“Stop it!” she barked. “Arik!” She wrapped herself around him and buried her face in his neck, kissing and nuzzling. “Stop.” She petted his hair, stroked his shoulders, and eventually, he fell back against a tree, letting it—and Limos—brace him.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I’m so sorry I was such an ass to you. You didn’t deserve to be judgÀve to beed like that.”

“Yes,” she murmured against his skin, “I did. Without you, all of that stuff would still be weighing on me, and Pestilence might have won.”

Gently, he pushed her back so he could look at her. “I don’t understand.”

“He wanted me to lie,” she said. “He knows it’s an addiction for me. But… you changed that, Arik. I want to tell you things. I hate keeping anything from you. You give me what lying and being self-destructive never could. I get an amazing rush from those things, but with you, I get that rush a million times more intense, and without the guilt. I love you so much. Please don’t hate the person I love.”

Arik’s eyes stung. He wrapped his arms around her so tight she “oofed,” and then he kissed her senseless. “We’re done,” he said into her ear. “We’re done with the lies and the secrets and the idiotic fake divorce decrees, right?”

She pulled back and grinned. “We’re done. You’re never getting rid of me, Arik.”

He was about to tell her that what she said went both ways when a gate popped open several yards away, and Ares stepped out. “Your assassin friend will be fine.” He scowled. “Should have killed him, but whatever.”

Limos went up on her toes and kissed Arik. “If he tries to kill you again, I promise he won’t make it to the hospital.”

“Aren’t you all protective and cute.” She huffed, and he chuckled as he pressed a kiss into her hair and inhaled her coconut scent. “Hey, Tavin did mention something about the khnives that attacked us. He thinks someone outside of Sheoul summoned them.”

Limos frowned. “That’s… not good.”

There was a long stretch of silence as Ares caressed the hilt of his sword. “If this new player isn’t a demon, then the forces working toward an Apocalypse are growing. We’re going to have to start looking at those around us more closely.”

A traitor. Ares was implying that there was a traitor in their midst, and as much as Arik wanted to rail against the idea, he couldn’t. Not when even The Aegis itself had been compromised by one of its own a couple of years ago.

And hell, the Regan situation only reinforced Ares’s words.

“Ares,” Arik began, because this needed to be said, “I discussed this with Limos already, but I need to say it to you too. I swear I won’t keep information from you again.”

A shock of brown hair fell over Ares’s forehead as he gave a brisk nod. “I’ll hold you to it, human.”

That was the thing about Ares; when he wasn’t pissed, he was damned reasonable. Unlike Limos’s other two brothers. Speaking of which…

“How’s Thanatos?”

“Can we talk about it later?” Limos asked. “I want to go home. We haven’t had a proper weddiÀ proper ng night.”

Ares groaned. “That’s my cue. I have to do some Christmas shopping anyway.”

Arik hugged Limos tight. “It seems weird that you guys celebrate Christmas.”

“Reseph loved any excuse to celebrate and buy presents,” Limos said. “Breaking the tradition would just make it that much more obvious that he’s gone.”

“Not to mention the fact that two of us are now married to humans,” Ares said, “and you people come with a lot of baggage.” A smirk curved his lips, and Arik realized that Ares was reacting to Cara, who had come up behind him with her hands on her hips.

“Are you calling me baggage?” Her tone was huffy, but her eyes glinted with an impish mischief.

In a quick, blur of a move, Ares whirled around, hauled Cara over his shoulder, and strode toward the house. “If the shoe fits.”

Arik watched the couple until they were inside with the door shut, and then he turned back to Limos. “What do you say I haul you off like a sack of potatoes too?”

Limos’s smile was so sweet Arik thought he might get struck with diabetes. “You do that, and I’ll kill you.”

“Can’t. I’m immortal now.”

She sniffed. “Then I’ll… deny you sex.”

He laughed. “Now, see, I’d worry about that, except you want it as bad as I do.”

“You want it bad?”

He stepped back from her just enough that he could rake his gaze down her body. “Oh, yeah. I want to take you in every way imaginable and keep you so sexed up that when you aren’t in bed, all you’ll be thinking about is getting back in it.” He took in her lush curves, imagining how well they’d buffer his thrusts. “And that’s just tonight’s itinerary.”

