Lethal Rider

“Yes, you can.” Her voice cracked. “You have to.” You’re going to pleasure me. Whenever I want. Every. Single. Night. Oh, God. “I can stay at a regional headquarters.”

“Regan.” Kynan’s military bark snapped her to immediate attention, and she realized she’d been panicking. Babbling. “If Thanatos can sense the baby, he can find you. We can’t risk him coming for you and Pestilence tracking him.”

“He’ll agree to not go after me. He’ll understand.”

Arik snorted. “Thanatos? Understand? Have you even met him?”

“I agree,” Kynan said. “If you were Gem, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight. He’s not going to let you go.”

“This place is crawling with vampires,” she reminded them. “And in case you forgot, one of them tried to kill me.” Yes, Thanatos had explained that the vamp hadn’t been his, but right now, she’d take any argument to get away from here.

“Tried,” Decker said. “You could have killed him with your power. You can defend yourself.”

Did she dare tell them that her defensive ability had failed? Maybe it was just a fluke. And it wouldn’t change anyone’s mind, anyway. Ultimately, they were right. As much as she hated to think it, she probably was safest here, at least for now.

Val’s voice crackled over the airwaves. “This will also put you in a unique position to study the daywalkers.”

“Yeah,” Lance chimed in. “Give you something useful to do.”

She glared at the phone as if Lance could see her expression. “As if gestating a baby that might save the world isn’t enough?”

She could almost hear Lance’s shrug. “Once the kid pops out, you’ll be dead weight again.”

“Shut up, a**hole.” Kynan said.

Decker shoved to his feet as if ready to go through the speaker and kick some ass. “You’re such a dick.”

“It’s okay,” Regan said. “We’re all stressed.” But damn, Lance had struck a nerve.

Oh, she was used to his clumsy barbs, but this one was actually spot on. She’d never felt as if she had as much to offer as the other Elders, and she suspected that her abilities were the only reason she’d been promoted. That, and the fact that Lance had once told her that they wanted to keep an eye on her. The soul-sucking ability was dangerous, and they wanted her leashed.

“Fuck you,” Lance muttered. “I was just trying to make sure she had something useful to do. Don’t want her going the way of her Mama.”

The room exploded in curses, so many insults flying at Lance that Regan couldn’t separate them. She wasn’t her mother. Yes, she may be giving her child up for a better life, but she wasn’t going to kill herself. Even in the first two months after that horrible night with Thanatos, when she’d nosedived into such a deep state of depression and guilt that she could barely leave her bed, she hadn’t thought about suicide.

Granted, she might have considered dropping back into the fighting ranks again after the baby was born, because dying in battle wasn’t killing yourself, right? Not if dying wasn’t the goal, the way it had been for her mother.

Her stomach turned over again, threatening to spill, and she shoved to her feet and brushed past Limos, who was just entering the room. “I…um…I need to go.”

Decker moved toward her. “Regan?”

“I’m okay.” She held up her hand to hold them off. “I just need a minute.”

With that, she ran as fast as she could to the bedroom, where she dashed into the bathroom and lost her last meal.

Eleven

The tap on the bedroom door came as Regan finished brushing her teeth with one of the spare toothbrushes she’d found in Than’s master bathroom cabinet.

“I really don’t want to talk to you, Thanatos,” she called out, realizing how stupid it was to say that before the sentence was even out of her mouth: Thanatos wouldn’t have knocked. He’d have barged in like a pissed-off bear awakened from hibernation.

She put away the toothbrush as Decker’s muffled voice came through the door. “It’s not Thanatos.”

“Oh.” She waddled into the bedroom and sank onto the bed. “Come in.”

Decker slipped inside, silent as a ghost. For a big guy, he was remarkably agile. Then again, so was Thanatos… agile in ways her body warmed to think about.

“You okay?” Decker asked.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t let Lance get to you. I think his mama’s milk was curdled.”

She sighed. “It’s not Lance. It’s everything. I feel so useless. I should have been there today. I could have helped.”

“Sounds like no one could have helped. You’d have just gotten yourself killed.”

Her breath shuddered out of her. He was probably right, but that didn’t lessen the guilt of not being with her colleagues when they needed her. It also drove home the fact that the crisis was worse than she’d been willing to admit.

