Rogue Rider

When the vehicles ground to a halt and Lance and Juan climbed out of one of the cabs, she wished she’d acted on that instinct.

Lance approached while Juan tromped through deep snow to the rear of one of the trucks.

“Nice to see you again, Ms. Cardiff.”

She smiled, but no doubt it looked as fake as it was. “I wish I could say the same. Am I going to have to get a restraining order? You can’t seem to leave me alone.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “After today you won’t be seeing us again. We just need you to contact Pestilence.” Behind Lance, dozens of men in arctic fatigues filed out of the backs of the trucks, all armed to the teeth.

“Well, that’ll be a little difficult, since I’ve never met Pestilence.”

Lance’s smile was painfully tolerant. “You know what I mean.”

“Then say it.” She dropped the bucket, and corn spilled all over the snow. “I won’t play your games.”

All trace of civility left Lance’s expression. “Good. We can get down to business then. Contact Reseph.”

“Why?”

His hand lowered to a sheath at his hip, where he caressed the thick handle of some sort of dagger. “Because we need to talk to him.”

“If you want to talk business, then I suggest you be straight with me.” She kept her tone businesslike, forceful, and prayed her nervousness didn’t show. “You don’t want to talk to him, or you wouldn’t have brought a truck and fifty men dressed like they’re prepared to do battle with Godzilla.”

A dozen of the men surrounded her, and her pulse kicked into high gear. “You want it straight, we’ll give it to you straight. The Horseman is dangerous. They all are. We have the means to capture and hold them, and we need your help to do it.”

“Why would you want to hold them?”

“Pestilence nearly brought about the end of days. Do you want that to happen again?”

What a stupid question. As if she’d jump up and down and shout, “Yes, I love apocalypses!” What a moron.

“They said it won’t. Their Seals can’t be broken until the biblical prophecy.”

Lance leveled a cold look at her, made much more chilling by the fact that he was smiling. “Some of us don’t believe they’ll fight on the side of good. And even if they do fight on our team, it could be centuries before it happens. In the meantime, these guys are loose, wreaking havoc.”

She shrugged. “I haven’t seen any havoc.”

“You have no idea what they’ve done.” Lance unsnapped the strap holding the dagger in place, but Jillian refused to acknowledge his menacing actions. “The Horsemen are responsible for the Black Death, the Antonine Plague, the Hundred Years’ War—”

“Wow. Busy people.” Jillian crossed her arms over her chest. “Were they responsible for the fall of Rome and World War Two? Maybe the eruption of Mount Vesuvius? Hurricane Katrina?”

Lance’s hand snapped out to grab her biceps. “Listen to me, you Horseman groupie. I know your kind. You’re like one of those pathetic women who defends her abusive husband because deep down he’s really a nice guy.” He jerked her close, baring his teeth. “You’re going to help us. Because your boyfriend really isn’t a nice guy.”

She spit in his face. “Go f**k yourself.”

Cursing, Lance shoved her away and gestured to Juan. “Go through her shit. Cell phone, notes, everything. There’s got to be a way to contact the Horsemen.”

Juan snagged her by the arm before she could even think about fleeing. “And if we don’t find anything?”

Lance’s voice was pure evil. “Then we torture her until one shows up.”

Thirty-seven

Jillian had been terrified more than once in her life. The worst, by far, had been when the demons attacked her in the ATC parking lot.

Until now.

For some reason, these Aegis guys scared her even more. With the demons, she knew what to expect; pain, blood, and death. With Lance and Juan, the unknown was making her sick with fear, and it was a huge shock to realize that humans were, by far, more terrifying than demons.

The men who had climbed out of the trucks had melted into the surrounding forest, and after tearing apart her house, Lance had forced Jillian onto the snow-covered ground. Juan stood behind her, a wicked, S-shaped blade in his hand. Lance squatted down in front of her, her cell phone in hand.

“Your house was a treasure trove of information. I’m guessing that the phone entry Limos is who I think it is?”

Jillian shrugged. “It’s a common name here in Nowhere, Colorado.”

“Smartass. I wonder,” Lance murmured, “if Pestilence cares enough about you to feel your pain.” He slammed his fist into her face, knocking her backward into Juan’s legs. Agony spiderwebbed through her cheek and jaw, all the way to the top of her skull.

“Stop it,” Juan hissed. “She’s human.”

“She’s involved with demons.” Lance shot Juan a disgusted glare. “I thought we agreed on this.”

