Lethal Rider ( Lords of Deliverance 3)

Distant clinking noises came from the kitchen, as well as the mouthwatering aroma of roast chicken, and her stomach growled. Leave it to her pregnant self to want food during an escape.

Later, she told herself. Later she’d gorge on an entire buffet, but right now, she had to make it outside before anyone saw her. With as much stealth as she could manage, she crept across the great room, her bare feet padding silently on the icy stone floor. She walked on rugs when she could, careful not to step on the silky tassels.

Yep, her OCD issues were out of control. This was the worst it had ever been, and while some of it was likely pregnancy-related, being kidnapped and held prisoner had definitely tripped her crazy-switch.

She made it as far as the front door. One of Than’s vampires, a burly, ugly dude whose name escaped her—pregnancy-brain sucked—blocked her path.

“Our orders are to prevent you from leaving.”

“I’m just taking a walk.”

He bared his fangs. “And I’m a mermaid. Now go back to your room.”

She raised her makeshift stake. “Get out of my way.”

He laughed. “Stupid, fat human. You’re no match for me.”

“Fat? Fat? I’m pregnant, you walking corpse. I might be fat, but you’re dead.” With a lot less grace than she was used to, she lunged, but the vampire shifted, and her aim went awry. The end of the stake merely grazed his shoulder, but that was enough to piss him off.

He cursed, his hand snapping out to clutch her by the throat. She sucked hard, trying to gulp a breath. What was it with vampires and their habit of grabbing you by the throat?

Cursing in her head, she clawed at his neck, ripping his silk shirt at the collar. Her fingertips skimmed a tattoo there, and in an instant, the vampire’s fury washed over her and her mind lit up with a vision, a strange one involving Thanatos bent over this vampire as the monster lay on a stone slab. The strange word the vampire at headquarters spoke, Bludrexe, blasted through her head, and then the vision was gone.

Clearly, her soul-sucking ability was gone, but her psychometric gift was still intact. Not that it could help her in this situation. No, old-fashioned dirty-fighting was all she had to rely on. As the vampire jerked his head back from her nails, his body shifted, allowing her to lift her knee and crunch it into his groin. He oofed and released her, and she nearly fell when her feet hit the floor.

“Bitch!” he snarled, and grabbed for her again.

His fingers never touched her. A godawful roar shook the keep, and faster than she could blink, Thanatos had ripped the vampire away from her and had him on the ground on the other side of the room. She didn’t waste time hanging around to see what was going to happen next.

Leaving behind the sounds of a violent smackdown, she scurried out into the gray morning dawn, heaved herself onto one of the 4-wheelers, and started it up with the keys left in the ignition. The big machine roared to life, and she was out of there. She gunned it, the wheels bouncing over the uneven terrain and jostling her badly enough that she had to slow down more than she’d have liked. Every once in a while, she risked a glance behind her, but so far, so good.

Until she reached the half-mile marker.

Thanatos stood there, his eyes like gold lasers, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

Shit.

She stopped the vehicle, but she didn’t turn it off. She stared, and he stared back, and nope, she wasn’t going to win this. Calmly—on the outside, at least—she turned the ATV around and started back toward the keep. Even over the rumble of the engine, she heard hoofbeats, and a moment later, Than’s pale stallion, Styx, was next to her, his long-legged stride carrying him over the tundra at an easy gallop. Thanatos sat erect in the saddle, his watchful gaze on everything except her.

Great. She’d much rather he was glaring or yelling. She hated silence. Grinding her teeth, she sped up, desperate to get away from him. It didn’t work. Styx kept pace with her, and she swore Thanatos smiled. It only lasted a second, but it was a smile.

And not a nice one.

“Regan, stop!” Than’s voice cracked like an avalanche breaking loose on a mountain.

Startled, she let up on the gas as a massive white horse and an armored rider appeared in front of them. Pestilence. She braked hard—too hard. The ATV fishtailed, its rear end popped up, and she flipped into the air before hitting the ground with a heavy, bone-jarring crunch.

The baby… oh, God, let the baby be okay. Regan pressed her hand to her belly, praying the fall hadn’t hurt the little pony.

