3 Lethal Rider-Lords Of Deliverance by Larissa Ione Read Free Book Online Page B

powered out of it, found a distraction, or found a ritual to ease her mind.
    Right now, her ritual was to breathe, but it would only work temporarily. The moment she stopped counting, the panic would resurface, and a newer, worse thought would pop into her head, something completely out there, like if she didn’t bounce a ball five times in a row, the baby could die.
    Her struggle with OCD had been lifelong, and hers hadn’t been a typical case at all. Doctors had never been able to get a handle on it, not only because her symptoms and behavior had been all over the place, but because she couldn’t take any of the common medications used to treat it. Hell, she couldn’t take any medications at all. Even before the pregnancy, she’d always had bizarre reactions to even mild over-the-counter meds, like aspirin.
    Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
    Think of a way to get out of here
.
    Inhale. Exhale.
    Cell phone! Standing, she shoved her hands into her pants pockets. Nothing. It must have fallen out of her pocket when Thanatos picked her up like a caveman hauling off his kill to his lair.
    Inhale. Exhale.
    He’d also gotten the one weapon she could have used against him when he knocked the dagger out of her hand.
    Inhale. Exhale.
    What she wouldn’t give for that bit of parchment on her nightstand.
    The door opened, and there was no more inhaling or exhaling. Her breath jammed in her lungs as Thanatos strode into the room, his expression stormy, his body taut as a bowstring.
    “You have some explaining to do.” His voice was like rolling thunder.
    As he slammed the door shut in Ares’s face, she played nonchalant, when really, inside she was preparing for a possible EF-5 tornado.
    “How about you start with the explanations?” she countered. “Like, how did you find me? Aegis Headquarters has always been kept secret, even from you guys.”
    He must have been grinding his teeth together something fierce, because the muscles in his jaws were leaping. “I sensed something that led me there.” His eyes flicked down to her belly. “It was him.”
    She frowned. “You don’t know it’s a boy.”
    “You called him Ponyboy. But even if you hadn’t, I knew. I can feel him.”
    Okay, she did not like that Thanatos had a stronger connection to her baby than she did. She’d read to the baby at night, played music for him, told him about the wonders—and dangers—of the world he was going to grow up in. How could Thanatos know the baby for five minutes and
feel
him?
    On the other hand, maybe it was a good thing. If he could sense the child’s life force, maybe he’d let them live. The baby gave her another one of those killer kicks, and she sucked air. Like earlier in the cell, Than moved forward, but this time, he stopped shy of touching her.
    “It was just a kick,” she muttered. “I think he might have hooves instead of feet.”
    His voice was as sharp as a stang blade. “Don’t even joke about that.”
    “I wasn’t.” Well, she sort of wasn’t. She hoped the kid wouldn’t have hooves, but given that Thanatos’s mother was a demon, and Regan’s father had been … not a demon, exactly, but… yeah. Who knew what kinds of things could go wonky in the little colt’s DNA?
    Thanatos stepped back, his boot hitting the floor like a thunderclap. “Why did you do it? And don’t lie to me, Regan. Ares told me you intended to seduce me in order to get pregnant. Why? And why not be upfront about it when you first came to me?”
    Damn Ares. This whole thing had gotten so messed up and out of hand. “Because we found evidence that suggested that a child born of a Horseman and an Aegi could stop the Apocalypse, and it indicated that you couldn’t know about the baby.”
    Thanatos narrowed his eyes until they were slits. “What kind of evidence?”
    “The manufactured kind,” she admitted. “We learned later that your scumbag brother planted it. Now we know he did it so we’d be fooled into thinking we needed