“Why are you telling me this? What do you want with me?”

“I’m telling you because you need to know how far I’ll go to take the power I want. Which is why you’re here.” She cocked her head thoughtfully. “Well, part of it. I have orders to keep you occupied. And I also need to borrow some strength from you.”

She put the bottle to his lips. “Drink it.”

Clenching his teeth, he shook his head.

“It’s not poison. It’s wine.”

He shook his head again.

“Don’t be so stubborn.” She called out to Whine, and the big male was there in an instant. “Open his mouth.”

Whine wrenched Reaver’s head to the side and jerked hard on his lower jaw while palming his forehead and tugging back. Snarling, Reaver slammed his palm into Harvester’s chest while he rocked his head back, catching the big warg in the mouth. Harvester flew backward and blood splattered on the floor, but Reaver didn’t have a chance to enjoy his victory because Whine’s meaty fist caught him in the jaw so hard Reaver heard bone crack and felt his jaw dislocate.

Harvester cursed… and made good on her earlier threat. With a nasty growl, she yanked on the chains, and his bones seemed to separate from his flesh. Agony blinded him and snatched the breath right out of his lungs. Something slammed into his mouth, and warm, thick fluid flowed over his tongue. Blood?

“There, it’s working.” Harvester was a dim blur in front of him. “Neethul marrow wine. You’ll love it.”

Alarm wrapped around his chest, as restricting and painful as the chains that held him. He’d tried marrow wine once, back during his days as a fallen angel, and after the first sip, he’d plunged immediately into addiction. For months he’d drowned himself in drink, until eventually, some demon had found him holed up in an abandoned barn and had contacted Underworld General for help. Shade and his sister, Skulk, had been the ones to treat him and take him to the hospital, where Eidolon had gotten him clean.

Had it not been for the good Samaritan demon and the staff at UG, he could have ended up in a very bad place. Incapacitated Unfallens were often dragged to Sheoul against their will, completing their fall and turning them irreversibly evil.

“Whine,” Harvester said, and was her voice fuzzy, or was that him? “Drain him. Have the blood delivered to the Orphmage.”

Oh, damn. His blood… what were they going to do with his blood? The question became a non-issue in the next moment as the familiar burn worked its way into his belly and then spread like hellfire. He arched, a wave of pleasure wrenching through his body and relieving the pain. Heat washed through him in erotic waves, and behind the fly of his slacks, his shaft pulsed and his testicles throbbed.

An incredible series of spasms shot into the base of his spine, and then hot liquid ripples rode up the length of his penis and blew past the head as the full-body orgasm took him over and over, an endless wave of pleasure he knew would leave him as helpless and weak as a newborn when it was over.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was in big trouble. But right now, he just couldn’t care.

Eighteen

Thanatos was one grumpy-ass Horseman. He’d asked Regan to feel up a ragged document for him, but he hadn’t explained why, and when all she could tell him was that whoerumver scribbled the writing on it believed they were translating a message from the Dark Lord, he’d nodded and shoved her out of the library. Since then, he’d avoided her unless he needed her assistance or she requested his help to translate something from his collection. Made it hard for a girl to seduce a guy.

She had, at least, determined that he wasn’t gay, if the constant female traffic was any indication. They came at all hours, in various states of dress, but the vampires always turned them away. She supposed that could mean Thanatos didn’t like women, but if that were the case, she’d have thought females would have gotten that news a long time ago. And if that were the case, where were the males?

There weren’t any. So basically, she was pretty sure he wasn’t gay. He was just an as**ole who didn’t like anyone.

She had her work cut out for her, for sure.

She wasn’t sure where he spent his time, but it wasn’t at his freezing ice palace. His vampires handled her needs, from food to fresh towels, which had made her uncomfortable at first. She’d been raised to kill the bloodsuckers, not have them wait on her hand and foot. But the weirdest thing was that some of them could walk in the daylight. When she’d questioned them, they’d been silent on the subject. Interesting.

