Rogue Rider (Lords of Deliverance) (26 page)

What was happening?

Jillian stood in the snow, unable to process any of this. The strange, armored people on their horses watched Reseph break away from Jillian, curiously detached. Until
he screamed and threw himself against the tree, slamming his head into the trunk over and over.

“Reseph!” She darted toward him, but before she’d gone five steps, arms came around her and she was held tightly by the huge man with blond braids at his temples and yellow hawk eyes. “Let me go!” She kicked and punched, but she might as well have been beating on an elephant. “Release me, you bastard!”

A godawful roar shook the very air, and Reseph spun, his face dripping blood, his teeth bared. Fury blazed in his crimson eyes as they locked onto the man holding her. He charged, but in a blur she couldn’t comprehend until it was over, the guy in leather armor was off his horse and tackling Reseph. Leather Man jammed something that looked like an EpiPen into his throat, and Reseph went completely, utterly still.

“What did you do?” she screamed. “
Reseph!
”

“He’s okay, female.” The man holding her palmed her forehead. “I’ll make this all go away.”

“No!” The black-haired woman rushed toward them, her armor, samurai in appearance, collecting snow in the joints as she ran. “Thanatos, don’t. You can’t go back far enough. Let her remember this.”

The man samurai called Thanatos tugged Jillian even closer, until she could feel the chill coming off his white armor. What was it made of, anyway? Bone?

“We can rearrange this, Limos,” Thanatos said. “Make her believe Reseph walked out on her.”

The woman named Limos shook her head. “I promised Arik I wouldn’t mess with anyone’s memories again.”

Memories? These people could mess with memories? Erase things? What was going on?

Thanatos rolled his eyes. “The things you do for that human.”

Behind Limos, the big man in leather armor spoke, and the stallion he’d been riding poofed into smoke and shot into his gauntlet.

Jillian was seeing things. None of this was real. It couldn’t be. But it seemed very real when the man threw Reseph over his shoulder, took a couple of steps, and disappeared into thin air.

“No,” Jillian whispered. “No. Bring him back.” She struggled uselessly against her captor’s hold. “Bring him back, you son of a bitch!”

“Let her go, Than,” the woman said. “Go help Ares with Reseph. I’ll take care of this.”

Take care of this? Terror burst through Jillian. Was the woman going to kill her?

Thanatos released Jillian, and the sudden lack of support sent her sprawling in the snow. “Sorry, female,” he said gruffly, and offered his hand.

As if
. Jillian scrambled backward in an uncoordinated tangle of limbs until she hit the base of the steps and used them to get to her feet. She stood there, panting and freaking out, as Thanatos muttered something and his horse… oh, Jesus, really? His horse dissolved into smoke like the first one and shot into his gauntlet.

Jillian swayed, her head spinning, her heart pounding impossibly fast.
Don’t pass out. Do not pass out in front of these people
. She reached out and clutched the railing as hard as she could, praying hard that she’d stay conscious.

Thanatos took a step and disappeared as quickly as the other man had, leaving her alone with the woman
and her black stallion. At least, Jillian thought it might be a horse. But she’d never seen a horse with razor-sharp teeth, red eyes, and hooves that created steam in the snow.

Terror was a cold fist around her heart, squeezing so hard and fast that her blood felt like it might explode from her veins. This was a nightmare. She was stuck in a horrible nightmare and reality was sliding right out from under her feet. She must have been speaking her thoughts out loud, because the other woman shook her head.

“This isn’t a nightmare. It’s all real. My name is Limos. What’s yours?”

Jillian swallowed. “J-Jillian. Who… are you?”

“I’m Reseph’s sister. Thanatos and Ares are his brothers.” Limos glanced around, her sharp, amethyst eyes seeming to take in everything. “Nice place. Look, Reseph has been missing for a few months. We didn’t even know he was alive until last night. Where did you find him?”

“In a snowbank,” she said hoarsely. “He… he didn’t remember anything but his name.”

Limos nodded. “Yeah, that’s what we were told. Looks like you took good care of him. Thank you.”

