Okay, not quite. Limos popped into his head, and all those fantasies of having her spread-eagled and arching against his mouth trumped the toothbrush sex, for sure.

Cursing himself for an idiot, he spit, rinsed, and stepped into the bedroom just as Limos, her tan body covered in a skimpy yellow swimsuit and a sheer wraparound that hung low on her hips, tapped on the glass patio door outside the room. He didn’t move to let her in, but the door wasn’t locked, so she slid it open.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

“Sleepyhead?”

“More like comahead, really. You’ve been sleeping for twenty-four hours.” She crooked her finger at him. “Come outside. I’ve got a day of sensory therapy planned. I’m going to overload you with normal, familiar sensations to prove all of this isn’t a trick and bring you back to reality.”

Reality. He wasn’t sure what that was anymore.

He eyed Limos warily but appreciatively, following the gold chain around her neck down to the quarter-sized Seal that rested between her breasts. Her flat, muscular stomach gave way to slim h*ps and long legs that tapered from powerful thighs to curvy, hard calves and dainty feet. Her toes were painted pink, and she had gold rings on her middle toes. He’d like to suck them right off.

Fucking moron. He was losing his mind. This wasn’t real, and even if it was… what? Shit, he’d be so happy he wouldn’t care what she’d done or he’d done to get him ferried off to Sheoul, so yeah… he’d suck on her toes.

The warm breeze wrapped around him, tempting him, but when he didn’t immediately walk outside, Limos turned away. She stood there, hands on the rail, her hair whipping around her shoulders as she looked out at the ocean.

“Come on, Arik.” Her voice was soft, cajoling, and hey, what would it hurt to go out there?

For some reason, his stomach fluttered. Stop being a pussy. He stepped outside, was immediately drenched in warm sunlight and tropical scents. Twenty feet below, sand stretched along a beach lined with lush forest as far as he could see. Seagulls flew overhead, dotting the azure sky and then dipping into the dappled ocean waves.

“See?” she said, as she gave him a blinding smile. “It’s gorgeous out here.”

She was gorgeous. “I guess.”

She turned to him and lifted her hand to his cheek, and though he wanted to jerk away, he didn’t. In fact, he kind of leaned into the soft warmth of her palm.

“Feel it. Feel how real it all is. The sun, the breeze, my touch.”

“Feeling has never been the issue.”

She dropped her hand. “Okay, let’s play a game. Let’s pretend you’ve been working for The Aegis and R-XR all this time, and you took a break and came here to see me.”

“You mean, pretend I kissed you outside Ares’s place and I didn’t get dragged to Sheoul?”

Something flashed in her eyes, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think it was regret. “Yes. Where would we be right now?”

He wasn’t sure what to say. He’d spent hours upon hours thinking about how he was going to take his revenge on her, but in all honesty, he’d also wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t freaked and he hadn’t been grabbed to star in his own episode of Survivor: Sheoul.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If you weren’t engaged… you know, if you were available, would you have let the kiss go on?”

Her chin came up, and he knew she was going to pull the I didn’t let it happen in the first place bullshit. Nope, that Frisbee wasn’t going to fly again, and he moved close, so close she backed up, bumping into the railing. It was funny how she was a bad-ass warrior, but when faced with a male’s attention, she became nothing but a female who had to deal with her basest desires.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t deny it again. There are no gray areas here. Just black and white. You either wanted the kiss or you didn’t, and you will never convince me you didn’t. And here’s the thing about that kiss. If I hadn’t been dragged to hell, I wouldn’t have stopped. I’d have had you stripped and under me in a heartbeat, and I’d have had my mouth in places that would have shocked you. That’s all I thought about when I was in that hellhole, and I’ve got it mapped out in my head down to how long it would take me to lick you until you screamed my name. I might not know if any of this”—he made a sweeping gesture with his arm—“is real, but that would have been. That’s the truth.”