She’d spent most of her time either working out in Thanatos’s amazing gym or going through his library, which rivaled some of the Aegis libraries at the larger regional headquarters. Sure, her primary purpose was to sleep with the Horseman, but she’d also come to make use of his library and his knowledge… both of which were extensive.

She’d also offered some insight into documents he’d already pored over. So far, her help hadn’t provided any groundbreaking discoveries, but she’d been able to assist him in determining which documents had been written with a false hand.

The thing she found most curious was how, while he was obsessed with both finding a way to restore Reseph’s Seal and locating Limos’s agimortus, he seemed to be just as focused on finding his father. The difference was that when it came to the subject of the angel who sired him, he tended to guard his words, as if his personal quest was somehow wrong or selfish.

Or as if he was protecting himself from disappointment.

His search shook something loose inside her, because as much as she hated to admit it, she had a tender, raw spot when it came to fathers. Maybe it was stupid of her, but she’d spent a little extra time going over Than’s material that related to his history, wanting to help him.

Of course, helping wasn’t a hardship when it meant she got to spend hours in his library, which was stacked from floor to ceiling with books she’d never known existed.

Demon cookbooks. Fiction ranging from children’s’ books to romance and horror novels… all written by demons. And, for the record, demon erotica was freaking gross. She also found books about the Four Horsemen written by humans, demons, and even an angel. Many of the works were fiction—Thanatos seemed to collect everything that had anything to do with the Horsemen, from video games, TV shows and movies, to books—but several—re dozen were non-fiction. Lots of “first-hand accounts” and speculation.

The one that made her blush to her roots, though, was the book written by a succubus who claimed to have had intimate relations with all of the brothers.

The book read like a cross between an urban fantasy novel and a Penthouse Forum letter, and Regan found herself curled up on the oversized leather chair next to the cozy fireplace in Thanatos’s library, flipping pages as fast as she could. God, she didn’t even need the fire, not with the way her blood was running molten in her veins.

The succubus, whose name was Pilani, claimed to know some truly intimate details about the three brothers, had first spent some time with Ares after meeting him in an underworld pub called the Four Horsemen. She described his power, his furious and extremely rough lovemaking, and Regan squirmed. She’d only had sex once, and it wasn’t anything like what Pilani described with Ares. Fast, hard, lots of weapons.

Regan definitely hadn’t had that many orgasms or been that exhausted afterward. No, there’d been the one orgasm, during which she’d felt her power stir, as if it had wanted to snatch her boyfriend’s soul right out of his body. Regan had broken up with him that night and hadn’t risked sex again.

Pilani had moved on to Reseph, who she claimed was playful and gentle when the mood called for it, tireless, adventurous, and risky at other times. And, apparently, he really liked… Regan’s jaw fell open, and she turned the page, skipping past Reseph’s reported willingness to try anything.

Mouth dry and practically panting, Regan flipped ahead to Pilani’s experiences with Thanatos.

I approached him where he sat in the dark corner of the Four Horsemen, his eyes glowing as he watched me. I’d had his brothers, several times. In fact, Reseph watched with amusement from his own corner, where he was encouraging a Trillah female to feel him up even as other females gathered ’round him to join in what would surely turn into one of his notorious orgies.

I’d offer myself to him, of course, if Thanatos turned me down. I’d never found anyone who admitted to f**king the tattooed warrior, though I’d seen a few females disappear into the back room with him.

“Death,” I purred, and he growled the way he always did when someone called him by that name. The Horsemen were sensitive about their names, for some reason… all but Limos, who didn’t mind being called Famine.

“Go away.”

He put his ale to his lips. Lips I wanted to know intimately. I wanted to be the first of all the groupies, the Megiddo Mount-Me’s, to have scored a trifecta. Hell, if I managed to get Thanatos, maybe I’d try a little girl-on-girl with Limos and secure my place in Horsemen lore.

