Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [63]
Ares was fucking wired. He sat astride Battle, his entire body cramped with tension, his panting breaths burning hot in his throat. What the fuck had just happened?
Before he’d burst into the room to find the hound about to rip Cara’s throat out, he’d been crazed with lust. Then he’d been crazed with rage that had only intensified when, in Cara’s presence, he’d been vulnerable to the hellhound. His armor had softened, his sword had shattered, and he’d lost his ability to predict his opponent’s next move.
The hound had gotten one up on him, and if not for Thanatos…
Mother. Fuck.
Not since his “human” days before the curse had Ares felt so helpless. Oh, he’d been pretty damned helpless when he’d been paralyzed for weeks by the hellhounds, but that was different. No one had been relying on him for protection. But this time… had Thanatos not been there, Ares would have been bitten, and Cara could have been killed. She’d said the beast didn’t harm her because she was bonded to his pup, but hellhounds were deceptive, not to be trusted, and he wouldn’t believe any information gained from the bastard.
Especially not if he was working with Pestilence.
As Battle cantered across the island, spraying sand in his wake, Ares thought about Cara and wondered how this had gotten so complicated. The pity in her eyes when she’d asked if he was okay had snagged his trip wire, and that, combined with his utter humiliation over being spanked by the hellhound, had lit him up. Oh, and then there had been the fact that he was already running on a full tank of lust, so when he’d gotten a full frontal view of Cara wearing his hockey jersey, his control had disintegrated. Those legs. Holy shit, she was gorgeous. Fresh from the shower, her dewy skin had made his mouth water, her wet hair had made him want to run his fingers through it, and her long, toned legs had made him want to part them and park himself between them.
Something seriously primal had come over him at the way she’d been covered by his clothing, and his brain had gone caveman and started screaming, mine, over and over. There had been no thought after that, just a driving need to claim her.
It was a damned good thing Thanatos had interrupted, though in truth, Cara’s scream had pierced Ares’s fog of lust, and he’d been about to release her when his brother barreled into the room. That had set off another fucked-up reaction, one of fierce protection… as if Than was as much a threat to Cara as the hellhound had been.
Fuck.
The danger she’d been in kept circulating in his head. He kept seeing those teeth at her throat. Those claws wrapped around her waist. She’d been terrified, but she’d also been incredibly brave. The way she’d smoothed her hand over Chaos’s fur and spoken to him in a calm, soothing voice had stunned the hell out of Ares. The terror rolling off her had been incomprehensible, and yet, she’d pushed past it to save them all.
In all his years, he’d never seen anything like it. Her bravery in the face of danger had been something to behold, and the biggest turn-on of his life. She might not know it, might not want to know it, but hers was the soul of a warrior. Oh, it was still leashed, suppressed by the weight of polite society, morals, and probably her upbringing. The problem, he knew, would be that when her inner warrior was loosed, it could prove to be dangerous, destructive, and uncontrollable. He spurred Battle past the vineyard and toward the southern end of the island. The stallion threw his head, jerking the reins so violently they nearly flew out of Ares’s hands. Talk about uncontrollable. The horse was agitated, sensing Ares’s mood.
Ahead, the Harrowgate loomed between two ancient stone pillars. Battle pranced inside, and the dark room expanded to allow for their size. As the shimmering veil solidified, two maps appeared on the obsidian walls; one of Earth, and one of Sheoul. Ares tapped the