“You don’t seem surprised to be talking to an angel.”
“I’m sitting in a room with the second Horseman of the Apocalypse.” She’d made out with the second Horseman of the Apocalypse.
“Good point.” His shrewd gaze flickered over her, and she got the feeling he was looking right inside her. “How much of your situation have they explained to you?”
“You mean, that my death will bring about the end of the world, and I probably only have a few days to live if we don’t find a fallen angel?”
Reaver dragged his hand through his hair. “Yeah. That. Do you know that even if you’re able to transfer the agimortus to a fallen angel, you’re still bonded to a hellhound? Which means you’re stuck in our world? You can’t exactly go back to living with humans when your dog is the size of a hippo and is capable of eating your neighbors.”
“He doesn’t have to live with me, does he?”
“No, but you can’t predict when he’ll pop in to see you. The bond is powerful. He won’t want to be far from you.”
Okay, she hadn’t thought that far ahead. There was no point, not when she barely knew what was going to happen in the next hour, let alone the next week or next month. Reaver reached out and absently toyed with one of the pieces on the chessboard.
“Ares will take care of you. But keep in mind that he is a Horseman. If his Seal breaks, he will be the very definition of evil. And even now, he has an inborn need to win any challenge, no matter how minor, and no matter what the cost.”
She’d noticed his competitive nature, for sure. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that he doesn’t have a sense of fair play.” Reaver flicked his fingers and leveled all the chess pieces. “He follows no rules, because to him, the end result is what matters—not how you get there.”
A tremor of unease went through her. “And you’re telling me this, why?”
“Because you need to be prepared to do the same. If you want to survive, you may need to make sacrifices and do things you never thought you’d do. Things that go against everything you’ve ever believed.” His tone was dark, ominous, all the more frightening because it came from a being she had always associated with a soft… goodness. As if he knew what she was thinking, he took her hand. “Angels are warriors, and some of us, like me, are what you might think of as Special Ops. We play on the side of good, but make no mistake—we are soldiers, and we’ll do what we have to in order to win.”
“You… kill?”
“There is very little we won’t do in the fight against evil.”
She swallowed. “So you have no rules either?”
Reaver’s sudden laughter had a deep, uplifting bell-tone quality to it. “We have rules. Oh, we have lots of rules.”
Ares approached, and Reaver shot her a wink as he stood. “Kynan texted the coordinates to the hellhound. We can go as soon as I hear from Li or Than.”
“I’m being summoned anyway,” Reaver said. “I’ll be in touch.” He punched Ares in the shoulder, and in the next instant, was gone.
Cara blinked, feeling a little loopy, as though she’d just gotten off a carnival ride. “I have to say… he’s not what I expected of an angel.”
Ares laughed. She loved it when he did that. “What did you expect?”
“That maybe they’d be a little more… rigid. Or righteous.”
Ares snorted. “He’s not like other angels. They all have superiority complexes and sticks up their holy asses. Reaver’s different. Probably because he spent some time as a fallen angel.”
“Really? He fell? And he was able to go back?”
“An angel can fall, but if he doesn’t enter Sheoul, he can be redeemed. But once a fallen angel enters Sheoul, he becomes irreversibly evil. Reaver earned his way back into Heaven by helping save the world not long ago.”
Not long ago? She wasn’t even going to ask.
One of those gate things opened up behind him, and a massive black horse leaped out—but it was like no horse Cara had ever seen. Its eyes glowed red, its teeth were more like fangs, and its hooves scorched the floor. Limos, her armor splashed with blood, was in the saddle, expertly guiding the stallion with her knees. Gone was the ultrafeminine beach-girl, and suddenly, Cara saw the warrior she was.
“Get Cara out of here,” she yelled. “Than’s coming.”
Ares took Cara’s hand in his and tugged her against his hard body. “What happened?”
