Tension bled out of her body. She was obviously relieved to be off the subject of killing the guy. “The two other men ran off. Jackson and I did the police and hospital thing, but our relationship was never the same. He refused to talk about what he’d seen me do, and he couldn’t ever deal with the fact that he’d been helpless and unable to save me.”

Ares got that. But he also got the need for revenge-therapy. A sharp blade worked a lot faster than sessions with a shrink. “Did he find the a**holes and kill them?”

In his arms, Cara jerked. “Of course not. The police caught them.”

Jackson was a damned puss. Ares would have hunted those f**kers down and showed them how justice was served back in his day. Which was why Ares had sworn on his very soul that he would see Chaos die.

“Are they in prison?”

“They served their time,” she said quietly, and he detected a note of bitterness. Ares made a mental note to do a little research into the crime and these guys. Maybe Hal would like in on the action too. Excellent way for them to bond. And Christ, he was thinking of getting buddy-buddy with the kind of creature he hated most?

Let a woman too close, and while she sucked your cock, she sucked your brains and manhood right out of you, too. An enemy had told him that, back in Ares’s human days. They’d called a truce between their armies, had shared wine as they negotiated terms of battle. In truth, Ares had liked the guy, and had they not been fighting on opposite sides, he might have called him friend.

One week later, in the thick of the fighting, Ares had shoved a blade through the man’s skull.

“So basically,” he continued, “this Jackson a**hole abandoned you, and the guys who tortured you spent a few months in jail?”

“Basically.”

Damn, she’d taken a lot of blows in a short amount of time. “How long before the puss, ah, Jackson left?”

“He made it a couple of months. He couldn’t look me in the face or deal with my issues.”

Maybe Ares would hunt down Jackson after he found the punks who had traumatized Cara.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The quiet was comfortable, though, something that had never happened between Ares and a female. It was nice.

Until Cara brought up the one thing he really didn’t want to talk about. “Ares… you have a lot of guilt about your family, don’t you?” She pushed up on one elbow so she was looking down at him. “Guilt that your wife and children died, and you never told them how you felt about them.”

He tensed. “I loved my children.”

“I don’t doubt that you did.” Her soothing voice brought him down a little, and then she traced her finger over his sternum, and he settled even more. How did she do that? He’d seen her turn a damned hellhound into a gentle ball of fur, had witnessed her charming Battle right down to his hooves. “But you’re afraid they didn’t know that. So you built a shrine to them, but you don’t want to actually see it.”

He seized her hand, stilling it. “Stop with the psychology bullshit. What makes you an expert on shrines, anyway?”

A breeze made her hair fan out over his skin. Felt good. Too good. “After my mom died, I had all these things of hers… weird things, like ponytail holders. Her toothbrush. I packed them away, but I never looked at them.”

He frowned. “Because you felt guilty about her death?”

“Because I don’t remember telling her I loved her. I was little, so I probably did, but I don’t remember. I guess I didn’t want to keep her stuff where I would be reminded of that, you know?”

Yeah, he knew very well. But he didn’t like that Cara saw so easily through him.

“Ares!” Ares jackknifed into a sit and twisted his body to shield Cara from Limos, who popped out of the open door between the patio and the bedroom. “Ares, we got—” She cut off, a blush coloring her tan cheeks. “Oh, um, hi, Cara.”

“This had better be important,” Ares said.

“Well, duh,” Li huffed. Then she flashed a broad grin. “We nabbed a fallen angel.”

Ares’s heart skipped a beat. “Where?”

“He’s hanging out in the great room. Thanatos popped Armageddon in the DVD player for him to watch. You know, a reminder.”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

Limos winked at Cara and flounced away.

“Does this mean what I think it does?” Cara asked, and it was Ares’s turn to grin.

He’d been afraid to hope for this, for so many reasons. Yes, the end-of-the-world thing had been his primary concern, and it still would be; transferring the agimortus to the fallen angel didn’t change the fact that Ares and his siblings would still have to go on the offensive to protect the guy. But transferring it meant that Cara would live.

And he would no longer weaken around her. His armor would shield him from emotion, which was exactly what he needed. Except he wouldn’t need it, would he? If she was no longer his agimortus-bearer, he had to get rid of her, or she’d be a target for Pestilence.

The thought hit him like a blow to the solar plexus, knocking the wind right out of him. This was good news, so why did he feel like someone had died?

