Weakly, she pushed herself up. The Horseman’s yellow eyes were staring at her, his brows locked down in what she’d swear was confusion. Maybe he wasn’t used to the woman taking control. Too bad. The twenty-first century was going to suck for him, if that was the case.
She climbed awkwardly off him, her legs stiff, and tugged on her pants. “Well,” she said, as she pulled on her sweater, “that was fun, but I have to go.”
“You’re not leaving.” His voice was oddly hollow.
She shoved her feet into her boots. “Yeah, I am. I’m done with my research.” She zipped her bag, desperate to get out of there before she changed her mind and stayed. “If The Aegis needs anything else, they’ll send someone.”
“You aren’t leaving,” he repeated, this time with a lot more grouchiness. “And you’re going to release me.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I’d say I already released you.”
He stared at her, his brows cranking down in a puzzled scowl. Then, abruptly, something changed. A smoky shadow passed over his expression, and icy glints glittered like shards in his eyes. Even the very air crackled with danger.
“You… traitor.” His voice was low, warped with a deep-seated, startling rage. “You released nothing.”
Shocked to the core by his sudden mood swing, she stepped back. Clearly, they were not talking about the same kind of release here.
He shot a glare at the mead bottle. “And you drugged me.”
Drugged him? As if she’d sink to that just to have sex with him? “Look, you need to calm down, and I really have to go.”
“Wait.” His voice cracked like a whip, and it struck her as odd that as pissed as he was, he hadn’t gotten off the mattress. “You came here to seduce me, didn’t you?”
She affected her best insulted expression as she pulled on her parka. “I’m sure your ego would like to think so—”
“What did you do to me? How are you holding me like this?” When she blinked, baffled by pretty much every element of this conversation, he bit out a curse. “Your… gift. Your damned light is in my skin. How?”
Oh… oh, shit. It had released. “It… is it hurting you?”
“My souls are fighting it,” he growled. “They’re destroying it, and the second they do, I’m going to wring your neck.”
Well, that would be her cue to leave, then. She started for the door.
“Are you working with Pestilence?”
Jaw dropping, she wheeled back around. “You think I wanted sex with you so bad that I’d enlist your evil brother’s help? Wow, you really are an egomaniac.”
“Sex?” he roared, startling her into taking another step back. “That wasn’t sex. You tricked me. You drugged me and defiled me. Do you even know what you did?”
She thought her eyes might have popped out of her head. “Defiled you? Are you kidding me?”
“I told you no. I refused.” The tendons in his neck strained as he tried to lift his head. “You… violated…” His voice degenerated into a nasty growl. “You took my virginity.”
She laughed. Virginity. Surely he was joking.
His black expression said he wasn’t, but virginity? No way. Ridiculous.
No. Don’t do this. Regan! His pleas came back to her, ringing in her ears with deafening clarity. He’d told her to stop, but… no, he hadn’t meant it.
He couldn’t have meant it.
He lay there, chest still heaving, raw hatred gleaming in his eying in hes. A trickle of sweat rolled down her temple as she replayed every second of the sex. She’d thought his protests were token, but if he really had been drugged with the wine, and her ability had attacked him, holding him down while she… oh, God.
Her stomach rebelled, and she staggered out of the room. She ran blindly for the outside door, Thanatos’s furious shouts chasing her. She made it outside just in time, and she lost her dinner next to the snowmobile. Hot tears stung her eyes and freezing wind stung her cheeks as she fumbled in her pocket for her cell phone and keys. As quickly as she could, she sent an emergency text to Kynan and Val, and then she started up the snow machine with unsteady fingers.
She could still hear Than’s angry roar over the sound of the snowmobile’s motor. She’d probably hear it for the rest of her life.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Dear God, she was so sorry.
She revved the engine, hoping to drown out his voice, and took off like a shot, holding on for dear life. The ride went on forever, the snowmobile’s headlight barely penetrating the early morning darkness. Or maybe it was her watery eyes making it difficult to see. She just wished the cold would numb her out, but all it did was add to the bleak horror of what she’d just done.
