Lethal Rider

Sixteen

She was kissing him. Not just a peck on the cheek or even on the lips. Regan had thrust her hand into his hair and brought his mouth to hers. Her tongue slipped between his lips to clash with his, and heat sparked so fast that Thanatos’s mind flipped from surprise to lust in the span of a heartbeat.

Holy hell, she made him nuts, made him angry and horny, spun him so hard he didn’t know up from down. It was getting harder and harder to remember why he was so angry with her. He’d told her he was going to get a new tat to purge himself of that anger, but he wasn’t sure it was necessary. Not when she was kissing him the way she was, one hand tangled in his hair and the other clinging to his biceps.

He hauled her against him, careful not to put too much pressure on her belly. A soft moan escaped her, and he swallowed it with one of his own. Her body felt good on his, and even her extra curves fit him well.

There was a pounding on the door, followed by Ares’s gruff, “Yo, Than.”

Reluctantly, or maybe gratefully, Thanatos broke off the kiss and shouted at his brother. “Hold on.”

He fumbled in his back pocket for the leather-wrapped blade he’d tucked away last night and shoved it unceremoniously into Regan’s hands.

“My dagger?”

He nodded. “It might not be of use against Pestilence. He’s apparently built up a tolerance against the hellhound venom you coated it with. But it’s better than nothing. And it should work if—”

“If your Seal breaks.”

“Yeah. And Regan… don’t be afraid to use it against me.” Her eyes flipped up to meet his, the gravity of his words clearly setting in. “I have to go.”

“To get your tattoo?” Her voice was both breathless and bitter.

“No,” he said, just as bitterly. “To do things that will require more ink.”

That took the wind out of her sails. “I’m sorry.” She glanced down at the floor, and fuck, didn’t Eidolon just tell him to not upset her? And what had he done at his first opportunity?

“No, I’m sorry,” he muttered.

Regan’s eyes flared, and her mouth fell open. Wasn’t it awesome that he was such a dick that an apology shocked the hell out of someone?

“Dammit,” he breathed. “I have to go, but I won’t …” He looked up at the wood ceiling beams as if they could help him out here. “I won’t get the tat.” More awesome, he’d turned into a chick.

“Really?” She sounded so hopeful that it completely threw him off balance.

“Yeah. Whatever you want.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why? You’re being way too nice.”

“Maybe I feel bad about not believing you about being in danger from my vampires.” And actually, yeah, he did.

He shouldn’t have written off her Guardian instincts so easily… she was a Guardian for a reason, and as much as he hated The Aegis, he couldn’t deny that it had been around for centuries because its members weren’t complete idiots. Not all of them, anyway.

“Who did it?” she asked.

Thanatos bit down on a snarl. “Dariq. He’s been with me for almost nine hundred years.”

The daywalker had barely awakened from his turning, had been confused and starving, when Than had given him the choice of serving him or dying. Dariq had chosen death.

Instead of killing Dariq, Than had taken pity on the new vamp and brought him back to his keep so the other daywalkers could teach him how to live.

Obviously, Thanatos’s rare moment of compassion had been a mistake. Was the asshole paying Thanatos back for keeping him alive, or was this truly about killing Thanatos’s son and starting the Apocalypse?

Time to get to the bottom of this.

“Is there anything I can do?” Regan asked, with such sincerity that he had the sudden urge to gather her in his arms and thank her.

He was so addled. “Just stay safe,” he said gruffly.

“I’d be safer if there were Guardians here with me.”

“You won’t need them. I’m arranging for extra protection. That’s why Ares is here.”

She sighed. “It’s not just about protection. It’s about having a friendly face around here. Someone who’s on my side.”

As if he were the enemy. “I’m on your side.”

“No,” she said softly, “you’re on the baby’s side. I’d like…you know…a friend.” Her voice cracked at that last part, and Decker’s image popped into his head.

The scorpion tattoo on his throat undulated, the stinger jabbing at him with a vengeance. “Who?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out, as if she didn’t know the answer to his question. And too late, he remembered what she’d said at dinner about keeping busy and having no social life. Oh, and her colleagues calling her shitspawn. Her reaction pretty much confirmed his suspicions that she had no friends.

They were both such outsiders, weren’t they?

Finally, she muttered, “Never mind.”

Ares pounded on the door again. “I don’t have all day. Some of us have an Apocalypse to go to.”

Strangely torn between wanting to make Regan feel better—even if he didn’t know how—and getting the hell away from her before he did more damage, Than hesitated. “Regan—”

“Go,” she said. “I need to call Kynan anyway. And I have things I can do in your library.”

Feeling as if he’d been dismissed—she was good at that—Than opened the bedroom door to find Ares standing in the hall accompanied by two hellhounds, their claws digging into the stone floor.

Ares didn’t waste time or mince words. “Do you know how many of your vamps are involved?”

“No, but I’m about to find out.” Than dug his cell from his pocket and worked on a text to Kynan as he spoke. “I put Dariq in the dungeon until I could interrogate him. I’m restricting the others to their quarters until I get to the bottom of this.” And he would get to the bottom of it if he had to put every one of them through the torture chamber. “Tell me you’re here to keep an eye on Regan for me.”

Ares nodded. “Limos and I can take turns, but I brought a hound to help out when we can’t.”

Thanatos eyed the two beasts. Ares might have decided they made great house pets, but Than wasn’t convinced. They seemed to have a lot of accidents, and not the, Oops, Fido took a piss on the floor, kind. With hellhounds, it was more of the, Oops, Fido ate my neighbor, type.

“They hate Pestilence,” Ares reminded him. “Anything Pestilence wants, the hellhounds will fight against.”

“And Pestilence wants Regan and my son dead.” Than nodded decisively. “Fine. The mutts can stay.”

Ares told hellbeast One to stay at the bedroom door, and then hellbeast Two joined them as they headed to the dungeon.

The smell of blood hit Thanatos at the top stair. The stench of death hit him halfway down. And at the bottom, the rank odor of yet another betrayal struck him like a blow from a battering ram.

Dariq had been staked and hung from chains, the message to Thanatos clear.

Dariq will not talk.

What was also clear was that Dariq was not the only traitor in the house. Someone had killed Dariq to keep him from naming names.