Immortal Rider (LD2) (18 page)

“Why you?” He looked her up and down, and the shadows went crazier.

She was so glad she’d bucked Val’s advice to dress provocatively and instead went for casual and covered up, but now she had to see if her decision to play hard-to-get, which was her normal state and easy to do, would be more effective with Thanatos than flirty sex kitten.

“I told you. I drew the short straw.”

“The short straw. I’m flattered.” His sarcasm echoed off the stone walls and the lofty ceiling, and the one tattoo that was different than the others, one of a horse on his right forearm, moved. She blinked, watching in amazement as the horse threw its head. Hadn’t Kynan said that their horses lived on their bodies?

Fascinated, she drifted closer to the big warrior. Her heart rate rocketed and her stomach became alive with butterflies, but she couldn’t stop her feet from moving or her gaze from locking on the horse. Thanatos barked out something in a language she didn’t know, and the shadows that had been circling him dove at his legs, seeming to absorb into his body.

“It’s remarkable,” she murmured, reaching out to touch his skin, but Thanatos hissed and jumped backward, startling her into leaping back herself.

“Go back to your colleagues and tell them to send someone else.” His voice was a nasty rasp. “Send a male.”

She puffed up like a pissy hen, as her last foster mom would have said. “Listen up, Horseman. I know you were born back when women were thought of as little more than brood mares and slaves, but it’s the twenty-first century, and we can do anything a man does. I’m as good as any male Aegi, so get over your chauvinist pig self.”

“I have a sister who can give any male a run for his money, and I can’t imagine her as either a slave or a brood mare, so my issue isn’t with your competence.” He stalked her, and instinct told her to retreat. But she ignored her first impulse and stood her ground, even when he bumped up against her so they were chest to chest and she could smell his smoky scent. “My issue is that I prefer to surround myself with males.”

“Well,” she said tightly, “you’re out of luck, because there are no male Guardians available right now. So you’re just going to have to suck it up and deal with me.”

Thanatos’s eyes glowed with a fierce light she’d be willing to bet people saw just before he ripped off their heads. “You can walk out of my house on your own, whole
and healthy, or I will throw you out, a lot less healthy, in pieces. Your choice.”

Think fast… think fast
… Regan looked over his shoulder at the entrance to what looked like a huge library. Perfect. She hated to do this, but the
in pieces
thing didn’t sound pleasant.

“You’re looking for Limos’s
agimortus
, right?” she said quickly. “And a way to mend your brother’s Seal. I can help. I have a special ability that can be useful.”

His eyes narrowed. “What special ability?”

“I can interpret ink on skin. That includes parchment.”

“I can interpret ink on parchment too,” Than said dryly. “It’s called reading.”

She brushed past him, ignoring the zing of awareness that shot through her body when they touched, and stalked to his library, where she looked around at the piles of parchments and scrolls and bazillions of books, some modern, but most ancient. Quickly, because Thanatos was coming at her like a locomotive, steam practically coming out of his ears, she grabbed a book with a cover that appeared to have been made from… oh, ick… human skin.

Whatever. She laid it on the desk, flipped it open, and put her fingers to the ink… blood?… on one of the pages. The language was unknown to her, but the emotions that seared her fingertips were not.

Jealousy, as thick as gelatin, rolled through her. “The author,” she murmured, “is… upset. Jealous.” Flashes of violence flickered like a grainy movie through her brain. “It’s a female, I think. She wants to kill… horribly… another female. The other female is beautiful, black hair, violet eyes. Whoever wrote this was thinking of a naked male. With wings.” She inhaled a shaky breath. “Angel?”

Thanatos’s fingers circled her wrist and pulled her away from the book. “You can do this with the documents pertaining to my sister’s
agimortus
?”

Regan nodded, the visions in her head still vivid. “Who were those people?”

“The author was a succubus named Estha. The violet-eyed female is Lilith, my mother. The male is either Azagoth or Sartael, before they fell, and one of two rumored to be our father.”

“Azagoth? The Grim Reaper could be your father?”

Thanatos didn’t say anything else, instead standing there and watching her speculatively. “You could be of use, but I’ll come to you. No female stays here.”

She had the upper hand right now, and she was going to use it. “That won’t work. I need access to your library. You need my help, and The Aegis needs yours. I’m not leaving, female or not.” Smiling, she sauntered out of the library and shouldered her duffle. “Now, please show me to my room.”

With a snarl, he stalked away, and though a vampire showed up a moment later to lead her deep into the freezing keep, she didn’t feel victorious at all. On the contrary, she was pissed as hell.

The Horseman she’d been sent to seduce… was gay.

Fourteen

Arik lost it. It was fucking great news that he was no longer in Sheoul, but now he was a big head case. Chunks of his memory were gone, and what was there seemed fuzzy, dreamlike, and he couldn’t tell memory from dream. Christ, he hated that, had always prided himself on having a damned good memory, especially after intensive military training that helped him recall minute details following encounters with demons. Now he wondered how much of his life he’d lost, and if any of it would come back.

In his freaked-out state, he’d gone to his room—Limos’s room, he guessed—but claustrophobia had wrapped around him tighter than a bulletproof vest, and he’d gone for the sliding glass door—only to find that it had been locked. From the outside.

Panic set in, and he’d smashed a chair through the glass, leaped over the railing, and whacked the male
who’d been standing guard below. Arik ran, barefoot, into the jungle behind the house. He didn’t know how far he’d gone when he heard Limos calling to him, but he didn’t stop until his lungs were burning for oxygen, his skin was damp with sweat, and the path was blocked by a waterfall that split the jungle in half.

Panting, he bent over and braced his hands on his knees as Limos came up behind him.

