A wicked, crooked smile lifted his lips as he reached for the Horsemen erotica. “This. In case you need to stay warm.”

In case you need to stay warm? What kind of crap was that? Than was an idiot. He didn’t need to be playing with fire, and Regan was a damned inferno.

What he needed was to get the hell away from her. He spun around, but she stopped him with no more than a word.

“Wait.”

He stared at the doorway, because hell if he was turning back to look at her. “What?”

“How does it end?” Her voice was soft as a whisper, just like her touch. “The story, I mean.”

“I told you. She has a bunch of kids, and—”

“No. Your part of it. After you were done with her. When you came back out into the tavern, and Reseph was with all those females. Did you share stories?”

“You mean, do I kiss and tell? Is that what you want to know?”

“Sort of.”

He had no idea what got into him, but in an instant, he was in front of her, one hand gripping the back of her head, the other at her waist as he tugged her to him. Then his lips were on hers, and his head was spinning, his blood was thundering through his ears, and her eager mouth was open to him. Their tongues met in a hot, wet tangle, and his erection was a throbbing rod of need against her soft belly.

He pulled away, enjoying the way her eyes had glazed over. “Do I kiss and tell? Guess you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

This time he stalked out of there, and this time, he intended to stay away. If five thousand years had taught him anything, it was that he could tease himself to the point of insanity and still come away without getting his dick wet.

There’d been a time when he’d taken himself to the edge, had drowned himself in females just to see how far he could go without plunging deep inside them. But he’d been young and dumb then. He’d enjoyed kissing, working females up, and for the first hundred years, he’d played games that had been… cruel. He’d used his status as a Horseman to bring a female home, and then he’d kiss and tease, and never once allow them the ultimate pleasure. It had been a way to torture them both. The females were always demons, and in a way, he figured he was torturing them for their part in his curse.

The males he just killed outright.

He stalked to his room, which he kept cold as the air outside. He stripped, relishing the blast of freezing temperatures. His skin shrank, but naturally, his c*ck wouldn’t care if he dipped it in liquid nitrogen. It wanted relief.

It wanted Regan.

Stupid bastard.

He fell onto his bed, hissing at the icy covers against his fevered skin. He sprawled out, staring at the rafters high above.

Even Limos was coming unraveled. The human male had thrown her off balance. That had to be the reason she was suddenly a bundle of nerves. She could be impulsive and flighty, yes, but raw panic and fear? Never. But she’d been terrified during the confrontation with Lucifer, and he’d seen the same terror in her eyes after she’d destroyed Sartael. Was her fear for Arik? Had she fallen for him? God, he hoped not. That would be a doomed relationship, for sure. The human wanted her—Thanatos could see it in his eyes, and a male like that wasn’t going to settle for heavy-petting.

Then again, that was what Than had to settle for. His lips tingled in remembrance of Regan’s kiss, and he palmed his cock, so worked up that his h*ps bucked at the touch, punching up into the ring of his fist. He wasn’t going to last long at all.

He didn’t want to imagine himself with Regan, but she was there in his mind anyway, na**d, on her hands and knees as he pumped into her from behind. Her tight, wet heat gripped him, and he groaned. He squeezed his shaft, building sensation, and then he dropped his palm to his sac, wondering what it would feel like to slap against her swollen flesh.

Slowly, he slid his hand back up, now imagining that he’d flipped her and was driving into her in the way a male made a female his—face to face, mouths fused, hands clasped. He knew he shouldn’t think that way, because there were some fantasies that were too hazardous to even consider. When he dreamed of having his own female, depression darkened his mood and dangerous ideas popped into his head.

Sometimes, at his lowest points, he thought he should just f**k a woman and get it over with. His Seal was going to break eventually, so why put off the inevitable? He wanted sex, dammit. But there was the problem; if he was going to break his Seal and bring down all of mankind, he wasn’t going to screw some random female. He wanted one to love. Which created the next problem: how could he possibly make love to a woman he cared about, knowing that as soon as it was over, he’d turn evil and she would probably be the first to die by his hand?

Yep, it was a nasty circle, a catch-22 he’d never get out of.

Viciously, he jerked his thoughts in another direction, flipped the imaginary Regan over again, and plowed into her as he pinned her against a wall. She was whimpering in pleasure as he hammered into her, and yeah, that was better. Keep it impersonal.

