All the while, I’m burning with questions for the horseman: Where is your horse? Where are you taking me? What happens now?
Most of all, I want to ask him whether he left my son alone once he realized Ben was healed. But I’m terrified of drawing the horseman’s attention back to Ben in case my son is alright. I can’t imagine Death likes being robbed a soul.
I focus my attention on the world below me, just to distract myself. It’s hard to see much with my hair whipping about and the wind stinging my eyes, but I do catch some glimpses. Mostly the land is a patchwork of fields with a few houses speckled like freckles across a face. Every so often, however, I see cities—or, in some grim cases, the remains of them. The latter look like a gray smudge on the landscape, the buildings torn down, the roads covered with debris. I bet if I looked hard enough, I’d see bodies too. I don’t bother.
These are the places Death has claimed.
And now he’s claiming you.
At some point I sense us lowering. Beneath us is a massive city, one that Death has already destroyed. We pass mile after mile of leveled buildings. I spot certain bits of topography—the curve of a residential street, the blue sheen of a pool, the spire of a church—but everything else is nearly unrecognizable.
Why is Death bringing me here?
Because we are still lowering.
Almost begrudgingly the broken buildings give way to wider and wider stretches of greenery. Unlike the city behind us, the few structures I spot in this area are intact. I don’t have time to wonder why that is before manicured yards are blurring by beneath our feet.
With a final whoosh, we land in one of these yards. Death takes a few final strides forward before his wings snap shut behind him.
All around us is brilliant green lawn. My eyes move up, past the verdant gardens and towards the massive mansion that sits proudly before us. It gleams bright as a diamond and appears extraordinarily out of place amongst all the death and destruction we just flew over.
Almost reluctantly, Death sets me down. I take a few stumbling steps forward, feeling like a colt trying to find their balance for the first time.
I glance over at Death, his black wings looking like a cape at his back. Without his armor, there’s something vulnerable about him. Or maybe it’s simply that he doesn’t look ready to do battle.
I draw in a deep breath, realizing that it’s all coming back to me. That year of fighting him, studying him, trying to figure out what his weaknesses were. I’m falling right back into it, as though my time with Ben were merely a dream, and this, my reality.
The ground beneath my feet trembles, interrupting my thoughts. Then, all around the vast perimeter of the house, monstrous, thorned plants rise, growing and twisting until they create a massive, living wall.
“That looks painfully familiar,” I say.
Death is all cold, hard edges as he stares at me. How had I thought there was something vulnerable about him?
“I told you, I’m not letting you go again.”
“I’m not planning on running.”
“Ah, yes, because you have a deal to uphold.”
The two of us gaze at each other for several seconds. We have so much baggage between us. Literally, cities’ worth.
“You hid from me for half a year,” he says.
My brows pull together ever so slightly. I think that fact actually upsets him. Even though it meant that he could rampage towns without having to worry about facing me. And yet what did he do? He hunted me down like an animal.
It hits me then.
Death spent all that time searching for me instead of wiping out new parts of the United States.
For the first time since I made a deal with Death’s brothers I suddenly see the situation with clarity. I have altered Thanatos’s motives.
“You stopped chasing me,” he adds, accusation threading his voice.
“I had to,” I say. “You would’ve killed my son if I didn’t.”
“Your son,” he repeats, and I can hear the question in his voice. The horseman might not know much about humans, but I think he knows enough to be confused by the timeline here. The last he saw of me, I didn’t look pregnant, but now I have a son, one who is well over a year old.
Now that the topic of Ben has come up, my worries resurface.
“Is my son—is he—is he … ?” Dead? It’s the question I wasn’t supposed to ask, but it came tumbling out anyway.
Thanatos’s eyes are flinty. “No.” He grimaces. “Your son is alive.”
“He’s alive?” My knees want to give out.
I see so much self-loathing on the horseman’s face.
Because he didn’t take my son’s soul, I realize. Death could’ve—and clearly he thinks he should’ve—but he didn’t. Because that soul meant something to me.
I let out a small noise, and then I am closing the distance between us.
Death gives me a confused look, but before he can do more than that, I grab his face. Without thinking twice about it, I press a harsh, grateful kiss to his lips. I can taste his shock.
Thanatos doesn’t have time to react before I’m pulling away.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice hoarse. I still hold his face captive, and we’re still only inches apart, and it’s close enough to see his rising desire. The look wars with his own guilt, but his eyes flick to my lips, and I see a little more of that guilt retreat.
“Thank you,” I say again, drawing his gaze back up to mine.
His jaw clenches, but he nods his head ever so subtly.
I drop my hands and move away. Those walls I’ve built to keep him out, they came down there for a few seconds, but even now I can feel them building themselves back up. I don’t need to put those walls back in place, all things considered, but I can’t help it. Over the last year, they’ve become comfortable.
I take a deep breath. “So,” I say, clearing my throat. “How did you find me and my son in that hospital room?” I ask, trying to bring the conversation back to something civil.