“Reseph. Fucking as**ole started a plague in Slovenia that’s mowing people down by the thousands, almost instantaneously.” Her stallion danced beneath her, as agitated as its master. “Something else is going on in that area. I can sense need and desperation, but I can’t pinpoint it.”
“I’ve felt something similar,” Ares said gravely, and Cara wondered if that was why he’d been wound so tight. Then again, he seemed like the type that was always a bowstring waiting to be released. “Was Pestilence there?”
“And Harvester. She was feeding on the dying.” Limos’s eyes flashed like hot amethysts. “Reseph was—” Her gaze flickered to Cara. “It was bad.”
Cara looked between the two. “Who is Harvester?”
“Our other Watcher. Reaver’s evil counterpart.” Limos made a sound of disgust. “She’s a major bitch.”
Another gate opened, and Thanatos, on his dun horse, stormed through. Jesus, he looked like something out of a horror movie… teeth bared, nostrils flaring, veins bulging in his throat and temple. The shadows that sometimes surrounded him had taken form, were circling, mouths gaping. One broke from the pack and shot toward her with an earsplitting screech.
Ares threw out his hand, opened a gate, and dragged her through it. She now understood why Thanatos was Death.
He’d had murder in his eyes.
The place Ares instinctively fled to when he needed a quick escape was his island. Specifically, the cliff where he’d taken Cara the first time he’d grabbed her.
“What was that all about?” Cara took a step back from the cliff, her eyes wild as she looked down at the rocks below.
Ares moved closer to the edge, putting his body between it and Cara. “When Thanatos is exposed to mass-casualty, he… changes.”
“Like how violence excites you?” She inhaled harshly. “Sorry.”
Shit. Not a comfortable conversation. “Yeah. Like that. He needs to kill.”
“What are those shadows?”
Ares looked out over the water, focusing on a fishing boat. That was the difference between him and Cara: He got up in danger’s grille but looked beyond. She backed away from danger but kept her eyes on it. “They’re souls.”
“As in… souls?”
“His armor collects them. Every time he kills a demon, human, or animal, the soul is sucked into his armor.”
Her horror penetrated his own softened armor. “Oh, my God. They’re trapped with him?”
“For a time. When he gets angry or goes into battle, or if he calls them out, they have a shot at freedom, but only if they kill something.”
“Does the victim’s soul replace the shadow after it earns its freedom?”
“No.”
“Can he get different armor?”
Ares shook his head. “None of us can. It’s part of us, like our horses and our curses.”
“What’s Limos’s curse?”
Ares turned to Cara, his breath catching at the sight of her standing there in the breeze, her lips rosy, her silky hair blowing around her shoulders. It was hard to believe she’d lifted his heavy ass off the ground, especially given the dark crescents under her eyes. She looked exhausted, and at the same time, so very alive that he had to remind himself she was dying, no matter how strong she appeared to be.
They die. You love them, and then they die. That’s what’s going to happen to you, Cara. You’re going to die, and then I’m going to— God, he couldn’t believe he’d lost it like that. He never exposed himself, but Cara had dismantled his defenses, and he wondered how much of it was due to his proximity to the agimortus, and how much of it was just… her.
He had to clear his throat to continue. “Limos becomes a danger to herself. When she’s drawn to famine of any kind—a lack of food, medicines, water—she falls into a deep depression and becomes self-destructive.” It had always taken Reseph to get her out of it.
“And Reseph?”
“He was drawn to disease, plague. He would… become that disease. In order to rid himself of it, he had to kill someone with it. If he didn’t, he’d spread the disease wherever he went. Now that he’s Pestilence, he can cause whatever disease he wants, more potent and faster-spreading than its natural counterpart.” His cell buzzed, and he checked it, cursed at the note from Kynan.
Where are you? You’d think Horsemen would be a little more prompt.
Hard to believe, but Aegi had actually gotten more annoying over the centuries.
Smiling tightly, he took Cara’s hand. “You ready to do this?”
