Immortal Rider (LD2) (2 page)

Son-of-a—

All around him, the ground began to rumble, and a second later, giant, spiny arms punched up out of the dirt. Hands seized him, a dozen maybe. Agony wrenched through him as his limbs were twisted and pulled, and his skin was shredded.

Consciousness became a fluid thing, something he couldn’t quite reach. His vision went dark, but his ears still worked, and before they shut down, he heard Limos’s panicked voice, but what she said made no sense.

“
Don’t say my name, Arik! No matter what they do to you, don’t speak my name!
”

Limos was utterly frozen, terrified in a way she had never, ever been. And given that she was five thousand years old, that was saying something.

Her brothers and Ares’s guests charged out of the house, weapons drawn, and then they skidded to halt.

“Jesus Christ,” Kynan shouted. “Arik!”

“Limos, no.” Thanatos tugged her against him, stopping her from going after the behemoths that had grabbed Arik and were dragging him down into the earth.

“He kissed me.” She said the same thing over and over, her voice a high-pitched, terrified wail.

Wordlessly, Ares produced a small blade, and in one smooth motion, launched it. Limos’s first instinct was to stop him, but the knife was already in the air, on a course for Arik’s heart.

The whistle of an arrow cut the night, and Ares’s dagger shattered. Pestilence, his ice-blue eyes glowing in the light of the moon, stood near the cliff, his bow in hand, a satisfied smile on his face. “You’ll thank me later, sis.”

Thanatos lunged, and a black, furry blur streaked past them both. Before Hal, Cara’s hellhound protector, reached Pestilence, he opened a portable Harrowgate and stepped through it.

He was gone, and when Limos turned back to Arik, he was gone too. The only sign that he’d been there was a smear of blood in the sand.

“What the fuck just happened?” Kynan rounded on Ares. “Why did you try to kill him, you cocksucker?”

Limos couldn’t speak. Funny how moments ago she’d been screaming incoherently, but now she couldn’t dredge up a single word. Ares, for his part, stayed calm despite the fact that Kynan had called him a cocksucker and was now fisting his shirt and snarling in his face.

“He kissed Limos,” Ares said, his voice rough as sandpaper. Maybe he wasn’t as calm as she thought. “She isn’t allowed to give her affections to a male in any way.”

Kynan released Ares to turn his murderous glare on Limos. “Explain.”

There were still no words. None. The night, which she’d always hated because it reminded her so much of Sheoul, closed in on her. How could Arik have done that? How dare he think it was okay to kiss
her
, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

“Goddammit,” Kynan snapped. “Someone fucking answer me.”

“We told you that Limos is to become Satan’s bride,” Thanatos said. “But not until her Seal breaks, she’s captured in Sheoul, or until she does something to make him jealous.”

“Okay,” Kynan said, “so the big guy is jealous. Why is she still here but Arik is gone?”

“Because it’s not that simple. The Dark Lord can’t have her until the male who incited the jealousy utters her name while in agony.”

Kynan swallowed loud enough for her to hear. “So he’s still alive? Where?”

“Hell,” Limos rasped. “Arik is in hell.”

Two

One month later…

Arik didn’t know how long he’d been in hell. Time was one never-ending, no-lube fuck when you were in the dark and in nonstop agony. And these bastard demons wouldn’t let him die. He’d tried, but they just kept healing him.

At least right now it was quiet, a few stolen moments in which he could sleep. Sleep and dreams were his only pleasure… even the dreams that were about the female who had landed him in this hellhole in the first place.

Limos
.

Closing his eyes, he settled back against the cold stone—bliss on his bruised, bare skin. With a little effort, he shut out the rumbling of his stomach and the incessant drip of water outside the cell that was intended to drive him crazy with want, since the demons rationed his water,
and what little he got was usually stagnant and disgusting anyway.

He tried to think of his sister, Runa, and his nephews. Tried to force his thoughts toward his job with the U.S. Army’s paranormal unit, the R-XR, as well as the forced-on-him involvement with the civilian demon-fighting organization, The Aegis. Tried to think about his escape plan… anything other than Limos, but his mind kept drifting to the beautiful ebony-haired, violet-eyed female. He hadn’t liked her when he first met her, mainly because she’d kicked his ass, broken his ribs, and threatened to crush his organs into marmalade.

Marmalade… God, he was hungry.

So, no, he hadn’t been overly fond of the third Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Still wasn’t. Because of her, he’d been dragged to Sheoul, the demon realm deep in the earth, stripped naked, and tortured within an inch of his life. Repeatedly. And the weird thing was that all the demons who held him captive wanted was for him to say her name. Her freaking
name
.

What. The. Hell.

So far, he hadn’t broken. Well, he’d
broken
, but the creepy-ass demons of unknown species kept a Seminus demon around to heal him so he wouldn’t die and they could keep breaking his bones and peeling off his skin. They’d even tried sleep deprivation, starvation, and getting into his head to make him think he was somewhere much more pleasant so they could trick him into saying her name. He’d been subjected to every torture and violation known to man. And then some, ’cuz demons were creative as fuck.

