On a Black Horse: An Apocalyptic Paranormal Romance (Revelations Book 3)

by Monica Corwin

  Arwan crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, how will you manage that? Will you scold us to death? Glare us into submission?”

  She tried to maintain her composure but she had to laugh at that. They’d known each other a week and he already understood her personality and temperament that well. “Well, at the very least your ears will ring.”

  He leaned down bracing his arms on either side of her chair caging her in with his body. “Give me one night and I’ll let you ring anything you want.”

  It was a cheesy line but his tone and the severity in his eyes shot through her igniting the simmering embers of her previous arousal. Damn him. “Can you please give me some space?” It pained her to ask because she wanted to know if he could fulfill that promise.

  A few weighted seconds passed and he stood up, and sat on the bed behind her chair. She let out a breath in relief. Being so close to him stifled her, but in a way she gloried in. A cold chill washed over her in his absence.

  She shook herself out of it and focused on Baldir. He thought he diverted her attention from what her friends were doing, but he hadn’t. What troubled her is why he felt it necessary. Usually that meant Scarlet or Bianca immersed themselves in something rash, or reckless, or both. Her money was on Bianca, but both her and Scarlet harbored grudges against the hellhounds. After Tyr dying because of one, and Bianca’s fight in the Underworld, she couldn’t blame them.

  “Well if you won’t tell me what my friends are doing, what have you been up to?”

  He shifted in the chair until he sighed in comfort. Obviously he felt comfortable in Arwan’s home. Interesting. She knew their friendship ran deep but part of her wondered if there something more to it than that. The intimate way they embraced earlier flashed in her mind. Bianca enjoyed both sexes. Maybe Baldir and Arwan felt the same. She considered it. While she was a virgin she’d never found herself attracted to women in a sexual sense. Nor did the idea of two men appeal to her. She barely knew what to do with one man…two men seemed incomprehensible.

  Baldir broke her mental exploration. “I told you. I’ve been at Gwyn’s place. Interesting collection of people there.”

  Katherine recalled how the citizens of Fairy followed her in interest. As if they could sense the other in her. The other she barely admitted to herself, besides her apocalyptic nature.

  She diverted that train of thought. “And is everyone healthy and whole?”

  Baldir glanced around her to Arwan and Katherine could feel the silent communication between them. A connection born of intimacy and something lasting longer than the week she spent with him. Maybe Baldir had a claim on Arwan she hadn’t realized. The last thing she wanted was to put them both in compromising situations.

  “I really do think I should get back.”

  “You really can’t go.” Baldir said.

  “And why not? You’re here now. You can take care of Arwan.” She turned to put up her hand and silence Arwan’s coming protestations. “His strength has returned and he can take care of himself now. There is no reason for me to linger.”

  Baldir took in a huge breath, let it out slowly, and leaned forward to brace his arms on his thighs. “Actually, you can’t leave and join your friends. Bianca and her harem are headed here now.”

  Chapter 12

  Arwan surged to his feet, the act causing an ache in his side he squelched by pressing his hand to raised flesh. “That Horseman is not welcome here.”

  Katherine rounded on him. “That Horseman isn’t welcome, but this one is welcome to stay here, save your life, and be fodder for your seduction attempts.”

  Anger continued to course through him in time with his heartbeat. “There was no seduction love, you’ve already succumbed in your mind. Don’t pretend you don’t want me, too. Empty words might make you feel better but the lies won’t phase me.”

  The fact that she could so easily dismiss whatever was building between them stung more than he wanted to admit himself.

  He turned his attention to Baldir. “How long do we have?”

  The sun god shifted his head back and forth weighing his words. “I imagine not very long. You have a mirror in the bathroom. That’s likely how they will arrive.”

  That’s what they think. Arwan grabbed a heavy volume from the shelf, stalked to his bathroom mirror, and slammed the book into the glass. It shattered and fell to pieces in the sink. A rivulet of red ran down one his hands. He didn’t feel it, as if he were an entirely separate entity from himself.

