“I’m saying she drugged me. And…” Humiliation shrank his skin. “She took me.”
“And I’m still lost.” Arik’s gaze was wary. “You had sex with a beautiful woman. Why is that a problem? Are you a penis guy?”
Than lunged, but Ares caught him around the waist. “I’m going to kill your man, Limos. I am.”
Roughly, Ares dragged Than away from the human. “Let me see your Seal.”
Than’s hand shook as he reached inside his armor and pulled out the gold coin on the chain. Everyone was still and quiet, the anticipation in thipation e air as thick as fog. The only sound was the ruffle of clothing in the icy wind and the gurgling breaths of his stallion. At least Cara’s healing waves were working, and Styx’s wounds were closing up with amazing speed.
Ares palmed the Seal, his eyes filled with worry and hard, icy resolve. Ares would do what was necessary to keep Than from heading out into the world as an evil entity, and Than didn’t blame him. Still, his gut twisted when Ares’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword.
Thanatos met Ares’s gaze. “You have Deliverance.” It might not kill Pestilence, but hopefully, if Than’s Seal broke, it would kill Death.
“We won’t need it,” Ares said, his words clipped with the force of his conviction. But truthfully, Than wasn’t sure Deliverance would make a difference. If any Seal broke after the first one, they’d all break. But maybe if Ares could nail Than in the heart before his Seal completely cracked in half…
“How long did it take for Reseph’s to break?” Limos asked.
“It vibrated for a few seconds, then it cracked,” Ares ran his thumb over the scythe on the front of the Seal. “From what Sin said about the timing of the event that caused the breakage, I figure it was almost instantaneous.” He shot Than a look. “How long ago did you have sex?”
Than spoke between clenched teeth. “Half hour, maybe.”
“Wait.” Arik stepped forward. “Are you saying that sex is what will break your Seal?”
“Yeah,” Limos said. “At least, we thought that’s what it was.” She glanced at Than. “Maybe all this time you could have been having sex?”
Five thousand years wasted? No way. There had to be another answer. He snagged Arik by the collar and ignored Limos’s snarl.
“Why would The Aegis send someone to break my Seal? It makes no sense.”
“Exactly,” Arik’s voice was pretty damned calm for someone who was in Death’s grasp. “It doesn’t. Which means they didn’t think sex is what would break it. And apparently, they were right. So let go of me and go make up for thousands of years of celibacy, asshole.”
A veil of crimson fury slammed down over his vision. Limos and Ares flanked him, moving in slowly, and he prepared to fight. Somewhere in his hate-sodden brain, he knew he was gone, knew he shouldn’t be wanting to strangle the human in his grip. But it didn’t matter.
“Than?” Cara’s voice penetrated the lethal soup clogging his head. “Styx needs you.” Dropping Arik, he whirled around to Cara, who was stroking the stallion’s blood-caked neck. “He’s fine, but he needs to rest—”
“To me.” Instantly, the horse dissolved into smoke and shot inside Than’s gauntlet.
“Thanatos…” Ares’s voice was low, edged with warning. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill the Aegi who betrayed me.”
Ares grabbed his shoulder. “We can’t start another war between us.”
“Then they shouldn’t have betrayed us!” The shadow souls spun around him as if in a blender.
“Than,” Limos said, a note of desperation in her voice. “You need to calm down. You’re getting that crazy look, and we don’t need a repeat of Roanoke.”
Roanoke… he’d lost his temper after being shot, and… he couldn’t remember. A black haze had worked its way into his brain, the death haze, the one that signaled no return and a desire to slaughter.
“Than… we’ll figure this out…”
“Than, calm down…”
There was a shimmery flash, and he thought he saw an angel, but his body was vibrating out of control and he couldn’t trust anything he saw or heard.
“Reaver… thank God… where did you come from…”
“Ares… do it…”
The words jumbled in his head until he couldn’t figure out who was talking or what they were saying. He only wanted to kill. He’d start with Regan, and then he’d work his way through the entire Aegis organization. He’d rend limbs from bodies, rip open throats, kill, kill, kill…
“Limos! Get Arik out of here!”
