Eternal Rider

“Oh, no,” she breathed, as she kneeled at the stallion’s head.

Thanatos’s hand captured her wrist. His yellow gaze was tortured, and fear had drawn deep lines in his handsome face. “Can you help him? Please? I know I’ve been harsh with you—”

“I understand.” He had the fate of the human world resting on his shoulders, and he’d been justifiably more concerned with that than her feelings.

Gently, she extracted herself from his grip to lay both her hands on Styx. Closing her eyes, she summoned her healing energy. A blast of power slammed into her, and her head snapped back so hard her hands came off the horse.

“What is it?” Ares gripped her shoulders from behind, bracing her as she blinked out of the stunned fog she was in. Thanatos was staring at her with concern, and Limos had twisted around from where she was caring for Bones to watch with just as much worry.

“I don’t know.” Cara shook her head, clearing it of the last of the fuzzy feeling. “Usually I feel a trickle of power, but this was like a river. Like a dam had burst. Let me try again.” Once more, she placed her hands on the stallion, but this time, she opened herself up more gradually.

Energy sang through her with a hundred times the strength she was used to, and that was on the lowest setting she could manage. Tentatively, she let it out through her hands, and all around her, people gasped.

Cara didn’t open her eyes. In her mind, she could see everything. There was no pain for her, but the horse’s wounds were closing, weapons were being pushed out of flesh, and bone was knitting together. A great surge of affection hit her as Styx’s health improved, and within minutes, he was communicating his gratitude to her in words and images and little nuzzles of his velvety nose against her thigh.

Gradually, there was nothing left to heal, and she pulled back her power and opened her eyes. The medical people were watching her in awe, and even Eidolon, who seemed to have a similar ability, was eyeing her with speculation.

“Can you do that with people?”

She shook her head. “Only animals.” Eidolon looked disappointed. Thanatos offered his hand to her, and though she didn’t need his help to stand, she took it, sensing that he needed to do this. Ares stepped back, apparently sensing the same thing. When she was standing before the giant warrior, he kneeled at her feet, head bowed.

“In my time, totem priestesses were honored. Revered as descendants of the aos si.”

“Aos si?”

“The folk. You’d call them… fairies. They possessed the gift of healing animals and killing people when angered. They’re long dead, but you obviously carry their blood.” He looked up at her and placed his fist over his heart. “You have my gratitude and my respect forever.”

Somehow, Cara knew she’d just been elevated to an equal in Thanatos’s eyes. Warmth seeped through her, but she didn’t spend time doing anything more than offering him a thank you. She’d have to ask more about the aos si later. She had two more horses to heal.

The process was the same with both Bones and Battle, and when she was finished, she wasn’t worn out at all.

And there’d been no pain.

“You were drawing on the power of the hellhound pack,” Limos said. “That. Is. Awesome.”

Ares pulled Cara to her feet as Battle came to his. Nearby, Hal and Hades were still playing their gruesome game of fetch, and the medical staff were packing up and preparing the dead for transport.

Cara wrapped herself around Ares and held tight. “I just wish my power worked on more than animals. I might have been able to save some of your staff.”

Thanatos nodded grimly. “I lost twelve vampires.”

“I’ll have to tell Vulgrim that fourteen of his herd are dead.” Ares pressed a kiss to the top of Cara’s head. “But you’re safe. You still bear my agimortus, but since you can’t be killed, you’re no longer a target for Pestilence or his minions. Which means you’re coming home with me.” He cleared his throat. “If you, you know, want to.”

How adorable was he? “Of course I want to. But… the agimortus… I’ll drain you.”

Than snorted. “Something tells me he’ll be happy for you to drain him.”

“Hell yeah.” Ares sifted her hair through his fingers, so simple, but so intimate. “Not even a question.” Her concern must have shown like a neon sign, because he cut her a serious look. “The effect is temporary, and the tradeoff is worth it a thousand times over.”

“Gag.” Limos studied her chipped nails. “Get a room.”

“It’s not all good news, though,” Than warned. “Pestilence is going to come after Limos and me now. And if one our Seals breaks, the other two will fall soon after.”

“And he still has Deliverance,” Limos pointed out.

Usually bringing up the dagger made Than irritable, but he merely nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I never want to come here again,” Cara muttered.

