Page 8 of Legacy of Temptation

“Nate called me.” Thanatos nodded in thanks at the club’s owner, who monitored the situation from near the bar. “Seems he met Lilith back before she died, so he knows who she is.” He gnashed his teeth at her, his fangs flashing like tiny daggers. “We’re going to leave now. I don’t want to kill you inside Nate’s shiny club.”

Nate acknowledged with a nod and a gesture toward the back of the building. “Appreciate that. Take the rear exit. Through those doors.”

Logan and his buddies were on Thanatos’s heels as he shoved Lilith through the club and out the back doors into an empty parking lot. Logan doubted there were ever any cars in the lot. Most demons, even the locals, arrived via the Harrowgate in StryTech Square.

As the heavy metal door slammed closed behind them, the sound of hooves vibrated the air.

Hell, yeah. Logan would know the cadence of those two sets of hoofbeats anywhere.

The cavalry was coming.

Seconds later, Aunt Limos and Uncle Ares, astride their massive mounts, galloped into the lot. They drew the reins, and both beasts reared up in protest. Limos’s carnivorous hell stallion, as black as Cujo, almost twice as large, and always ready for a fight, snapped at Ares’ blood bay warhorse with its serrated teeth, but Battle danced away from its slashing jaws.

“It’s you.” Limos, garbed in ornate Samurai armor, stared at Lilith with stunned violet eyes. In her fist, her katana trembled. “It’s really you.”

Lilith smiled as Thanatos shoved the succubus roughly to her knees. “Daughter,” she said silkily. “Dear, dear daughter. You’re going to be the first to feel the pain of my vengeance.”

Lilith’s eyes became red-hot pools, literally steaming as they overfilled with glowing lava that flowed from the sockets like tears. Thanatos raised his sword, the silver glint of his killing blade reflecting another set of glowing eyes.

A million sets. Oh, shit…

“It’s a trap!” Logan shouted.

A bone-chilling shriek pierced the night, a split-second warning that came too late. Human-sized creatures dropped from above, eyeless, winged nightmares with gaping mouths full of rows of needlelike teeth. Logan barely had time to summon a sword and shove it down one of the demon’s throats before it took his head off. He chopped at another and another and then ran one through before it ripped off Sabre’s arm.

Cujo!

Instantly, a massive, inky blur shot through the square, chewing up demons like a chainsaw with fur.

“Good boy!” Logan shouted to the hound, but damn, there were so many demons. Too many. That anyone would dare attack his family filled him with rage…and memories.

He’d been through this before, overwhelmed by demons attacking friends and family. This battle felt like that. It wasn’t the kind of exhilarating brawl that followed the discovery of the demons’ hotbed or a vampire nest you’d been hunting.

No, this was personal. It was pain. It was hate. It wasn’t exhilarating in the least.

The sounds of battle, of breaking bones, clanking weapons, and agonized screeches rent the air as Logan and Draven backed up to their friends. They were all skilled warriors, trained from the cradle, but Sabre had only a broken beer bottle as a weapon, and Mace and Blade only had knives. Granted, they were lethal as fuck with their natural Seminus gifts that could kill, but those only worked if they could come into contact with their opponents. By then, it could be too late.

Inky wisps exploded from the bodies of dead demons and swirled among the living, noticeable only by those like Logan, who could see souls. He slashed upward with his sword hand, catching a demon’s wing. With is other hand, he plucked his last crystaldecipula, a marble-sized containment vessel made for demonic spirits, and tossed it at one of the smoky wisps.

Ares’ curse rang out. “They took Lilith!”

Logan looked away from the trap in time to see the succubus in the claws of one of the demons, smiling victoriously down at them before disappearing into a cloud. The remaining demons took off after them, but one drew Logan’s attention. He squinted up at it, trying to discern what that big, dripping thing was in its claws—

A heart-wrenching scream shattered the night.

Limos.

His aunt Limos, her face drained of color, scrambled over the bodies of dead demons. Her sword clattered to the ground as she fell to her knees in the river of blood pumping from the shredded remains of her headless mount’s throat.

Oh, no. Logan’s gut plummeted to his feet. Limos claimed to despise the beast, but he’d been her companion for thousands of years. Like her, like all the Horsemen and their mounts, he was immortal.

But decapitation had a way of killing everything, including hell stallions.

Again, the memories of that day so many years ago slammed into Logan, and he spun away from the horror and grief, his chest clenching so hard he could barely breathe. Sabre and Blade watched with haunted eyes. They’d been there too. And they had been far closer to the tragedy than Logan.

Despite the river of blood flowing from multiple head and face wounds, Ares, always the warrior, strode into the center of the lot, his heavy boots squashing through the gore as he barked out a command. “Dispatch any demon that’s not dead. Save one for interrogation. And everyone, check your injuries. Healers, get healing.”

They’d all taken damage, but Blade, Mace, and Sabre had badass healing abilities, and within minutes, cuts were sealed, and bones were knitted back together.

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