“I’m impressed.” Her voice was soft as her hand came down on his shoulder, and now that he knew she was real, her touch felt better than ever. “You managed to knock out Kaholo, and he’s his pack’s martial arts instructor.”

“I’ve been fighting demons since I was a kid, first in my own house, and then for the military. I’m not a total slouch.” God, he couldn’t believe he’d just brought up the kid thing, and if Limos possessed a single female gene, she’d latch onto that like a tick on a hound.

“I don’t think you’re a slouch.” Her hand fell off him as he straightened and turned to face her. “You managed to knock me off my feet once, if I remember right.”

A glint of amusement flashed in her eyes, and he snorted at the memory of gripping her ankle and tugging her feet out from under her so she landed on top of him.

“There are some serious holes in my memory, some doubts about what’s been real and what hasn’t, but I do remember that.” He inhaled a shaky breath. “Was the stuff you told me about your… fiancé… real?” Limos’s gaze skittered away. “Horseman?”

Her eyes shifted back to him and narrowed. “Say my name.”

“Answer my question.”

“Say. My. Name.”

Frustration spiking, he bent down, getting right in her face, nose to nose. “
Answer the fucking question.
”

Clearly, they were at an impasse, and he was not going to back down. If two dozen ugly-ass demons with meat hooks, sledgehammers, and skinning knives couldn’t make him say Limos’s name, she didn’t stand a chance.

She must have realized that, but not wanting to concede defeat, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked to the edge of the crystal pool at the base of the waterfall, where she looked down at her fingers. “Dammit. Broke a nail.”

“Jesus.” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Can you ever focus on one subject or take anything seriously?”

“I take my nails very seriously.” She huffed. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn to enjoy the little things. Speaking of which, I have something of yours. I don’t know how important they are to you, but I’ve kept them with me.”

She held out his dogtags, the silver chain dangling from her closed fist. He took them, another small connection with reality, and when he looped the chain around his neck, he almost felt whole again. Now he needed his weapons and Army ring, and he’d be good to go. Unfortunately, his captors had taken his ring, so there was no getting it back.

“Thank you.” His voice was humiliatingly hoarse.

Limos had guarded the dogtags, which he could replace for a few bucks, as if they were a treasure. And she’d treated him equally as well, he realized. She could have dumped him off at Underworld General or handed him over to the R-XR or The Aegis, but instead, she’d nursed him back to health herself. She’d done what she had to
in order to get him to eat. She’d engaged all his senses to bring him back to reality.

Arik had no doubt that if she’d left him with the military or The Aegis, he’d be strapped to a bed, attached to IV lines, and doctors would be poking, prodding, and digging into his brain. Hell, they could have made him
worse
.

“You still don’t believe this is real, do you?” She looked down at the water swirling around her feet and bubbling around the smooth pebbles.

Reaching out, he hooked his finger beneath her chin and lifted her face to his, needing the sensation of touching her warm skin to make absolutely, one-hundred percent sure that he would be telling the truth. “I believe it. Nothing in that hellhole was as warm as you.”

She swallowed. “Then why won’t you say my name?”

“I can’t take the chance that anyone will hear it. You said it has to be uttered while I’m in misery, but I won’t risk it.”

“Why? After everything you’ve gone through because of me, why don’t you want to say my name and watch me get what I deserve?” Her words were bitter, her voice hard, and he wondered what kind of life she’d had to make her think he’d do something like that.

“I won’t tell you I didn’t think about it,” he admitted. “When I was in Sheoul, all I could think of was revenge. But I know you didn’t mean for what happened to happen, so no, I can’t do that to you.”

She reached up to play with her Seal pendant. “And why, when you were dreaming of revenge, did you turn the demons down when they offered you a deal… my torture for yours?”

Ah, damn, he wished she didn’t know about that. He didn’t need anyone knowing what he’d endured down there. Torture, it turned out, was a deeply personal, albeit, horrible, experience that he’d rather not share.

“I couldn’t take the deal because I couldn’t have lived with myself.” A sudden, gory image of Limos being brutalized at the hands, claws, and tools of those demons flashed in his head, and he had to tamp down a growl. “I know what those fuckers were capable of, and I would never wish that on you.”

Her throat worked on a swallow. “What
do
you wish on me?”

“Me,” he said with brutal honesty. “Fool that I am, I wish
me
on you. Like,
on
you. When I said in the bedroom that I’d have had you under me in a heartbeat, I meant it.”

She blinked. Opened her mouth. “But h—” He didn’t give her a chance to say anything. He grabbed her shoulders and hauled her against him. She let out a little gasp, but she didn’t refuse him anything as he took her mouth the way he’d fantasized about every time he closed his eyes.

Water splashed around them, tiny droplets of mist blanketing their faces as their tongues met. Limos’s lips were soft, her body hard, her fingernails sharp as she dug them into his biceps. But, like before, when she slid her hands up to his shoulders, her touch was tentative, halting.

He wasn’t so reserved.

He dropped his hands to her thighs and then dragged them up and under her wrap, but she grasped his wrists and stopped him.

“Why,” he murmured against her mouth. “Why are you so skittish?”

“Because I’ve never done this.”

He whipped his head back. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re saying you’re a virgin? You’re five thousand years old and you’ve never had sex?”

“How could I?” A bird fluttered past, and he wasn’t surprised when Limos’s attention went with it. He waited impatiently for her to turn back to him. “I was betrothed when I was a child. You experienced what happened when I kissed you.”

God, he hadn’t even thought of that. Of course she wouldn’t have been able to be with anyone if her fiancé took jealousy to a galactic extreme.

“Why me?” he asked, dying to know why, after all that time, she had finally given up a kiss. “Why did you give in to me that night?”