Immortal Rider (LD2) (49 page)

Regan Cooper was going to die.

She knew it as sure as she knew the sky was blue. Knew it as sure as she knew the baby inside her was a boy.

Knew it as sure as she knew the baby’s father would be the one to end her life.

Screaming, she bolted upright in bed, her eyes focusing on the glow of the nightlight in the bathroom. It took a second to realize she was awake, safe and secure inside The Aegis’s Berlin headquarters instead of in the middle of a nightmare.

The dream had come to her again, the one where she saw herself lying on the floor and covered in her own blood. Thanatos, known to much of the human population as Death, Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, knelt next to her, blood coating his hands, dripping from his pale hair, and splashed on his bone armor.

She took a deep, calming breath, forcing herself to
relax. Thanatos couldn’t touch her. Not here, in the apartment complex deep below the headquarters building that housed the twelve Elders who ran the ancient demon-hunting organization. Most of the Elders used their apartments only when they came to Germany for Aegis business, but Regan had called this spartan apartment home for years, and despite the fact that she was due to give birth in a month, she hadn’t done a single thing to prepare for the baby. There would be no decorating, no toys, no cribs.

She’d always hated pastels anyway.

Her hand trembled as she rubbed her belly through the cotton fabric of the maternity nightgown, hoping the baby would stay asleep. He was one hell of a kicker, and her organs were still recovering from his last round of hackeysack.

There was a tap at the door, followed by a softly spoken, “Regan? You okay?” The door pushed open a crack, spilling light inside the room, and Suzi, the Guardian who had been tasked to stay with Regan at night—as a precaution in case some Big Bad somehow made his way inside HQ—peeked in. “You shouted in your sleep again.”

Regan offered a shaky smile as she flipped on the bedside lamp. “Just another bad dream.”

Her hand fell to the bit of parchment next to the lamp, and she allowed herself a moment to smooth her fingers over the inked lettering. The Latin words were a prayer of sorts, but that wasn’t where Regan found comfort. No, as an empath with limited but powerful abilities, she could feel the emotions of the person who put the ink to the skin, and this particular bit of writing had been penned while the author was feeling serene. Regan had kept the
page with her for years, and she’d needed it more than ever over these last few months.

Suzi entered, her compact, muscular body moving smoothly to the tiny bureau of drawers on the opposite wall, where a glass and pitcher sat on a tray. “Did you have them before?” Water gurgled as she poured. “You know, before you were pregnant?”

“Yes.” The lie slipped easily off Regan’s tongue, because while she might not have dreamed of her death before her pregnancy, she’d suffered nightmares that reflected the reality of her daily life.

As a demon slayer, she’d had some really bad days.

Suzi’s messy mop of blond hair bounced on her shoulders as she brought Regan the water and sank down on the bed next to her.

“Drink,” she said, nudging Regan’s hand up, as if she were a toddler. Everyone treated her as if she were made of glass, as if women hadn’t been getting pregnant for thousands of years and surviving just fine.

But not everyone got pregnant with a child that could save the world.

Maybe.

She had to remember the
maybe
part, because the thing was, The Aegis had been duped into believing a child born of a Horseman and a Guardian could stop the Apocalypse. Now there was a scramble to discover what role this baby
would
play in the grand scheme of things, especially because they were pretty sure the child was Thanatos’s
agimortus—
the key to breaking his Seal.

“Can I get you anything else?” Suzi asked. “Warm milk? A sandwich? Soup?”

This time, Regan’s smile was genuine. Suzi was one
of the toughest warriors Regan knew, so it was amusing to see her so attentive and nurturing. Then again, Suzi hadn’t always been a demon slayer. Only five years ago, at the age of sixteen, she’d been an Olympic-level gymnast. That was before she’d been introduced to the paranormal world when she’d stumbled upon her coach eating a man outside the gym where she trained. Turned out that her coach had been a demon with a taste for vagrants.

“Thanks, but I’m going to read for a little while.” She glanced at the bedside table where her stack of ancient tomes from The Aegis’s extensive library sat next to an assortment of snacks. “And I have enough crackers to last me a month if I get hungry.”

“I could fetch you more books,” Suzi offered. “Or run a bath for you? Put a movie in the DVD player?”

Regan held up her hand. “Okay, what’s going on? You’re never
this
willing to do nurse work. You’re nervous. Why?”

A pink blush crept into Suzi’s cheeks. “It’s nothing—”

“Tell me.”

Suzi looked down at her hands, and when she looked back up, the dim bedside light emphasized dark crescents beneath her hazel eyes. “We just lost contact with two of our Australian cells. The reports from the other two are… grim.”

“Dammit,” she breathed. “Countries are falling like flies.” When Suzi averted her gaze, a dark suspicion rose up in Regan. “What are you not telling me?”

“You know you’re not supposed to be worrying about the news—”

“Dammit, Suzi, I’m not an invalid. That little incident was months ago.”

The
little
incident hadn’t been so little. While watching a news report about the loss of Iceland to demons, Regan had suffered abdominal pain and bleeding so severe that for days there’d been fear she’d lose the baby. Or her life.

Aegis doctors hadn’t been able to administer any medications, since oral drugs came back up within seconds, and no needles could penetrate her skin. Apparently, the baby wanted no part of modern medicine.

