Eternal Rider

Twenty-seven

Cara wasn’t sure what happened. All she knew was that she’d come wide awake in Ares’s arms, Hal was bouncing around in the demon remains and happily tossing things like arms and legs into the air, while off in the distance, other hellhounds were… she squinted, and then wished she hadn’t. Ares wasn’t kidding when he said hellhounds liked their prey a little too much. Swallowing sourly, she jerked her gaze away from the hellhound playground to see medical people in scrubs patching up the home team.

Eidolon and Shade were doing the glow-thing to Sin, while Con held her hand, his own wounds so extensive Cara was surprised he was sitting up without help. Kynan was patching up Wraith, who kept yelling obscenities, and some black-haired guy Con had called Luc was trying, unsuccessfully, to work on Ares.

Ares, who kept shoving the guy away even as he spoke gently to Cara. “You’re awake. Thank God, you’re awake.”

“Where…” She cleared her throat to rid it of the scratchiness that made her voice sound as if she hadn’t used it in decades. “Where are the demons? Pestilence?” She frowned. “Cerberus. Or did I dream it all?” Even as she said it, she knew she hadn’t dreamed it.

“The hellhounds broke Pestilence’s army. He had to retreat. Cerberus and most of the hounds gave chase. Shade brought help from Underworld General.”

“How am I alive?” And damn, she felt really freaking great, too. As if she’d been plugged into a battery the size of Mount Everest.

“It seems,” Ares said, “that you received Hell’s Kiss from the hellhound king.”

Okay, that was… significant, she was guessing. Tail wagging, Hal romped over. All of us. You belong to all of us now. All bonded to you. Except for those bonded to others. You are reoush, our healer.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, wow.”

Ares’s eyes bored into her. “What is it?”

“It um… seems that I’m bonded to all of them. They’ve adopted me as their official physician of sorts.”

Luc froze as he reached into the medic bag next to him. “All hellhounds?”

“As in, every hellhound in existence?” Ares added.

“That’s what Hal says.”

“Holy shit.” Limos’s voice came from behind Ares, but Cara couldn’t twist around to see her. “That would make you—”

“Immortal.” Ares blew out a long, shaky breath. “You’re immortal.”

“It’s beyond that.” Hades strolled over, picked up what Cara thought might be the leg of some creature, and tossed it for Hal. “Fetch!” He turned to Cara as Hal bounded off. “Any injury you sustain would be spread evenly throughout the hellhound population, so you’ll heal instantly. Only Cerberus himself… and God… can kill you now.” He frowned. “I can’t believe that fucker did that. He never does that. I asked him to do it to my girlfriend once, and he refused. Ripped my arm off.” He snorted. “Course, she fucked me over later anyway. The bitch.”

This was all so strange, and yet, it was all becoming normal. “Wait, why would they need a healer, if I’m bonded to them? An injured hound would take energy from me, right?”

Hades shook his head. “Cerberus’s bond doesn’t work that way. It’s against natural law to alter an entire species. You reap the benefits of taking from them, and they get you as a healer.”

Didn’t seem like a fair tradeoff to her, but she wasn’t going to complain. “Ares, are you okay? Your legs…”

“They’re fine. Eidolon gave me a quick zap when he first got here, and I’m regenerating to heal the rest. So I really don’t need any medical help.” The last bit was aimed at Luc, who gave Ares the finger.

Hiding a smile, Cara reached for Ares’s hand… and noticed that Battle wasn’t on his arm. Instant alarm lanced her. “The horses. How are the horses?”

“They could use your help,” Ares said softly.

“You should have told me!” She leaped to her feet, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to contain her gasp of horror. Now she understood why Ares had held her the way he had, angled away from the animals.

The carnage was… unbelievable. Thanatos was kneeling next to Styx, who was a mass of bone erupting from muscle. His legs were twisted in awkward angles, and he had so many blades and arrows sticking out of him that he looked like a porcupine.

Battle and Bones bore similar injuries, and all of the horses were surrounded by people in scrubs, who were working frantically to save the stallions.

Cara scrambled over to Styx, who appeared to be in the worst shape—though the amount of play in that distinction could be measured in a thimble.

Styx’s eyes were closed, his nostrils flaring as he breathed. Blood bubbled up through the multiple wounds in his chest, and nothing the medical people were doing seemed to help.

“Oh, no,” she breathed, as she kneeled at the stallion’s head.

