Immortal Rider_ Lords of Deliverance Series_ - Larissa Ione [97]
Gormesh stiffened, baring his teeth. “You have just made an enemy you didn’t need, Fallen.”
“I’ll add you to the list,” she said. “Now leave.”
“You still owe me.”
“And I have a year to pay. So get the fuck out.”
His eyes went flat, and for a moment, she thought he was going to attack. When he spun around and stormed out of the house, she sagged with relief. In a battle, she had the advantage, but as a mage, he had some nasty tricks up his sleeve, and winning wouldn’t be easy… or without a lot of pain.
“Whine,” she said softly, “fetch me some marrow wine.”
“For the angel?”
“No, for me.” Tomorrow she’d go back to dealing with Reaver. TonighReal?t she was forgetting him.
Death. Destruction. It tugged at Thanatos with sharp, hooklike claws.
Eidolon had healed him, but Than had been delirious with pain, and it had taken Wraith, Ares, and a vampire named Con to hold him down. In his delirium, he’d released his souls, and had it not been for an ex-angel named Idess who could communicate with them, the casualties might have been staggering.
The second Than was healed, he’d gotten the hell out of Underworld General, the demon side of him clamoring for a deadly rampage. Instead, he’d gone home.
Where Regan was.
The Guardian had been running around his keep in tight leggings and cropped sweatshirts, her flat, rippled stomach, tight ass, and multitude of sexy battle scars driving him nuts. She’d taken over his library, her neat stacks of notes invading his space. And she flipped the fuck out if he moved them.
So at least once per day, he knocked a page or two off their stacks.
Her frustrated curses amused him.
Right now, though, he was not amused.
As he strode into the great room, Artur met him, his expression uncharacteristically strained. “Milord. It was the Aegi.”
“What was the Aegi?”
“The dead succubus. You said to allow them in…” The vampire was practically wringing his hands, and yes, Than had said succubi were to be admitted. Pestilence kept sending them to seduce him, so Than wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to interrogate them about his movements, his intentions, his locations… and then kill them himself.
But no one else was allowed to kill in his house. Not when death made him crazy. His home was his sanctuary.
“Where is she?” He swiped his fingers over his throat and got rid of his armor, leaving him in nylon jogging pants and a T-shirt.
“The gym, sir.”
He stalked to the gym, violence still scratching at the surface of his mind. Going to see Regan wasn’t the smartest idea right now, but his brain was still operating on a primal level, and logical thought hadn’t caught up.
Regan was on the floor mat, going through a martial arts routine and kicking the stuffing out of one of the training dummies. Her tan skin, marked by scars on her arms, stomach, and back, glistened with a fine sheen of sweat. The scent of blood was thick in the air, another lash to his self-control.
“Are you injured?” He was at the mat before the question was fully formed.
She leaped, spun, and instead of nailing the dummy in the head, she hit him in the chest, knocking him into the treadmill. “Does that answer your question?”
With a roar, he came at her, and though she danced out of the way with more grace than he’d anticipated, he managed to catch her arm and flip her. Again she surprised him, landing on her feet and then hopping immediately into another spin kick. But this time he was ready, and he laid her out with a sweeping kick of his own that caught her behind the knee. She hit the mat hard, and when his instinct screamed at him to kill her while she was down, he gnashed his teeth and stood his ground, allowing her to roll and pop to her feet.
“Nice to see you too, Horseman.” She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand… a hand sporting bloodied knuckles. “Are we sparring, or are you really trying to kill me?”
“Now,” he growled, “would normally be the time when I warn you to get away from me and lock yourself in a room. But I want to know what happened