His c*ck kicked in his palm, reminding him that this was as impersonal as it got. Him, alone in bed, with only his hand as his date. Awesome.

Fuck.

He snarled, pumped his fist from root to tip, pausing to smooth the drop of pr**um around the smooth head. The sensitivity multiplied, and he pretended his thumb was Regan’s tongue.

That did it. His cl**ax brought his h*ps off the bed and made a strangled groan rip from his throat. Hot jets of liquid shot onto his stomach and chest as his balls clenched.

The difference was that the empty bed thing was, for her, only temporary. Eventually, she’d go back to her human life, to her human job, her human house. And if she wanted, she’d find a human male to fill her bed.

And fill her.

Thanatos snarled, spun, and put his fist through the wall.

Nineteen

You will forever be a liability to your own race. You belong with us now.

Arik hadn’t bothered to argue with Limos or Ares. She’d gated him back to her house, left him to shower, and he’d numbed out under the hot spray, his mind drawing a blank on all the reasons they were wrong.

All he’d wanted for his entire life was to fight for what was right. He’d started by defending his sister and mother. He’d moved on to join the military to fight for his country. Eventually, when the R-XR had tapped him, he fought for the entire human race. The idea that he was now a liability, a threat, even, left him dazed. The situation wasn’t acceptable, and somehow, he had to fix it.

He threw on the jeans and a white T-shirt that were in the duffle that was still in Limos’s bedroom, and then in a bizarre move, Hekili had called him to the kitchen, thrust a beer and a towel into Arik’s hands and motioned toward the water. As Arik started down the steps to the beach, Hekili stopped him.

“She is in one of her… moods. Help her before she hurts herself.”

Arik had no idea what the warg was talking about, and he didn’t have a chance to ask because Hekili took off like his kitchen was on fire.

He found Limos fifty yards away, acting as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

She was, in fact, dancing on the beach like a lunatic. A sexy, gorgeous lunatic in a hot pink bikini. With a white flower in her hair. No one looking at her would know that the ultra-feminine woman doing the hula could kick ass like the newest model Terminator.

What the hell had Hekili been talking about? The only way she was going to hurt herself would be if she threw her hip out of joint from dancing like that.

Arik laid out the towel and sank down in the sand, back against a palm tree, his fingers gripping the cold beer so tight he figured it was close to shatter threshold. How could she dance without spilling her margarita?

When she spotted him, she stilled, her too-gorgeous-to-be-real eyes drilling into him. In a slow, deliberate motion, she brought her margarita glass to her lips. Her ton higue came out and swiped the rim, licking off a line of salt before she locked her lips onto the glass and sipped. In Arik’s hand, the beer bottle shook.

Limos walked toward him, her h*ps swaying, her toned muscles flexing. She was beautiful, so f**king beautiful. He stood, figuring she was ready to head back to the house. He’d welcome the air-conditioning to cool off his suddenly overheated skin.

“I think I’m going to throw a party at my other house,” she said, stopping in front of him.

“The Apocalypse is knocking at the door, and you want to throw a damned party?” No wonder she had never found her agimortus. She’d spent her life drinking, dancing, and painting her nails.

“I like keeping myself busy.”

“Yeah, well, here’s an idea. Instead of acting like a sorority butterfly, you could keep yourself busy by searching for your agimortus.”

She sipped her drink and started swaying to a silent beat. “I lost my chance. Killed the bastard who might have been able to find it. So… whatevs.”

This. Was. Bizarre. “You lost your chance, and that calls for what… a celebration?”

She shrugged, her tan shoulder glistening in the splashes of sun that streamed between the palm fronds. “Not a celebration. A distraction.”

A warm breeze stirred her hair, and he resisted the urge to brush it away from her face. “Now isn’t the time to lose focus, Horseman.”

“Horseman.” She said the word as if it were something bitter she was testing on her tongue. “Yes, I’m that. That, and Satan’s fiancé.” Her lips turned up in an impish smile. “And I’m feeling the need to slip into Sheoul to taunt him. To dare him to catch me.”

“What?” Arik wondered what she’d do if he grabbed her and shook some sense into her. “Tell me you aren’t serious.”

“Oh, I’m serious.” She spun in a graceful circle, head back, hair flying, as if she were on a dance floor. “He’ll get me, you know. No matter what, he’ll get me.”

Something dumbly primal turned his brain to mush and his vision red, and he grabbed her by the upper arms. “I’m not going to let that happen.”