Thank you?
Something about Limos’s gratitude struck Jillian as ridiculous, given that they’d knocked out Reseph and then kidnapped him. Sudden anger replaced her fear, and she released the post to get up in Limos’s face.

“Where did your brothers take him? Why did he freak out like that? What the hell is going on?”

“They took him home.” Limos’s voice was calm despite the fact that Jillian was practically shouting now. “As for the rest… it’s not important. We’ll take care of
him.” She pivoted around. “You shouldn’t have any more demon trouble, either. Thanks again.”

“Wait—”

“Trust me,” Limos said softly. “This is for the best.”

Limos and her horse disappeared, leaving Jillian terrified, confused, and so alone it hurt.

Reaver had been prepared to see Reseph in a state of shock, but when Ares brought him back to Greece, slung over his shoulder, Reaver hadn’t been prepared for all the blood.

“What happened? Did he fight you?”

“No.” Ares’s voice was gruff as he strode toward the bedroom they’d prepared. “He went a couple of rounds with a tree. Tree won.”

“Damn,” Reaver whispered. Reseph had done the same thing in Sheoul… thrown himself against a wall over and over, as if he could beat the demon out of himself.

“He seemed to remember everything once he saw us. I used the last of the
qeres
on him,” Ares said. “When this wears off, we’ll have no way to neutralize him.”

Reaver followed Ares to a guest room, where he set Reseph on the bed. “Summon Harvester,” Reaver said. “She has a particular talent when it comes to restraints.”
Reaver knew that firsthand, and the memory made his bones ache.

“Nothing can hold us,” Ares said, as he grabbed a towel from the connected bathroom. “You know that.”

“Harvester’s restraints are made from the victim’s own bones, chains grown out of the skin and attached like part of the body. He can break free, but doing so would be so excruciating that he’ll think twice. He might stay put just to avoid the agony.” Then again, Reseph might welcome the misery.

“Interesting.” Ares wiped Reseph’s face more gently than Reaver would have expected. “Sounds like you know something about this.”

“Too well.” He regarded Reseph, a dull ache throbbing in his gut at the sight of the once happy, carefree male looking so tortured, even while unconscious. “How did he seem before he remembered?”

“He was happy,” Ares murmured. “He seemed like his old self.”

“Maybe he’ll be able to remember that through the rest.”

“I hope you’re right.” Ares whistled, and a hellhound came from out of nowhere. Reaver moved aside, giving the beast plenty of room. They might be lapdogs around Ares and Cara, but they were the same vicious, people-eating demons they’d always been to everyone else, and they especially hated angels. In fact, the buffalo-sized creature snarled at Reaver as he passed, and it took a huge amount of restraint to not strike out at the thing with a punishing heavenly weapon.

Cara would kill Reaver for that, and the look Ares gave Reaver said he knew exactly what Reaver was thinking.

“I’m behaving,” Reaver muttered. “As long as Rin Tin Tin minds his manners, we’ll be fine.”

“His name is Eddie.”

Reaver rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you name them.” He gestured to the thing, which was eyeing Reseph like he wanted to dismember him. Understandable, given how Pestilence had put a bounty on their heads. “Pestilence was immune to hellhound venom. Reseph might be as well.”

“I know. But Eddie can warn us when Reseph wakes up.”

Reaver wasn’t so sure that leaving a pissed-off hellhound with a helpless enemy was a good idea, but Ares didn’t have the same concern, and he strode out of the bedroom without a word. Reaver sighed and accompanied Ares to the great room, where a clearly worried Cara was holding a squirming toddler Ramreel demon.

“I don’t like having him here, Ares,” she said.

“We discussed this.” Ares’s voice softened as he pulled her against him. “We can’t take him to Than’s place because of the baby, and we don’t want him at Limos’s house in such close proximity to Arik. Until we know he’s got nothing left of Pestilence in him, we can’t risk him being anywhere but here.”

If Harvester hadn’t smashed Reseph’s mountain cave in retaliation for Pestilence’s violence against her last year, it would have been a perfect place to keep him. She’d screwed them with her angry actions, but Reaver couldn’t blame her.

