engine started and you ran out…”
“What?” He turned to her, and she hated the guarded look in his eyes. They’d made so much progress, and this could have destroyed it all. “What did you do?”
“I tried to get out. And then we were in the air and there was nothing I could do. It wasn’t until we got to the ship and I found out why they took me that I had a chance to get away.”
“Why they took you?” The guarded look turned perplexed. “Weren’t they trying to get you away from me?”
Her pulse leaped as her heart began to pound in a new panic. If Thanatos knew what they’d intended, he could go into a massive rage. But he needed to know. So much had been kept from him out of fear of what he would do. It was time to finally treat him like he was more than a death bomb waiting to go off and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Getting me away from you was only part of it,” she said quietly. “They wanted to deliver the baby.”
“Why? Do they have Pestilence?”
“No.” Her voice was now a guttural croak. “They wanted…they planned to deliver our son…and kill him.” A sudden blast of fury exploded from Thanatos, and all around him, his souls shot from his armor. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Oh, shit. Quickly, she took his hand and placed his fingers in her palm. “Tap, Than. You can do this. Count it out.”
“I’m beyond counting!” he bellowed. He looked down, his teeth clenched, and she knew that despite what he’d said, he was trying to hold it together. He was trying … for her.
“Thanatos? I need to talk to Kynan.”
His head jerked up. “After what The Aegis has done, you want another Guardian here?”
“I need to understand this.” Tears stung her eyes, blurring her vision, and she hated herself for that weakness. “The Elders who took me… they were possessed, or ensorcelled. That’s the only explanation. Please, I need to understand.”
“I do too.” Thanatos smiled, but there was nothing humorous about it. “I need to know who to kill.”
Twenty-eight
Death and madness vibrated inside Thanatos, shaking him like he was the epicenter of an earthquake. All around him, his vamps were dead, Guardians were dead; and on top of that, the deep-seated fury at Regan’s kidnapping was a stinging poison that made the vibration intensify.
He was about to come out of his skin.
The Aegis had tried to kill his son.
He heard a buzzing in his ears … Regan’s voice. “
He was going to kill every fucking Aegi on the planet. They were going to pay for what they’d done. On his arm, Styx was bucking, fighting to get out and start a battle.
“
“
His blood burned like lit kerosene in his veins and his breath came in harsh rasps as he fought to hold himself together. But those bastards had taken his female, planned to cut into her, and then murder his son. The images flipped through his head, tearing him, and his control, to shreds.
Through his body, his muscles quivered, and a fever dampened his skin. Pinpricks of sensation that bordered on erotic broke out on his hip, fracturing his focus on death. Blood rushed to his groin, hardening his cock.
Regan.
Blinking, he looked down at her. She met his gaze as she stroked her thumb over Styx’s flank, easing him and getting Than’s attention. At some point, she must have swiped her finger over his armor scar, because he was in his jeans and turtleneck, but all he wanted right now was to get out of them.
His voice scraped gravel. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t so far gone with rage and lust that he didn’t know she was putting aside her own hurt and anger at what her colleagues had done in order to keep him calm. “It isn’t fair to you.” He hissed as she cupped him and squeezed with just the right amount of sensual pressure.
Her eyes were liquid, her long lashes glistening with tear droplets. “I need this too,” she whispered. “I need it so badly.”
Clamping down on an uncivilized urge to take her straight to the floor, he kissed her. Her tongue tangled with his, turning it hot before it had a chance to even smolder. Her hands came up to fist his shirt and hold him against her, but there was no need for that. He wasn’t going anywhere.
He also wasn’t going to take this slow. The savage desire to reclaim what the group of Aegis males had taken from him was an instinct he wasn’t going to fight.
He broke off the kiss to nip and suck her throat, leaving tiny marks no one would miss. Her softly whispered “Yes” told him she liked it, and when he inhaled, the sharp scent of her arousal confirmed it.
Her skin tasted of the salty ocean breeze, and of battle, and he growled at the reminder of what she’d gone through.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “Just stay with me.”
He opened his mouth over the hollow of her throat, tasting more of the ocean, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to taste her everywhere. Places he hadn’t yet been. Places no one else would ever be. She was his, and he was going to claim her.
In a fevered rush, he dropped to his knees and found himself at eye level with her beautiful belly. He smiled as he lifted the maternity blouse and kissed her there, on the taut skin beneath her navel.
“Um…Thanatos…”
“Shh.” He hooked his thumbs under the elastic waistband of her pants and underwear and pulled them down. “Brace yourself on the desk.”
“But—”
“I need to see you. Taste you.” And because of how low she was carrying their son, he needed her at a slight angle to have better access to what he wanted.
“I’ve never done this…”
“I haven’t either.” The admission might have embarrassed him a few days ago, but now… now it made him proud.
After a second of hesitation, she leaned back, bracing her hands behind her on the desk.
He nearly came at the sight of her female flesh, glistening and ready for him. Anticipation sang through him as he leaned in and licked the crease at her thigh. She stopped breathing, and when he dragged his tongue along the crease on the other leg, she sucked air.
“Are you ready?” he murmured against her creamy skin. Her answer was to thrust one hand into his hair and pull him closer.
He didn’t waste another second. For the first time in his life, he put his mouth to a female’s center.
For the first time in his life, he was glad he’d had to wait.
Gently, he used his thumbs to part her sweet flesh, and then he settled his mouth over her core. He started tentatively, exploring, using his tongue to probe and test what made her squirm and gasp the most. As his need ramped up, he grew more confident, his licks more urgent and desperate.
She tasted like the sun and the ocean combined, and he decided he wanted to do this as often as she’d let him. And from the way she was arching against his mouth he thought she’d let him have his way as much as he’d like.
