Rogue Rider

Twenty-seven

Reseph came awake in a bed, and it took him a minute to realize he wasn’t at Jillian’s house, waking up to the sound of roosters crowing and goats bleating. Instead, the sea waves crashing on a beach were familiar noises.

Ares’s Greek paradise.

He frowned. He’d been here for a while, hadn’t he? But he’d been crazed, so why was he feeling so… good? So normal. What was going on? And where was Jillian? Had she been here, or had he hallucinated her?

He eased out of bed and touched the crescent-shaped scar on his neck to armor up, since he couldn’t find any clothes. Despite the fact that he’d been suiting up in his armor for thousands of years, this time the cold metal felt strange against his skin after so long without it.

He slipped out of the room and found his brothers and sister outside with Reaver and a strange fallen angel.

“Who is this?” Everyone except the stranger watched him warily, as if he were a live grenade.

“Apparently,” Ares said, “this is Harvester’s replacement. Revenant.”

Oh, fuck. “Did she quit?” After what Pestilence had done to her, he couldn’t blame her.

The male moved forward. “She was fired.”

“For what?” Reseph demanded. “Breaking Watcher rules?”

“Worse. Don’t expect to see her again.” Revenant looked Reseph up and down. “You look well for having lost your piddly little mind.”

Reseph smiled. “You look well for someone who is going to lose his head in about two seconds.”

Reaver stepped forward, placing himself between Reseph and the asshole. “Reseph, how are you feeling?”

All eyes focused on him, and yeah, this was uncomfortable. He had a lot of groveling to do now that he wasn’t going mad with memories. And why was that, anyway?

“I feel… almost whole. Why am I not a drooling mess on the floor?”

Limos fiddled with the flower in her hair. “Harvester did some Sheoul voodoo thing and patched your mind with a piece of Jillian’s. So now—”

“She what?” Reseph’s chest tightened. It was all coming back now. He’d hurt Jillian badly, both as Pestilence, and then here, when he’d told her what he’d done. He’d been determined to keep her from sacrificing anything for him. “Is it permanent? Will it hurt her?”

“Yes to both, if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain,” Ares said, his no-nonsense, no-bullshit words cutting right through Reseph.

“My end of the bargain? I didn’t agree to any bargain. Reverse it.” Reseph’s head snapped back and forth between the two Watchers. “Make it go away, dammit. I don’t care if I’m back to being a head case. Fix this!”

“No can do, Horseman,” Revenant said. “Only Harvester can reverse it, and she’s… gone.”

Fear for Jillian sent Reseph’s pulse—and temper—into orbit. “Get her back,” Reseph snarled.

Revenant’s pupils expanded, turning his eyes oily black. “I see that your Watchers have allowed you too many liberties.” He lashed out with his fist, but instead of a taking a physical blow, Reseph was knocked backward by a searing snap of power.

Rage shattered Reseph’s control, and he lunged at the same time that his siblings did, all of them going after the new Watcher, but Revenant flashed out of the way and materialized behind them.

“How dare you strike out for so minor an offense.” Reaver’s wings flared, a sign of his fury. “And what weapon did you use against him?”

Revenant’s smirk reeked of self-satisfaction. “Watcher upgrade, you heavenly puke. Maybe if you checked in with your bosses, you’d know about it.” His smirk grew wider as he took in Reseph and his siblings, one by one. “It’s been decided that we needed a stronger form of punishment to keep you in line. That was just a taste. If I’d wanted, I could have blown you up inside that armor and poured you out like a liquid. You will not harm one of us again.”

So this was about Harvester. Reseph felt ill. “Get out of here,” he growled. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

“You don’t give the orders, Horseman. Seems you haven’t learned your lesson.” He raised his hand, but before he could lash out again, Reaver hit him like a train, and the two angels turned into a whirlwind of fists, wings, and blood.

Then the two were gone, and Reseph was left looking at an empty space.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

“I hate the new guy,” Limos said. “Wasn’t fond of Harvester, but compared to Revenant, she was awesomesauce.”

“It’s my fault.” Reseph turned to his siblings, ready to get this over with. “Whatever she’s being punished for, it has to be because of Pestilence.” He reached for his armor scar to remove his shielding before remembering he was naked underneath the metal plates. While he normally didn’t give a fuck who saw him nude, he didn’t want the extreme vulnerability right now. Not when he was facing the people he’d done so much damage to. “Look, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Then maybe it’s best that you don’t start at all,” Thanatos said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Than!” Limos dropped her own armor and jammed her hands on her sundress-draped hips. “You were the one who held on the longest, insisting that Reseph wasn’t responsible for Pestilence’s actions.”