Her tongue came out to lick her lips, and he zeroed in on the action, his body hardening already. “Forget everything I said about killing you and denying you… and just take me home.”

“What about Ares?” he asked. “We need to tell him about the chamber and the baby.”

“Tomorrow,” she said. “We’ve all been through enough hell for the day.”

Grinning, he swept her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Open a gate.” When she squirmed in token protest, he spanked her lightly on her firm ass. “Open. Now.”

A shiver stole through her, and a gate opened. “There. And Arik?”

“Yeah?”

“Spank me again.”

Stepping through the gate, he did exactly that.

Thirty-eight

Finally, Limos was going to get what she’d always wanted. Yes, she’d lost her virginity in the technical sense. But not only had there been no finish, it had been done in anger and out of necessity. Now she’d lose her virginity in all the ways that mattered.

She stepped out of her master bathroom, her stomach fluttering madly. The sexy outfit she’d gotten for her wedding night… well, it was on the bathroom floor, where she’d left it after she’d put it on while Arik used the guest bathroom to shower. Of course he suggested that they shower together, but no, her idea of the perfect wedding night had always included her sweeping into the bedroom to greet her new husband and make his tongue roll out at the sight of her skimpy lingerie.

Unfortunately, she didn’t sweep. And she wasn’t wearing her wedding night outfit. When she’d looked at herself in the mirror, the gorgeous lingerie hugging curves and allowing peekaboo glimpses of skin, she’d realized that she’d never been na**d, had always been wrapped in lies and that infernal chastity belt. Yet, here she was, covering herself up again.

She’d stripped, because she was going to her husband as a new woman, completely open to him in a way she’d never been, and in a way she would be only with him.

Arik looked up from lighting a candle, and his mouth dropped open. Awesome. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, but he let it fall, and the effect of his na**d body on her was immediate. As she drank in the sight of his hard-cut pecs, rippling abs, and thick, jutting erection, heat flushed her skin, and liquid desire bloomed between her legs.

Limos’s effect on him was just as obvious.

He didn’t wait. In three strides he was in front of her and was kissing her with a desperation that made her pulse hammer crazily in her veins. His tongue stroked hers, thrusting in a blatant imitation of what they’d soon be doing. One of his hands dropped to cup her butt and haul her up against him, and a warm, sticky wetness smeared her belly as his erection pushed into it.

This was all so new to her, and she reached between them to run her finger over the little slit in the smooth cap. She played a little, exploring, loving how Arik’s breath hitched.

Slowly, reverently, Arik lowered her to the bed. “I fantasized about you,” he breathed against the shell of her ear as he stretched his big body over her. “When I was in that cell. When I slept, I dreamed about this.”

“Yeah?”

His hands glided up her waist and ribs to her br**sts. “Yeah.”

“Was I good?”

“The best.”

A tremor went through her, a tiny shiver of hesitation. “What if I’m terrible at sex—”

He cut her off with a kiss. “Shh,” he murmured against ˀured agaher lips. “Let me take care of you. I’ll always take care of you.”

“Who can argue with that,” she sighed, as he blazed a trail of fiery kisses along her jaw and down her throat. Goose bumps fanned out across her skin from every point of contact with his lips.

His hands caressed and massaged, and as he kissed his way lower, his fingers teased her nipple, each stroke sending little electric sparks through her body. Dizzying sensation drew her into a vortex of passion that intensified when one hand slid to her butt to lift her against his erection.

“Now, Arik,” she groaned. “Don’t tease.”

“I’m not teasing, sweetheart.” He dipped his head and took her sensitized nipple into his mouth. When she cried out in sheer pleasure, he lifted his head. “I’m making sure your first time is everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

She arched, trying to take him inside. “It already is.”

A lazy smile curved his lips as he pressed his weight down on her. “Not so fast.”

“But I’m dying.” That was the whiniest thing she’d ever said, but she was so ready for this experience, and she was aching for a release that only two people could have. Too many years of self-gratification had made her impatient.

“Tell you what.” He dragged his tongue over her sternum and down to her navel, crawling backward as he went. “I’ll take the edge off for you. You good with that?”