“I sense the living, but I can only see through the eyes of the dead and dying,” Thanatos says. “When your son began dying,”—I flinch at the word—“he invited me in. I peered through his eyes—and that’s when I saw you. I flew as fast as I could, and I believe you know the rest of the story.”
And now that I know my son is safe, I can truly breathe easy. All that’s left now is to navigate this new path I’ve been placed on.
I turn my attention to the house.
An elaborate driveway lined with hedges cut into pleasing shapes leads to the massive home. Pale pink roses climb up a portion of the house and there appears to be more of them enclosed in a nearby garden. Amongst all the foliage there’s an oxidized statue of a boy playing a flute, the calcium deposits along its body suggesting that it was once a fountain, though it doesn’t look to be working at the moment.
A lion’s head is mounted above the entryway and a circular room fitted with a stained glass window rests to one side of the house. And then of course are the other windows, which are so large, they seem to have no end.
I’ve never been anywhere near such a magnificent house.
“Shall I show you inside?” Death says.
That’s when I realize that while I’ve been studying the house, he’s been studying me, watching me with those eyes that see too much.
My attention shifts to him. “We’re staying here?” I ask, just to be sure.
“Does it displease you?” Thanatos responds.
It’s the most breathtaking place I’ve ever seen.
I’m caught in the web of his gaze. I have no idea what he would do if I told him, yes, this place displeases me. Probably drag me inside anyway, the heathen.
But it doesn’t displease me. Not much about this situation displeases me, except for the fact that I’ve been forced to part with Ben, and I have no idea when I’ll see him again. That aside, I am unnerved by how much of me is okay with being dragged away by some anci
ent death deity who’s killing off the world and now wants to shack up with me.
“We’re really going to do this again?” I say, trying to shake the strange, uneasy feeling I have.
“Would you prefer that I travel ceaselessly, forcing you to never stop, never rest?” he asks. “Because I would prefer that.”
“Then why don’t you do that?” I ask.
The horseman’s expression grows solemn—and perhaps a touch fervent. “I want to see the expression your face makes when it’s happy. I don’t know why, but I do. I have seen you angry and hateful and disappointed and sad—so sad—Lazarus. I want to see what stokes the fire in that soul of yours and lights you up from within.”
I have to look away from him. There’s so much blame I place at his feet, it’s hard to see him when his humanity seeps in—and it’s especially so when that kindness is directed at me.
I move away from the horseman, trying to put distance between us. His pretty words are going to take my walls down faster than I can bear to part with them.
As I head up the driveway towards the massive front door, I hear Death behind me and I can feel those ancient eyes taking me in. But he seems content to just watch me do my thing. It’s only as I reach for the doorknob that I wonder about the house’s occupants.
And now I’m not feeling all that eager to barrel inside.
Under my hand, the doorknob turns, but I’m not the one turning it. It slips entirely from my grasp as the door is pulled open.
At first, my mind can’t process what I’m seeing. I mean, I notice the gleaming white bones that seem to be held together by nothing but magic alone, all two-hundred-and-something of them defying the laws of gravity. It takes several more seconds for it to sink in that I’m staring at a skeleton. A moving skeleton.
A yelp escapes from my throat, and before I can think better of it, I’m kicking out at the thing, a primal part of me wanting to see those bones on the ground where they belong.
The skeleton falls—not in pieces, but like how a human would. It’s only once it hits the ground that many of the bones chip apart.
Death makes a tsk-ing noise behind me. “Was that really necessary?” he asks, stepping up to my side.
I turn to him, and for a moment, I feel like a gaping fish, unable to find my voice. “Was having a dead man open the door necessary?” I finally manage to get out.
“It was a woman.” Thanatos says it so reasonably.
A shudder works its way through my whole body when I realize this is it. Everything I was running from I now have to face.
I’m going to be living with a guy who can make skeletons come to life—among other things.
Not just living with him, Lazarus, but fucking him too.
My heart speeds up at the thought, and I feel myself flush, just thinking about it.
Sex with the embodiment of death itself.
I glance over at Thanatos, and that’s a mistake. He’s beautiful, something I can never forget, but holy fuck, I am going to have to bang the hell out of this dude. I should be mad about that. I have every reason to be mad. But I’m not, and that’s somehow even more loathsome.
I move to step inside and put a little space between us.
“Ah ah,” Thanatos says, erasing that space. His hand falls to my hip and a jolt moves through me at the contact.
“What are you doing?” I demand, glancing down between us where his offending hand is placed. It’s not like he hasn’t touched me before, but now I’m thinking about sex and those hands just feel different against my skin—better and more unwelcome.
The hand in question moves to the hilt of one of my daggers.
“Removing your claws,” he replies calmly, pulling the blade out and tossing it aside.
“Is this really necessary?” I object.
I have to grit my teeth together when I hear the scrape of that skeleton pulling itself back together, and then reaching for the weapon. It picks up the blade, then retreats deeper into the house.
“You came to me willingly,” he reminds me.
I can’t argue with that either.
“Where are the owners?” I ask, looking around at the pale marble floors and the vaulted ceilings.