“That was before Pestilence tried to kill my wife and son.” Nothing Than said was unfair, nor was it unexpected. In many ways, being Death fit him, because while Than tended to hang onto loyalty for a long time, when he was finally done with someone, he was done. Reseph was dead to Than. The brotherly bond between them had been severed, and Reseph didn’t know how long it would take to repair it, or if it even could be repaired.

“I’m sorry.” Reseph looked out over the olive groves, remembering how much he’d hated how quiet they were. Now he’d give anything to walk among the gnarled trees with Jillian, the only person who had ever given him a moment’s peace. “I know it doesn’t help. I was there, inside this body, but I wasn’t strong enough to defeat Pestilence. I’ll never forgive myself.”

“I know you tried.” Limos dragged her big toe through the sand. “You came through sometimes. Pestilence played it off like he’d been tricking me, but he wasn’t, was he? It was you.”

“Yeah,” he croaked. Man, he’d tried. He’d begged his sister to kill him, had even told her where to find Deliverance. And when Thanatos had driven the blade through his heart, he’d thanked his brother.

Ares came forward. “We know it wasn’t you, bro. But Pestilence fucked with us hard. I don’t need to tell you that. And Reaver and Harvester both told us he could come back.”

Reseph’s head snapped up. He remembered Harvester saying something about that, but he’d been so out of his mind that it hadn’t truly registered. “How? My Seal—”

“It’s whole. It won’t break again. Not until the biblical Apocalypse. Which, by the way, is supposed to be ushered in by our father. We discovered evidence that suggests he’ll be the one to break our Seals next time.”

Whoa. Okay, he hadn’t seen that one coming. He’d have to ask more about that later. Right now he was more concerned about his demon half.

“So how could Pestilence come back? You drove Deliverance through his heart.”

Thanatos shook his head. “Deliverance wasn’t the right blade to kill Pestilence. We needed Wormwood.”

Wormwood… Reseph cursed. How could he have forgotten? Pestilence had been desperate to get his hands on that blade, had gone through Aegis headquarters like a blender, killing, torturing, but he’d left empty-handed.

“I—Pestilence—eventually got it from Gethel. She tricked The Aegis into giving it to her. Pestilence knew it was the only blade that could kill him.”

Than nodded. “Deliverance imprisoned Pestilence, but he’s still part of you. He might have been banished, but the barrier is weaker than before. Reaver said it’s like gluing a ceramic vase back together. The vase may still hold water, but it’ll never be as strong as it was, and it could leak. Your container is cracked, and Pestilence can seep through.” Thanatos scrubbed his hand over his face. “It gets worse. While you were pulping yourself on the bedroom walls, the rest of us did some recon in Sheoul. Lucifer, Gethel, Lilith, and about a dozen other bigshots are planning to do whatever it takes to bring Pestilence back, including hurting our families. And according to Arik and Kynan, Gethel has been working with The Aegis on some super anti-Horseman weapon or some shit. We think the sudden disappearance of hundreds of hellhounds might have something to do with it.”

Fuck, this was bad. “Reaver should have left me in Sheoul. He should have left me to suffer.”

Closing his eyes, he sought out the memories that tortured him. It wasn’t right that he wasn’t suffering. Oh, he was miserable, knowing his relationship with his brothers and sister and their families was likely damaged beyond repair, and he was sick at the knowledge of what he’d done to the world and its inhabitants.

But for some reason, the memories felt distant, fuzzy, like he was watching a film instead of being an active participant in them.

Peeling his lids open, he turned to Limos. “Where’s Jillian?”

“She was unconscious after the mind-meld thingie. I took her home and put her in bed. I left a book of our history and our phone numbers on the bedside table in case she ever needs anything.”

“She was unconscious? Is she okay? I have to go to her.”

“Reseph, wait—”

He didn’t listen. All he could think about was Jillian.

Jillian woke up with a scream, heart racing, skin damp with sweat. Demons. She’d been surrounded by demons. Reseph, his eyes glowing, was laughing as claws dug into her flesh.

“Jillian!”

She screamed again as Reseph, fully armored and impossibly huge, burst into her bedroom, a sword in his gauntleted fist. He skidded to a stop short of the bed, but she scrambled backward on the mattress until her spine hit the headboard.

“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s me. Reseph. Not… Pestilence.” The sword in his hand disappeared, but it hardly mattered; he himself was a weapon.