Finally, in the distance, she spotted two figures outlined in the glow of flashlights. One would be Kynan, and the other should be one of his demon in-laws… Shade, she thought. Kynan said he could make sure her egg and Thanatos’s sperm hooked up and did the baby dance.
That wasn’t going to happen.
She spared a glance over her shoulder and immediately wished she hadn’t. Against the gray wall of the rising dawn were the outlines of a massive dun horse and armored rider pounding across the barren wasteland.
Thanatos.
Terror tripped through her, and she nearly screamed. If they caught her, she was dead.
She skidded to a stop, and before she could even get off the machine, Shade gripped her wrist. “Let go!” She tried to jerk away, but he held her steady.
“I need to knock you out for the trip through the Harrowgate.”
Right. And then, as his arm began to glow and warmth spread from his fingers to her blood, her stomach turned over again. “Just don’t—”
A scream rang out, and then another, and she turned to see Pestilence on his stallion come from out of nowhere and broadside Thanatos and Styx. Horseman and horse went down in a massive crash of blood and snow.
“Oh, shit,” Kynan said. “We have to get out of here. Hurry, Shade.”
“Done.” The demon nodded. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”
Pregnant. No. No, no, no! God, what had she done?
Weapons clashed and horses whinnied, and Rinnied, egan cried out when Thanatos was crushed beneath the white stallion’s hooves.
More intense warmth bloomed beneath Shade’s hand. “Say goodnight, Aegi.”
“No, wait—”
Then there was nothing but blackness.
Thirty-two
No amount of pacing and cursing on Limos’s bedroom deck could bring Arik down from what she had done. For the first two hours she’d been gone, he’d alternated between being terrified that Limos had gone and done something stupid, like hunt down Lucifer, and being pissed off at her for lying to him.
And no, he didn’t believe she’d lied about loving him and not messing with his memories again. She’d been trying to get rid of him for his own safety.
He could handle himself. He’d survived his childhood, the military, a month in hell, and Limos’s brothers. He’d survive whatever came after him, and if he didn’t…
Pestilence would own his soul.
Okay, so that was a minor glitch, but he couldn’t spend what time he had worrying about it. He’d put the R-XR and Aegis on the problem and hope they could find a way out of the whole ownership of his soul crap. In the mean time, he’d be with Limos.
She would have the life she wanted, and he’d give it to her.
He allowed himself the luxury of picturing her fat with his baby as he looked through the sliding glass door at the empty bed. They hadn’t even had a chance to make love as a married couple, but he swore that when she came back, he’d have her undressed and he’d be inside her in a matter of minutes. He’d show her what every night with him would be like, would make her crave his touch and forget her crazy idea to get rid of him for his own good.
Goal firmly in place, he strode inside the bedroom just as the door flew open and Limos, fully armored and her eyes red and puffy, walked in. She halted, and her face went ashen before pinking up with indignation.
“Why are you still here?” she snapped.
He folded his arms over his chest. “Well, gee, maybe because I don’t have the ability to use Harrowgates, and maybe because we’re f**king married.”
“Yeah, about that.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder in that arrogant way of hers. “I went to Gethel. Funny thing about angels… they can dissolve any marriage that takes place in the human realm.” She held up a tiny scroll. “You have an hour to pack. We’re officially divorced.”
Son of a bitch. Son of a f**king bitch!
Pestilence stared down aet the steaming lumps of bone and blood that were Thanatos and Styx. The stallion was dying, but Than would be up in a few minutes, good as new. How the hell was his Seal whole? How?
Pestilence had gotten a message from the vampire doppelganger he’d stuck inside Than’s keep, and the vampire had assured him that the Aegi whore had screwed Thanatos, thanks to a little help from his enhanced mead. So what was going on?
