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Regan didn’t wait around to see what would happen next.

On legs so wobbly they could hardly bear her weight, she stumbled into the bedroom and slammed the door. His vamp servants had started a fire in the hearth, but the room was cold, which didn’t help the shakes that wracked her body as she collapsed against the dresser, nearly knocking over a bottle of mead and two glasses sitting on a tray.

Mead… yes. Alcohol sounded like a really good idea. Her trembling fingers knocked over one of the glasses, but somehow she caught it before it hit the floor. The door opened, and she did her best to not shake even harder as Than walked in and gently took the glass from her.

She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t let him see in her eyes how terrified she was at the close call she’d just had. As a Guardian, she’d been in more life-or-death situations than she could count, but this was the first time she’d actually felt herself dying.dying.

Swallowing over and over, she pointed at the mead. “Open?”

“Damn,” he murmured, as he popped the wax seal off the rim. “Where did you find this?”

“V-vampire,” she said, hating herself for the stuttering.

A comforting gurgle and splash filled the room as he poured. Taking her hand, he placed the glass in her palm, wrapped her fingers around it, and guided the rim to her mouth.

“Drink,” he said softly, tipping the glass as it touched her lips.

The red liquid, spicy and smooth, flooded her mouth like a balm, easing her nerves before she even swallowed. “Those… were your souls, right?”

“Yes.” Thanatos stepped back with a glass of his own. He took two large drinks before saying, “When I’m angry, the souls that live inside my armor can break free. They want only one thing, and that’s to kill.”

“Why?”

“Because if they make a kill, they’re freed from me.”

She shuddered, remembering the pain as the thing tried to rip her apart from the inside. Was that what her victims experienced when she let loose her ability? Did they feel the living light tear the souls out of their bodies? She took another sip of her wine, and a tingly sensation joined the warmth spreading through her. “How do they get inside your armor?”

“Whenever I make a kill, the dead’s soul is sucked into it.” His voice was so casual it was chilling. She could barely talk about her own soul-sucking ability, and he might as well have been discussing grocery shopping. “Souls make my armor stronger.”

“And they just hang out, waiting for you to get angry?”

“Or to be released. I can release them in battle to do my bidding.”

Huh. “Sort of like those ghosts in the third Lord of the Rings movie? The Return of the King.”

His smile was stunning, but his eyes were sad. “Something like that.”

“How come they didn’t all come out?”

“I wasn’t fully enraged.”

She shuddered. “I don’t think I’d like to see that.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” His blond brow lifted, the silver piercing glinting in the firelight. “You wanna tell me about your little surprise?”

Her glass froze before it touched her lips. “Not really.”

A glistening drop of mead clung to his full lower lip, drawing her gaze and igniting a tiny flame of desire. The liquor, by itself, was bold and exotically spiced, but how much better would it taste if taken from Thanatos’s lips? Her breath caught as his tongue swept it uue sweptp. God, how could he make something so simple and normal seem so sexy?

“Ares would command you to talk,” he mused. “Reseph would charm it out of you. Limos…” His voice took on a rough, serrated edge. “She’d annoy the hell out of you until you spilled just to shut her up.”

“And you?”

His eyes gleamed. “I excel at torture.”

Of course he did. Her hand drifted down to her coat pocket, where she’d tucked her stang. “Are you going to torture me?”

“Are you going to tell me what you are?” He put the glass to his lips and regarded her from over the rim. “And don’t think your little Aegis weapon will be effective against me.”

Little Aegis weapon? Arrogant ass. “I’m one-hundred percent human.”

“A human with empathic abilities, I’d buy. A human who can communicate