Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [50]
“I don’t either, but—” A scream cut Ares off.
Cara. He tore off down the hall, Than and Li on his heels. He burst through the double doors into the bedroom, where Cara was sitting up in bed, her eyes wild, face drawn. Her fingers clutched the sheet so tightly to her chest that her knuckles were white.
“Ares,” she gasped, and then her mouth dropped open at the sight of Than, his sword in hand, and Li, who had armored up in her Croix viper-skin samurai-style tunic and breeches. Ares had, at some point, suited up as well, and his armor creaked as he strode across the room.
“These are my siblings.” Instinctively, Ares scanned every inch of the room before putting his back to the wall next to each window, where he peered out into the night. His Ramreels were standing at attention, undisturbed. “What happened?”
“Someone took Hal.” Cara inhaled raggedly. “They hurt him.”
Thanatos sheathed his weapon, the slice of a blade sliding into its housing cutting through the tension in the room. “Hal?”
“The hellhound she’s bonded to,” Ares explained, his voice as sharp as Than’s sword. “Who took him?”
Cara tugged the sheet up to her neck, her gaze darting between Thanatos and Limos. “There were six of them. Five men and a woman. He didn’t want to go. They jabbed him with spears… he was inside the cage and couldn’t get away.” A tear squeezed from her eye, and he had the absurd urge to wipe it away. It was a feeling he shouldn’t experience while wearing his armor, but being this close to Cara had turned the hard leather to supple doeskin, and emotions that would normally be blocked were annoyingly close to the surface.
“Can you tell us anything about what they looked like?” Than propped himself against the dresser, getting too comfy in the bedroom for Ares’s liking as he grilled Cara. “Their weapons? What they were wearing?”
Cara replied, but to Ares. “Jeans, mostly. Some were in leather. One had a crucifix and a bottle of liquid.”
“Holy water,” Ares muttered. “What else?”
She reached up to her throat, fingered where she’d been bleeding when Ares took her from the Guardians the other night. “They had the same weird, S-shaped things that cut me. They have blades on each end. One is gold, the other is silver.”
“Stangs,” Li snarled. “Aegis weapons. Fucking human scum.”
“Dammit,” Ares breathed. “Thanatos, talk to Reaver and set up that meeting with the Aegi now. We’re going to get some answers, and we’re going to get that damned hellhound away from them before they kill it.”
Limos’s amethyst eyes glittered. “They won’t kill it right away. They’ll experiment on it first.”
“And I’ll weaken while they do it.” Cara’s eyes lifted and clung to his until he felt as if he was drowning in them. Willingly, the way a human male could be lured to his death by a water nymph. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah.” He could sugarcoat the rest, but she already knew. And he’d never sugarcoated anything in his life. “You’ll weaken until you die and trigger the end of the damned world.”
You’ll weaken until you die and trigger the end of the damned world.
Cara wondered how many times she’d have to hear that before it truly sank in that the fate of mankind rested with her.
Blindly, she reached for Ares’s hand, not knowing fully why. Maybe because the guy with the pale yellow, hawklike eyes and an eyebrow piercing was staring at her and the raven-haired, violet-eyed woman had snarled about human scum, and right now Ares was the only ally she had.
If he could truly be called an ally.
She slid covert glances at the newcomers. The guy wasn’t as broad in the shoulders as Ares, a little slimmer all over, and his hair was much lighter and longer, but the similarities in the commanding way they held themselves, their angular features, and their intense expressions were striking. The girl was one of those women Cara had always hated; flawless skin, long, black lashes framing stunning eyes, and drop-dead gorgeous without a touch of makeup.
“So this is your brother? And sister?” Another Horseman And a… Horsewoman?
“That’s Thanatos.