  Katherine and Baldir stirred at the door. Baldir’s gaze held a note of respect and Katherine’s dread. “That won’t stop her,” she whispered.

  He didn’t think it would. At the very least, it would delay their arrival.

  “How do they even know where I am?”

  Baldir shrugged, “I assume some sort of Fairy magic. I didn’t ask, I was too busy trying to dissuade them from coming. When I knew it was useless I came immediately.”

  “How did you get here?”

  He smiled. “Hringhorni, of course.”

  They both gaped at him. Arwan recovered first. “You took a boat?”

  He chuckled. “A ship actually, and it’s a faster way to travel than it sounds.”

  Arwan eyed him skeptically. “Whatever you say.”

  He shook himself back to the situation. “It doesn’t matter. The situation at hand means we need to leave.” He held his hand out to Katherine.

  She stared down at it and backed up. “What do you expect? For me to fight against my friend? To run away from a person I’ve spent years with? For a man I’ve known a week.”

  He swallowed, the absurdity of it struck him. The realization he’d developed feelings for her, and that she had not was a punch to the gut. He dropped his arm, squeezed between them in the doorway, and stalked to his armoire. As fast as possible he threw some clothes in a bag and turned to eye his bookshelves. Two books…he had room for two books. He grabbed The Count of Monte Cristo and Dante’s Inferno. Their new positions on the shelf causing a pang in his chest. He’d be reminded of her until he returned them all to their correct places.

  “Where are you going?” Baldir asked taking a seat by the fire again. Spreading his legs out in front of him as if he planned to be there for a while.

  “I don’t know. I have to go somewhere. That woman intends to finish what she started and I don’t plan to make it easy for her.”

  Katherine shifted against the bathroom door frame but he refused to spare her a glance.

  “I don’t think she will kill you.” Baldir said.

  “She sure as shit doesn’t want a cup of tea.”

  “Bianca doesn’t drink tea,” Katherine piped in.

  It took even more effort to not look at her. He didn’t even respond to that assessment.

  “What do you expect from me, B?”

  “Sit, wait, see what happens. After everything we’ve been through, do you think I’d allow her to harm you?”

  For a moment Arwan considered it, but then dismissed the notion almost as quickly. “She’s the horseman of conquest. She can make you do anything she wants.”

  “Bianca isn’t a monster.” Katherine intoned behind him.

  His anger exploded and he rounded to her, stalking forward. “She killed most of my pack. The other one decimated the rest of them. Between Bianca and Scarlet, any family I had is gone. I’m not going to sit around and wait for her get to me next.”

  She stepped forward into his space, the scent of her assaulting him, swamping him in the emotion he’d harbored for the week they spent together. “Bianca isn’t unreasonable. Her reaction in the Underworld was strictly emotional. She just lost the man she loved.”

  “At the hand of the other man she loved. The pack had nothing to do with that exchange. Gwyn and Nuada made their own deal with Hel, it had nothing to do with us. What happened to them was collateral damage.”

  “I wouldn’t call it collateral. That word is designated for the innocent.” Bianca’
s voice broke in as she stalked behind Baldir’s chair with Gwyn and Victor in tow.

  Arwan took an involuntary step back toward Katherine who came up and wrapped her hand in his interlocking their fingers. The action shocked him almost as much as Bianca’s arrival. He stared down at their entwined digits before meeting Katherine’s eyes. There was something in them akin to resignation. He swallowed the emotions spiking through him and turned back to the newcomers. The setting sun’s rays fanned in the door behind them. Victor shut it and cut off the blinding light. The trio didn’t appear angry. They stood almost indifferent, but Bianca’s eyes were locked on Arwan and Katherine’s hands.

  The silence stretched out until Gwyn skirted Bianca’s small form and took the seat across from the fire with a sigh. “Making a portal into the ocean…not easy.”

  Baldir nodded as if he could sympathize with the Fairy King.

