Change the subject. Fast. “And, ah, who are you? What Horseman, I mean.”
Thanatos swung around. “Death.”
Cara swallowed. Audibly. “As in, the Grim Reaper?”
He snorted. “That poser. He deals with evil souls. He guides them to Sheoul-gra, which is sort of a demon holding tank, until they can be reborn. I won’t be escorting souls anywhere. I’ll be doing the killing that releases the souls from their bodies.”
She considered that. She also noticed that she hadn’t batted an eyelash at the fact that the Grim Reaper was real. “So, Ares has all those issues to handle. What is it that you have to deal with?” Besides tattoos that seemed to move in 3-D.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I see.” She studied Thanatos, trying to get a read on him, but the tall warrior was even harder to pin down than Ares. His face wasn’t quite as cruel, his eyes not as calculating, both of which probably made him more handsome. But there was definitely a darkness in him, and she sensed that it ran so deep that no amount of excavation could uncover it all. “So it’s okay to spill your brother’s secrets, but not your own.”
Inky storm clouds brewed in his eyes, and all around him, shadows she swore hadn’t been there before writhed. The brand between her breasts flared hot, and it took everything she had to not step back. “I told you because you’re going to be stuck with him, so you need to understand why he behaves the way he does. You don’t need to understand me.” He stalked toward the door, but halted at the threshold. “What I’ve told you tonight isn’t for outside ears. If you tell anyone, you’ll answer to me, and not as Thanatos. As Death.”
A lick of fear lashed at her heart, but she met his gaze, refusing to flinch. “I can’t be allowed to die.”
“That’s the thing about living for as long as I have and being drawn to great suffering,” he said in a voice as cold as a grave. “I don’t need to kill to cause misery. I excel at making people beg for death.”
Ares was fucking wired. He sat astride Battle, his entire body cramped with tension, his panting breaths burning hot in his throat. What the fuck had just happened?
Before he’d burst into the room to find the hound about to rip Cara’s throat out, he’d been crazed with lust. Then he’d been crazed with rage that had only intensified when, in Cara’s presence, he’d been vulnerable to the hellhound. His armor had softened, his sword had shattered, and he’d lost his ability to predict his opponent’s next move.
The hound had gotten one up on him, and if not for Thanatos…
Mother. Fuck.
Not since his “human” days before the curse had Ares felt so helpless. Oh, he’d been pretty damned helpless when he’d been paralyzed for weeks by the hellhounds, but that was different. No one had been relying on him for protection. But this time… had Thanatos not been there, Ares would have been bitten, and Cara could have been killed. She’d said the beast didn’t harm her because she was bonded to his pup, but hellhounds were deceptive, not to be trusted, and he wouldn’t believe any information gained from the bastard.
Especially not if he was working with Pestilence.
As Battle cantered across the island, spraying sand in his wake, Ares thought about Cara and wondered how this had gotten so complicated. The pity in her eyes when she’d asked if he was okay had snagged his trip wire, and that, combined with his utter humiliation over being spanked by the hellhound, had lit him up. Oh, and then there had been the fact that he was already running on a full tank of lust, so when he’d gotten a full frontal view of Cara wearing his hockey jersey, his control had disintegrated. Those legs. Holy shit, she was gorgeous. Fresh from the shower, her dewy skin had made his mouth water, her wet hair had made him want to run his fingers through it, and her long, toned legs had made him want to part them and park himself between them.
Something seriously primal had come over him at the way she’d been covered by his clothing, and his brain had gone caveman and started screaming, mine, over and over. There had been no thought after that, just a driving need to claim her.
It was a damned good thing Thanatos had interrupted, though in truth, Cara’s scream had pierced Ares’s fog of lust, and he’d been about to release her when his brother barreled into the room. That had set off another fucked-up reaction, one of fierce protection… as if Than was as much a threat to Cara as the hellhound had been.
Fuck.
The danger she’d been in kept circulating in his head. He kept seeing those teeth at her throat. Those claws wrapped around her waist. She’d been terrified, but she’d also been incredibly brave. The way she’d smoothed her hand over Chaos’s fur and spoken to him in a calm, soothing voice had stunned the hell out of Ares. The terror rolling off her had been incomprehensible, and yet, she’d pushed past it to save them all.
In all his years, he’d never seen anything like it. Her bravery in the face of danger had been something to behold, and the biggest turn-on of his life. She might not know it, might not want to know it, but hers was the soul of a warrior. Oh, it was still leashed, suppressed by the weight of polite society, morals, and probably her upbringing. The problem, he knew, would be that when her inner warrior was loosed, it could prove to be dangerous, destructive, and uncontrollable. He spurred Battle past the vineyard and toward the southern end of the island. The stallion threw his head, jerking the reins so violently they nearly flew out of Ares’s hands. Talk about uncontrollable. The horse was agitated, sensing Ares’s mood.
Ahead, the Harrowgate loomed between two ancient stone pillars. Battle pranced inside, and the dark room expanded to allow for their size. As the shimmering veil solidified, two maps appeared on the obsidian walls; one of Earth, and one of Sheoul. Ares tapped the Sheoul map, and it instantly expanded into a dozen levels. He fingered the third level from the top, outlined in blue light, then kept tapping as the maps rotated and grew more focused until he finally located the Harrowgate that opened up about a hundred yards from the Four Horsemen pub.
Battle leaped out and onto the squishy ground. Ares let the stallion have his head, and Battle, who knew exactly where they were going, took off at a dead run. This was why he’d chosen to use a stationary gate instead of a summoned one—the horse needed to let out some energy, and so did Ares.
Battle’s hooves pounded the ground with massive force, sending powerful shocks up his legs and shoulders, and into Ares’s body. Ares loved this, the rush of the charge, and the only way it could be better was if he was charging into a bloody fray.
Dammit, Cara had worked him into a frenzy, and now his blood pumped hotly through his veins, his adrenaline felt like nettles in his muscles, and his vision sharpened as his body primed for a challenge. The Neethul females would give him a fight, blood would be drawn, and teeth would find flesh.
A shiver of desire went through him. Would Cara give him all that? When he was at his most jacked up, would she give him the battle he craved? Images of him taking her against a wall, on the rocky cliffs, in the temple ruins that littered his island sifted through his mind. In some of them, she was scratching, clawing, biting, even as she screamed with pleasure. In others, she was caressing his shoulders, kneading his muscles, kissing her way down his body.
What would that be like? There’d been no tenderness in any sex he’d had since his wife died. Even with Nera, it hadn’t been a love match. There’d been passion, but no true tenderness. So why the hell was he picturing all the gentle crap with Cara?
With a nasty snarl, he reined Battle to a halt in front of the tavern. He didn’t bother to call the stallion to him. Right now, they were both too worked up, and the writhing marking would only distract and infuriate him. He flung open the door… and walked into the biggest crowd of females he’d ever seen hanging around the pub.