Rogue Rider

out at her peak, he went with her, agonizing ecstasy shooting through his balls and shaft, going on and on, and as the first orgasm waned, another started up. Jillian came with him again on his third, his name breaking from her lips.

Gradually, the sexual storm passed, and he fell forward, arms and legs trembling, to catch himself on the sawhorse. Jillian’s mouth found his, and her slow, tender kiss made him tremble for a different reason.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was falling for her. With every passing day, she became more and more the air he breathed. When she wasn’t around, he felt empty, restless. When she was there, he calmed and found a sense of peace that was just… right. And now that the demon was dead, he could tell himself that the vision and whispered voice in his head was imagined.

“Thank you,” she said against his lips.

He pulled back a little. “Are you crazy? I should be thanking you.”

“You know how you can thank me?”

“How?” Lick her until she screamed? Caress every inch of her body until she begged him to stop?

“You can dig the second snowmobile out of the garage and gas it up.”

He blinked. He could lick her on a snowmobile, he supposed. “You have plans?”

“We’re going to go have fun. Snowmobiling and snowmobile-cooking.” He must have looked confused as hell, because she laughed and said, “You put meat and veggies in a foil wrapper and pop it under the sled’s hood next to the exhaust pipe. When you get tired of riding, you stop and your food is cooked.”

“Babe, you keep surprising me.” He eyed her with a whole new appreciation for her sense of adventure. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Lance McKinney sat with two fellow Elders at his desk at Aegis headquarters in Scotland. Juan and Delia were both nursing cold cups of coffee, which had more to do with the fact that the castle was always freezing than anything else.

“Have the outposts in Australia and Japan been reestablished?” He glanced at Delia, their newest Elder. The stout, dark-haired woman had been with The Aegis for twenty years and had been Regent at one of the Barcelona cells before almost everyone who worked under her was killed by Pestilence’s minions.

She nodded. “We’ve only got enough Guardians for one cell in Japan.” She handed him a report from the Tokyo Regent. “We’re barely at half-staff in the Sydney cell, but that’ll change as more evacuees make their way back.”

Fuck, there was a lot of rebuilding to be done. The near-Apocalypse had just about destroyed several countries and had killed millions of people. Now, three months later, disease and starvation were wracking some of the worst-hit areas. The fools at DART insisted that the infections and starvation were a natural result of disaster, but The Aegis wasn’t convinced. Pestilence was rumored to be dead, but what if he was still killing people through his diseases? And then there was Famine, or Limos, as her sympathizers called her. She could be causing the mass starvation.

Man, Lance fucking hated Horsemen. He hated even more that humans needed them. The evil Apocalypse, which would have put the Horsemen on the demons’ side of the fight, had been averted, but there was still a Biblical Apocalypse in mankind’s future. This time, when their Seals broke, the Horsemen were supposed to ally themselves with humans and battle demons right alongside The Aegis.

Except that the Horsemen hated The Aegis, and Lance had no doubt that if those bastards ever learned the location of Aegis headquarters, Aegi would become an extinct species.

There was a tap at the door, and Omar, one of the original twelve Elders, strode in, his expression grim. “You aren’t going to like this.” He flexed his hands at his sides. “Aaron has been monitoring reports of possible demon activity in the American Rocky Mountains. Nothing overly unusual, but DART has reported to investigate.”

Lance yawned. “And? Those pussies will probably capture the demon and try to rehabilitate it or some shit. Why do we care?”

“That’s what I thought at first. Then yesterday Aaron noticed an usual surge in Internet searches related to demons coming from a town called Bardsley. The interesting thing is that a lot of the searches have to do with the name Reseph.”

Lance sat up a little straighter. “Reseph is Pestilence’s human name.”

“Yes, but the name is also linked to historical places and gods, so Aaron yellow-flagged it to keep an eye out, but the name didn’t go red flag.” Omar’s lips thinned into a slash of disapproval. “Until today.”

Juan swung around in his chair. “What happened?”

“Aaron got hold of a police report. At around the same time the demon attacks started in Bardsley, a stranger showed up in town. He claims to have no memory except of his name. Says it’s Reseph.”

Lance’s stomach turned over, spilling acid into his bloodstream. “Description?”

“Six-nine. Platinum blond hair. Horse tattoo on his right forearm.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lance breathed. Juan and Delia had gone ashen. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

“That would be my guess.” Omar scrubbed his palm over his face. “It could also be why DART is there.”

Delia frowned. “Wait… Pestilence was destroyed. So how could this be him?”

“Think about it,” Lance said. “We didn’t see anyone destroy him. We got a fucking phone call from Kynan.” A rude-ass phone call full of threats and lies. Kynan had tried to convince Lance that the angel who had been helping them, Gethel, had gone bad. If that were true, she wouldn’t have spent the last month helping The Aegis develop a potential containment weapon against the Horsemen. “What if he was wrong, or what if this is some kind of Horseman deception?”

The mug in Delia’s hands shook, sloshing coffee over the rim. “So do you think DART is in Bardsley to neutralize Reseph? Or Pestilence? Oh my God, what if the Horseman is still evil?”

“There’s no still about it,” Lance said. “The Horsemen are half demon, and anything demon is always evil.” When Pestilence’s Seal broke, he’d simply gone more evil. “We need to get to Bardsley. No way are we letting those asshole upstarts take control of this situation.”

“So we’ll be testing out our new weapon?”

“Yes,” Lance said slowly. “We will. And if all goes right, we’ll finally have a way to lock up the Horsemen and hold them until the Biblical prophecy requires their presence.”

“What about their families?”

“We imprison the ones who can’t be harmed and kill the rest.”

“And Thanatos’s kid?” Delia asked. “Won’t killing him break the Horseman’s Seal?”

Yeah, that was a nasty bit of business. The Aegis had been led to believe that killing the child would save the world, but in truth, it had been the opposite. Because of that clusterfuck, The Aegis had made enemies out of the Horsemen, which was why it was so important to neutralize them. According to Gethel, the Horsemen were planning to murder every Guardian on the planet.

“Kynan said nothing we can do will break their Seals now. Gethel hasn’t confirmed or denied, and we haven’t seen her in a month. So we take the kid. Raise it. Make it loyal to us. He could be our greatest weapon in the fight against demons, and our best protector against the Horsemen if they manage to escape our captivity.”

“So we’re doing this?”

Lance grinned. “Pack for winter. We’re going to catch us a Horseman.”

Sixteen

Kynan and Arik hadn’t found a damned thing. They’d studied the area, questioned whoever would talk to them, and chased down leads. And still ended up with nothing.

It was time to bring in the local cops, because something niggled at Kynan, something about Ms. Cardiff. She knew more than she was saying, and if it took getting an officer to the house to get her to talk, that’s what he’d do.

At least, that’s what he’d do as a first step. He’d play nice… for now.

Ky glanced over at Arik as they climbed out of their SUV and started across the parking lot to the sheriff station’s entrance. “How did Reaver seem to you when you saw him?”