The physicians and her fellow Elders had decided that bed rest and a complete block of upsetting news was the best thing for Regan and the baby, so Regan had been kept in the dark about the goings-on in the world. Oh, she caught snippets here and there, but for the most part, everyone had been careful to not say much.

“Suzi?” Regan prompted. “The baby could be born today and be fine. I was planning to talk to the Elders in the morning so I can get back into the swing of things. So tell me what’s going on.”

Suzi nodded. “It’s not just Australia. You know about Iceland and New Zealand, but over the last couple of months, the world has lost almost all island nations. Greenland still stands—we figure that’s because it’s where Thanatos lives. And Great Britain has been repelling demons with help from Europe. But…” She inhaled a shaky breath, and Regan swore her heart stopped beating. “Taiwan is lost. Madagascar, part of Norway, much of Malaysia. And last week, Japan fell under the control of Pestilence’s forces.”

“Oh, my God,” Regan rasped. “What else?”

“Demons are moving across Africa at an alarming rate, and we’re getting reports of massive attacks in Canada, Alaska, and dozens of regions in Asia.”

Water sloshed onto Regan’s hand, and she had to grip her glass with both hands to keep it from shaking. “What do the Elders say about this?”

“According to their calculations, which have been confirmed by the R-XR… the entire planet will be overrun by demons within a month. They think… they think Pestilence is trying to time his takeover with the baby’s birth.”

The glass in Regan’s hand shattered.

The Aegis had been trying to save the world with this baby, but it was looking like instead, they may have doomed it.

Two Weeks Later…

The only thing worse than being paralyzed and trapped inside your own skull, unable to move or speak, was being kept like that by your own brother and sister.

For eight and a half endless, insanity-inducing months, Thanatos, fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, had been kept in a bed with nothing but a TV for company. Well, he had a hellhound lying next to him twenty-four seven, but only to bite him if the paralyzing hellhound saliva his brother and sister injected him with wore off. And sure, his sister, Limos, third Horseman, and Ares, second Horseman, hung out with him, but Ares wasn’t all that talkative.

Limos was a chatterbox, but Than didn’t really give a shit about what color nail polish she’d put on that morning or how she and her husband, a human named Arik, were planning a European honeymoon after the threat of Apocalypse was over.

And seriously, a honeymoon? Wasn’t it a little late for that? And it wasn’t as if Limos didn’t live on an island paradise anyway, so every freaking day was a honeymoon for them.

Bitter much, Than-boy?

Yeah, there might be some jealousy there. Because as sick as it sounded, the one thing that had kept Than sane over the thousands of years he’d been alive was the fact that his brothers and sister were as alone as he was. But now Ares and Limos were both married and happy, and he was left paralyzed, miserable, and ripping a massive hatred for the female who’d put him here.

Regan.

Ever since he’d been cursed to be the Horseman who was doomed to become Death when his Seal broke, he’d believed that his Seal was his virginity. He’d guarded his dick like it was the freaking Hope diamond. He might have been an unpinned grenade ready to blow with sexual need, but dammit, he’d kept himself all virginal and shit.

Until Regan came along, with her seductive body, her devious plot, and her drugged wine. She’d managed to get him naked, get him immobilized, and get him off. The why of it still wasn’t clear, since not once, in all of Limos’s and Ares’s ramblings, had they brought up the Aegis Guardian. And the fact that she was a Guardian, one of the human warriors who existed to rid the world of demons, only made her actions more mystifying.

Guardians did not want to start the Apocalypse, so either she hadn’t thought that fucking him would break his Seal, or she had known and was secretly working against The Aegis.

So if she hadn’t known… why had she gone to
extremes to get him in bed? As a larger-than-life legend, he might have starfucker appeal, and sure, he knew he was handsome, but resorting to drugs and her supernatural ability just to get him in bed?

Fury slithered through him, as hot as the lust he’d felt when he’d been beneath Regan, her wet heat clenching around his cock. God, it had been good. For so long he’d fantasized about being with a female, had imagined all the ways he’d take her. His favorite fantasy had always been with her on all fours and him mounting her from behind, his chest sealed to her back by their sweat, his weight holding her steady for his thrusts.

That position had been his earliest memory of sex, when he’d been a boy living in a pre-Druidic tribal society. He’d witnessed a fertility ritual, a circle of chanting adults surrounding a couple mating the way the village dogs did it. Oh, he’d heard sex before—their single room dwelling allowed for no privacy for his parents—but he’d not witnessed what went on between a man and a woman.

The image had stuck with him after thousands of years, and it had become the mainstay of his fantasies. For these past months, when his mind had drifted to sex, Regan had been that female on her hands and knees.

His cock jerked in response to the direction of his thoughts, pissing him off. His dick had no business getting hard for her, and on his arm, his stallion, Styx, kicked, sensing his master’s emotions. The horse, currently in a tattoo-like form, had been stuck on his skin, as paralyzed as Than had been—

Wait. His cock was hard, his horse was stirring… which meant the hellhound venom was wearing off.

Thanatos’s heartbeat went double-time as hope shot
through him. Maybe his siblings were finally allowing him to be free. Oh, man, if so… he had serious plans. First, he was going to kick Limos’s and Ares’s asses. Then he was going to have sex. Lots and lots of sex.

Before, avoiding sex hadn’t been difficult. Sure, it hadn’t been pleasant, but it had been doable, mainly because he hadn’t known what he was missing. But now he knew, and his body craved it almost as much as it craved revenge.