“As a last resort.”

“If you have a problem with it, maybe you should have gone with Kynan, Val, and Regan and joined their little ragtag agency.”

“You know that’s not what I want.” Juan eased Jillian off his legs. Face throbbing, she fell forward on her knees and spat blood onto the once pristine snow. “But some of Kynan and Val’s ideas on how The Aegis should conduct itself were valid. We need people to trust us and not run roughshod over everyone just because we can.”

“We do what we have to do. The Apocalypse almost happened because of the ‘new, gentler’ rules. We won’t let that happen again.”

Jillian tested one of her teeth with her tongue. “I don’t understand.” Her words were mushy, spoken through her split lip.

“Some of our colleagues are demon lovers. Kynan f**king married one, and Val’s daughter is a vampire. So they wanted to get all buddy-buddy with the freaks instead of killing them. When a demon named Sin came onto the scene, instead of killing her, Kynan let her live, and she started the plague that broke Pestilence’s Seal.” Lance snorted. “We should have sent Kynan packing right then and there.”

“You won’t get any argument from me on that point,” Juan said.

“Now,” Lance said, as he flipped open a pocketknife. “Your pain doesn’t seem to have brought Pestilence around, so let’s see if your screams will do it.”

Terror flooded her as she scrambled backward, the scream he wanted so badly lodged in her throat. He lunged, catching her by her coat’s collar and yanking her toward him as he jammed the tip of the blade beneath her right eye.

Suddenly, from the forest, a snarl rent the air.

Lance smiled. “Looks like your honey has come to rescue you.”

A deep male scream joined a chorus of growls and the gruesome wet sounds of tearing flesh. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold slithered down Jillian’s spine. She recognized those noises.

“Soulshredder,” she rasped. “Oh, shit—”

Two demons burst from the foliage and ran toward them, their gaping maws dripping saliva and blood. Lance and Juan shouted curses and sent weapons hurling at the things as Jillian scrambled to get to the house. But her panic and the icy ground cost her, sent her slipping and sliding.

Even as she was reaching for the snow shovel propped up against the porch, Lance snared her ankle. “You little bitch! Look what your boyfriend sent!”

Reseph hadn’t sent the demons and she knew it, but arguing was useless. She kicked at Lance, knocking him away. From all around, the Aegis people ran toward the demons. She grabbed the shovel and swung around, biting off a scream when one of the Soulshredders punched his fist through Juan’s chest and ripped his heart and lungs right out of his rib cage.

A jumbled tirade of curses and insults erupted from Lance. He didn’t stop yelling even as he sank one end of his S-shaped blade into the creature’s back. Jillian swung the shovel, nailing it in the midsection. The demon screamed and spun, slamming its arm down on the wooden handle and breaking it in half. Lance was tossed into the snow in an awkward tangle of limbs. The other Guardians attacked, and although one of the Soulshredders was badly injured, the other wasn’t at all slowed.

“Get the bitch in the house,” Lance shouted.

One of the Guardians broke away from the battle with the demons to rush her. Wielding the shovel handle like a baseball bat, she prepared to defend herself. And then, from out of nowhere, a huge man in torn jeans and a ratty yellowed T-shirt bowled the Guardian over. Who the hell was that? There was no time to ask questions, though, not when she had both demons and humans after her. She needed help.

As fast as she could, she threw herself onto the porch. The icy deck sent her sprawling, but she somehow managed to claw and crawl her way through the front door and lock it behind her. The Guardians had ransacked her living room… shit! Where was the card with Kynan’s number on it?

Someone or something pounded on the door, putting a crack in the wood. Desperately, she tore through the mess, praying she’d find the card, because if she didn’t, she had a feeling she’d soon be praying for death.

Reseph was so not done fighting for Jillian. In fact, the challenge of winning a female, something he’d never really had before, left him energized. He wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish what she wanted, because he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to say, with one hundred percent certainty, that Pestilence was no longer an issue.

He just had to find a way around Jillian’s demand, and if anyone could help with that, it was Ares. He’d have to discuss it with him soon. That was, of course, if Reseph wasn’t dead.

Right now, he had to make things better for other people he’d hurt, and those people might demand payment in blood.

He stood at the entrance to Than’s keep, feeling oddly unsure about entering, even though he’d called everyone to meet him here. He used to walk inside like he owned the place, but now he felt like a complete stranger. An intruder.