by Larissa Ione
Maybe he needed a distraction.
He eyed Serena as she bent over to make the bed, and yep, there was the distraction he needed. Gaze locked on the way her faded jeans hugged her softly rounded backside and slender thighs, he moved toward her, his body hardening with every step.
Yes, he was a Seminus demon, a rare breed of incubus that required sex to survive like humans required oxygen. But with Serena, it wasn’t just sex he needed. He needed her. She’d saved his life in a million different ways. Hell, she saved his life every time she had sex with him.
Serena fluffed his pillow…the pillow he was going to use to brace her hips when he…oh, yeah, he could practically feel his fangs scraping over skin still sensitive from this morning.
They’d spent a lot of time in bed lately. Well, not any more than usual, but for some reason it felt like that was all they did when they were together.
He slowed, suddenly disturbed by that thought.
They used to hunt for artifacts together, but lately Serena had been spending time with Cara to help with the pending arrival of the baby.
She’d spent a lot of time helping to prepare for the baby.
He froze in his tracks, his objective forgotten. As a vampire, Serena couldn’t give birth. Did that bother her? Was that why she was with Cara so much when Stewie was at school?
Serena straightened and turned to him. “Wraith? Is everything okay?”
He blinked. “Yeah. Why?”
“Because I thought you were going to throw me down on the bed and ravage me.” She smiled, showing a pearly hint of her sexy fangs. She’d been a pretty badass human when he’d first set out to seduce her, but with vampire strength and speed, now she was like a superhero badass. So floofing hot. “But instead you’re standing there like a zombie. What’s going on?”
Oh, I was just wondering if maybe you resented the fact that you can’t have a baby.
Probably best not to just blurt that out. They definitely needed to talk, but maybe after they got out and did something. Something besides sex.
He’d probably just become the only Seminus demon in the history of incubi to have that thought.
“Wraith?” Serena prompted.
Think quick. “I changed my mind about meeting Thanatos and Regan for cocktails tonight.”
She blinked in surprise. “I thought you said Eidolon needed you to hunt down some sort of Oni relic.”
Screw Eidolon. He was trying to drag Stewie to the Dark Side. Okay, yeah, there were worse things his brother could do than foster Stewie’s interest in the medical profession, but Wraith felt like being petty. At least he admitted it. That had to count toward something, right? Like, maturity points.
He was totally next-level mature.
“E can wait until tomorrow,” he said. “We need to hang out with friends and be social.”
And how crazy was it that he considered Thanatos, the Horseman known as Death, to be a friend? His best friend, in fact. They’d hit it off from the beginning, and Regan and Serena had developed a close relationship, as well.
“Really?” Grinning, she checked her watch. “I’ll get Runa to watch Stewie.”
It only took them forty-five minutes to get in a playful quickie in the shower and drop Stew off with Shade and Runa. A few minutes after that, they took a Harrowgate that delivered them within two blocks of one of their favorite watering holes, a hard-to-find underground bar in Bruges. The place was dark, moody, and had the atmosphere of a Gothic tomb. Best of all, it was rarely packed with tourists.
Regan and Thanatos were already seated at a table near the back with a cheese and meat platter, and Thanatos, bless his apocalyptic heart, had a beer waiting for him. Regan had ordered a hard cider for Serena, earning a hug before they all sat down.
“It’s good to see you, man.” Thanatos, wearing a sweater the color of the Guinness in his hand, lifted his glass in salute. “Been awhile.”
“Wraith has been busy with work.” Serena palmed Wraith’s thigh under the table and gave him an affectionate squeeze. Her excitement at getting a night out told Wraith they needed to do this more often.
“Uh-huh.” Thanatos scoffed. “Wraith doesn’t work. He hunts treasure.”
Wraith knocked back half his beer. “No, it’s true. I cured cancer, in fact.” He smirked at Thanatos. “What have you done lately? Haunted cemeteries?”
The Horseman snorted. “Now I remember why it’s been awhile.”
Laughing, Regan took Thanatos’s hand. “He’s been teaching Logan how to ice fish.”