  Victor wandered over to Arwan’s bookshelf and he tensed. Katherine squeezed his hand and put her other on his arm to calm him. Everything in him told him to run. To get out of this situation because it wouldn’t be long before it turned nasty.

  Bianca placed her hands on the back of Baldir’s chair. She stood barely taller with only her chest and shoulder visible about Baldir’s head. From what he’d seen, the attack would come from her. The other two were at her mercy and directive.

  “What do you want?” He asked.

  Bianca locked her eyes on him and he felt that gaze zip through him all the way to his toes. His side ached with the memory of her wrath. He wasn’t keen for round two. He’d likely not survive it.

  “I want what all women want. To bathe in the blood of her enemies and celebrate with coffee and zebra cakes.”

  He blinked, unsure of what to do with that statement. Was it a joke or a threat?

  “Bianca,” Katherine began.

  She held up her hand and Katherine lapsed into silence he recognized as practiced.

  “I can’t even look at you right now.”

  Katherine’s grip tightened again and he recognized her anger in the tight set of her shoulders. “You can’t look at me? Did you forget so very recently your complete indifference to two thousand years of friendship? You don’t get to be angry with me.”

  Bianca let out a sigh, her long black hair fluttering around her waist in a fine sheen. “Katherine, come on, I thought we were over that.”

  “We are over it, but if you do anything to Arwan, I won’t be so forgiving.”

  “You named it?” Bianca gripped the top of Baldir’s chair, digging in her nails. Arwan glanced between the two of them, certain he did not want to be in the middle.

  “Are you prepared to protect him?” Bianca asked, staring intently at Katherine.

  “I am. With every ability I possess.” She squared her shoulders.

  Bianca jerked back. There was an unspoken statement in those words. A fact he didn’t know about Katherine, that even Bianca feared.

  “Kat,” Gwyn began.

  She shifted her gaze to him. “I don’t even know you. You don’t get to address me like that.” Anger simmered in her tone. Gwyn shrugged and turned his eyes back to the fire.

  Katherine returned her gaze to Bianca. “I don’t want to fight you, but I didn’t dedicate a week to keeping Arwan alive to let you kill him the second he’s recovered.”

  Bianca squinted at him and Arwan jerked under her stare. There was a tactility to it he didn’t like. It stripped him naked, and not in a good way.

  “I could just make him kill himself.”

  Katherine wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her chin. “I won’t forgive you if you do. Can you live with that?”

  Bianca let out a huff, defeat mingling with anger. “You are not making this easy.”

  Baldir sat and sipped his coffee with a small smile on his face and Arwan had a feeling he knew something they all didn’t. Regardless, the tension in the room was beginning to make his skin crawl. Or maybe it was a fellow member of his species standing so close as he looked over Arwan’s books. He peeked around the back of Katherine’s shoulders at the man who seemed perfectly content to stand there perusing. Something didn’t feel right about him, he took in a gust of air analyzing the scents. He didn’t have one and then a refraction of light shone right through him. The man was dead, a ghost. Arwan jerked back and Katherine stared at him. “Are you ok?”

  He wasn’t sure if he should bring it up seeing as that was a result of the issues between them all. Also, it unnerved him in ways he couldn’t understand yet. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m not going to die easily, Horseman,” he said directing his words at Bianca.

  She shrugged, “No matter to me as long as you’re dead by the end of it.”

  He needed to correct whatever lie she told herself before she murdered him. “You want to kill me? You didn’t have to witness a pack of wild animals slaughter your family. You didn’t have to see the destruction of an innocent species simply for being in your vicinity.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hel controlled us all. Garmr was the only hellhound not bound to follow her orders.” The mention of the hellhound who assisted in Tyr’s death, and Hel’s right hand caused bile to rise in his throat.

  “You’re lying. Obviously.”

  “I’m not lying. Why would I lie about the slaughter of my pack?”

  She threw up her hands. “Uh, to keep from dying. Duh.”

  “Something tells me even if you knew the truth, you couldn’t be deviated from your course.”

  She smiled. “Now you understand me.”