Snarling, he gated himself to Harvester’s place. He slammed his way into her home, blew past her, and went straight to the chamber where she kept Reaver. The angel was sitting propped against the wall, covered in blood and dirt, his golden hair hanging in limp ropes around his face and shoulders. Glazed blue eyes watched Pestilence as he stalked in and kicked the angel in the face.
Reaver, blood streaming from his nose and split lip, just smirked. Smug bastard. Pestilence kicked him again. The f**king angel struck out hard enough to knock Pestilence into a wall and split his head open. Blood streamed in a sticky, warm river down the back of his neck and into his armor, which drank it in gurgling sips. If Pestilence wasn’t so pissed, he’d be impressed by how strong Reaver still was, despite having his wings removed.
“When will you learn, Reseph?” Reaver said. “You can hurt me, but you will never break me.”
“We’ll see about that, you fuck.”
Pestilence let loose with everything he had. Reaver didn’t even fight back as Pestilence kicked and stomped him until the angel was nothing but an unconscious mass of meat in a pile, and gore was dripping from Pestilence’s boot. Harvester’s hands came down on his shoulders.
“What happened?” she asked, and he rounded on her.
“You know better than to touch me.”
He circled her, measuring her level of fear and, deciding he wanted more, he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the wall. Inhaling so deeply that he tasted her terror on his tongue, he smiled.
“The Aegi f**ked my brother,” he whispered into her ear, “so why didn’t his Seal break?”
“I don’t know,” Harvester said, and though he got the feeling she was lying, he also knew that no matter how much he beat her, she wouldn’t tell him if it was one of those “rules” she and Reaver had to follow.
“Lying bitch.” He was going to f**k her until she broke. Until every bone was shattered and he was slick with her blood. He ripped off her gown, leaving her na**d and trembling.
“There’s still hope,” she gasped, as he thrust his fingers between her legs.
“Leave… her… alone.” Reaver’s voice, halting but still making the air crackle with power, came from behind him.
Maybe he’d give Reaver a little too. After the angel watched him rail Harvester like the whore she was. Smiling, Pestilence looked over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Reavie-weavie. I’ll save a little for you. I’m like the Energizer f**king Bunny. I can keep going and going.” He flicked his finger over his throat, and his armor melted away, leaving him as na**d as Harvester.
“Bastard,” she rasped.
“So true,” he agreed.
“Reseph!” The thundering voice shook the entire residence, and his marrow became pudding. Very slowly, he turned to Reaver, who stood in his chains, his body glowing and double its normal size. “You will not do this.”
There was no reason to fear the angel. None whatsoever, but something so deep inside Pestilence that he couldn’t reach it was as terrified as a small child in the face of his angry father.
He raised his chin in defiance and somehow managed to sound nonplussed as he said, “Now you’ve gone and ruined the mood.” He swiped his fingers over his throat, locking his armor into place again. “Another time, then. The moment the Apocalypse starts, I’m going to use you until your screams no longer amuse me and your skin no longer contains your organs.”
With that, he strode out of Harvester’s house, hoping like hell no one noticed the trembling in his knees. What the f**k was that? He hadn’t been afraid of anything since his Seal had broken. Cursing viciously, he popped a Harrowgate and came out at the black arches that led to his mother’s place. She was inside the temple-like structure, lounging on a sofa in the middle of an orgy. As usual. The sight calmed him down, but only a little.
“My son,” she purred, crooking a finger for him to come to her. “You look upset.”
He kicked at a humanoid male who had sunk to his knees in front of him, and moved through the writhing mass of bodies. “My plan failed.”
“The Aegi didn’t take Thanatos’s virginity?”
“She did. But his Seal didn’t break.”
Lilith blinked, and her lithe body undulated as she sat up. She wore a thin, filmy skirt, but she was topless except for a necklace with an emerald the size of a duck egg sitting between her ample breasts. “What was it you made The Aegis believe in order for them to send the female to Thanatos?”