Carefully, because every muscle in his body had gone rubbery, he pushed off Limos.

She grasped his biceps, her bright pink nails digging into his skin. “Arik, please…”

“I can’t.” He stood, buttoned his pants, and shrugged out of his uniform jacket. After helping her to her feet, he wrapped her in his coat. Wasn’t he just the gentleman. Pissed as he was, he didn’t want her to feel exposed.

Fucking idiot.

A trickle of blood ran down the inside of her leg, and she looked down, confused. “Somehow, I didn’t think that would happen to me.”

The vulnerability in her voice took his fury down a notch, and had this been any other situation, he’d have pulled her into his arms. “Make a gate and get us out of here.”

Limos’s shoulders slumped. She said nothing, merely opened a gate, and they stepped through, coming out at her primary residence. One of her guards waved and averted his eyes when he noticed that Arik’s coat didn’t quite cover everything. Silently, they went to her bedroom, where she disappeared into the bathroom. He sank down on the bed next to a pink and white box.

Curious, he pried off the lid and lifted the tissue paper away. Inside was the sexiest lingerie he’d ever seen. A sheer, black babydoll top with half-cups designed to show nipple, blinged-out straps studded with what looked like tiny diamonds, and hot pink lace stitched around the edges. A matching black string bikini sat at the bottom of the box, and with it, a pair of lacy black thigh-highs.

It was every man’s wet dream.

“That was for our wedding night,” Limos said from behind him. He hadn’t even heard her come out of the bathroom.

He didn’t look back at her. “Guess it didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“Yeah. It’s silly, but all I wanted was a beautiful human wedding.” Her voice held a tremor… barely noticeable, but Arik knew her well enough now to recognize the emotional warble. “You know, like a normal girl. Not some horrible demon.”

His fist tightened reflexively on the lingerie, crushing it, just like her dream of a perfect wedding. How could he hurt for her so much, and yet, be so goddamned angry?

“You’re neither, Limos.” He heard her sniffle, and he finally shifted on the bed to look at her and nearly revised his last statement, because she certainly looked like a normal girl right about now.

She was wearing the fluffy pink robe that wrapped her from head to toe. Her hair was dripping wet, her makeup gone, and her gorgeous eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. What was it with women crying in the shower? He remembered his mom and sister doing the same thing. They’d denied it, but he wasn’t stupid, and sometimes he’d hear the sobs over the sound of the water.

He’d been so helpless back then, but never again. It went against his nature to let a female suffer, and he came to his feet to move to her.

He’d only gone two steps when the door burst open and Ares strode inside, his expression a black cloud. He sized the situation up in a heartbeat, knew the threat to Limos had passed.

At least, the threat to her from the underworld had passed. The threat from Ares was still on the table, and Arik moved to intercept.

“Let’s give this some time,” he began, but Ares cut him off with a snarl.

“Time? She had five thousand years of time to comof height="0e clean.”

“Ares.” Limos’s voice was desperate. “Listen to me—”

“I’ve done enough listening!” Ares moved forward, and Arik met the big guy head on.

“Don’t, Horseman. Not another step. I suggest you leave now.” He waited, chest to chest with Ares, aggression winging through the two inches of air between their noses.

Arik had no doubt he was going to be beaten to a pulp, but hell if he wouldn’t cause some damage before he went down.

Ares bared his teeth, and a low, animal growl rumbled in his chest. “She’s my sister. I’ll handle this.”

“She’s my wife,” Arik shot back. “Husband trumps the brother card. So get the f**k out and don’t come back until you have your temper under control.”

A tense heartbeat passed. Then two. Then about a million, and just as Arik thought he might as well throw the first punch and get the party started, Ares gave a curt nod.

“I’ll go because I respect you, human. What you’ve done for us can’t be repaid.” His black gaze shifted to Limos. “But this isn’t over.”

Ares left, and Arik swore the entire island sighed in relief.

Limos’s hand came down on his shoulder. “Do you hate me?”

Closing his eyes, he turned into her. “No.” He folded her into his arms, his anger ebbing as his adrenaline crashed. “I hate that you lied to your brothers for so long, but I don’t hate you.” He pressed a kiss into her hair. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think your brothers hate you either.”

