoping The Aegis would forgive you, that your father would love you again. You know that won’t happen. You know you belong here with me, and that with me, you will receive rewards you never dreamed possible.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Pestilence wasn’t sure how much agreement was the real David and how much came from the fact that Pestilence had borrowed his soul and left the human nothing more than a refillable vessel.

He’d brought a lot of humans to his side that way, and it was a great tradeoff for both of them. He sucked out their souls to give him more power, and evil filled the hole where their souls used to be, which gave them more
strength and stamina than they’d had before. They could also use Harrowgates, which meant they could travel anywhere, any time.

Yes, most handy.

“Then, David, I have a mission for you.” He threw his arm around the human’s shoulders and walked him toward the Harrowgate, leaving Harvester to watch the hellhound fight. “There will probably be some pain involved, but afterward, you will be greatly rewarded.” Assuming David didn’t die, of course. He really hoped not. He hadn’t been able to turn any other Aegi so far, and he’d found David to be quite useful.

“Just tell me what I need to do.”

Pestilence smiled. “Let’s plan.”

Ares didn’t allow Cara’s feet to touch the floor. He carried her from the cubicle at the weird demon hospital all the way to his bedroom at his house. Limos and Thanatos had tried to follow, but Ares had snapped something harsh in a language she didn’t know, and his brother and sister had backed off. And though things had been tense while they’d argued about Pestilence, she’d seen pain and sadness in Ares’s siblings’ eyes as Ares carried her through the Harrowgate.

There was a lot of love there, and she knew Limos and Thanatos would be at the house soon. Maybe they wouldn’t come inside, but they’d be waiting outside for Ares.

They’d be there for him after Cara died.

Cara wrapped her arms around his neck, reveling in the security of being in his strong arms. But she couldn’t
resist a token protest. “I can walk, you know.” Whatever the second demon with the glowy arm had done had given her a boost of energy that was just freakish.

“But if you walked, I’d miss out on holding you.”

Both warmth and sadness washed over her, and she held tighter as he crossed the threshold into his bedroom.

“My lord…” The hesitant voice came from behind them, and Ares looked over his shoulder.

“What is it, Vulgrim?”

“Can I bring you anything?”

“No,” he said softly. “But I want you to make it very clear that I’m not to be disturbed. For anything. Not even the end of the world.”

The demon bowed. “Yes, sir.”

“And Vulgrim? Never bow to me again. You’re family, not staff.”

The demon shot Ares and Cara a look of surprise, and then one corner of his mouth tipped up. “Yes, sir.” He strode away, and Cara swore there was a little extra spring in his hooved step.

“Torrent looked so much like him,” she murmured. Just days ago she had thought the Ramreels all looked alike, but now she recognized their individuality, from the slightly different shapes of their broad noses, to the kinks and striations in their horns and the varying shades of their fur.

“I know.” He carried her to the bed, where slowly, reverently, he stripped her of the scrubs the demons had given her to wear home, and then she watched as he peeled out of his own clothes. He started to lower himself onto the bed, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Just let me look at you for a second.”

His mouth opened and closed, a pink blush rising up on his cheeks. With a nod, he stood up, his full, impressive height towering over her. Her mouth watered… literally watered, as she took him in. His muscles, so magnificently sculpted, were too perfect to be believed, and as she reached out to slide her palms over his pecs, she knew that even if they’d had centuries together, she’d never have tired of touching them.

With a soft moan of appreciation, she dragged her hand down to his abs, smiling at the roll of his eight-pack as they flexed under her caress. His cock, which had been flaccid only a moment ago, begin to swell, but she didn’t go any lower. Not yet.

“Turn around,” she whispered, surprising herself with the husky inflection in her voice.

“Cara, you should be lying down—”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t treat me like I’m an invalid.” She wanted him to remember her with strength, not as some helpless, frail sickling who was just waiting to die after he serviced her one last time. She would give as good as she got. “Don’t hold anything back from me. Promise.”

His throat convulsed, the tendons in his neck straining. “Yeah. Yeah, I promise.” In a graceful flow of motion, he turned around, and her brain short-circuited.

Nice. Ass
. Amused at how her fingers flexed involuntarily, she went up on her knees and eased the length of her body against him, planting her hands on his broad shoulders so she could caress at her leisure. The sound of his breath heaving out of his lungs blended with the distant crash of the waves, and she wished they could be out in those tidal surges, letting the water cool them as their bodies made heat.

So much time wasted, she thought, as she opened her mouth against the back of his neck. His skin tasted like salt and man, smelled like leather and spice. He groaned when she nipped him near a puckered scar and then soothed the spot with a lap of her tongue.

“Why the scars?” she asked, as she trailed her finger over a thin line. “Don’t you heal completely?”

“They’re from injuries before my curse.”

She kissed one. Then another. “Touch yourself,” she murmured against his skin, and he groaned again, his head falling back as the flex of muscles in his right biceps told her he’d obeyed. She pictured his big hand around his shaft, wondered if he liked to take long, slow strokes, or shorter ones that concentrated near the head. Well, she’d find out in a minute. First, she had some touching of her own to do.

Her heart raced, thudding so hard in her chest that she suspected Ares could feel it on his spine. Heat radiated from him, scorching her skin and making her burn all the way to her core. She smoothed her hands down his arms, loving the contraction of his muscles as he stroked his erection. The bed creaked as she scooted back a couple of inches so she could slide her hands down his back, and again, the roll of his firm flesh as he worked himself was a thing of beauty.

When her palms cupped his buttocks, he let out an erotic growl that sent a rush of liquid heat between her legs.

“You’re ready for me.” His voice was guttural, sexy, and she grew even wetter.

She licked between his shoulder blades. “How do you know?”

“My mother was a sex demon. I’m attuned to desire.”

Why had he not mentioned the desire thing before? How many sensual tricks did he have up his sleeve from
that
kind of inheritance? Oh, her imagination could go wild.

She shifted, letting her tongue trail down Ares’s spine, all the while enjoying the way his breathing grew more shallow the lower she went and the more deeply she kneaded the incredibly firm muscles of his butt and thighs. When her mouth reached the small of his back, he tensed. And when she planted an open-mouthed kiss on his right ass-cheek, he froze up completely.

“Woman, what are you doing?”

“Biting you.” She sank her teeth into the place she’d kissed, and the sound that came out of him, a cross between a purr and a growl, punctuated by a gasp, made her shiver in delight. “What? No one has bitten your ass before?”

“I’ll admit it’s a first.”