“You know, all this time, even when things looked like they were at their worst, I never doubted we’d beat Pestilence and stop the Apocalypse.”

“We will,” Decker said fiercely. “We’ll find a way.”

“I’m not so sure anymore.” It hurt to say that, and part of her couldn’t believe she had said it. Defeat had never been an option for her. She’d fought for her very life from the day she was born. Now it seemed as if fighting might only drag out the inevitable. “With headquarters compromised, Pestilence has not only hamstrung us, he’s crippled our ability to organize and command, not to mention that this has to be a huge blow to every Guardian’s confidence.”

“Stop.” Decker sat down next to her. “We have to maintain hope.” He looked down at her belly. “And that peanut in there is hope.”

She offered him a thin smile. “You’re one of the only people besides Kynan who can say that without cringing.”

“Because it’s a baby. It’s not a monster, no matter what anyone else thinks.”

“Thank you.” She eyed the bed pillows and fought the urge to straighten them. “Not to be rude, but … is there a reason you’re here?” No one but Suzi had ever bothered to keep Regan company.

“That’s what I’ve always liked about you,” Deck said. “No bullshit.” He sobered, and she braced herself for whatever was coming. “I wanted to give you a heads up on a call Kynan just got from Sammara in the Tech Department. She ran a check of headquarters’ computers.”

Alarm bells clanged in her skull. “Don’t tell me Pestilence got our personnel records.”

“He did.” Decker’s tone was weary, his eyes tired. “And worse, he got the locations of every Aegis cell worldwide.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she rasped. “The slaughter is going to be off the charts.”

“The good news is that the information is encrypted,” Decker said. “We have time, but maybe only a matter of days.”

And after that, Guardians could very well become an endangered species.

Thanatos stalked into his library and went on instant alert. Arik and Limos were on the couch, and Ky was draped bonelessly in one of the armchairs. Someone, probably Arik, had found Than’s med kit and tended to Kynan’s wounds, but he was the grayish color of a dead bile slug, and he clearly needed medical attention.

But where the hell was Regan? “Where is she?” The question came out as more of a bark, but Thanatos didn’t give a shit if he sounded hyper and grumpy, and maybe a little too freaked out that Regan was missing.

“She’s in the bedroom,” Limos said calmly. “I think she had to puke.”

Thanatos started out the door, but Arik called him back. “Don’t, man. Give her a few minutes. She just lost a bunch of colleagues and friends, thanks to your brother.”

“My brother. Not me.”

“Idiot.” Arik beaned Than in the chest with a pencil. “You’re five thousand years old and still don’t know anything about humans.”

Than looked down at the pencil and considered kabobbing his brother-in-law with it. “Because I don’t hang around with humans.”

“Just trust me on this,” Arik said, and Limos nodded in agreement. “Your brother, who you want to save, just destroyed Regan’s world. You’re probably the last person she wants to see right now. Well, second to last. Pestilence wins first place.”

Than still didn’t understand why he should be held responsible for Pestilence’s actions, but he’d listen to the human, since Arik knew Regan better than he did. Which rankled.

Limos leaned forward on the couch, bracing her forearms on her knees. “These guys just filled me in on some important shit about your prophecy.” She blew out a long breath. “Damn, Than, there might be an end to all of this in sight.”

Than listened as Ky laid out the prophecy about the baby’s cry—and the fact that burying Deliverance in Pestilence’s heart while it was weakened would kill him. Made sense … but Than didn’t like it. He didn’t want to kill his brother. He wanted to save him.

“What about the Halley’s Comet Doom Star thing?” Than asked. “I found something in one of my shrines that indicates I can save him by using Deliverance at a particular time. What if that’s what the Doom Star part of the prophecy is about?”

Ky rubbed his eyes and swore. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Arik said. The comet won’t return to Earth until twenty sixty-one. We can’t wait that long.”

The easy way Arik said it, as if waiting to save Reseph wasn’t even an option, pissed Than the hell off. Yeah, he got it. He did. Dicking around for half a century waiting for a damned comet while Pestilence ravaged mankind and demons warred with each other wasn’t exactly an option. But dammit, Reseph was Than’s brother, and the male he’d once been deserved a little more respect.