Immortal Rider_ Lords of Deliverance Series_ - Larissa Ione [44]
“I love women as much as you probably do,” he shot back, and she rolled her eyes at his lame barb.
She wasn’t a lesbian. She was just… well, she didn’t take chances with sex. For her, an orgasm was a few seconds in which her carefully maintained control was lost… and when you had supernatural abilities like hers, you didn’t want to lose control of them.
“We believe the Horseman in question is Thanatos,” Malik said. “We have a couple of clues. The words ‘From Death will come Life’ are engraved on Deliverance’s hilt and are written here, on the scroll.”
“So you think that literally, from Death—Thanatos—will come life… in the form of a baby.” Regan could really use a stiff drink right now. You know, before she got knocked up and couldn’t drink anymore. Jesus. “And does the scroll explain how a female Guardian is supposed to get close enough to seduce him?”
“No,” Val said, “but Pestilence has put a price on Aegi heads. The remaining Horsemen are more willing than ever to help us, since we’re on the front lines with them. They obviously have a lot of knowledge, things we’re missing, especially their histories since The Aegis broke with them hundreds of years ago. We’ll tell them that we need the gaps filled in, and we want to send a historian—you—to work with them.”
“How can you be sure they won’t want this Aegi to work with Ares or Limos?”
“It’s not a matter of want,” Kynan said. “It’s a matter of practicality. Ares and Cara are busy being newlyweds and training an island full of hellhounds. Limos has her hands full with Arik. Thanatos, on the other hand, is alone, and he has the best library. He’s really the only option.”
“Huh. Well, good luck finding some sucker who wants to sleep with him, because it isn’t going to be me.”
“Regan.” Val looked down at his hands, which he’d folded in his lap. “We can’t force you to do this. But I’m going to ask you to think hard about it. You are one of our greatest assets, and we don’t ask you to do this lightly. We ask because, with your abilities, you truly are the only one who can do it.”
The reminder of what she was sobered her up, real fast. Only the Elders knew about her psychic gifts, and sometimes she suspected that Val knew even more than she did about the extent of them. He’d been the one to argue for her life when she’d been born to a Guardian mother who abandoned her because of what her father was. He’d been the one who had sworn he’d be the one to put her down if her powers grew out of control.
He was the one who had killed her father.
She schooled her expression, refusing to let anyone here see her discomfort. Because yeah, it did bother her that everyone except Kynan was looking at her like she was a bomb ready to blow. Like her, they’d put her abilities in some locked box in their memories, but were now recalling exactly what it was she could do. And what she’d been forbidden to do on the penalty of death.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Val.”
“One of Thanatos’s defenses is armor that stores souls,” Kynan said. “When he’s pissed or when he releases them, they kill.”
“Your ability could protect you from them,” Val said. “You’re the only Guardian we could even consider putting in his path.”
She clenched her fists. “For twenty-five years, you’ve trained me not to use my ability. The Aegis kills people like me. And now you’re asking me to embrace it?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “That scroll. Where did you find it?”
Kynan reached for it. “In an Aegis vault Limos took me to.”
“Did it occur to you that it could be a trick? Fake? The world’s first paranormal romance?”
Ky’s mouth quirked in one corner as he passed it to her. “That’s why we need you to verify its authentic sitsnt ity.”
Shit. Of her two abilities, this was the one she was allowed to use, but she didn’t like to, especially not in front of anyone. “You know I can’t tell how old it is or anything. I can only tell