“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s me. Reseph. Not… Pestilence.” The sword in his hand disappeared, but it hardly mattered; he himself was a weapon.
She had no idea what to say or do. So much had happened in the last few hours and so many conflicting emotions were coursing through her body. The one thing she was certain of was that Reseph was still the most handsome man she’d ever seen, and in full, shiny armor, he was like a knight from a fairy tale.
Or, as Pestilence, he was the fable’s monster.
Reseph inched toward her. “I was worried about you. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” She came to her feet on the side of the bed opposite Reseph. She needed a barrier between them, even if it was something as ineffective as a mattress.
Reseph didn’t take those ancient, knowing eyes off her. “You shouldn’t have done what you did. Especially after I told you the truth about your attack.”
Irrational anger sparked at his utter lack of gratitude. “That’s one hell of a way to thank me.”
“Dammit, Jillian.” His deep voice went even deeper. “I should have had a say in it. You took the choice away from me.”
“Because you would have chosen to suffer,” she shot back. “That’s stupid. And selfish.”
“How is that selfish?”
Reseph tracked her as she paced the length of the bed, doing her best to gather her jumbled thoughts. Three men existed in that magnificent body: Pestilence, the Reseph she’d fallen for, and the Reseph who was a complete stranger. At this point, she didn’t know any of them.
“It’s selfish because everyone who loves you was suffering with you. Not to mention the fact that it was leaving the door open for Pestilence.”
A guttural word fell from Reseph’s lips. She didn’t know the language, but she understood the sentiment. “I still don’t like it. We’re linked forever now. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that.”
“You knew, and you still chained yourself to me in some mysterious goddamned bond?” He cursed, and this time she understood the word very well. “Talk about being tied down.”
She wheeled around so fast she banged her knee on the bedframe. “Ouch! Son of a bitch.” Pain fueled the anger and hurt building in her chest. She was dealing with the stranger Reseph, wasn’t she? “That’s why you’re upset? You don’t want to be tied down? Oh my God, it’s going to kill you to show up once a year and have to f**k me, isn’t it?”
Maybe his siblings had been spot-on in their warnings about Reseph. What a fool she’d been.
Reseph had started toward her when she hit her knee, but now he stopped dead. “What?”
“Oh, no one told you the terms of the deal?” She strode up to him and poked him in the chest. Not that he probably felt it through the armor. “Yeah, that’s right. Sex. Once a year. If it doesn’t happen, I lose my mind and die, and you go back to being a drooling head case.”
“No,” he rasped. “Oh, no.” The sheer horror in his expression was like a bullet between the eyes. Not only did the man she’d loved not want to be tied to her, but he didn’t even want to have sex with her once a f**king year.
“You… you’ll screw demons… things with hooves and horns and tails, but the thought of being with me is repulsive to you?” She shoved at his breastplate with as much strength as she could muster. He didn’t budge an inch. “You bastard!”
“It’s not that. God, Jillian, it’s not that.” He wrapped his hand around hers the way he had so many times, and her heart bled in remembrance. “Pestilence is my demon half, and he still lives. He could still come back, and I will not put you at risk.”
“I’m calling bullshit on that excuse.” She jerked out of his grip. “Don’t you think he would have come back when those guys attacked us outside the bar? Or when we found the demon in the barn?”
“The demon in the barn was there because of me.” He tapped his breastplate, and the noise sounded so hollow. “I put you in danger. Don’t you get it?”
“No, I don’t,” she snapped. Her Reseph would want to be here to kill the demons. Not make up lame excuses to stay away. “What are you going to do between yearly visits, Reseph? Are you going to just hang out by yourself because you’re afraid of hurting someone? You’re seriously going to take an oath of celibacy?”