  Katherine clutched his hand and he stopped before firing back at Bianca.

  “He’s right. You won’t listen to reason. And I really am sorry for this.” Katherine turned her gaze to Gwyn. “If you want to live you will take them, and Baldir, now.”

  Gwyn eyed her with interest, and stood up carefully adjusting his suit, before stepping toward Bianca. “We need to leave.”

  Bianca shrugged his hand off the back of her neck. “Since when do you follow orders from someone else?”

  “When their eyes tell me their true nature and it’s not a force I can match.”

  Bianca glanced at Katherine again. “You wouldn’t do it. I know you. You haven’t in a thousand years.”

  Arwan stared between them. He was missing something, he knew he had been when he first met Katherine, but now it seemed a growing secret he needed to understand. “What is going on?”

  “You don’t need to know,” Katherine said, not sparing him a glance.

  Gwyn grabbed Victor’s ghostly hand and he followed without a word. Bianca stood her ground and Arwan wondered what sort of leverage Katherine had that could frighten a Fairy King.

  “Leave now, or I will make you. I won’t tell you again.”

  Gwyn pulled Bianca’s arm and opened the door at the same time. Twilight descended outside and Bianca locked eyes with him as she allowed herself to be led outside. Victor closed the door and a deep and heavy silence threaded through the room.

  Shock rolled over him and a sense of pride. He looked down at Katherine who began to shake almost violently. “Okay, you really are going to have to tell me what you are.”

  Chapter 13

  Katherine released Arwan’s hand and folded over on herself to sink to her knees. She couldn’t believe she’d let herself teeter on the edge of control, even for a moment. The worse part was she did it with total conviction. She would have shattered part of herself to protect him. She took some deep gulps of air, grounding herself before standing. The shakes subsided and she couldn’t even look at Arwan. Disgust swamped her in waves. They had barely kissed, but she couldn’t let Bianca kill him out of a misplaced sense of vengeance. It wasn’t his innocence in the situation, it was her feelings for him, and that scared her more. Once he learned the truth he wouldn’t want her, anyway. Virginity as well as deadly weren’t a good combination.

  Arwan crept over and plopped in
the chair opposite Baldir who remained unfazed by the entire situation. “Are you going to tell me what she is?”

  Katherine eyed Baldir. How did he even know? Baldir shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Not my information to share. You’ll learn soon enough.”

  Katherine stomped over and gripped Arwan’s chair to glare at Baldir. “He will not.”

  The look on his face said he didn’t care one way or the other.

  Part of her loathed the idea of him learning the truth because she had no doubt he’d run away in fear. The other part of her longed to tell him to get it over with. She looked down at him, sweat beaded on his brow and he grimaced holding his side. She went to the bathroom, grabbed some pain meds, and brought them out. Arwan accepted them, took Baldir’s mug, and downed them in a quick swallow.

  “Hey,” Baldir said, reaching out to take back his coffee.

  She felt the need to offer something. “If you knew, you would wish you could give back up that knowledge. I promise you.”

  He looked up at her. “No. I value truth and logic.” A look of vulnerability passed across his face. “And I want to know all of you. I thought I made that clear repeatedly.”

  The audacity of the man. Every single thing that came from his lips made her want to punch him or hug him. “Okay, a week ago you wanted me strung up by the neck outside your door.”

  With pursed lips and a raised eyebrow, he stared her down before responding. “That’s a little extreme.”

  “I don’t think it is. You were very clear you didn’t want me here, and I knew it from the second I stepped in the door.”

  Part of her rebelled at the statement. It felt like she was trying to cause a fight to throw a rift between them, and yet, she couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to push him away as much as she wanted to draw him in close. Why was it so hard to allow herself that? A brief respite from the everyday. A moment of calm for herself. Bianca’s challenge rose in her mind. Yeah, her “condition,” the one she barely acknowledged, and even less mentioned out loud. The fact that she almost let loose in front of a room full of people was unfathomable. She could have killed them all.