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“Kill me,” Tav rasped. “Or I have to keep trying.”

The bone spur was going to kill him anyway, but it would be slow and painful as shit. Slitting Tavin’s throat would be a mercy. But dammit, the guy had helped Arik at great personal risk by slipping him extra water and giving him an escape route from Sheoul. And then there was the mind thing.

Arik eyed the demon, whose skin had gone ashen and slick with sweat. “You healed my body, but you also healed my mind, didn’t you? That’s why I’m not a slobbering blob of PTSD.”

Tavin’s eyes shot wide. For a moment Arik thought he was going to deny it, but a massive shudder shook him, and he gasped, “I have… a limited… ability. Mother… was a… pruosi.”

Pruosi. A species of demon that possessed off-the-chart mental abilities. So Tav had inherited a Seminus bodily gift from his sire, but also a mental one from his mother. Arik wondered what other gifts the demon was hiding.

And what information he might be hiding with them.

“What do you know about the khnives that were sent after me?”

“Nothing.” Tav groaned, and a trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth. “But look… outside Sheoul for the… perpetrator.” His pain-glazed eyes met Arik’s. “Khnives are spies. No demon would… use them as… assassins. Too unpredictable.”

Well, that news was disturbing as shit. Who outside of Sheoul wanted him dead?

Pounding footsteps vibrated the ground, and Limos and Ares were there, swords drawn and leveled at Tavin.

“I have it handled,” Arik said. “Tavin tried to kill me, but for some reason, I’m not dying.”

Ares whistled to one of his Ramreel servants, who was standing nearby. “Prepare the torture chamber.”

Jesus. Horsemen definitely didn’t mess around. He glanced at Limos, who glaredÀs, who g at him, and he wondered if she was imagining Arik in the torture chamber next to Tavin. Arik tossed the blade into the sand and shoved to his feet. No one was going to be tortured, and no one was going to kill Tavin, either.

“Did you hear the part where I’m not dying? I got stabbed in the gut, throat, and heart.” Arik rubbed his fingers over the skin on his neck. “Not that you’d know it.”

“I’ll be damned.” Ares shoved his sword into its scabbard. “Gethel said some of Reaver and Limos would be left behind when she ripped their souls out of you. I’d say you got some pieces of immortality.”

Tav, still lying on the ground, coughed, and blood sprayed. “I’m… off the hook if…” He sucked in a rattling breath. “… you’re immortal.”

Arik kneeled next to him and put his hand over the wound in the demon’s abdomen. “He needs a doctor.” Arik’s medic training wasn’t going to be worth jack shit in this situation.

“He tried to kill you,” Limos snapped. “What he needs is a beheading.”

“He helped me get out of Sheoul,” Arik said quietly. “And helped me keep my sanity.”

Ares swore. “I’ll take him to Underworld General. Fucking demons and their fucking demon hospital…”

He gathered Tav in his arms, opened a gate, and was gone, leaving Arik and Limos to stare at each other. Arik was pretty sure she was still mentally fitting him for chains and hot pokers.

“You lied to me.” She sheathed her sword, and he let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He could tell her it was to protect his colleagues and their relationship with The Aegis, and while that was true, he was going to go with the reason behind the lie in the first place.

“Because The Aegis believed that they could stop the Apocalypse. They did it for the sake of the world. I didn’t participate in the decision, but I had to believe they were doing it for the right reasons.” He paused, wondering how to break the rest to her. He decided on the bandage-removal method; do it fast. “Regan is pregnant.”

Limos inhaled sharply. “Is it… Than’s?”

“Yeah.” He watched her warily, hoping she didn’t blow like Thanatos had. That had been some scary shit, and an experience he never wanted to go through again. “One of the scrolls you led Kynan to indicated that if a Horseman and Guardian made a baby, the kid would save