Dammit, he had to get his head on straight. His focus was to A, protect the world from a premature Armageddon, and B, destroy the hellhound he’d been after for centuries. The first problem wasn’t going to be easy, but the second… for the first time in a long time, there was hope. Cara might be exactly what he needed to get Chaos’s head mounted on his wall.

“Ares?”

He blinked, shaking himself out of the wreck of his tangled emotions. “Yeah,” he rasped. “It means exactly what you think it does. Your life is saved.”

Nineteen

“One last push.” Eidolon, Kynan’s brother-in-law and head doctor at Underworld General Hospital, spoke in a comforting voice that joined the sound of Gem’s panting breaths in the hospital’s delivery room. His dark head was partially hidden beneath the drape of the sheet over Gem’s legs, but when he looked up, his black eyes were bright with both confidence and exhilaration. He didn’t normally deliver babies, but Gem wouldn’t allow any other doctor to touch her. Kynan had been on board with that. He wanted only the best for his wife and child.

“I hate you all,” Gem moaned, and Kynan smiled… then grimaced when she squeezed his hand so hard he heard joints crack.

Shade, Eidolon’s brother, looked over from across Gem’s swollen body, where he was gripping her wrist, the sleeve of glyphs on his arm glowing as he channeled his pain-killing Seminus demon gift into her. “E can heal your hand,” he said, amusement threading into his voice. Shade’s mate—Arik’s sister—Runa, had given birth to triplets, so yeah, Shade had been through this.

Tayla was at Gem’s knee, looking a little green. The Aegis warrior was six months pregnant with Eidolon’s baby, and watching her twin sister give birth wasn’t doing much for her bravery. He thought it was funny that she could hack a bloodthirsty demon to death, but something as natural as having a baby made her quake.

Not that Kynan blamed her. He’d happily choose taking a bullet to the gut over squeezing a bowling ball out of his ass. Women were amazing.

Gem’s body jackknifed up as she bore down. A mixed shout and scream tore from her throat, and then the most beautiful sound in the world, the cry of a newborn baby, filled the room.

“It’s a girl,” Tayla breathed. “Gem, you have a girl!”

Gem fell backward, her hair matted to her face, but her green eyes glowed.

“Baby, you did it.” Ky kissed his wife, and the next ten minutes were a blur as he cut the cord and watched Shade clean up the baby as Eidolon used his gift on Gem to heal tearing that normally would have required stitches.

Finally Shade brought over the squirming infant, bundled in a green blanket, and put her in Gem’s arms. “She’s beautiful,” Gem whispered.

“Like her mom,” he whispered back, a humiliating hitch in his voice. “So special.”

“Extra special,” Tayla murmured, and yeah, that was true. His daughter was the first person ever to be born a Marked Sentinel, a human charmed by angels so nothing save an angel could harm her. Kynan had been charmed nearly a year ago in order to be the keeper of Heofon, the necklace around his throat, and he’d been assured that his children would all be born with the same charm.

Cool.

“Did you guys finally decide on a name?” Eidolon asked.

Ky shook his head. “We wanted to see her first.”

Tayla bent over, her burgundy hair obscuring her face as she kissed her sister on the forehead. “We’ll leave you alone for a few minutes. And then you’re going to get overrun. Wraith, Serena, Runa, Sin, Conall, Luc, Kar, and the kids are all in the waiting room.”

“You called everyone?”

Tay grinned. “Well, duh. Making people wait in agony while someone is in labor is a hell of a lot more fun than a surprise. I’m so going to make you guys pace.” She winced and grabbed her belly. “Probably for hours. I can already tell this kid has Eidolon’s stubborn genes.”

“Yes,” Eidolon said flatly, “I’m the stubborn one of the two of us.”

Tayla blinked innocently. “I’m sweet and malleable.”

Shade coughed into his hand. “Bullshit.”

The gaggle of demons argued as they shuffled out the door, leaving Kynan alone with Gem. “Well,” she said, “what kind of name would fit her?”

Kynan brushed the back of his knuckle over the infant’s cheek. She had his dark hair, his eyes, and Gem’s perky nose and full lips.

“And remember, no demon names.” Gem didn’t want to honor the demon half of her at all, and Kynan didn’t blame her. Time would tell what being a quarter Soulshredder would mean for their daughter.

His little girl smiled… at least, he was going to take that grimace as a smile, and man, the entire room lit up. He lit up. Warmth filled him, which seemed impossible, because he’d been whole and happy for so long and had no idea how his life could get any better. But it just had.