She hissed. “Why not?”
“Because it looks like Gethel has done enough already.”
“She’s not … right.”
“If she
“No, I mean …” A tremor racked her and her gaze turned haunted. “Never mind.” Her voice was a raw rasp, shredded from screaming. “You must be loving this.”
Strangely, no, he wasn’t loving this. He wished he could, and maybe if she’d launched herself off the table and freaked out on him, he would have. But he disliked seeing anyone as powerful as Harvester reduced to a helpless puddle.
“Come out. I won’t hurt you.”
“As if you could,” she shot back, but the shivers traveling over her skin negated her bravado.
“So defiant,” he murmured.
A tangled lock of hair had fallen across her face, and without thinking, he reached to brush it back. The moment his fingers touched her, she curled up even tighter, her hands coming up to shield her head, but not before he saw a single tear form in one eye.
That one tear took Reaver down hard. Harvester could be faking her pain and fear, trying to play it all up to gain his sympathy, but he doubted it. She was truly afraid for her life.
“What was Gethel talking about when she said you knew exactly what this was about?”
Harvester flinched, a barely noticeable tightening of her muscles, but Reaver didn’t miss it. “Nothing,” she rasped. “Leave me. If you’re not going to kill me, go away.”
She didn’t want him to see her in this state, exposed, weak, and terrified. Reaver couldn’t blame her. “I’ll go,” he said, standing. “But Harvester? Fuck with me again, and next time, I won’t stop Gethel. And if I find out that you were in any way involved in trying to break Thanatos’s Seal or leading Pestilence to Aegis Headquarters, I’ll be the one holding the
The baby woke Regan with a series of kicks. No doubt he was annoyed by her growling stomach. She was just happy the little pony was kicking. Last night had been terrifying, and as she’d writhed on the floor, all she could think about was the baby. Had he been in pain? Had he been afraid?
And when she’d told Thanatos to kill her in order to save the baby, her one regret was that if she died, she wouldn’t have ever been able to hold her son.
The baby rolled, and a warmth settled into her heart. Had her mother felt Regan moving around inside and smiled every time, the way Regan caught herself doing? Or had her mother been afraid of the baby conceived with a demon-possessed Guardian? Had it been easy for her to give up Regan? Because for the first time, Regan was imagining handing over the child… and already her eyes were stinging. Could she actually do it?
If Thanatos was able to destroy Pestilence, Regan wouldn’t have to give up the baby, though. Right? Maybe she and Thanatos could… could what? Share custody? Not likely. He wasn’t exactly the sharing kind.
A buzz started up in her brain as her OCD switch flipped on. Everything was so out of her hands right now, and she had no idea how to harness even a little control.
Breathe. Count. Breathe.
The baby jammed a foot in her ribs at the same time her stomach growled, breaking her concentration. Cradling her midsection in an attempt to still both the baby and her rumbling gut, she opened her eyes. Even though she’d known where she was, her heart sank a little. She’d never again wake up in the room she’d kept at Aegis Headquarters. Then again, maybe that was a good thing. When The Aegis moved to their new location, maybe this time she’d take an apartment of her own.
Of course, if Thanatos had his way, a move wasn’t going to happen for another eight months.
Where was he, anyway? The other side of the bed was undisturbed.
Well, that explained why he wasn’t in bed. She’d really thought, when he held her so tenderly and didn’t jump on the offer to kill her for the sake of the baby, that his hatred had eased. When her agony had been at its worst, she’d taken comfort in his change of heart.
Clearly, she was a fool.
Sighing, she sat up and drew a startled breath when she saw him in the corner chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms folded across his bare chest, an open book cradled in his hands. His eyes were closed, but on his arm, Styx was tossing his head. Maybe the stallion was as impatient to be fed as the baby was.
Wait…did Styx even eat?
With as much grace as she could muster, she stood on feet that were swollen and would no longer fit into her shoes.
As she padded over to Thanatos, the floor was as freezing as an ice rink on the soles of her feet, but after the agonizing fever from the poison she welcomed the cold.
“Thanatos?” She knelt next to the chair, but he didn’t stir. Styx bucked… maybe he’d heard her? Very gently, she stroked her fingertip over the stallion’s shoulder. The horse stopped tossing his head, but as she traced the line of his back, he stomped his foot. Did that mean he was annoyed? He was as hard to read as his master.
She drew away from the horse, letting her finger drift up Than’s arm. His body was covered in tattoos, most of which he hadn’t allowed her to touch. Probably a good thing, since she felt emotion in ink… and Thanatos’s tattoos were emotion transferred to skin.
Maybe… maybe this was how she could begin to make things right between them and show him that while he might not care about her, she cared about him and had since before that awful night. If she could learn more about him, learn what he wanted and needed …
Tentatively, she put the tip of her finger to an outline of a skull engulfed by flames above his right pec. Instantly, heat licked up her hand, and as she opened herself to her gift, images swamped her brain. Thanatos, in pain as fiery arrows punched through his armor and into his body. Demons came at him from across an open, grassy plain that was soaked in blood and littered with human and demon corpses. Thanatos’s thoughts raced through her… his unimaginable agony, his fury as he swung his blade, his regret at having released all the souls in his armor, leaving him vulnerable to the fire-arrows.
She recoiled, her skin burning, as if sympathizing with what he’d gone through. She’d always assumed he was immune to harm and physical pain, but he’d experienced his flesh burning all the way to the bone, and his misery had been genuine.
“Oh, Thanatos,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Her hand quivered a little as she moved it to his left pec and feathered her fingertips over the exquisite hellhound design. As if she’d been dropped into a movie, nasty snarls rang in her ears and razor-sharp teeth snapped in her face. Thanatos was in a dark cavern, surrounded by a pack of hellhounds. His souls had already killed a dozen of them, and another dozen lay in pieces on the ground, victims of Than’s massive sword. Behind him, a mountain of bones and bodies formed a grotesque feeding station, and Regan’s stomach heaved.
She shuddered and braced herself to touch the tip of a Celtic-designed sword dripping with icicles on his breastbone. A faint vibration shimmered along her skin, and icy cold seeped into her bones. A stark, wintery landscape opened up before her, and rage… so much rage, rushed through her veins. In the distance, a bizarre forest rose up out of the ice. What kind of trees were those? She squinted, and when the truth hit her, bile washed into her mouth. Not trees—giant wooden stakes, each impaling a body. Good God, hundreds—no, thousands—of men, women, and children had been skewered.
Between the stakes were more dead—soldiers, hacked to death and lying in pools of blood.
“You went too far, Thanatos. Too far.” Gethel stood nearby, her eyes sad as she looked from Thanatos to the forest of dead.
But Than was beyond reason, and with a roar, he launched at the angel, his bloody sword flashing in the streaks of sunlight that penetrated the clouds. Gethel flashed away in a flicker of golden light, but another voice came from behind, and he whirled, sinking his blade into the belly of a female Regan swore hadn’t been there a moment before.
The female demon gasped, her blue lips and frosty skin going even paler. Regan didn’t know her species, but
