Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [15]
The big guy in armor seemed to assess the situation in less time than it took for her heart to beat. He moved like a viper, lashing out with his massive arm and knocking Garcia and Carrot across the room. When the man behind her shoved her aside, the leather-armor guy struck with a closed fist, adding her captor’s body to the pile.
Cara didn’t even have time to scream. Or run. Or faint. In a single stride the newcomer was in front of her. She backed away, but was blocked by the exam table. He stalked her, his presence overwhelming, as if he owned the very air, and she had to struggle for every breath.
“You,” he said in an impossibly dark, deep voice, “have some explaining to do.”
Damned Aegis idiots.
Ares generally supported their efforts, had, in the past, fought alongside them in battles against demons. But the demon slayers tended to think that anything they didn’t understand was evil.
He glanced at the three Guardians—no, four. One was dead. The live ones struggled to their feet, pain twisting their expressions and murder gleaming in their eyes. The human female was backed against an exam table, her terror a tangible odor that was mixed with the scent of her blood, of the Guardians’ blood, and… of hellhound.
But there was no sign of Sestiel, the fallen angel Ares had tracked to this very room, and now, suddenly, Ares couldn’t sense the angel at all.
He gauged the situation, decided it wasn’t necessary to kill the Aegi, but he did need to know what had gone on here. It was critical that he find Sestiel before Reseph did, but the fact that the fallen angel might be in possession of a motherfucking hellhound was an added complication; the beasts acted like radar-jamming equipment, and as long as Sestiel was near the hound, Ares would be unable to locate him.
Then there was another, worse scenario to consider—that Sestiel wasn’t in possession of a hellhound, but rather that a hellhound was in possession of him. Which meant that Ares needed to glean every crumb of information he could get from the human female, and he’d get his answers one way or another.
Too bad for her. Seizing her arm, he tugged her to him, opened a gate, and stepped through the shimmering veil, unconcerned by the fact that humans came out on the other side of a Harrowgate dead. Nope, one of the cool advantages of a summoned Harrowgate was that humans could travel with the Horsemen. Not that it happened often. Not since their break with The Aegis.
A warm salt breeze hit him as they exited, their feet coming down on rock and ivory sand. A hundred yards away was his Greek manor, a sprawling white structure that sat atop an island in the Aegean Sea. The island was unmapped—invisible to human eyes and technology—and Ares had lived here for three thousand years, since the day he’d wrested it from the demon who’d built it. It was a great place, especially since he’d brought it up to modern standards and comforts.
But they weren’t going inside.
He spun the woman around so her back was to the sea, her bare feet close to the cliff edge. “Who are you?” He gripped her shoulders firmly, his fingers digging into the blue flannel pajama top dotted with penguins. She wore penguin pajamas.
“P-please…” The wind whipped her sandy-blonde hair into her face, and some weird impulse made him want to brush it away.
He resisted. “Who are you?”
“I’m not… not a demon.” Her breath sawed in and out of her so violently that he half-expected her to pass out.
“What is your name?”
She blinked as if she didn’t understand the question, and when he repeated it, she finally murmured, “Cara. It’s Cara. I’m not a demon. I swear, I’m not a demon.”
“You keep saying that.” He inhaled, once again catching the bitter scent of her terror, but also, the faint, smoky tint of hellhound. She’d been in direct contact with one. “Why were you handling