A shudder shook her frame, a reminder that for all the power she carried in that body, she was still vulnerable to pain, and right now, she was as emotionally fragile as she’d probably ever been. The desire to fix this made his heart ache. Give him a disassembled M-16 or a Humvee engine on the fritz, and he knew what to do.

A broken female left him with that awful feeling of helplessness… and a primal desire to kill whoever had hurt her. Unfortunately, her brothers had the immortality thing going for them.

Her arms wound around his waist, and she buried her face against his neck. “Make love to me, Arik. Make all of this go away.”

That, he could do. No, nothing could make what had happened tonight go completely away, but he could distract her for a little while.

Finally feeling like he could help her, he let his hands drift down the back of her robe, caressing, easing the tension out of her muscles. Slowly, she began to respond, kissing his throat, pressing her full br**sts against his chest.

“Oh, yeah,” he murmured, his body coming alive a lot faster than he’d expected. But he should have known better, given that Limos had a way of turning him into a live wire from nothing more than a sultry look.

She gazed up at him, her eyes darkening to a rich, smooth amethyst. “Touch me.” Her words were both a command and a plea, and hell, yes, he was going to touch her. And taste her.

He held her with his gaze as he smoothed his hands around to the front of her robe and untied it. The sash fell away, and the fabric parted. Her magnificent body was exposed, ripe, waiting to be plucked and eaten like a juicy peach. His mouth actually watered.

Arousal tested his patience, because as much as he wanted to drop to his knees and use his tongue to make her scream, he was going to do this right. He was going to worship her body and make it last.

Leaning in, he kissed each shoulder as he pushed the robe down. It pooled on the floor, and he kicked it away so nothing was touching her creamy skin except her Seal and agimortus pendants.

When he brought his hand down to cup one breast, she gasped his name and threw her head back. He seized the opportunity to ravage her neck with kisses as he stroked her. Her long, lean body was the definition of elegance, the perfect blend of hard and soft, and in moments, he forgot the whole, make it last, thing, because he found himself rubbing against her, straining, mating with her even with all his clothes on.

A sudden pounding on the door had him wheeling around in a snarl. “Dammit, Ares, I f**king told you—”

“Limos!” The unhinged voice didn’t belong to any of her brothers, and she scrambled to throw on her robe.

“What is it, Kaholo?” She whipped open the door. One of her servants stood there in the doorway, his hands covered in blood.

“It’s Hekili,” he said roughly. “He’s been… butchered. There’s a message for you. Lucifer… he said that you took his pet, so he took yours.”

Twenty-nine

Ares couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry or hurt. Oh, he’d been murderously furious at Pestilence when he’d captured Cara and meant to torture her to death, but this was different. Ares didn’t want to kill Limos. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but right now it was taking every ounce of restraint he had to keep from going on a rampage. There were battles all over the world to join. He wouldn’t take sides—he’d just fight. And kill.

He gated himself back to Thanatos’s place, and wasn’t at all surprised to find that all the wedding guests had gone.

Cara approached him as he crossed the great room toward Than. “Everyone left out of respect for you and Than, but they want you to contact them if you need anything. Are you okay?” Her sea-green eyes were dark with worry, and her concern helped level him out. She didn’t deserve to feel the weight of his fury.

But she didn’t deserve to be lied to, either. Clearly, there had been way too much of that going on for way too long. “I don’t knple h ofow,” he admitted. “What Limos did was—”

“What she’d been raised to do.”

He jerked. “You’re defending her? She’s the reason my family was killed. She stole Deliverance and conspired to break our Seals. She betrayed us all.”

“I’m not defending what she did.” Cara laid her hand on his chest, which always had a calming effect on him, even through his armor… but then, her very presence turned the hard leather to soft doeskin, so he could feel her touch right through it. “But keep in mind where she grew up and who raised her. She didn’t know any better.”

“She still should have told us before this.”

“I’m sure she’s regretting that decision.” She went up on her toes and pecked him on the lips. “We should go. It’s time for Rath’s feeding.”

“Give me a second to talk to Than.” He pulled her close, needing the brief, full-body contact for just a second. “I’m sorry about the hellhound Pestilence killed.”

“I am too,” she murmured. “But I’m glad everyone else is safe. Tonight could have gone a whole lot worse.”