Too late. With a roar, he let loose, consequences be damned.
Thirty-four
Ares had seen Thanatos in rages, had cleaned up after them and sat with him afterward. But he’d never seen… this.
Reaver had flashed in—dropped off by Harvester—just before Thanatos went off like a nuclear bomb. The power of the blast knocked Ares and Cara off their feet, and both Reaver and Limos, who couldn’t get Arik out of there fast enough, leaped on him, shielding him with their bodies.
The shockwave rolled across the land, picking up snow and forming a solid wall of white as it shot in every direction from the epicenter. It would kill every living being in Greenland.
Ares leaped to his feet and tackled his brother. He and Than went down in a heap and crack of armor on ice. Rolling, they fought, but thanks to Cara’s presence, Ares was at a serious disadvantage, his weakened armor doing little to protect him from Than’s blows.
Frantically, he fumbled for the pouch at his hip and found what he was looking for. Without hesitation, he jammed the small bone barb into Than’s neck. Instantly, Than froze up.
The barb, which Cara had convinced him to carry, was coated in hellhound saliva and was just enough to incapacitate for a few minutes. She’d come up with the idea as a weapon against Pestilence… or against any of his siblings, should one of their Seals break. He made a mental note to kiss his wife senseless later.
Unfortunately, time was short.
“Get Hal,” Ares said to Cara.
She could call out to the hound with her mind, and the f**king mutt had better hurry. While he waited, he touched the scar on Than’s throat, forcing his armor to retreat, and now he was lying na**d on the ice.
Hal appeared out of thin air, tongue lolling, slobber flinging everywhere. Cara spoke to him, and he padded over and took a big bite out of Than’s arm. The glimmer in his black eyes said he’d enjoyed it, but Ares winced. He knew firsthand that while under the influence of hellhound poison, you felt everything.
“Sorry, bro,” Ares murmured. “But this is for your own good.”
“Ares.” Cara’s voice was dripping with alarm, and he leaped to his feet, reaching for his sword.
But it wasn’t his sword he needed. His heart nearly stopped when he saw what Cara was looking at.
Arik was writhing on the ground, clutching his head, a silent scream lodged in his throat. Next to him, Reaver and Limos lay motionless.
“What the hell?”
When Reaver had appeared, dressed in a long black robe and looking like he’d lost a fight with a chainsaw, Ares had hoped for help with Thanatos. But this definitely wasn’t help, and it wasn’t good. Ares kneeled next to Limos and the angel, feeling for a pulse, for breath, for anything.
There was nothing. They were both as cold as the ice around them.
Cara sank down next to him. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
Fear was a punch to his heart, and for a moment, he thought it might have stopped beating. A tingle made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he spun around, both relieved and worried when Gethel materialized next to Than. As usual, she wore a Greek-style tunic, soft leather boots, and a scabbard at her hip.
She eased to her knees next to Arik. “What happened?”
“Thanatos. He was angry.” He didn’t need to say more. Gethel had watched over them for hundreds of years. She knew the deal. “How did you know something was wrong?”
“The sudden deaths of thousands of people on this island was a powerful ripple. We were able to stop Thanatos’s death wave, but too late. So many people gone.” Her voice was leaden with anguish. “More than that, I could hear Reaver’s and Limos’s souls screaming.”
Ares’s blood went as cold as the land around them. “What do you mean?”
Gethel stroked Arik’s hair, and he calmed, but only a little. He still lay there gasping, like a fing, likish dying on the bank of a river. “Did Reaver and Limos protect Arik from Thanatos’s rage?”
“They wrapped themselves around him,” Cara said.
Bowing her head, Gethel closed her eyes. “Yes, that makes sense.”
“What?” Ares moved forward, not understanding any of this. “What makes sense?”