“Freshly dead.”
I blanche.
Death leans in so close that I can see the strange flecks of silver glittering in his eyes. They are unnatural, inhuman irises.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he says. “You have seen me end entire cities. This is nothing.”
“But you’ve never demanded that I eat their food or sleep in their beds,” I bite back.
“No, I never have,” he agrees. “And yet in the last year you have still taken from the dead, haven’t you?” he says softly. “You have picked from their pockets and stolen their food and yes, slept in their beds.”
“That’s different,” I say, trying defend myself. But he’s struck a nerve.
I take a deep breath. “Where are their bodies?” I ask.
“They’re taken care of.”
I frown. “They’re not going to show up like …” I jerk my chin towards where I last saw that skeleton. It’s now nowhere in sight. Somehow, that’s even more disconcerting.
“No,” he says solemnly.
I guess I should at least be thankful that Death didn’t decide to raise the former owners. I think that might’ve been one unpleasant surprise too many.
Thanatos places a hand on my back—that touch is still doing weird things to me—and steers me farther into the home.
I want to weep as I take in the velvet furniture and the pristine white curtains. The floors beyond the entryway are a rich chestnut wood that looks the color of burnt sugar, and they have been polished to a gleam. There’s hand-painted wallpaper that shimmers when the light catches it just right and a curio cabinet full of porcelain dinnerware. It’s another world entirely, one that seems to belong to a time before apocalypses.
“How did you know that skeleton was a woman?” I ask as we move down the hall.
“Hmm?” Death says distractedly.
“The skeleton outside—the one I said was a man. You corrected me on its gender. How did you know it was once a woman?”
He glances down at me. “Kismet, there are many things that I know.”
And I have the uncomfortable urge to learn them all.
“That doesn’t answer the question,” I say.
Thanatos gives me one of his long, drawn-out stares. I’m getting used to them. I mean, I’m never going to be one hundred percent comfortable with the way the horseman takes his time gazing at me, but this is the one part of our relationship that has been consistent—him looking at me for far longer than is socially normal.
“You see bones and nothing more,” he finally says. “I see the afterimage of the soul who wore them.”
Death steers us into one of the rooms, though my focus is still on him.
“So you can see out of the eyes of the dying—and the dead—and you can see the person whose corpse you control?” I say.
These abilities … they’re an intimate, discomfiting aspect of his power.
“You make them sound like two separate things,” Death says, “but it’s all interwoven.”
“If what you say is true, then why do you not understand humans better?” I ask.
I mean, the first time he captured me, he was utterly perplexed at the thought of me needing food and water and a bed.
Thanatos gives me a perplexed look. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that. I guess seeing something is not the same as understanding it or living it.”
I glance away, just for a moment, but my attention snags on our surroundings. While I’ve been fully invested in this conversation, Death has led me to … it seems wrong to call this a bedroom. It’s far too grand. Almost uncomfortably so. The chandelier above us is cut from crystal, and the floor beneath us is covered with a massive rug that looks imported from some far off place. Several gilded vases rest in alcove
s, the windows are framed by heavy drapery and the bed has a matching comforter. The whole room is done up in wine-reds and golds and it’s just as impressive as it is impersonal.
I really have never been in a house this luxurious.
“This is your bedroom,” Death says. He peers around at it before his gaze returns to mine.
“Do you like it?” he asks.
“Does it matter?”
Yes, his eyes seem to say.
It’s shocking to think this powerful, almost omnipotent being might actually feel vulnerable around me.
“I’ve never slept in a room like this,” I say.
He frowns, and I feel the need to clarify.
“This is nicer than any house I’ve ever stayed in.”
I swear I see him relax just a touch.
I leave his side then, crossing the room. The man at my back is making me jumpy, but so is the fine bedroom with its embellishments. I can feel dirt and grime on my skin, and if this bedroom was sentient, I bet it would wrinkle its nose at me in distaste.
I sneak a peek into the closet, curious what I’ll find in there. Women’s clothing fills the space, all of it either neatly hung up or folded on the shelves. The sizes look all over the place, but there are so many outfits it seems to drown out the fact that the sizing is inconsistent.
“That’s yours,” Death says softly.
Wait. What?
I turn around, my eyes wide. “What do you mean, this is mine?”
Thanatos tilts his head down, his eyes looking up at me in a way that looks both shy and scheming. “They are items I thought you might like.”
Clothes he thought … ?
“You mean, they’re not the former owner’s things?”
Thanatos gives his head a soft shake.
If they’re not the owner’s things … then he must have gathered these items from elsewhere and brought them here.
My brows pull together as I study the horseman. Death wears a guarded look; he does not, however, appear embarrassed or possessive, or anything else to indicate that it is in fact weird to fill a closet full of women’s clothing in preparation for the captive you intend to kidnap.
I take in a deep breath as, all at once, it hits me.
He’s trying to care for me, like some sort of good partner. I mocked his first attempt, so now he’s found the biggest house with the nicest things to make up for it.
Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4) Page 19