Groaning, she started to push up, and yelped when an arrow punched into the dirt an inch from her belly. Horses screamed, and the metallic clank of clashing swords rang out. Shit, shit, shit! Frantic to get out of the way of the flailing hooves, she scrambled, limping, toward the ATV.

Just as she reached the vehicle, an ice-cold puff of air flowed over the back of her neck, and with it, a snort … deep, growly… and a chill slithered up her spine. Very slowly, she turned, and froze solid at the sight of the thing standing there, its gaping mouth full of sharp teeth and its foot-long claws extended. The dragonlike creature was crystalline, like a giant rock-candy tree, all shards of ice, hard angles, and tiny, black, triangle eyes. Against a landscape of icebergs or glaciers, the demon would be invisible.

Invisible until it bit your head off with jaws the size of an alligator’s.

Distantly, she heard Thanatos calling her name. Unable to look away from the monster, she stumbled backward, but it followed her, its scaly feet digging deep grooves in the earth as it moved. Then she heard the huff, felt the liquid nitrogen breath of a second creature at her back. Bone-chilling cold seeped into her flesh. Her nerve endings burned with white-hot fire. Pain stabbed her with evil little fingers, and shivers wracked her body.

Thanatos. He was trying to get to her, but he was injured … so much blood. She took a step toward him—at least, she tried to. Her legs were numb and her coordination had fled with her body heat. Hypothermia? Yes, it must be hypothermia, because when one of the creatures breathed on her again, she didn’t feel it. No, there really was no more cold. She was tired, though. So exhausted.

She blinked. Where was she? Screams rent the air, horrid, pained noises. All around her, shadows swarmed over the ice monsters, who shrieked until they blew apart, sending icicles blasting like shrapnel.

Where was Thanatos? Didn’t matter. She just wanted to sleep, and the ground looked so soft …

The world spun as her legs gave out and she hit the earth. She didn’t know where she was, couldn’t remember her name, but at least she was finally warm.

Eight

“Regan!”

Thanatos watched helplessly as she went down and lay motionless. He’d released his souls to destroy the frost demons, but he’d wanted to kill the beasts himself. Instead, he was engaged in battle with Reseph, who had grown much more powerful in the last eight months.

Reseph—Thanatos still had a hard time thinking of him as Pestilence—sat atop Conquest, his ice-blue eyes gleaming with bloodlust. Both horses were bleeding, gashed from teeth and hooves, and Than had taken a glancing blow from his brother’s sword across his temple, but Reseph remained uninjured.

“Your Aegi whore doesn’t look so good,” Pestilence said. “Pregnant chicks are so fragile. But you know they put out.”

Thanatos didn’t dare go to her aid. Not while Pestilence was here. “What do you want?”

“I was hoping to rail your woman and then kill your son, but you went and f**ked that all up.”

The question of whether or not Pestilence had known about Regan’s pregnancy was now answered. “How long have you known?”

“That the whore was knocked up? For a lot longer than you.” Pestilence winced. “Ouch. That must hurt, huh?”

Fucker. “If you so much as touch either of them, there will be no saving you from me. Now get off my island.”

Pestilence grinned. “You got it, bro.” He threw open a gate. “Later.”

That had been too easy. Pestilence was definitely up to something, but right now, Than’s priority was Regan, and the second Conquest carried his brother through the gate, Than was off his stallion and at Regan’s side.

Gripping her shoulder, he shook her gently. “Regan. Hey, can you hear me?” She didn’t stir, and fear clogged his throat. Her normally tan skin was white and ice-cold, her lips blue. The frost demons hadn’t ripped into her with their claws or teeth, but their breath could freeze a living thing into a solid block of ice in seconds.

“Styx. To me.” The stallion poofed into smoke and settled on his forearm as he scooped Regan into his arms and opened a Harrowgate. He stepped out inside Underworld General’s emergency department. Which was in chaos.

The hospital was brimming with injured demons, so many that nearly every inch of space was taken up by bodies. Outside the sliding glass doors that led to the underground parking lot, more patients waited to get in. Jesus … there had to be two hundred demons in the parking lot, some lying in pools of blood. Medical staff were running around wildly, overwhelmed and clearly exhausted.