“You never will.” Ares lifted her into Battle’s saddle and swung up behind her. “Hades handled the vapor wraiths at the Harrowgate, so let’s get the hell out of here. Pun intended. Where do you want to go?”

“First, your shower. Second, your bed.”

Instantly, she felt the nudge of his erection against her butt. “Anything you want.”

“Anything?” She twisted around in the saddle, hooked her hand behind his head, and pulled his mouth to her lips. “Because now that I’m immortal, you have no excuses to avoid the full-on rough stuff.”

He groaned. “We’re so out of here.”

They didn’t make it to the bedroom. Hell, they didn’t even make it to the house. Ares had wanted to inform Vulgrim privately of his herd-mates’ valiant deaths, so, at Cara’s request, he’d left her on the beach near his house, where she could wash in the waves and relax.

Now Ares was stripping off his clothes as he walked across the white expanse of sand toward Cara, who was splashing in the sea, her eyes sparkling like the water around her. He admired her graceful, sleek lines as she rose up, exposing her high, firm br**sts and the shadowed juncture between her legs. The sea swells licked at her the way he planned to do when he got her onto land.

He was hard, hungry, and ready before he hit the first wave. By the second, his body was straining for her, his blood running like lava through his veins. By the third, she was wrapped around him, her silky sex rubbing against his, her lips sucking on his neck.

He groaned as she ground against him, working her entrance over the tip of his shaft. “Give me thirty seconds to wash off the demon blood—”

Her throaty growl both turned him on and told him what she thought of that idea. Granted, blood and gore had never bothered him, but this was Cara, and although he knew damned good and well that she could handle whatever he threw at her, she deserved him to be clean, at least.

With more effort than he would have believed he’d need, he peeled her off of him, but not before she fisted his c*ck and gave him a couple firm pumps that nearly had him spilling in her hand.

“I want what you promised me,” she said, and yeah, she’d get it.

He fell backward in the water, scrubbed his hands over his face and hair while he was beneath the waves. When he breached the surface, prepared to drag her to him… she was gone. Instant, ice-cold fear stabbed him, but when he saw her on the beach, backing toward the craggy trees on the coastline and crooking her finger in a playful come-and-get-me gesture, his worry veered straight to lust.

Oh, he was going to get her, all right. And he was going to come. Several times.

On fire for her, he surged out of the water with the single-minded focus of a starving predator. The little minx squealed, turned and ran, but she didn’t have a prayer. He was faster, and he was going to take her down like a wolf on a deer.

What he didn’t count on was her ability to climb trees like a cat.

He caught up with her deep in the northern grove, where she was standing above him on the thick branch of an ancient, gnarled olive tree.

“Woman, what are you doing?” His voice was rough, his breathing rapid, but not from exertion. The chase had revved him, stoked his craving for either battle or sex, and he was no longer afraid to give Cara both.

“Since you made me wait, I’m making you work for it.” She shifted her stance, allowing him a tantalizing view of her glistening center, and a carnal sound escaped him. He was riveted by the sight, knew how she felt, tasted, smelled, and the list of things he wanted to do to her was endless.

“You think I won’t climb that tree?”

“This branch won’t support you.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose, an age-old tactic he employed during the thickest part of a battle when rash decisions lost wars. And right now, a rash decision would have him tearing that tree up by the roots to get at his female.

His gaze fell on the surrounding foliage, and his strategy fell into place. Smiling triumphantly, victory already singing in his heated veins, he stalked a few feet away to one of the many wild grape vines that had overtaken the island. He tore a thick vine from the plant and wrapped one end around his fist.

Cara eyed him warily as he stalked back to the tree. “Are you ready, Cara?” he asked silkily, and her eyes narrowed.

“What do you have planned—” She cut off as he snapped the vine like a whip, catching her around one slim ankle. He jerked the vine, yanking her feet out from under her.

Her shriek of surprise rang out, followed by a grunt as the backs of her knees caught a lower branch. In an instant, she was hanging upside down from the tree and hurling curses that would make a hardened soldier blush. Ares puffed up with pride.

“What did I tell you about challenging me?”

With a snarl, she reached for him, and he let her catch him around the thighs because they were now in the perfect position for what he’d been wanting to do to her from the moment he’d first seen her na**d. Sure, in his fantasies they’d been horizontal, but vertical worked too. Maybe even better.