She had no idea what to say or do. So much had happened in the last few hours and so many conflicting emotions were coursing through her body. The one thing she was certain of was that Reseph was still the most handsome man she’d ever seen, and in full, shiny armor, he was like a knight from a fairy tale.

Or, as Pestilence, he was the fable’s monster.

Reseph inched toward her. “I was worried about you. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” She came to her feet on the side of the bed opposite Reseph. She needed a barrier between them, even if it was something as ineffective as a mattress.

Reseph didn’t take those ancient, knowing eyes off her. “You shouldn’t have done what you did. Especially after I told you the truth about your attack.”

Irrational anger sparked at his utter lack of gratitude. “That’s one hell of a way to thank me.”

“Dammit, Jillian.” His deep voice went even deeper. “I should have had a say in it. You took the choice away from me.”

“Because you would have chosen to suffer,” she shot back. “That’s stupid. And selfish.”

“How is that selfish?”

Reseph tracked her as she paced the length of the bed, doing her best to gather her jumbled thoughts. Three men existed in that magnificent body: Pestilence, the Reseph she’d fallen for, and the Reseph who was a complete stranger. At this point, she didn’t know any of them.

“It’s selfish because everyone who loves you was suffering with you. Not to mention the fact that it was leaving the door open for Pestilence.”

A guttural word fell from Reseph’s lips. She didn’t know the language, but she understood the sentiment. “I still don’t like it. We’re linked forever now. You know that, right?”

“Of course I know that.”

“You knew, and you still chained yourself to me in some mysterious goddamned bond?” He cursed, and this time she understood the word very well. “Talk about being tied down.”

She wheeled around so fast she banged her knee on the bedframe. “Ouch! Son of a bitch.” Pain fueled the anger and hurt building in her chest. She was dealing with the stranger Reseph, wasn’t she? “That’s why you’re upset? You don’t want to be tied down? Oh my God, it’s going to kill you to show up once a year and have to fuck me, isn’t it?”

Maybe his siblings had been spot-on in their warnings about Reseph. What a fool she’d been.

Reseph had started toward her when she hit her knee, but now he stopped dead. “What?”

“Oh, no one told you the terms of the deal?” She strode up to him and poked him in the chest. Not that he probably felt it through the armor. “Yeah, that’s right. Sex. Once a year. If it doesn’t happen, I lose my mind and die, and you go back to being a drooling head case.”

“No,” he rasped. “Oh, no.” The sheer horror in his expression was like a bullet between the eyes. Not only did the man she’d loved not want to be tied to her, but he didn’t even want to have sex with her once a fucking year.

“You… you’ll screw demons… things with hooves and horns and tails, but the thought of being with me is repulsive to you?” She shoved at his breastplate with as much strength as she could muster. He didn’t budge an inch. “You bastard!”

“It’s not that. God, Jillian, it’s not that.” He wrapped his hand around hers the way he had so many times, and her heart bled in remembrance. “Pestilence is my demon half, and he still lives. He could still come back, and I will not put you at risk.”

“I’m calling bullshit on that excuse.” She jerked out of his grip. “Don’t you think he would have come back when those guys attacked us outside the bar? Or when we found the demon in the barn?”

“The demon in the barn was there because of me.” He tapped his breastplate, and the noise sounded so hollow. “I put you in danger. Don’t you get it?”

“No, I don’t,” she snapped. Her Reseph would want to be here to kill the demons. Not make up lame excuses to stay away. “What are you going to do between yearly visits, Reseph? Are you going to just hang out by yourself because you’re afraid of hurting someone? You’re seriously going to take an oath of celibacy?”

He closed his eyes, and she snorted. “You know what? Don’t answer that.” She stalked out of the bedroom and to the front door. “Get out.” When he didn’t move, she shook her head. “You’re the lucky one in all of this. You have so many girlfriends that you won’t have to explain to anyone why once a year you have to sleep with yet another one. But me? I’m thinking that anyone I’m with isn’t going to understand why I have to fuck another guy—”

Reseph was on her in a flash, his eyes snapping blue fire and his teeth bared as he pushed her against the doorjamb. “I will kill any male who touches you.”

“Really?” Her voice was as flat as it was quiet. “You expect me to sit around and wait for those few minutes once a year when you show up? If you show up? Go to hell, Reseph. Go back to where you came from.”

He blinked, and the murderous light snuffed out of his eyes. Very gently, he moved her aside to open the door, and then, without a word, he took off, disappearing into thin air when he hit the bottom of the porch.