“I can’t wait until Amber is old enough,” Thanatos said. “Then we can all go fishing.”
“All?” Regan gave her mate a you’re delusional look. “I think ice fishing sounds like it would make for a wonderful father-offspring weekend.”
“While Mom spends quiet time binge-watching shows she’s missed,” Serena added.
Regan clinked glasses with Serena. “You said it, sister.”
“I think ice fishing sounds great.” Wraith wrapped his arm around Serena. “I mean, screw the fishing part. But warming up in a cold shanty with your mate? I can deal with that.”
“I’m with you,” Serena said, snuggling against him. “Fishing isn’t my thing, but I’d let you keep me warm.” She dragged a playful finger down the center of the Four Ponies of the Apocalypse T-shirt he liked to wear to taunt Thanatos. “I love it when you get all romantic.”
“Wraith?” Regan plucked a cube of cheese off the plate. “Romantic? Bullshit.”
“No, really, I am,” Wraith insisted. “Just last week I brought Serena a corrupt politician to eat.”
Serena nodded. “It was so sweet. When I was done, he told the loser to confess his sins to the public or Wraith would find him again.”
“Dude.” Than nodded approvingly. “That’s awesome.”
Regan just shook her head and signaled the bartender for another cider. “Romance is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.”
Serena took a sip of her drink. “What do you consider romantic?”
Regan appeared to think on that. Finally she said, “Sometimes Than puts the kids to bed, runs a bubble bath for me, and while I’m soaking he reads to me.”
That sounded super lame to Wraith, but Serena perked up.
“Reads? Like what?”
“Depends,” Regan said with a shrug. “Sometimes it’s something light and funny. Sometimes it’s one of the thousand accounts of the exploits of the Four Horsemen.”
Thanatos’s weird yellow eyes went heavy-lidded as he leaned back in his chair and eyed his mate like he was hungry and she was a steak. “Tell them your favorite reading material.”
Even in the shadowy darkness in the crypt-like atmosphere of the bar, Regan’s blush bloomed bright. “I like it when he gives me a glass of wine and reads a steamy romance.” She shot him a seductive smile. “I always know it’s romance novel night when he gives me red wine.”
“I like the way red wine turns your cheeks pink and makes you adventurous,” he purred.
“You think I’m not adventurous?”
“Oh, you’re game for anything.” Thanatos fed her a piece of cheese, placing it gently on her tongue. “But my bold warrior isn’t so bold with the dirty talk.”
Regan’s eyes sparked with the light of battle. “You’re asking for it now. I’ll take that as a challenge.”
“Good. Wanna go home and challenge me?”
That was a total eye-roller right there. “Are you two done?” Wraith asked.
Thanatos hid his smile in his glass. “Sorry. With two little ones we don’t get a lot of alone time.”
“Who’s watching the ponies while you’re here?” Serena asked, using the term Regan often used to refer to their kids.
“Cujo and the vampires,” Regan replied.
Between Thanatos’s vampire servants and Cujo, a hellhound given to their son Logan as a puppy, nothing was going to get near those kids.
“Cujo and the vampires, huh?
” Wraith mused. “Sounds like a rock band.”
“You’re not wrong,” Thanatos muttered. “Thanks to Limos and her brilliant idea to give Logan a drums set for his birthday.”
“I can’t wait to pay her back,” Regan said. “As soon as Keilani is old enough, I’m getting her a tuba and a hellhound puppy that’ll howl when she plays it.”
Wraith had heard Cujo howl, and the sound was definitely an ear-splitter. Stewie had asked for a hellhound puppy for his birthday a couple of years ago, but even if Serena hadn’t put her foot down on that one, Cujo’s vocalizations—and his potential for eating people—had given Wraith second thoughts.
He ordered another beer, and they all sat around the table for the next couple of hours catching up and talking about Ares and Cara’s upcoming baby shower. Finally, when the bartender announced he’d be closing the joint, they drained their glasses and headed for a dark alley where Thanatos could gate them all home.
Wraith didn’t envy the Horsemen—their lives had been even more floofed up than Wraith’s, and they still had centuries of prophecy to deal with. But damn, their ability to open gates to anywhere was one Wraith would kill to have.