Naturally, I ignored him and took a seat next to him, making sure my skirt hiked up to show tantalizing hints of everything. He noticed, and the front of his breeches swelled. Shifting, I lifted my leg over his and palmed his cock.

“Let me suck it,” I murmured, and his eyes darkened. I had him. I knew it. And when he swept me up and carried me to the back room, where I’d been with both Ares and Reseph, I came the first time before he even set me down. The second time was when he—

“You enjoying yourself?”

At the deep rumble of Thanatos’s voice, Regan screamed and dropped the book. Her cheeks burned and her throat felt like she’d been breathing smoke.

“I—I… it was research.” Oh, God, she was babbling like a teenage girl caught doodling the name of her secret crush in her notebook. Or like a grown woman caught reading erotica.

Erotica about the very man standing in the room, leaning casually against the doorframe, one ankle crossed over the other, an amused smile tilting his mouth.

And whoa, she’d thought he was handsome before, but that smile put him at a number that was off the charts.

“Research, huh?” He moved close, his gaze never wavering from hers even as he leaned over to pick the book up off the floor where it had fallen. “My library is full of books that would probably be a lot more useful.”

“But not nearly as interesting,” she said, shooting for light and breezy, but failing miserably. She sounded breathless and desperate. Horny.

He opened the book to what appeared to be the very spot where she’d left off. One pale eyebrow lifted as he read, and then the other, and then… was that a touch of pink on his cheeks? Yes, yes it was.

Good. Maybe he was as embarrassed as she was.

“His fingers found my swollen pearl, wet with my honey,” he read, and okay, so maybe he wasn’t embarrassed. “He pushed one inside me, and I moaned as my body exploded with pleasure.”

Regan cleared her throat. “I see you can read. Impressive. Can we stop now?”

“You don’t want to know what happens next?”

“I assume she earned some sort of honor for banging all three of you and now has a commemorative tramp stamp on the small of her back or at the base of her tail or whatever.”

Thanatos stared at her for a moment, and then he threw back his head and laughed, and dear Lord, she had just revised her definition of melt-my-panties-hot.

“She does not have a tramp stamp,” he said, when he’d finished laughing, but the smile remained. “At least, I don’t think she does. Haven’t seen her in centuries. She gave birth to a few dozen little hellspawns and went her own way.” He closed the book. “And no, none of the demonlings are ours.”

“Demonlings?”

“It’s what Reseph calls them.” The smile fell from his lips, replaced by the familiar scowl. “Used to call them. I’m guessing now he calls them dinner.”

It was surprising to see his reaction to his brother’s transformation—up until now, she’d seen little from Thanatos but anger. Well, there was the little blip of amusement, but it was gone so fast she sort of wondered if she’d imagined it. Except that her heightened body temperature and racing heart were pretty clear evidence that he’d affected her in more than the angry way.

“Were you close to him?” she asked.

“He’s my brother.” He peeled off his coat and shoved up the sleeves of his black turtleneck.

“That’s not an answer.”

His gaze glittered like canary diamonds in the sun. “We shared a womb. We shared battle, pain, loss, and drink. He is my brother.”

So… that was a yes to her question. The intensity rolling off him shocked her. Not that she’d expected anything less of the Horseman who would be Death, but she hadn’t been prepared for the depth of his feelings for his siblings. Somehow that humanized him in her eyes… and at the same time, shamed her. She’d never loved anyone. Not like that.

She rubbed her arms, though she was anything but cold. “So even now, after what he’s become—”

“What he’s become is his own personal nightmare,” he interrupted. “We’ll find a way to change him back.”

“You’ve got to have some idea how.” Yeah, she was one to talk, since The Aegis still had no idea how Death’s child could save the world. Her stomach churned a little at that thought, because she’d been concentrating so hard on how to get Thanatos into bed that she hadn’t thought much about the consequences.