Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [94]
The rest had fled when Cara escaped through the Harrowgate. Clearly, once their target was gone, they hadn’t felt like sticking around to be slaughtered by Ares and his Aegis sidekicks.
Limos wiped her blade clean in the grass. “She lied. I’m going to kill her.”
“Not if I get to her first.” Her lie had left her without a Horseman to protect her. Ares yanked his sword out of the demon. “Has Than come out of his rage?”
“Yep. He’s gone to New Zealand to follow up on a lead about a fallen angel.”
“Help him,” Ares said. “We need one. Now.”
Limos popped a salute. “Yes, sir.” Her sarcasm was tempered by an impish smile as she zapped a Harrowgate and stepped through.
Ares did the same, and came out in his great room, where there was no sign of the human.
“Cara!” he roared.
Torrent appeared from the kitchen with a steaming plate piled high with roast lamb and vegetables, Rath darting between his legs. “She was here a second ago,” he said.
“Dammit!” Ares stalked through the house, fear spiking his anger. She wasn’t in the master suite, or any of the other bedrooms. His anxiety grew as he checked rooms and kept coming up empty.
And then a sudden suspicion nearly laid him out.
The room.
With dread running like sludge in his veins, he charged to the end of the hall just past the storeroom. The door to the stairwell was ajar, confirming his suspicion. He took the stone steps down three at a time. The narrow, unfinished passageway was dark, but a light from the room at the bottom burned bright.
He insisted the room be lit. Twenty-four-seven.
He hit the bottom of the steps and skidded to a halt. Cara stood at the ancient bookcase, angled so he could partially see her profile. She’d opened the tiled box he kept there and was holding the items that had been inside. Irrational anger hitchhiked a ride with adrenaline and fear for Cara’s safety, and he lashed out.
“Get away from that.”
Cara jumped, whirled around, and nearly dropped the clay horse and dog. Jesus. If the toys had broken, he would have… just… Jesus.
“I’m sorry… I was—”
“You were going through my things.”
Carefully, she placed the toy animals in the box, along with the wooden rattle. But she ran her thumb over the bronze ring and the milky green emerald set into it. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
His throat closed up. “It was my wife’s.”
She set it in the box. “And the other things?”
“They were my sons’. Now get out.”
“The light was on—”
“Get. Out.”
“I only wanted to know more about you.”
“I told you my family was killed. What more do you need?” He stepped inside, and the room closed in on him. He hadn’t been in here in decades. Vulgrim kept it clean and the light working, but Ares hadn’t had the guts to visit. The knowledge that he’d been so cowardly ramped up his temper even more. “Get out.”
Pity flashed in her eyes, and wasn’t that just the icing on his shit cake? “I’m sorry about your family.” She closed the box lid so softly he barely heard the click of the tiny latch slide into place. Her gaze traveled around the room, which held all of the possessions he’d been able to retrieve from the time he was human. “Why was the light on?”
How many times had he told her to get out, and she was still standing there, asking about the lights? He should toss her, but he didn’t trust himself to touch her. He was too angry, and he wanted her too badly.
“I keep it on always. My youngest son was afraid of the dark.” He’d thought it was stupid at the time, hadn’t understood childish fears, because he’d never been afraid of anything as a child.
The room was getting seriously claustrophobic. He didn’t bother telling Cara to leave again. He got the hell out of there. Sometimes, the best strategy was to retreat and regroup.
Cara called out to him, but he kept going, didn’t stop until he was in the private, three-walled patio off his bedroom. He just wanted sixty seconds alone—
“Ares.”
Fuck. He didn’t turn around. Instead, he looked out over the sea as the last rays of sunlight cast a sparkling sheen