Eternal Rider (Lords of Deliverance, #1)

by Larissa Ione

[Ing Cruz]

My Synopsis:
We got a glimpse of Ares the second Horseman of the Apocalypse at the end of Sin's book. Eternal Rider opens up with the history of how the Four Horseman came to be and gives us a glimpse of what was happening to them during Sin's story. The story itself picks up six months after Sin Undone. Ares and his remaining siblings whose Seals have not been broken are on the hunt for their brother Reseph aka Pestilence. Each Horseman remains good and fight on the side of good until their SEAL is broken. Each Seal has a trigger known as agimortus that will cause their SEAL to break. With Reseph the Warg war and the virus spread by Sin triggered the breaking of his SEAL. Reseph is now on the hunt for the agimortus that will break Ares SEAL. If Ares's Seal is broken it will not be a good thing. The Apocalypse will be in full force and the demons in Sheoul will have a field day on the mankind. Ares and the two remaining siblings, Thanatos and Limos are trying to stop this from happening.

Cara Thornhart is a human who is still recovering from a trauma. A creature who looks like an ugly dog is left in her care after he is found injured. Cara has a gift that allows her to communicate with animals and heal them. Since her gift killed previously she has been hesitant to use it. Seeing the creature suffering she hesitantly helps and ends up being bonded to a hellhound instead. The hellhound she is bonded to ends up in the hands of a Fallen Angel who is Ares agimortus. The Fallen Angel is on the run from Reseph, who is intent on killing this Fallen Angel to break Ares's Seal. Since Cara is now bonded to the hellhound she is able to locate it. With this discovery Ares will use her to track his agimortus. Things take a turn and Cara ends up becoming Ares's agimortus.

Ares is a warrior and will protect Cara with his life so that his Seal does not break. Ares feels no emotion or so he thinks! :) Cara has now become the most hunted person in the demonica world. With her life dependent on this hard and emotionless warrior will she come out of this experience alive? You'll have to buy the book to find out........... :)

My Thoughts:
With the start of this new series Larissa delivers again with in your face nitty gritty dark violence and sexiness. The Four Horseman fit flawlessly into this world building that she had already introduced her readers in the Demonica series. With Ares and Cara's story she takes us deeper into the battle between good and evil.

Ares is another great hero to add to Larissa's collection of yummy demons. He's big, badass, tortured and sex on a stick. He has been raised as a warrior and thinks like a warrior. No emotions and no ties. He's had to cut himself off emotionally to keep himself from being hurt again. Being alive for centuries, he has learned that any emotional attachments leads to weakness, that an enemy can use against you. When he meets Cara he is instantly attracted and doesn't like it one bit. Humans have no place in his world especially female humans. The harder he tries to avoid any emotional feelings toward Cara the more he finds himself drawn to her and her kindness. I loved Ares. I think he is now my second favorite hero from both series. My heart belongs to Kynan but boy did Ares come close from moving Kynan over! :) When he tries not to care he finds himself caring anyway. I like when the hero thinks they're all emotionally cut off and when that one girl comes along all these pesky feelings start surfacing. It's so cute.

Cara is strong. I like strong heroines. When she first gets thrown into this world she is understandably confused and emotional. She was all these things but it wasn't the emotional hysteria that gets old. She processes the information and goes from there. I personally would have been huddled in the corner sucking my thumbs! But heh..that's me! :) Once she sees pass Ares's emotional armor she dives right in and tries to get him to open up. She doesn't take crap from him and goes toe to toe and expects him to treat her as an equal who can handle herself. No mousy wimp for Ares.

The sparks between these two was crazy. Talk about verbal foreplay. I could literally feel myself melting in a puddle during one sexy shower scene! Hmmmm....getting visuals! The romance and characters were developed nicely. I could understand why both characters were attracted to each other. The chemistry was there and the development of the relationship was on point for me. I never once thought why the heck do these two people even like each other. This is always a plus in my book! Plenty of smoking moments between the two to keep me satisfied.

Larissa's world building was easy to follow in my opinion. I do recommend that anyone who starts this series should read the Demonica series first mainly because I think they'll enjoy it even more. For fans of the Demonica series we gets glimpse of our favorites. My favorite couple Kynan and Gem make a special appearance that I love. We catch up with the lives of the Demonica boys. She wove them into the story effortlessly that it did not take away from the main storyline itself. It was good to see Arik play a bigger role. I can't wait for the next book in this series to learn more about Thanatos and Limos. It was a wonderful start to this new series. I highly recommend this book for fans of the Demonica series. I was not disappointed.