Thanatos’s hand captured her wrist. His yellow gaze was tortured, and fear had drawn deep lines in his handsome face. “Can you help him? Please? I know I’ve been harsh with you—”

“I understand.” He had the fate of the human world resting on his shoulders, and he’d been justifiably more concerned with that than her feelings.

Gently, she extracted herself from his grip to lay both her hands on Styx. Closing her eyes, she summoned her healing energy. A blast of power slammed into her, and her head snapped back so hard her hands came off the horse.

“What is it?” Ares gripped her shoulders from behind, bracing her as she blinked out of the stunned fog she was in. Thanatos was staring at her with concern, and Limos had twisted around from where she was caring for Bones to watch with just as much worry.

“I don’t know.” Cara shook her head, clearing it of the last of the fuzzy feeling. “Usually I feel a trickle of power, but this was like a river. Like a dam had burst. Let me try again.” Once more, she placed her hands on the stallion, but this time, she opened herself up more gradually.

Energy sang through her with a hundred times the strength she was used to, and that was on the lowest setting she could manage. Tentatively, she let it out through her hands, and all around her, people gasped.

Cara didn’t open her eyes. In her mind, she could see everything. There was no pain for her, but the horse’s wounds were closing, weapons were being pushed out of flesh, and bone was knitting together. A great surge of affection hit her as Styx’s health improved, and within minutes, he was communicating his gratitude to her in words and images and little nuzzles of his velvety nose against her thigh.

Gradually, there was nothing left to heal, and she pulled back her power and opened her eyes. The medical people were watching her in awe, and even Eidolon, who seemed to have a similar ability, was eyeing her with speculation.

“Can you do that with people?”

She shook her head. “Only animals.” Eidolon looked disappointed. Thanatos offered his hand to her, and though she didn’t need his help to stand, she took it, sensing that he needed to do this. Ares stepped back, apparently sensing the same thing. When she was standing before the giant warrior, he kneeled at her feet, head bowed.

“In my time, totem priestesses were honored. Revered as descendants of the aos si.”

“Aos si?”

“The folk. You’d call them… fairies. They possessed the gift of healing animals and killing people when angered. They’re long dead, but you obviously carry their blood.” He looked up at her and placed his fist over his heart. “You have my gratitude and my respect forever.”

Somehow, Cara knew she’d just been elevated to an equal in Thanatos’s eyes. Warmth seeped through her, but she didn’t spend time doing anything more than offering him a thank you. She’d have to ask more about the aos si later. She had two more horses to heal.

The process was the same with both Bones and Battle, and when she was finished, she wasn’t worn out at all.

And there’d been no pain.

“You were drawing on the power of the hellhound pack,” Limos said. “That. Is. Awesome.”

Ares pulled Cara to her feet as Battle came to his. Nearby, Hal and Hades were still playing their gruesome game of fetch, and the medical staff were packing up and preparing the dead for transport.

Cara wrapped herself around Ares and held tight. “I just wish my power worked on more than animals. I might have been able to save some of your staff.”

Thanatos nodded grimly. “I lost twelve vampires.”

“I’ll have to tell Vulgrim that fourteen of his herd are dead.” Ares pressed a kiss to the top of Cara’s head. “But you’re safe. You still bear my agimortus, but since you can’t be killed, you’re no longer a target for Pestilence or his minions. Which means you’re coming home with me.” He cleared his throat. “If you, you know, want to.”

How adorable was he? “Of course I want to. But… the agimortus… I’ll drain you.”

Than snorted. “Something tells me he’ll be happy for you to drain him.”

“Hell yeah.” Ares sifted her hair through his fingers, so simple, but so intimate. “Not even a question.” Her concern must have shown like a neon sign, because he cut her a serious look. “The effect is temporary, and the tradeoff is worth it a thousand times over.”

“Gag.” Limos studied her chipped nails. “Get a room.”

“It’s not all good news, though,” Than warned. “Pestilence is going to come after Limos and me now. And if one our Seals breaks, the other two will fall soon after.”

“And he still has Deliverance,” Limos pointed out.

Usually bringing up the dagger made Than irritable, but he merely nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I never want to come here again,” Cara muttered.

“You never will.” Ares lifted her into Battle’s saddle and swung up behind her. “Hades handled the vapor wraiths at the Harrowgate, so let’s get the hell out of here. Pun intended. Where do you want to go?”

“First, your shower. Second, your bed.”

