The Guardians shrunk back, twitchy fingers poised over their weapons. Great. They now thought he was not only incompetent, but an asshole as well. Snarling, he held out his arm. “Battle, to me.”
The horse let out a furious whinny that lingered in the air even after he’d settled on Ares’s skin.
“That,” Cara huffed, “was unnecessary.”
“No,” he ground out, “it wasn’t. When you released the mongrel, there would have been trouble.”
“I could have handled it.”
“I handled it. Now let’s do this.” He turned to the Guardians. “You had best watch from inside the house.”
They retreated, and he gave Cara the go-ahead. “Lever on top should open the cage.” Casually, he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, even though he couldn’t injure the animal for fear of affecting Cara.
She gave the lever a shove, and the door rattled open. The hellhound bounded out, pounced, and took Cara to the ground. Ares’s heart jammed into his throat, but when Cara let out a delighted squeal and the dog bathed her face in sloppy kisses, it became clear that there was no danger here. No danger to her, anyway.
Hal lifted his head momentarily to peel back his lips in a silent warning aimed at Ares, and Ares returned it, hoping his hatred came across loud and clear. Dealing with this bastard was not going to be fun.
“Cara, let’s go. I don’t like you being this exposed.”
She told Hal to let her up, and he tore off across the lawn. “He needs to run. Maybe we could walk to the gate instead of ride? Give him a chance to stretch his legs?”
“Cara—”
“Please?”
It went against his better judgment, but Cara had been through so much, with little of it in her control, that he could do this one thing for her, he supposed.
Two heartbeats later, his own words, barked out at soldiers, rang through Ares’s head like a death knell. Never let a woman sway you. Never. Or I promise you’ll regret it.
Seventeen
Cara and Ares strolled across the grounds toward the gate, his pace purposeful, hers more leisurely, and he kept having to slow down and wait for her. But dammit, this was the first time she’d felt a little normal in days, and walking across a huge expanse of grass while Hal bounded around chasing birds just felt good. Relaxing, even.
“Why don’t you like hellhounds?” she asked, and Ares let out a soft growl.
“I don’t not like them.” Even loaded down with armor and weapons, he moved like a predator down the drive, his sharp eyes in constant motion, nostrils flaring as though seeking the scent of danger. “I hate them with every cell in my body.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
He swung around to her, his big body pulsing with menace, but she was instinctively aware that his mood wasn’t directed at her. “One of them killed my brother and sons.”
“How awful.” A lump clogged her throat, and she had to swallow a couple of times before she could speak. “What did you do?”
“I chased that motherfucker through the centuries. Slaughtered some of his packmates, but never managed to kill him. Eventually, he and his pack got one up on me, paralyzed me with a bite, and then spent days eating me alive.”
Oh, God. “They… ate you?”
“Thanks to my ability to regenerate, yes. I fed them well, and I felt every bite. When one of them ripped my leg off at the hip joint, I couldn’t even pass out from the agony. And then I got to watch them gnaw on it, right beside my head.”
Nausea bubbled up in her throat. She couldn’t imagine Hal, that sweet puppy who was rolling around in the grass, doing that.
“Yeah, he’d do it,” Ares said, somehow knowing what she was thinking. “He’s just a pup, but when he’s full grown, he’ll be as big as a damned buffalo with an appetite for cruelty to match his size.”
“Like the one who attacked you at your house? Hal’s sire?”
“Hal’s sire is the very hound who killed my sons and brother.”
Oh… damn. “Hal… he wouldn’t… I mean, look at him.”
Hal leaped into the air, his jaws snapping as he caught a bird he’d flushed. The poor bird was gone in an instant, an explosion of feathers floating around Hal’s head.
“Sure,” Ares said wryly. “Look at him.”
“Bad dog,” she scolded. Hal wagged his tail and cocked his head, all flopping ears and drool. How could a puppy like him become the demon beast Ares was talking about?
Ares snorted. “Just wait until he’s catching people instead.”
“Is that…” She swallowed sickly. “Is that what they eat?”
“Not usually. They’re Sheoul-dwellers. They rarely travel to the human realm unless they’re summoned or brought here.”
“So he can travel back and forth? Do his hunting in Sheoul?”
Ares inclined his head in a brisk nod. “They don’t need Harrowgates, and usually they’re invisible to humans when they’re aboveground. He might be invisible now, in fact. We can see him because we’re part of the supernatural world.”
She trailed her fingers over her chest, feeling the raised lines of the new mark through her sweatshirt. “Because of this.”
“And the bond to Hal.” His gaze dropped to where she was rubbing the marking, and the energy coming off him shifted from menacing to erotic.
Back at Than’s place, he’d said he felt things he shouldn’t. That he wanted to keep her alive for more reasons than protecting his Seal. And that he wanted to throw her down and take her until they were exhausted.
She shouldn’t want any of that. Well, maybe the sex. Opening her heart up again could be a colossal mistake. But every time she caught a glimpse of the man behind the sword, every time he wrapped her in his protective arms, it tapped into the part of her that wanted to be cared for and kept safe. Ares knew about her ability, knew what she’d done with it, and he didn’t treat her like she was a freak, and that alone scored him a lot of points.
“What is this, Ares?” She probably shouldn’t have asked, but she’d never been good at subtlety, and with all the uncertainty in her life right now, she wanted to be clear on this, at least. “I can’t read your signals, and I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m a warrior.”
“Yes, I know who you say you are, but why do you say that? Are you a warrior by birth? By choice? By circumstance?”
“All of the above.” He cocked his head toward the exit. “We should go.”
She grabbed his wrist, and he stiffened, but he didn’t shake her off. “When were you born?”
“Dammit, Cara, we don’t have time for this.” The words were angry, but he let out a long-suffering sigh, and she knew she had him. For a moment, at least.
“Humor me. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Give me this.”
One eyebrow arched. “The orgasms weren’t enough?”
A pleasant fluttering filled her belly. “Women like pillow talk to go with them, and you denied me that.”
“I at least got you a pillow.” At her flat stare, he rolled his eyes. “I was born around the thirty-second century bc.”
“Did you know what you were?”
He looked up at the gray sky. “For twenty-eight years I thought I was human. My demon mother snatched human babies out of their cribs and replaced them with us. She used some sort of enchantment to arrange for our human parents to name us what she’d chosen.”
“What happened to the babies she stole?”
He hesitated. “You don’t want to know.”
No, she probably didn’t. “Where did you grow up?”
“Egypt.” He looked past her at Hal, his gaze sharpening with hate. “Now, we’re going.”
Pretending she didn’t hear him, she continued. “You had kids. Did you have a wife?”
“I’ve humored you for too long as it is—” He whirled so suddenly she yelped. “Who are you? Show yourself!”
Cara heard the crunch of gravel, as a man peered around the estate’s iron gate. “I-I’m David. I’m a Guardian.”
A deep, rumbling growl came from behind her as Hal, crouching flat on the ground, eased up to them. She dropped her hand to his head, soothing him with her touch. “It’s okay, Hal. Shh.” The last thing they needed was the hound tearing apart one of The Aegis’s demon slayers.