Lethal Rider

desire coursing through her shifted. Her stomach churned, and a burning sensation spread up her torso. She sat up with a wince as a massive cramp tore through her midsection.

“Oh, no.” Thanatos grabbed her wrist as an oily, malevolent agony swamped her body, locking her muscles and turning every nerve ending into a live wire. “You aren’t running away from me again. I didn’t threaten to break your neck this time. Not until the eight and a half months are over, anyway.”

There was a teasing note in his voice, but now was definitely not the time for that. Nausea bubbled up in her throat and icy sweat broke out over her skin.

“Let me go,” she whispered. Blades of molten steel stabbed her in the eyes, blurring her vision so badly that Thanatos’s face became nothing but a smudge.

“Why?”

Bile soured her mouth. “Because I think…” She cried out as a lightning bolt of searing, twisting pain shot through her spine. “Oh, God, I think I’m dying.”

* * *

Dying?

“Regan!” Than leaped out of bed, catching Regan as she tumbled off the mattress.

“Bathroom,” she gasped.

He scooped her up and got her to the toilet just in time for her dinner to come back up.

Her entire body shook, and her skin was hot and slick with sweat. She moaned between sharp, labored breaths as she braced herself over the toilet seat, her trembling arms threatening to collapse. A drop of blood plunked from her nose onto the toilet seat.

Fuck. He went down on his heels next to her and swept her silky hair away from her face. “I’ll get help. Just … stay here.”

Stay here? Where else was she going to go? Dolt.

It took him five seconds to get to his cell phone and dial Underworld General, five more to bark into the phone that he needed Eidolon, and another five to get back to Regan who, in that fifteen seconds, had slid to the floor and was curled up in a ball.

Shivers racked her body, made worse by her labored breaths. A rare terror made his motions jerky and he tore a blanket off the bed and wrapped her in it, which wasn’t easy, since she’d stiffened up as if her muscles had turned to cement.

Feeling way too helpless, he sank down on the floor and dragged her into his lap, holding her to his chest to brace against the tremors. “Can you talk to me?” She was burning up, fire on his palm. “Hey, I need you to say something.” If she didn’t, he’d scream. Jesus, he was terrified.

“Hurts…” Her spine bent impossibly back as she seized and cried out.

“Is it the baby?”

“No,” she gasped, and then scrambled away from him to vomit again. When she was finished, she collapsed, and he caught her, drawing her back against him.

What the hell was this? A sudden flu? Or a pregnancy thing? He ran a massive list through his head, but as an ominous webbing of blue veins began to spread across her waxy skin and black splotches bloomed under her fingernails, he knew this was way out of his frame of knowledge.

By the time Eidolon and a blond vampire medic arrived, Than hadn’t come up with anything that made him feel any better about this. All he knew was that she was in pain, and he’d do anything to change places with her.

Eidolon, dressed in wrinkled scrubs that spoke of nonstop work shifts, tossed his medic bag on the floor and kneeled next to Regan. “What’s going on?”

Regan tried to answer, but her teeth were chattering too hard to speak, so Than did it for her. “She said she was dying, and the next thing I knew, she was throwing up. She’s hurting and burning up, Doc.” He seized the demon’s wrist. “Help her.”

Fear and desperation made his plea a command, but the doctor took it in stride, the markings on his arm— glyphs known as a dermoire—began to glow as he summoned his healing power.

“I’m going to attempt to touch her. Shade warned me, but I’ve got to try. I brought Con in case.” The demon gripped Regan’s shoulder, and a split-second later, he exploded backward, landing in an awkward heap against the bathtub. “Son of a… fuck.” Groaning, he sat up as Con took his place at Regan’s side.

“When did her breathing become labored?” Con asked.

“Right after she threw up the first time.”

Con nodded. “I’m going to take her pulse—” The vampire didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t even get more than a finger on her wrist before he joined Eidolon next to the tub. “Guess not,” he croaked.

“Dammit,” Than breathed. Regan had said Peter, a nightwalker, hadn’t been able to withstand contact with her, either. He’d hoped Peter had been an isolated incident, but once it got out that only Than and the daywalkers could touch Regan, there would be questions he couldn’t answer. At least, he couldn’t answer them with the truth.

Eidolon rubbed his shoulder and moved closer. “The raised veins, discolored fingernails, and nasal bleeding are indicative of a demon poisoning. Is it possible she ingested something? If so, we need to find out what. I have antidotes for most demon toxins, but we need to act fast.”

“No one in my household would poison her.” Than closed his eyes, his denial sounding childishly vehement. He didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to think one of his vampires could have done this, but he also couldn’t waste time with denials.

Nor would he deny that if someone did poison her, they’d suffer in ways that would make the horrors of Sheoul-gra look like amusement park rides.

“She could have eaten something at dinner …” He trailed off, wondering why he wasn’t sick. Granted, poison didn’t affect him the way it did mortals, but he should still feel a twinge of discomfort. Unless…“The chocolate mousse. It was the only thing she ate that I didn’t at least taste.” Rage coiled like a venomous snake inside him, but as murderously pissed as he was, he gently eased her off of him.

“Hurry, Horseman,” Eidolon said, his voice quiet but grave. “She and the baby are both in danger if I can’t touch her to help.”

“Save… the baby.” Regan’s raspy voice was barely audible.

“We will.” Than shoved to his feet, hating that he had to leave her. “We’ll save you both.”

Regan peered up at him with dull, unfocused eyes, her beautiful brown hair fanning like spilled blood on the tiles. “Kill me. If I’m dead, you can get the baby out to help him.”

She was serious. Dear… God, she really wanted him to kill her. “It won’t come to that,” he croaked. “Just hold on, Regan. Damn you, hold on.” He raced out of the room and into the kitchen, a black, inky fury pumping out of his very pores.

The vampires scattered before the storm cloud of souls billowing around him. “Who made the chocolate mousse?” When several vamps exchanged wary glances, he fucking lost it, grabbing two of them by the throats and slamming them so hard into the wall that bits of stone rained down to the floor. “Who?”

“Dariq,” one of them gasped.

Than dropped them, whirling to Dariq, who had gone sheet-white and was slinking toward the door. Before Than could pounce, Dariq darted out of the kitchen.

Snarling, Than produced his scythe and in one smooth movement, hurled it across the great room. Dariq dove for the front door, but the weapon caught him between the shoulder blades and pinned him to the wood.

“What was in the mousse, Dariq?” Than crossed the room, aware that every vampire eye in the house was on him. He caught the scythe handle, but instead of yanking the blade free, he twisted it, reveling in the vampire’s scream. “Tell me, or the next thing I do with this blade is castrate you.” Actually, that was going to happen anyway, at some point.

Dariq hissed, spitting blood. “Neethul mucosa.”

Thanatos’s chest went cold. That shit was fatal within minutes for most creatures. Than whipped his head around to Artur. “Tell Eidolon. Hurry!” Artur took off in a blur, and Than returned his attention to Dariq. “Why? Who else is involved?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Than watched for a reaction from the spectators, but so far, no one seemed