Instantly, she felt the nudge of his erection against her butt. “Anything you want.”

“Anything?” She twisted around in the saddle, hooked her hand behind his head, and pulled his mouth to her lips. “Because now that I’m immortal, you have no excuses to avoid the full-on rough stuff.”

He groaned. “We’re so out of here.”

They didn’t make it to the bedroom. Hell, they didn’t even make it to the house. Ares had wanted to inform Vulgrim privately of his herd-mates’ valiant deaths, so, at Cara’s request, he’d left her on the beach near his house, where she could wash in the waves and relax.

Now Ares was stripping off his clothes as he walked across the white expanse of sand toward Cara, who was splashing in the sea, her eyes sparkling like the water around her. He admired her graceful, sleek lines as she rose up, exposing her high, firm breasts and the shadowed juncture between her legs. The sea swells licked at her the way he planned to do when he got her onto land.

He was hard, hungry, and ready before he hit the first wave. By the second, his body was straining for her, his blood running like lava through his veins. By the third, she was wrapped around him, her silky sex rubbing against his, her lips sucking on his neck.

He groaned as she ground against him, working her entrance over the tip of his shaft. “Give me thirty seconds to wash off the demon blood—”

Her throaty growl both turned him on and told him what she thought of that idea. Granted, blood and gore had never bothered him, but this was Cara, and although he knew damned good and well that she could handle whatever he threw at her, she deserved him to be clean, at least.

With more effort than he would have believed he’d need, he peeled her off of him, but not before she fisted his cock and gave him a couple firm pumps that nearly had him spilling in her hand.

“I want what you promised me,” she said, and yeah, she’d get it.

He fell backward in the water, scrubbed his hands over his face and hair while he was beneath the waves. When he breached the surface, prepared to drag her to him… she was gone. Instant, ice-cold fear stabbed him, but when he saw her on the beach, backing toward the craggy trees on the coastline and crooking her finger in a playful come-and-get-me gesture, his worry veered straight to lust.

Oh, he was going to get her, all right. And he was going to come. Several times.

On fire for her, he surged out of the water with the single-minded focus of a starving predator. The little minx squealed, turned and ran, but she didn’t have a prayer. He was faster, and he was going to take her down like a wolf on a deer.

What he didn’t count on was her ability to climb trees like a cat.

He caught up with her deep in the northern grove, where she was standing above him on the thick branch of an ancient, gnarled olive tree.

“Woman, what are you doing?” His voice was rough, his breathing rapid, but not from exertion. The chase had revved him, stoked his craving for either battle or sex, and he was no longer afraid to give Cara both.

“Since you made me wait, I’m making you work for it.” She shifted her stance, allowing him a tantalizing view of her glistening center, and a carnal sound escaped him. He was riveted by the sight, knew how she felt, tasted, smelled, and the list of things he wanted to do to her was endless.

“You think I won’t climb that tree?”

“This branch won’t support you.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose, an age-old tactic he employed during the thickest part of a battle when rash decisions lost wars. And right now, a rash decision would have him tearing that tree up by the roots to get at his female.

His gaze fell on the surrounding foliage, and his strategy fell into place. Smiling triumphantly, victory already singing in his heated veins, he stalked a few feet away to one of the many wild grape vines that had overtaken the island. He tore a thick vine from the plant and wrapped one end around his fist.

Cara eyed him warily as he stalked back to the tree. “Are you ready, Cara?” he asked silkily, and her eyes narrowed.

“What do you have planned—” She cut off as he snapped the vine like a whip, catching her around one slim ankle. He jerked the vine, yanking her feet out from under her.

Her shriek of surprise rang out, followed by a grunt as the backs of her knees caught a lower branch. In an instant, she was hanging upside down from the tree and hurling curses that would make a hardened soldier blush. Ares puffed up with pride.

“What did I tell you about challenging me?”

With a snarl, she reached for him, and he let her catch him around the thighs because they were now in the perfect position for what he’d been wanting to do to her from the moment he’d first seen her naked. Sure, in his fantasies they’d been horizontal, but vertical worked too. Maybe even better.

He stepped into her so they were skin on skin, her plump breasts pressing into his abs. Breathing deeply, he took in the heady scent of her desire as he bent his head slightly to put his mouth level with her sex. A delicious sting urged him closer as her fingernails dug into the backs of his thighs and her hot breath fanned over his shaft and balls.