These people would not be able to help, and Regan didn’t have time to wait. Cursing, he turned back to the gate inside the emergency department, but froze when the ambulance bay doors slid open and a tall, black-haired vampire strode inside. His face was familiar, but that wasn’t what tripped Thanatos like a taut wire.

The vampire was a daywalker. Damn. How? Thanatos had spent countless centuries searching the world for them, and although he knew a handful of them existed in the wild, blending in with the nightwalkers, they generally laid low, not wanting Thanatos to get wind of their existence.

No, Than was, to many daywalkers, their personal nightmare.

This one walked into the hospital with an arrogant gait, seemingly not worried that Thanatos would find him. And when the daywalker halted mid-stride and met Than’s gaze, there was no fear there. Curiosity, but no fear. The other male broke eye contact first, and made a beeline for a female in scrubs.

Later. Than would have to solve the mystery later. He stepped into the Harrowgate and gated himself back to his keep. Regan flopped like dead weight in his arms as he ran inside and shouted for his vamps. Artur was there in a heartbeat.

“Warm some blankets and tea, and start a fire in my bedroom. Hurry!”

While his servants scrambled to obey, he whisked Regan to his room. Gently, he placed her on the bed and then stripped her of her damp clothing. He angled his body to prevent the vampires starting the fire from seeing her as he removed her bra and left her only in her underwear. He wasted no time in tugging up the blankets and then stripping himself and climbing into bed with her.

He eased behind her, his chest plastered to her ice-cold back. It was like snuggling up to a slab of beef in a meat locker. Viktor entered with two lightly warmed blankets, which Than draped over her bare skin before resettling the covers over her.

“Bring more warm blankets in fifteen minutes,” Than said. “And contact Ares or Limos to get a doctor from Underworld General here.”

Viktor nodded and slipped from the room, leaving him alone with Regan.

He wrapped his arms around her, letting one hand drift up to her throat so he could monitor her pulse, which was too sluggish. Her breaths were too shallow. Worry washed over him like a tsunami, first crashing in one big swell, then rippling through him and piling more fear on top of the first wave.

“Dammit, woman,” he muttered. “You just had to run off like that.”

Briskly, he rubbed her shoulders, working his way down her arms. His fingers brushed her belly, and his breath hitched.

Somehow, it seemed like a violation to touch her there, which was ridiculous, given that he’d touched her everywhere else, and besides, the baby inside was his. Was the child okay? Had the cold and the fall affected it even worse than they had affected Regan?

Shoving aside the sense that he would be doing something wrong by touching her, he lay his hand on the taut skin just below her navel. For a long moment, all he felt was cold. Then, movement. Something rolled against his palm—a foot, maybe.

Fierce pride bubbled up inside him. Obviously, Regan was pregnant, but it truly hadn’t sunk in until now. He was going to be a father. He was going to have a son.

Terror tangled with the pride and joy. What if he sucked as a father? What if he couldn’t protect his child? He’d been there the day Ares had lost his sons, and he could still remember Ares’s screams, could remember how long it had taken for him to recover.

And if they didn’t neutralize Pestilence, he’d forever be a danger to Than’s son. Regan was right about that, even if he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it at the time.

He tugged Regan closer so he could wrap his arm around her and his son, shocked by the intensity of what he already felt for the child. He’d always wanted kids, had wanted to pass on the kind of love his parents—the humans who’d raised him—had showered him with. The kind of love he hadn’t gotten from his demon mother or the angel who had sired him.

If he could create and raise a child who was decent, who didn’t cause pain and suffering the way Thanatos had, then maybe some of his life would make sense. Would mean something. And maybe, just maybe, a child would give him something to fight for. He’d grown so numb to the human world around him, but this baby was already a bright spot in his foggy gray world.

What color eyes would he have? Would his hair be fine and silky like Regan’s, or thick like Than’s? Would he have Regan’s rounded cheeks, or his high, sharp cheekbones? Not that any of it mattered. The child would be perfect regardless of who he took after.

There was a tap at the door, and Viktor entered with two more warm blankets, which Than used to replace the others. Regan’s skin was starting to feel less icy, but she still wasn’t stirring.