Crimson splotches colored her cheeks and she got that damned superior gleam in her eye again, as if she was trying to regain some control over him, this situation, and her own feelings. “I’ve let some things slide, but you can’t speak that way to me. I’m a—”

{" w sl“Easy there, Trigger.” He grabbed her by the arms, tugged her against him, and slanted his mouth over hers. Mainly, he wanted to shut her up, but he also wanted to prove her wrong, show her that for all her protests, she’d wanted that kiss outside Ares’s mansion. She might be a Biblical legend, and he a mere human, but when their bodies touched, they were man and woman, and neither had any tactical advantage. Her entire body went taut, but then her tongue met his, and it was game over. He’d won. He’d made his point.

“There,” he said, a little breathlessly. “You wanted me to feel. I felt. But I’m still not convinced this is real.” He might not be sure, but his dick was, and he casually adjusted his erection.

Limos pulled back from him, and though her eyes were lust-glazed, her lips wet from his kiss, she was alert, and the horse tat on her arm was writhing. “It is real.” She sounded as breathless as he was, to his satisfaction. “Come with me. I’m not done proving it.”

The mouthwatering scent of flame-broiled beef hung in the air as Limos led Arik to the dining room. Though he hadn’t argued, he moved slowly, warily, like a cat in dog territory.

Hekili had placed two plates at the round table, as well as two ice-cold bottles of lager from her favorite Hawaiian microbrewery. She normally drank “girly” drinks, as Ares liked to say, but every once in a while she liked a beer with her burgers.

“Sit.” Limos gestured to the seat that offered a view of the beach, and Arik took it, his body so rigid she was amazed his joints worked.

Limos stood across the table as Arik sat in his chair, staring at the burger, which was slathered with Hekili’s private recipe barbecue sauce and a thick slice of pineapple. “Arik, please. Eat it.”

He just stared.

God, this had to work. The idea had been Ares’s, his experience with what was now called post-traumatic stress disorder beyond vast. He’d come by with Than to discuss Sartael’s coin and Reaver’s no-show to Than’s summoning, and Ares had taken one look at Arik’s comatose body and nodded decisively.

“Stimulate him.”

“Ah… excuse me?”

Ares rolled his eyes. “Not like that. Overload him with all the senses. Shock his system out of the 2-D world inside his head.”

Ares had promised to talk to Cara to see if they could get some hellhounds here to help guard the house, and then he and Than had left moments later, drawn to some catastrophe Pestilence had caused. Her own insides were quivering with the need to gate herself to a rapidly spreading famine in China, but she was going to wait until the last possible second. So here she was, trying to ply Arik with a damned burger.

“Arik, listen to me.” She sank down in the seat opposite him and took a swig of her lager. “I know you’re having a hard time with this. But I promise you won’t be punished if you eat. { ifk aAll the food we’ve been giving you has been real. Well, some people might not consider haggis real food, but it really wasn’t dog chow.”

He lifted his gaze, which had darkened. “Bullshit.”

“I’m telling you the truth.” Truth. It struck her that even though Pestilence had re-ignited her desire to lie, it wasn’t coming second-nature the way it used to, and she was finding it easier to resist. Back when she’d lived in Sheoul, and for a good thousand years after she’d come to the human realm, lies were the only things that came out of her mouth. Maybe this relapse wouldn’t be so bad.

At least, it wouldn’t be bad as long as no one learned about the things she had lied about.

Arik’s gaze dropped back to his plate, his voice haunted. “You tricked me.”

Yes, she had, and she didn’t feel bad about it at all. “You had to eat. And I wasn’t going to give you… what did you call it… eyes and guts?”

For a long time, he did nothing. Then, slowly, he reached for the burger. His hands shook, and he cursed, put them back in his lap. Another five minutes passed, and he tried again. Just as his finger touched the bread, a bird chirped, and he reared back, hands up to defend himself, as though he expected a blow.

Limos’s heart cracked wide open. How odd that her brothers, who had started out as tender, gentle babies, had grown hard as they got older, but Limos was the opposite. She’d been raised by demons who expected her to live and breathe cruelty. She’d been harder than a diamond and incapable of tenderness or love when she arrived in the human realm. But she’d gradually learned to feel, and where her brothers had erected walls, hers had been breaking down.

