Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [120]
“You can’t be serious,” Ares rasped. “Never. Now get away from him before he hurts you.”
Unbelievably, Cara wrapped her arm around the hellhound’s neck, and through the red haze of hatred, he realized that she was wobbly and needed support. “He can’t hurt me or he’ll hurt his son. He needs my help to find Hal, Ares, and we need him.”
“We don’t need him. I will never need him.” He stepped forward, and the hound matched the move, putting one giant paw in front of Cara, holding her in place. If Ares didn’t know better, he’d think Chaos was trying to protect her.
Which was ridiculous.
“I told you what he did to me, Cara. I can’t forget that. I won’t forget that.”
Pain flashed in Cara’s eyes. “Ares, if you kill him, you’ll be fighting Hal for the rest of his life.”
The cold, stark reality brought his temper back down to manageable levels. Fighting Hal very likely wouldn’t be an issue. Hal would be dead soon, if Ares couldn’t bury Deliverance in Pestilence’s heart. And if he did, by some miracle, destroy his brother, how could Cara live with Hal and Ares wanting each other dead?
And damn… how could he let go of over forty-five hundred years of hatred?
But how could he not give Cara this, after all he’d put her through, and after what she’d sacrificed for him?
It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he lowered his sword, never taking his eyes off the evil son of a bitch.
Closing her eyes, Cara let out a relieved breath. “He says that as long as Hal lives, he’ll honor the truce.”
Honor. Not a word he’d associate with hellhounds. “Just one thing,” Ares said thickly. “I need to know why he killed my brother and sons like that.” There had been genuine hatred in Chaos’s actions that went well beyond a normal kill.
Cara smoothed her hands along both sides of the beast’s face. After a minute, maybe two, or ten… it was hard to say… Cara hung her head. “So much pain between you two.” She lifted her gaze. “I can see his thoughts. Do you remember a battle in some mountains? There’s a siege engine of some sort, ugly, with a boar head carved into it and”—she shuddered—“human skulls nailed all over the beams.”
“Yeah. I remember.” He, his sons, brother, and Ares’s army had chased demon hordes all the way into the Ahaggar Mountains after his wife was killed, and once the demons were boxed in, the slaughter had begun.
“Chaos wasn’t part of the demon-human war. He and his mate brought his pups out of Sheoul to teach them to hunt rats among the carnage. He was young, and it was his first litter. You killed them.”
Ares swallowed. He’d done so much killing in his life, so much of it running together like thousands of rivers of blood into one massive sea. But he remembered his first hellhounds. He’d been so full of hatred after the death of his wife that he’d taken pleasure in slaughtering the female and her young. In Ares’s eyes, they’d been nothing but evil beasts feeding on the corpses of his soldiers.
The ground shifted beneath him. They’d been hunting rats, not eating his men. Not fighting humans.
It was only days later that he’d come back to the command tent to find a giant hellhound standing over the remains of his sons and brother.
Oh, Jesus. Chaos hadn’t started the feud between the two of them. Ares had. For so long, he’d believed Ekkad and his sons had died simply because he’d loved them, that they’d been targets for demons who were striking at Ares. But no, they’d died because Ares had destroyed a family.
“All this time I wanted revenge against him, and he wanted the same against me.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. He still hated the damned thing, but Ares understood him now. “I’ll honor the truce.”
Chaos met his gaze, a mutual understanding passing between them. Neither wanted to cuddle or anything, but they’d give each other a wide berth and pass without swinging.
The hound dematerialized, and without the support, Cara hit the floor.
“Cara!” Ares dropped to his knees beside her and gathered her in his arms. She was unconscious.
Limos kneeled beside him. “Is she—”
“No,” he