“Where are Limos and Thanatos?”

Ares stroked the baby Ramreel’s furry back. “I don’t know. I left them with the human female.”

“Her name is Jillian,” Reaver said.

Ares’s head whipped around. “You know her? Another secret you were keeping from us?”

“I have no obligation to explain myself, Ares. We’ve been through this. She suffered a demon attack. I thought they could heal each other.”

“Forgive me if I don’t want him healed,” Cara snapped, pulling away from Ares. “I want him dead.” She stormed out of the house with the little demon, and Reaver couldn’t fault her.

Ares cursed and went after her, opening the door just as Harvester strode in, looking like a damned high-class hooker. She was dressed in leather, including a skimpy bra top. At least she had on a long duster. Maybe she should button it up, though.

Her lips, painted as black as her outfit, quirked in a wicked smile. “Hello, lover.”

“I’m not your lover,” he ground out.

“Not yet.” Every long-legged stride popped her leather miniskirted hips out in exaggerated supermodel style. High-heeled thigh-high boots cracked on the marble floor. Toned bare flesh flexed between the top of the boots and the bottom of the obscenely short skirt, and Reaver cursed the slow curl of lust that stirred his insides. “But you will be.”

“Do you have any idea how badly I want to strangle you?”

She flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “You’re into asphyxiation play? Nice.” She jerked her thumb toward the door. “Why did Ares summon me?”

Voices outside carried; Thanatos and Limos had arrived and appeared to be trying to calm Cara. Reaver wished them luck.

“We have Reseph,” he told Harvester.

Instantly, her entire demeanor changed, her posture stiffening, her eyes going icy. “Where?”

“In one of the bedrooms. We were hoping you could use your fun bone-chains to restrain him.”

“Gladly.”

He was about to tell her to cool it, that this was Reseph, not Pestilence, when he heard a howl followed by a bloodcurdling scream and a series of crashes.

He and Harvester ran to Reseph’s bedroom, where they were greeted by the sight of destroyed furniture. The hellhound was unharmed, standing in the corner with his hackles raised, baring his teeth at Reseph, who had clearly hurled himself around the room. Now he was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, and rocking, the heels of his palms pressed into his eyes. Every once in a while he threw his head back into the wall hard enough to put cracks in the plaster and, likely, his skull.

Next to Reaver, Harvester began to shake, her rage billowing off her in a cloud that scorched his skin. Reseph, as if sensing their presence, slowly lifted his head. For a long moment, he stared as if confused, and then horror flooded his expression.

“Harvester… oh, Jesus, I… I’m sorry, oh, fuckohfuckohfuck—”

In a flurry of motion and wings she was on top of Reseph, screaming, her fists pounding his face. Reseph did nothing to protect himself.

“You fucking bastard! You piece of shit son of a bitch!” Her words fell like weapons, sharp, nonstop, just like her fists. Blood sprayed the walls, her face, and dripped from her hands.

“Harvester!” Reaver hauled her, kicking and screaming, off Reseph.

“Let me go!
I’ll kill him
.” Snarling, she bit Reaver’s hand, and she nearly slipped out of his grasp before he was able to drag her from the room.

“What’s going on?” Thanatos and Limos ran toward them, swords drawn.

“Nothing.” Reaver jerked his head back to avoid a blow from Harvester’s fist. “Check on Reseph.”

The two Horsemen darted into the bedroom while Reaver struggled to get Harvester out of the house. Once they were outside, he released her, expecting her to make another dash inside. Instead, she dropped to her knees and screamed, a sound so full of pain that Reaver felt it as a physical manifestation, as if his wings were wet and weighing him down. Worse, he had no idea what to do.

Had this been anyone else, he’d gather them in his arms and simply hold them. But this was Harvester, and she wouldn’t welcome comfort. Still, he moved closer. It didn’t matter that she was evil and that he hated her. Pestilence had abused her, and while Reaver wasn’t certain of everything that had happened, he could guess.