As they rounded the corner on their way to their usual spot, a group of people started toward them. To the casual observer, they appeared to be human.
But as the hair on Wraith’s neck stood up, he slowed, pulling Serena to a stop at the same time Than and Regan came to a halt.
The group of eleven underworlders, a mix of demons and shifters, if Wraith’s senses were working right, stopped a few yards away.
“Looks like we eat well tonight, friends,” the one in front said, and Regan barked out a laugh.
“You idiots chose the wrong people to floof with,” she said.
The lead idiot hissed, his mouth filling with sharp teeth. “You’re outnumbered, idiot.”
Wraith snorted. “That’s like telling the Avengers that they’re outnumbered.”
One of the creeps in the back of the pack snickered. “Yeah? And what Avenger are you?”
“Me? Not to brag, but I’m kind of invincible. You know, like Thor.” He looked over at Serena. “Right, babe?”
She gave him a thumbs’ up, and a “Sure, hon. Thor.”
He loved how she humored him.
Wraith gestured to Thanatos. “He’s Iron Man.”
Thanatos played along and skimmed his fingers across the crescent scar on his throat. Instantly a suit of armor clacked into place, covering him from head to toe. Wraith smirked at the uneasiness that filtered through the group of scumbags. An uneasiness that grew when the souls kept prisoner inside Thanatos’s armor began to writhe around his feet, shadowy wraiths that wanted out. That wanted to kill.
It was creepy as floof.
Casually, while the pack of idiots were focused on his inane Avengers talk, he palmed one of the blades at his hip with one hand and gestured to Serena with the other.
“She can shoot a bow like Hawkeye and move like Wasp.” He jerked his chin toward Regan. “She’s a professional demon slayer. The Black Widow of our group. And Iron Man, here? His name is Death. He’s literally Death. And I almost singlehandedly closed the gates of hell and saved the world. There might be fewer of us, but I promise, you are the ones who are outnumbered.”
Regan heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Do you realize that every time you meet someone new, you find a way to bring up the fact that you saved the world?”
“It’s true,” Than said, and Serena gave him an apologetic nod of agreement.
“What can I say?” Wraith asked with a shrug. “I need the adulation. My ego is fragile.”
“Shut up,” one of the newcomers growled, his voice becoming slurred as he and his toadies began to morph into their true, ugly-ass forms. “We don’t like our dinner to talk back to us.”
Oh, yeah, Wraith thought as he settled into a fighting stance.
This was gonna be fun.
* * * *
It had been a long time since Serena and Wraith had fought side-by-side against an enemy. Family life had kind of put a damper on some of their more intense adventures, so this...this was a throwback to their roots, a reminder of how they’d met, and how they’d fallen in love.
And as she crunched a flying roundhouse kick into the throat of one of their attackers, she wasn’t surprised to see Wraith peel away from the black-horned demon he’d just decked to back her up. In tandem, the way they practiced at the UGH gym, they took the bastard down. Wraith devastated the fang-toothed monster with a series of blows to the upper body as she spun, delivering sweeping kicks to soft spots and vulnerable joints in the demon’s legs.
Regan and Thanatos were working together as well, mowing through the group of scumbags with the ease of a freshly sharpened blade through grass. In less than three minutes, the four of them were standing in a circle, back to back, the enemies lying around them like broken sacks of grain.
“Well, that was fun. A little too easy, but fun,” Thanatos said, but his lips were turned down in a troubled frown that drew a scowl from Regan.
“What is it?” she asked.
The scorpion tattoo on Thanatos’s neck had come to life, its tail whipping around as if stinging him. “Something’s...wrong. The souls I released aren’t being gathered by griminions after their kills.”
Serena tried not to shiver, but the creepiness of Thanatos’s soul-killer gift weirded her out. Regan had told her that the shadowy souls would fly around until the Grim Reaper’s griminions came to collect them, which usually didn’t take more than a few seconds.
“Wait,” she said. “Didn’t you say earlier that the gates to Sheoul-gra are closed? Isn’t that where the souls are taken?”
