They are here. They ride. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Arik Wagner, a soldier with the U.S. Army’s paranormal unit, the R-XR, kissed a girl and liked it. And then he went to hell as punishment. Where he’s spent weeks being tortured…and plotting revenge.
Limos, Horsewoman of the Apocalypse, isn’t your average girl. She’s immortal, dangerous, and her fiancé is Satan himself. In a moment of weakness, she gave in to her desire and kissed Arik, triggering her fiancé’s wrath – and his claim on her. In order to save Arik, and the world, Limos must make a dangerous pact with her recently turned evil brother, Pestilence. A deal that might just cost her her soul…and her heart.
Excerpt
Arik Wagner didn’t know how long he’d been in hell. Time was one never-ending, no-lube fuck when you were in the dark and in nonstop agony. And these bastard demons wouldn’t let him die. He’d tried, but they just kept healing him.
At least right now it was quiet, a few stolen moments in which he could sleep. Sleep and dreams were his only pleasure…even the dreams that were about the female who had landed him in this hellhole in the first place.
Limos.
Closing his eyes, he settled back against the cold stone — bliss on his bruised, bare skin. With a little effort, he shut out the rumbling of his stomach and the incessant drip of water outside the cell that was intended to drive him crazy with want, since the demons rationed his water, and what little he got was usually stagnant and disgusting anyway.
He tried to think of his sister, Runa, and his nephews. Tried to force his thoughts toward his job with the U.S. Army’s paranormal unit, the R-XR, as well as the forced-on-him involvement with the civilian demon-fighting organization, The Aegis. Tried to think about his escape plan…anything other than Limos, but his mind kept drifting to the beautiful ebony-haired, violet-eyed female. He hadn’t liked her when he first met her, mainly because she’d kicked his ass, broken his ribs, and threatened to crush his organs into marmalade. Marmalade…God, he was hungry.
So, no, he hadn’t been overly fond of the third Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Still wasn’t. Because of her, he’d been dragged to Sheoul, the demon realm deep in the earth, stripped naked, and tortured within an inch of his life. Repeatedly. And the weird thing was that all the demons who held him captive wanted was for him to say her name. Her freaking name.
What. The. Hell.
So far, he hadn’t broken. Well, he’d broken, but the creepy-ass demons of unknown species kept a Seminus demon around to heal him so he wouldn’t die and they could keep breaking his bones and peeling off his skin. They’d tried just about everything, from torture, to sleep depravation, to starvation, to getting into his head and making him think he was somewhere much more pleasant so they could trick him into saying her name.
They wouldn’t tell him why they wanted him to speak her name, and though it would be so easy to let it slip, to finally free himself of the torment, he couldn’t. Anything important to the evil bastards wasn’t good for mankind. And Limos had been pretty adamant as he’d been dragged down here, his skin shredding like he was being scraped over a cheese grater. Don’t say my name, Arik! No matter what they do to you, don’t speak my name!
Right. What if her name caused a worldwide earthquake or put a fissure in the earth that released all demons from Sheoul? And the thing was, Arik wasn’t sure how specific he had to be, so he hadn’t called Limos by any name. Not Li, her nickname, or Famine, the name she’d go by if and when her Seal broke.
Fitting that her name would be Famine, cuz he was famished.
His stomach grumbled, and he threw his hand over his abs as he thought about Limos, hoping like hell her Seal was safe. Apparently, breaking her Seal involved finding some ancient, tiny bowl engraved with her scales symbol. Once found, a Horseman had to drink from it. Drink…he’d give his right nut for a drink…
He swept his hand up and down his sunken-in belly, knowing his thirst and hunger were the least of his worries, because man, if her Seal broke, humans would truly understand the meaning of hell on earth. The Horsemen weren’t evil — they were, in fact, half-angel, half-demon, and in a constant walk-the-line mode. But if their Seals broke ahead of the biblical prophecy timeline, they would turn evil and lead the way to Armageddon.
Arik had already gotten a taste of what that would be like: Before he’d gotten his ass handed to him in battle by his brothers and sister, Pestilence had caused death and destruction everywhere he went. Now Arik’s captors indicated that the Horseman had regrouped, reassembled his forces, and was back to trying to facilitate the breaking of his siblings’s Seals so the end of days could finally begin.
What an asshole.
A rock dug into Arik’s butt, and he shifted, only to get poked by something else…the bone of some unfortunate previous cell inhabitant, probably. Still, he wasn’t about to lay down. Spiny hellrats had a charming habit of eating your face while you were asleep. At least if he was sitting up he could punt them across the cell.
Thanks so much for this, Limos.
How the hell could a single kiss get him into this mess? It wasn’t as if he’d forced himself on her. Yeah, he’d kissed her, and for one steamy, lingering heartbeat, she’d kissed him back. And then she’d flipped the hell out. Before he could gather his shock-addled thoughts, giant arms had punched out of the earth and dragged him here, where he’d been subjected to every torture and violation known to man. And then some, ‘cuz demons were creative as fuck.
Though he wasn’t sure why she’d freaked, he did know that Limos was responsible for every drop of his spilled blood. She’d said he’d pay for kissing her, and his captors confirmed it, relished telling him how “his lover’s” lack of self-control had been his downfall, how her selfishness was at fault and that it was why he was being tortured.
But that knowledge didn’t stop him from dreaming of him and her naked. Sometimes they were on a beach, both covered in suntan oil as he moved against her. Sometimes all he did was kiss her hand as he looked into her exotic eyes. Other times, he had her against the wall or was taking her from behind as she clung to a palm tree. His favorite erotic dream was the one where she was on her back in the ocean surf, and he was kneeling between her legs, tonguing her wet heat and tasting the salt water and her tropical cocktail essence.
She’d always smelled like coconuts and pineapple.
Man, he was starving.
And what was that saying? Right. Revenge was a dish best served cold…