“The shockwave… it knocked Limos and Reaver into Arik. Literally.” She looked up at him. “It ripped their souls out of them and cast them into the human. If not for them, he’d be dead. The problem is that he’ll die anyway, if I can’t retrieve their souls. And if even if I can, it’ll be dangerous, and it’ll hurt. Greatly.”
Cara shivered, and Ares pulled her into his arms. She might be immortal, but she wasn’t immune to being cold. “Why will it hurt?”
“Souls are… sticky.” Gethel continued to stroke Arik’s hair, which lessened his writhing. “They bind themselves to demonic life-forces and make them stronger. Pestilence has been collecting them for that reason. I’ll have to peel Reaver and Limos from Arik, and fragments will be left behind or will come off Arik.”
Ares had seen and heard a lot in his life, but this was new. And disturbing. “What do you mean… fragments?”
Gethel paused, as if searching for the right words. “Imagine two humans stuck together with… what is that substance called…”
“Superglue?” Cara offered.
“Yes. Superglue.” Arik moaned, and Gethel smoothed her palm over his cheek. “If you pull the people apart, bits of skin and hair are torn away. In the case of souls, what is taken or left behind is much more crucial.”
Ares digested that for a second, and wished he had some Tums, because this was all going sour. “If Arik dies, his soul belongs to Pestilence.”
“I know,” Gethel said softly. She looked between Ares and Cara. “Hold him. He’s going to struggle.”
Cara patted Hal, who lumbered over to Arik and plopped down on his lower legs.
Gethel raised an eyebrow. “Unconventional, but effective.”
“Story of my life with Cara,” Ares murmured, and pushed down on Arik’s broad shoulders while Cara held his head to prevent thrashing.
“Hold tight,” Gethel said.
Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, and her body began to glow. She reached for Arik’s chest, and her hand slipped deep inside his body cavity. Arik screamed, arching, veins popping in his temple and throat. He convulsed, and Ares swore he heard a ripping noise as Gethel tugged so hard she fell backward. Even in freefall, she reached behind her and slammed her fist into Limos’s sternum.
Limos jerked and came awake with a gasp. “Arik!” She scrambled over and grabbed his arm, loo his armking between Ares and Gethel. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
Gethel splayed her fingers over Arik’s heart, as if she was using her force of will to keep it beating. “I’m trying to save him.”
A wild sob wracked Limos as she clung to Arik. “I’m sorry, Arik. I take it all back. Just live, okay? Live.”
Ares blinked in confusion. Take it all back? What had gone on between them after Ares left her house last night?
Gethel reached inside Arik once more, and Limos muffled a cry with the back of her hand.
Again Arik screamed, a raw, animal sound that made Ares wince despite his years of war and death and destruction that should have made him immune to the sounds of suffering. But this went beyond normal suffering, and suddenly, Ares knew what soul-deep pain really meant.
Finally, Gethel reared back, flinging herself at Reaver. The moment her hand hit his chest, he shot upright, his breath heaving out of his lungs.
“Your souls were knocked into Arik,” Gethel murmured, and very, very gently, she pulled the now motionless human into her arms and held him. Gethel, who had never been one to coddle anyone. Ares would have gaped if he wasn’t so concerned about the guy.
“Is he…”
“He lives, but he’s not the same.” Gethel looked at Limos. “You’ll have to discover his limitations and talents.” Her mouth became a grim slash. “And yours. You and Reaver now share bits of Arik, as he shares bits of you.” Gethel put a glowing hand to his forehead, and he woke, blinking drowsily.
“I feel like the morning after a bachelor party.” Groaning, he sat up. When his gaze lit on Gethel, he barked out a curse. “You.” He fisted her tunic as if she couldn’t destroy him with her pinky if she wanted to. “How could you dissolve my damned marriage without my f**king permission?”
Gethel narrowed her eyes and peeled his hand away. “I did no such thing. I did, however, save your life.”
Ares winced at the not-so-subtle spanking as everyone turned to Limos, who had gone bright red. Glancing down at the snow, she nibbled her lip. “I… oh, shit. I might have… fibbed a little about the divorce.”