Sin Undone

As hard as he could, Ares jammed his sword into the animal’s belly and yanked the blade upward. As the beast screamed in pain, Ares rolled, twisted, and brought the sword around in an awkward arc.

Awkward or not, the strike cleaved the hound’s head from its shoulders. The thing fell to the ground, twitching, steam hissing from its gaping neck. The spongy ground drank the blood before it could pool, and hundreds of blackened teeth sprouted from the dirt, clamped onto the hound’s body, and began to chew.

Battle whinnied with amusement. The horse’s sense of humor had always been perched on the gallows with the crows. Before the earth could claim the beast, Ares wiped his blade clean on its fur, giving repeated thanks to whoever was listening that the hound hadn’t bitten him. The horror of a bite was never-ending— the paralysis didn’t stop the pain… or the ability to scream. Ares knew firsthand. A hundred years ago, he’d spent two weeks being fed upon, experiencing every excruciating bite that tore flesh, ripped apart organs, and snapped bones. With his ability to regenerate, he could have spent eternity feeding the entire pack. The torture had finally ended when his siblings destroyed the hellhounds and rescued him.

He frowned as a thought spun up. The vile canines were predators, killers, but they generally hunted in packs, so why had there been only one? Ares glanced over at the tavern door. The Sora had disappeared, was probably pounding shots of demonfire in the bar, and hey, wasn’t it great that no one had bothered to come out and help? Then again, no demon in his right mind willingly tangled with a hellhound no matter how much love they had for the slaughter—and most demons loved to slaughter.

Light flashed, and twenty yards away in a copse of black, twisted trees, a summoned Harrowgate shimmered into existence. Ares sheathed his sword as Thanatos emerged, throwing menacing shadows where there should be none. Both he and his pale dun mount, Styx, dripped with gore, and the stallion was breathing through bubbling blood.

It wasn’t an unusual sight, but the timing was too coincidental for Ares’s liking. “What happened?” Thanatos’s expression darkened as he took in the dead hellhound. “Same thing that happened to you, apparently.” Shit. “Have you heard from Reseph or Limos?”

Thanatos’s light yellow eyes flashed. “I was hoping they were here.”

Ares threw out his hand, casting a Harrowgate. “I’ll go to Reseph. You check on Limos.” He didn’t

wait for his brother’s reply. He spurred Battle through the gate, and the warhorse leaped, his big hooves coming down on a rocky shelf that had been scoured smooth by centuries of harsh wind and ice storms.

This was Reseph’s Himalayan hideaway, a giant maze of caverns carved deep into the mountains and drenched in ancient magic that made it invisible to human eyes. Ares dismounted in one smooth motion, his boots striking the stone with twin cracks that echoed endlessly in the thin air.

“To me.”

Instantly, the warhorse dissolved into a cloud of smoke, which twisted and narrowed into a tendril that wrapped around Ares’s hand and set into his forearm in the brown-gray shape of a horse tattoo. Ares barged inside the cave entrance, and he hadn’t gone a dozen steps when he froze, locked up hard as an electric current of ten-thousand-volt alarm shot up his spine.

Time to dance. He was already in a dead run when he drew his sword, the metallic sound of a blade clearing its scabbard like a lover’s whisper during foreplay. Didn’t matter that he’d just engaged an enemy, he loved a good battle, craved the release of tension that hit him with the force of a full-body orgasm, and he’d long ago decided he’d rather fight than fuck.

Though he had to admit that after a good brawl, winding down with a lush, sultry female couldn’t be beat. Maybe he’d head back to the tavern after this and find a War Monger after all. Adrenaline pumping hotly through his veins, Ares took a sharp corner so fast he had to skid into a change of direction, and then he burst through the doorway to Reseph’s main living area. His brother, his hand wrapped around a bloodied ax, stood in the middle of the room, which was painted in a fresh, dripping coat of blood. He was panting, his shoulders slumped, head bent, whiteblond hair concealing his face. Behind him, a hellhound lay dead, and in the corner, a very much alive one let out a gravelly snarl, its mouth a mass of sharp teeth.