Thanatos turned his intense yellow eyes on her, and if she wasn’t a friend, she would have shrunk back. “Yes,” his deep voice rumbled. “I’d forgotten about that. Dammit, Azagoth had better get his shit together.”
He turned back to the alleyway where the bodies of the dead demons were caving in on themselves, disintegrating into bubbling puddles before poofing into fine ash flakes. Within seconds, there would be no trace of them left at all.
Thanatos cursed as even the ash flakes fizzled out of existence. “Can we not go even a decade without a crisis? Floof it, I’d take even a couple of years.”
“What’s been going on?” Serena asked. She’d been so out of the loop lately.
Regan finished searching the alley for her throwing knives and tucked them into her purse. “There have been rumblings of a new coup planned against Revenant.”
“And there’s been a spate of angel assassinations, most of them Memitim,” Thanatos said. “Before the near-apocalypse a few years ago, we used to be able to go centuries at a time without large-scale incidents of demonic turmoil.”
“What’s different now?” Serena asked, turning to give a couple of drunk humans at the end of the alley a look that said they’d be smart to take another route. Wisely, they took her wordless advice.
Thanatos waited until the humans were gone and then turned his attention back to Serena, although, like Wraith, he never stopped watching for trouble. “My theory is that in the past, organized demonic activity didn’t have much of a point. Yes, Satan always had his minions out looking for ways to corrupt humans and recruit disenfranchised angels and commit general mayhem, but most high-level activity was ultimately done with the goal of starting the End of Days.”
“But we won,” Wraith said. “We floofing beat the Apocalypse. Satan is imprisoned.”
“Only for a thousand years,” Thanatos reminded him. “When he is loosed, the real End of Days will be upon us.”
An ominous silence settled over them like a shroud.
Then Regan laughed.
Thanatos leveled a flat look at his mate. “Armageddon amuses you?”
“No, I just think it’s funny how you go all medieval-sounding when you get angry or serious. All you’re missing is some thees and thous.”
&nbs
p; “Thee end of the world is pretty serious,” Than muttered a little defensively.
Which Serena thought was funny. The guy was a seven-foot-tall warrior decked out in massive bone-plate armor and covered in 3-D tattoos depicting scenes of death, and he got as pouty as Stewie sometimes.
“Oh, come on,” Regan said. “We have plenty of time to prepare. Not to mention the fact that since we beat the prophesied demonic apocalypse, we only have to worry about the Biblical one. And the Horsemen fight for good in that one.”
“We might be on the side of good, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be good. Psychopaths make the best assassins, after all. When our Seals break, we may still become monsters.”
“Whoa, there, Debbie Downer,” Wraith drawled. “Nothing like doomsday talk to end a night, huh?”
“Oh, give me a break,” Serena teased. “You love this kind of thing.”
Wraith grinned. “Yeah.”
Thanatos cursed again, his eyes glowing eerily until Regan took his gauntleted hand. “I’m sure Azagoth will open Sheoul-gra to souls again soon. Try not to worry about it. Whatever the souls you released do now will not be your fault.”
Thanatos didn’t look mollified in the least.
“Hey,” Wraith said in a cheery voice Serena knew was meant to distract. “Why don’t we find a good breakfast joint? I know this restaurant in Hawaii that whips up some crazy good Spam omelets.”
“Another time, demon,” Thanatos said as he opened a gate to Wraith and Serena’s backyard in New York. “We’ll see you on Ares’s island on for the baby shower?”
“Of course,” Serena said. “We wouldn’t miss it.”
They said their goodbyes, and then Serena and Wraith stepped through the gate, which closed behind them.
“Well, that was an interesting evening,” she said as they mounted the steps to the back deck.
“Yeah. It was one of the more normal ones we’ve had with them.”
She laughed at the truth in that. Weirdness followed the Horsemen everywhere they went. “It’s still pretty early...want to hunt?”
“Don’t we have to pick up Stewie?” He held open the back door for her, and as she entered, she palmed his muscular chest and playfully dragged her hand down to the waistband of his jeans.