He closed his eyes, and she snorted. “You know what? Don’t answer that.” She stalked out of the bedroom and to the front door. “Get out.” When he didn’t move, she shook her head. “You’re the lucky one in all of this. You have so many girlfriends that you won’t have to explain to anyone why once a year you have to sleep with yet another one. But me? I’m thinking that anyone I’m with isn’t going to understand why I have to f**k another guy—”
Reseph was on her in a flash, his eyes snapping blue fire and his teeth bared as he pushed her against the doorjamb. “I will kill any male who touches you.”
“Really?” Her voice was as flat as it was quiet. “You expect me to sit around and wait for those few minutes once a year when you show up? If you show up? Go to hell, Reseph. Go back to where you came from.”
He blinked, and the murderous light snuffed out of his eyes. Very gently, he moved her aside to open the door, and then, without a word, he took off, disappearing into thin air when he hit the bottom of the porch.
Twenty-eight
Reseph gated himself to Ares’s beach, where he stood, hands fisted, staring out at the sea as he tried to control his emotions. Cutting Jillian loose was the hardest thing he’d ever done. The thought of her being with another male gutted him, but she’d been right… how could he expect her to go the rest of her life without company while she waited for his yearly visit? And how was he going to survive those visits?
He heard Ares approach, and fuck; Reseph was not in the mood to talk, which was odd given how, pre-Pestilence, Reseph had never shut up.
“What happened with Jillian?” Ares’s voice rumbled over the sound of the waves lapping at the beach.
“It’s over.”
“She couldn’t handle it all?”
“Actually, I think maybe she could,” Reseph murmured. “But I don’t want her to have to.”
“Ah.” Ares picked up a shell and chucked it into the surf. “So how are you doing?”
“I’m fine.”
“And I’m a fairy princess,” Ares drawled.
The old Reseph would have shot a witty comeback at his brother, but that Reseph had been carefree and shallow, always sweeping bad shit under the rug. The male he was now would never do that again.
“Things would have been better for everyone if Deliverance had killed me.”
Ares blew out a long breath. “Yes, they would have.”
Ever the commander, Ares didn’t mince words or try to placate with false sentiments. He called it like he saw it, something that had annoyed the old Reseph. Yep, the old Reseph had been all about keeping everyone happy and the party going.
“I’ve got to fix things.”
“With who?” Ares crossed his arms over his chest. “With Jillian? With us? With the world? You can’t fix what Pestilence broke.”
“You’re saying the damage he’s done is irreparable?”
Ares’s gaze pierced Reseph like a crossbow bolt. “Some of it. Probably most of it.”
Reseph squeezed his eyes shut, so ashamed of everything he’d done. “What about the damage to my family? Is that irreparable?”
“We know it wasn’t you who did those things to us.”
Taking a deep, bracing breath, Reseph met Ares’s midnight eyes. “But?”
Ares swore, and Reseph knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. “But Pestilence could come back, and what will you do to stop him?”
“I won’t let that happen,” Reseph said fiercely, but Ares’s doubt was as strong as Reseph’s.
“Really? You let it happen before. You let him torture and nearly rape and kill Cara. You worked with Lilith and Lucifer and the most powerful demons in Sheoul in order to destroy us all. Where were you? Did you even try to stop him?” Ares slammed his palm into Reseph’s shoulder. “Did you?”
Reseph couldn’t fault Ares for anything he’d just said. Reseph had tried to rear up and take back possession of his body, but Pestilence had been far too powerful.
“Well?” Ares shouted. All around, hellhounds were closing in, sensing Ares’s anger and preparing to rip Reseph to shreds.
“Do you honestly think I don’t go over every minute in my head, trying to figure out what cracks I should have exploited? That I wonder what else I could have done to stop him? I tried, Ares.”
“You didn’t try hard enough!”
Anger at the situation, at himself, at Pestilence, all boiled over, and Reseph snarled. “I know that! And I hate myself for it.”
“Dammit, Reseph.” Ares rounded on him. “It isn’t just that. You’ve never fought for anything. At the first sign of conflict or commitment or emotion, you check out. You’ve always taken the damned easy road, and it pisses me off.”