Arik had the potential to take down the last of them, and the thought both terrified her and thrilled her. She couldn’t afford to be vulnerable to her feelings, and yet, belonging in a relationship was all she’d ever wanted.

Of course, the relationship she’d wanted so long ago was a far cry from what she wanted now.

When no one came out of the woodwork to beat Arik, he picked up the burger. His throat worked hard even before he raised it to his mouth. He took a bite, but his eyes were wild. Again, when no one popped out of thin air to torture him, he relaxed slightly and chewed. Then he took another bite. And another. He gobbled the burger like a starving dog, and when he was done, he drained the lager.

Very carefully, he set down the bottle. “This is real, isn’t it,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she whispered back.

He bowed his head, and his entire body began to tremble so hard the chair rattled on the floor. “How? How did I get out?”

“You escaped.” She wanted to go to him, to hug him tight, but he was in a fragile place right now, and she didn’t want to do anything that might send him fleeing back into his mental nightmare. “Kynan and I found you at the Erta Ale hellmouth.”

He looked up, and she was relieved to see that there was no suspicion in his expression. “How did you know to look there?”

She grinned. “Kynan interrogated some bookies, and I tortured one of your torturers.”

“Nice.” One corner of his mouth tipped up, and wow, it was great to see him smile.

She gave him a sly wink in return, becoming aware of an exhilarating buzz, a sensation inside her that rivaled what she experienced when she told a lie. Was this what people in love called butterflies?

Not that she was in love. As much as she liked to dream about having a normal, happy relationship, it just wasn’t in the cards for her.

“It was good times all around.” She gestured to his empty plate. “Want another?”

He shook his head. “I’m not used to eating much anymore. I’m pretty full.” He gazed out the window, but where he went, she couldn’t follow. “Who all knows I’m here?” His head swiveled around to her. “My sister must be going crazy—”

“No.” Her fingers tightened around the sweating beer bottle. “Eidolon and Shade came here to heal you, so your sister knows you’re okay. Kynan too.”

“So Kynan really did get those clothes for me?”

“Yes.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Fuck. Everything is so jumbled up.”

She reached for him. “Arik—”

He leaped out of the chair. “I need a minute, okay? Give me a minute alone.” He took off, weaving almost drunkenly toward the bedroom.

It wasn’t until she heard the crash that she knew something was terribly wrong.

Thirteen

Pestilence had upped his game, and his chessboard was made of human flesh, his chess pieces crafted from bone.

Thanatos and Ares had been compelled by violence and death to gate themselves to New Zealand, their brother’s newest playground. The plague of flesh-eating locusts had turned much of the country into a wasteland, and when New Zealand defense forces had gone in to try to contain the crow-sized insects, they’d been attacked by demons—demons who had, until now, been confined to Sheoul.

As Than and Ares slogged through gore and fought battle after battle, they’d made a disturbing discovery: Pestilence had saturated the southern half of New Zealand with so much blood, evil, and destruction that he’d been able to claim it in the name of Sheoul. It was now demon territory, and a major victory on Pestilence’s game board.

His next move, which Than had discovered when ~

Pestilence had unleashed an unthinkable plague, one that was turning humans into honest-to-fuck zombies. Thanatos liked The Walking Dead as much as anyone, but the real thing was nothing like fiction. This plague was Reseph’s sense of humor turned twisted in the being who was now Pestilence, and no doubt, the evil son of a bitch was having a good laugh.

Thanatos cursed and slammed his fist into the punching bag in his gym, where he was desperately trying to work off the residual high that coked-out his body when he was immersed in a lot of death. He needed to level out, needed to regain his ability to concentrate, because after leaving Australia, he’d unearthed information that might prove to be a huge break in his quest to repair Reseph’s Seal. But if he couldn’t get out of this killing mood, he wouldn’t be able to follow up on that lead with a clear head.