Two could play at that game. Though he scarcely had the patience to tease, he took the time to blow on her damp curls as he spread the lips of her sex with his thumbs. The sight of her slick, pink flesh, open and exposed to him, almost made him weak in the knees.

Swimming in need, he licked her from her clit to her core, loving the way she squirmed helplessly against him as he did it again. And again.

Almost vengefully, she dragged her lips up his shaft and closed her mouth over the head of him. His cock kicked, pulsing as her wet heat sucked him deep. She wasn’t gentle as she worked him, using her teeth to pinch his flesh and her fingernails to score it. Her tongue lashed at him and her lips rasped over sensitive spots, and the blend of sensations had him pumping his hips, fucking her mouth.

But he didn’t forget what he was doing. Pushing his tongue fully inside her, he began a thrusting motion in time with his pelvic action. The peaches-and-cream taste of her, mingled with the salty essence of the sea, drove him harder, and her sweet moans buzzed through him, vibrating his cock and spreading through every nerve ending.

He slid his thumbs inward to massage her clit between them as he tongued her. Her juices flooded his mouth, and he groaned, swallowing her hungrily.

“Ares.” She gasped his name around the cap of his penis, and damn, he loved feeling her lips move like that, turning his name into an erotic caress.

Sensing the orgasm coiling within her, he doubled his efforts, rolling her swollen nub with the pads of his thumbs and whirling his tongue inside her. Faster and faster, he circled the rim of her opening and then buried his tongue deep. Cara bucked and thrashed, and this time when she called his name, it was in the throes of ecstasy.

He tasted her climax, an extra zing of sweetness on his lips. As she panted through the waning pleasure, he dragged his tongue back to feather it over her quivering clit, and she went off again, her hands gripping his buttocks so hard he knew he’d be bruised, even if only for a few minutes.

“Need… you… now,” he said hoarsely.

Spurred on by pain, passion, and the elemental need to mate, he lifted her, unhooking her legs from the branch. In one smooth move, he flipped her, planting her on her hands and knees on the sandy ground. Pure animal desire compelled him now, and he went to his knees behind her, gripped her hips, and drove his cock inside her. He gave her what she’d asked for, sparing her nothing. He pounded into her with everything he had, scooting them both forward and leaving deep grooves in the ground.

“Yes,” she rasped, reaching one hand behind her to gouge his thigh with her nails. “More.”

He hissed, the pleasure-pain building another layer onto his ecstasy, her demand fueling his lust. Growling like something straight out of Sheoul, he snared her wrist, tucked it under her as he grabbed her other arm so she fell forward. Even though the sex haze engulfed him, he was aware that this was his mate, his treasure, and he popped his forearm out so her cheek rested on it instead of the ground.

She thanked him for his courtesy by biting him.

Ah, damn, he loved her. Roughly, he gripped both her wrists in one of his hands and held them prisoner against her flat belly so her ass was in the air and he was covering her. In this position, she was totally at his mercy, completely dominated, and as her moans mingled with the slap of his thighs against her butt, she was also completely lost to pleasure.

His climax boiled in his balls, tingled at the base of his spine, and as it erupted, he sank his teeth into her shoulder, and she shouted in her own release. Pain shot through him as she bit down again on his arm, and fuck that was good, propelling him to another orgasm that hitch-hiked onto the first, the most intense, soul-shattering sexual experience of his life.

Her core squeezed around him, dragging out the pleasurable spasms as they waned. They were both panting, damp with sweat, and every one of Ares’s muscles was quivering. So. Damn. Good.

It took several minutes for his senses to reboot, and then he realized he was crushing Cara, his teeth still buried in her skin, and he scrambled off her. “Shit… Cara… are you okay?”

A lazy smile curved her mouth as she rolled, catlike, onto her back and stretched, exposing her long, beautiful body to him. “That,” she purred, “was what I’ve been wanting all along.”

He swept her into his arms, amazed at his good fortune. “Any time, sweetheart.”

“Good.” She licked his throat, a lingering, hot stroke that jumpstarted him again. “Remember all those things you said to me in the shower?”

His mouth went dry. He remembered. He’d been an ass, describing things he knew she hadn’t done. But they’d just crossed two of them off the list. “Yeah,” he croaked.

“Well, I want to do the rest. Today. So I hope you have candles, honey, a riding crop, and a whole lot of stamina.”

Oh, he had all of those things.

God, he loved this woman.