“Easy? You think any of this is easy? I’ve changed, Ares.”
“Yeah? You fell in love for the first time in your life, and when the time came to fight for Jillian, did you? Or did you take the easy path and let her go because you don’t want to do the hard thing and control Pestilence?” Ares got in Reseph’s face, so close their noses almost touched. “Or did you let her go because you’re afraid to commit? Life’s too good with millions of hot females out there to fuck, isn’t it? How easy was it to walk away from the one female who has ever loved you enough to sacrifice a piece of her goddamned mind so you could turn around and go back to being the self-absorbed whore you always were? Do you care about Jillian at all?”
With a roar, Reseph slammed his fist into Ares’s jaw. His brother wheeled backward, and before he could regain his balance, Reseph tackled him. They went down in a tangle of punches and snarls.
“I love her!” Reseph shouted.
Ares had about twenty pounds on Reseph, and he used his weight to pin Reseph to the ground. “And I love Cara, but that didn’t matter to you when you tried to rape her!”
Oh… God. Reseph sucked in a harsh breath and sagged bonelessly into the sand. “Fuck. Ah… fuck, Ares. I’m sorry.”
Ares shoved to his feet and jammed his hand through his hair over and over, swearing constantly. “Logically, we all know it wasn’t you. But the wounds are deep. We get it. We love you. But we can’t trust you.”
Reseph’s stomach plummeted. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we’ll help you as best we can. But you need to go somewhere else. We can’t risk Pestilence returning and hurting our families.”
“He won’t.” But even as the words came, Reseph knew they were hollow. He wanted to believe he could control Pestilence, but the evidence said otherwise. He couldn’t blame his siblings for being concerned, but he wondered if the old Reseph would have. Now that Reseph had found Jillian, he understood how powerful the need to protect someone was. Even if that protection was from yourself. Ares was wrong about the easy path shit. There was nothing easy about staying away from Jillian.
Still, Ares’s rejection stung. Bad. Even now, the hurt was welling up, threatening to overflow and morph into something that had been so familiar when his Seal was broken; horrific anger. Deep inside, Pestilence stirred.
Fuck.
“Reseph?”
“What?” His voice was hell-deep and warped. He had to get out of here before he proved Ares right and let Pestilence too close to the surface. But he’d use this rage, and he’d use it well.
“You need to level out, bro…”
Reseph ignored Ares and smiled as he opened a Harrowgate, because while he might not be able to repair the damage he’d caused to his family, he could take some measure of revenge for them.
It was time to give Pestilence a taste of his own medicine.
Twenty-nine
Underworld General Hospital, staffed by vampires, were-creatures, and demons, came to a screeching halt when Reseph entered through the ER doors with a werewolf cub in his arms.
Probably because three months ago, Pestilence had gone on a rampage inside the hospital, butchering hundreds of patients and employees before grabbing an ex-angel staff member to torture. His rampage was still evident in the cracked walls, smashed equipment, and the dented furniture.
Laughter clanged inside Reseph’s skull; Pestilence’s satisfaction at what he’d done. Reseph had been battling the bastard all day, engaging in an internal struggle to keep the demon from clawing his way too close to the surface. Most of the time, maintaining control wasn’t difficult… the problems came when Reseph’s temper surfaced. Pestilence provided an extra shot of adrenaline, more juice to fuel Reseph’s strength—both physical and mental. Things Reseph would never have been capable of before, like torture, were now far too easily considered.
But for the first time, Reseph could see the mental container he’d been kept in while Pestilence had been in charge. Now Pestilence was imprisoned inside, and Reaver’s assessment was accurate… the vessel was cracked, oozing Pestilence’s essence. How the hell was Reseph supposed to repair it?
“You son of a bitch.” Eidolon, head doctor and founder of UG, dropped the charts he’d been going over and came at Reseph like a bull, his eyes glowing with crimson fury. “How dare you set foot in my hospital.”