“Yep.” Cara’s big eyes took him in… she looked like that damned Puss-in-Boots cat in Shrek, all cute and heart-melting. The way she’d looked when she’d told him that she saw more in him than a killing machine. But how could she? No one had seen him as more than that. Even Ares’s sons had looked up to him as a great warrior they wanted to be like when they grew up.
He made a disgusted noise. As much as he really wanted to take her in his arms, he couldn’t. They were at war, and she still needed a lot of toughening up if she was to survive. You’re one to talk. You’re softening as much as your armor when she’s around.
“Ares,” Cara said, just as he opened his mouth to summon Battle. “Who did you lose?”
“What?”
“You said humans die.” She squeezed his hand, might as well have squeezed his breath out of his lungs. “Who died?”
Damn her. He didn’t want to answer, but words spilled out of his mouth. “My wife. My brother. My two sons.” When those Puss-in-Boots eyes went liquid, he ended it, right then and there. “Don’t you pity me. Don’t you dare.”
Her chin came up. “Don’t you tell me how to feel.”
Okay, so he wanted her to toughen up, but her bravery might just veer into foolhardy territory with the wrong person. “You know I could crush you.”
“I know you won’t.”
“Why, because I need to protect you?”
“No.” She poked him in the breastplate. “Because you gave me a pillow.”
He blinked. This female’s logic was whacked, as Reseph would have said. “You’re gambling your life on a pillow?”
“I don’t doubt that you’ll do what you have to do to save the world. You’ll make hard choices. But you don’t grab a pillow for someone you would have no problem killing.” She snagged his wrist and flicked her finger over the lines that defined Battle’s flank, and Ares sucked air at the sensation of his h*ps and ass being caressed. “You going to let him out or not?”
On his arm, Battle kicked, as if hearing her. Shit. “Battle, out.”
Battle appeared, and wouldn’t you know, instead of nudging Ares in greeting, he nuzzled Cara. “Hey, buddy,” she purred, and the stallion rubbed against her even more. Stupid horse.
“Come on,” Ares growled. “Cara, I’ll help you up—”
Battle kneeled. He f**king kneeled. Cara shot Ares a taunting grin and climbed into the saddle. Battle went back up on his hooves, and as Cara scooted forward, Ares swore Battle smiled, too.
Muttering obscenities, Ares swung up onto the horse, wrapped one arm around Cara’s waist, and opened a Harrowgate. “I’m going to materialize a few blocks from the coordinates.” He inhaled, took in her clean, floral scent, and instantly, his body reacted in a way that only happened when he was heading into a conflict. His heart pounded, his adrenaline surged, and damn, he wanted to throw down with her. If I want to have sex, it’s not your place to tell me I can’t handle it. He stifled a miserable groan. “I don’t want to leap into a trap. I also want Battle available if there’s trouble.”
Especially since being this close to Cara meant that his armor and weapons would be all but useless. Sort of like his brain.
“Trouble?”
She was trouble. “I don’t trust Aegi. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find Pestilence lurking.”
“You have a real fun family, you know that? I thought mine was odd.”
Battle started toward the gate, but Ares tugged on the reins. She’d said she was alone, with no one to care if she lived or died. Why had he not asked about family before? Maybe because he was a callous bastard who’d forgotten what it was like to be human.
“I thought you said you had no family.”
“My mom died of cancer when I was young, and my dad passed away a couple of years ago.” Cara twisted around so she could see him, her eyes taking on the color of the water around his island, and he wanted to dive in. “I have an older stepsister from my dad’s second marriage, but we fought a lot, and I haven’t seen her or my stepmom since the funeral.”
“And you said you don’t have a boyfriend?”
“If I had, you wouldn’t have touched me in the shower.”
Inexplicably pleased by that, he urged Battle into the Harrowgate. The stallion stepped out into a foggy evening that came straight out of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Fitting, seeing how they were fetching a hellhound. Car lights sped toward them, and Cara yelped.