But they wouldn’t tell him
why
they wanted him to
speak her name, and though it would be so easy to let it slip, to finally free himself of the torment, he couldn’t. Anything important to the evil bastards wasn’t good for mankind. And Limos had been pretty adamant as he’d been dragged down here, his skin shredding like he was being scraped over a cheese grater.
Don’t say my name, Arik! No matter what they do to you, don’t speak my name!

Right. What if her name caused a worldwide earthquake or put a fissure in the earth that released all demons from Sheoul? And the thing was, Arik wasn’t sure how specific he had to be, so he hadn’t called Limos by any name. Not Li, her nickname, or Famine, the name she’d go by if and when her Seal broke.

Fitting that her name would be Famine, cuz he was
famished
.

His stomach grumbled, and he threw his hand over his abs as he thought about Limos, hoping like hell her Seal was safe. Apparently, breaking her Seal involved finding some ancient, tiny bowl engraved with a set of scales. Once found, a Horseman had to drink from it. Drink… he’d give his right nut for a drink…

He swept his hand up and down his sunken-in belly, knowing his thirst and hunger were the least of his worries, because man, if her Seal broke, humans would truly understand the meaning of
hell on earth.
The Horsemen weren’t evil—they were, in fact, half-angel, half-demon, and in a constant walk-the-line mode. But if their Seals broke ahead of the biblical prophecy timeline, they would turn evil and lead the way to Armageddon.

Arik had already gotten a taste of what that would be like: Before he’d gotten his ass handed to him in battle
by his brothers and sister, the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, Pestilence, had caused death and destruction everywhere he went. Now Arik’s captors indicated that Pestilence had regrouped, reassembled his forces, and was back to trying to facilitate the breaking of his siblings’ Seals so the end of days could finally begin.

What an asshole.

A rock dug into Arik’s butt, and he shifted, only to get poked by something else… the bone of some unfortunate previous cell inhabitant, probably. Still, he wasn’t about to lie down. Spiny hellrats had a charming habit of eating your face while you were asleep. At least if he was sitting up he could punt them across the cell.

Thanks so much for this, Limos
.

How the hell could a single kiss get him into this mess? It wasn’t as if he’d forced himself on her. Yeah, he’d kissed her, and for one steamy, lingering heartbeat, she’d kissed him back. And then she’d flipped the hell out.

Though he wasn’t sure why she’d freaked, he did know that Limos was responsible for every drop of his spilled blood. She’d said he’d pay for kissing her, and his captors confirmed it, relished telling him how “his lover’s” lack of self-control had been his downfall, how her selfishness was at fault and it was because of her that he was being tortured.

They’d even given him an out; speak into a recorder and beg Limos to help him, and when she came to rescue his ass, they’d grab her and let him go.

“
Your worthless human life for hers. She’ll take your place in chains. You’ll have the satisfaction of knowing she’s getting what she deserves. You must want revenge.
”

Man, those demons had read him like a damned gun owners manual. He wanted payback, but not like that. He
wouldn’t allow a female, even one like Limos, to suffer at the hands of these fucks.

So he’d refused the offer that was, no doubt, a lie anyway. Which had led to a sledgehammer to both ankles. When he refused again, the sledgehammer had moved up to his knees. His next refusal had earned him a broken pelvis, but thankfully, he passed out and didn’t have to refuse anymore.

“
You’re a fool,
” his torturer, the one with the deceptively classy English accent, had told him later. “
You’re going to die down here, and it will be Limos’s fault.
”

Arik was fully aware of that fact. But the knowledge didn’t stop him from dreaming of him and her naked. Sometimes they were on a beach, both covered in suntan oil as he moved against her. Sometimes all he did was kiss her hand as he looked into her exotic eyes. Other times, he had her against the wall or was taking her from behind as she clung to a palm tree. His favorite erotic dream was the one where she was on her back in the ocean surf, and he was kneeling between her legs, tonguing her wet heat and tasting the salt water and her tropical cocktail essence.

She’d always smelled like coconuts and pineapple.

Man, he was starving.

And what was that saying? Right.
Revenge was a dish best served cold…

Limos was not in a good mood. She had, in fact, been in a bad mood for weeks.

But she faked being happy really well, and right now, she was working toward an Oscar nomination.

The Hawaiian sun beat down on her as she swung her
hips to the beat of Maroon 5’s latest, her gaze fixed on a tall, dark male perched at the portable bar she set up for her beach parties. His eyes drilled into her hungrily as he sipped his margarita, and when he casually adjusted the erection in his black shorts, she knew she had him.

Slowly, provocatively, she moved toward him, putting extra sway in every step. Her bare feet sank in the warm sand, giving her legs a workout, and she knew the male was appreciating every flex of her toned muscles. The hot pink flowing miniskirt drew his attention, and his gaze darkened when a breeze flipped it up to reveal, very clearly, that she wasn’t wearing panties. Her flat stomach, pierced with a gold ring, became the next object of his appreciative scrutiny, and she watched as his eyes roved upward to the barely-there bikini top that covered about as much as two Band-Aid strips.