Thanatos’s jaw clenches and unclenches, and oh, the terrible irony that he of all people doesn’t like watching me die. When did that become the case?
He gazes down at me, looking on helplessly. “Nothing can be normal with us, can it?” he says.
Death unable to save the undying girl.
I give him a small smile. “Not sure … I’d want it … any … other way.”
Chapter 45
Rosenberg, Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I groan awake in Death’s arms.
“Lazarus.” He sounds relieved.
I move a little, then groan again, flopping back into the horseman’s arms. I feel like I’ve been trampled by a herd of wild horses.
Death’s eyes pinch a little at the sides, and I’m not sure if it’s from tension or humor.
“You protected me,” he says softly. His brows are drawn down in confusion, but his eyes are wondrous.
I took an arrow for him.
I reach for my chest, feeling where the material of my shirt has been frayed open. Beneath it, I can feel the slick blood that still coats my skin, but … the wound has healed over completely.
I heal faster than most humans, but for a mortal wound, it can take many, many hours to heal. I squint up at the sun—it hangs in the same place I last saw it—and Death is still holding me in the embrace he caught me in. My body didn’t mend this injury at all.
My gaze moves to Death’s. “You healed me.”
The horseman is still looking at me like he’s trying to see down to the very depths of my soul. The scrutiny makes me fidgety.
“Of course I healed you, kismet.” Said like he couldn’t imagine otherwise. Like the last two years of violence between us never existed.
I sit up more fully, Death’s wings still wrapped tightly around us. For a moment, the horseman’s hold on me tightens, but after another moment, he releases me.
As I straighten myself in his lap, something sharp pokes my arm. Turning, I take in the bloody arrowhead nestled among Thanatos’s dark feathers. It’s one of nearly a dozen that have punctured the horseman’s wings.
I suck in a sharp breath. “You’re still hurt.”
“It is nothing,” he says, brushing it off entirely.
“It is not nothing,” I say, giving Death a look. He focused all his energy on healing me while ignoring his own wounds.
I push myself onto my feet to get a better look at them.
“What are you doing?” the horseman asks, beginning to rise as well.
I place a hand on his shoulder to keep him sitting. “I’m looking at your injuries.” Lightly I trace around one arrow’s entry point, the surrounding feathers congealed with blood.
“Would you like me to remove these?” I ask.
Thanatos goes still at the offer. Finally, he glances over his shoulder at me. “Is that an honest offer?”
I hold his gaze. He’s so used to my tricks and the pain I inflict, that I can tell this throws him.
Slowly, I nod. “It is.”
Thanatos stares at me for a bit longer, then faces forward, draping his arms over his knees.
“Then yes,” he says. “I’d … like that.”
He stays still, his face turned away from me. I continue to study the arrows piercing his wings, feeling around them a little before I start. Death’s feathers make his wings look thicker than they really are, but the flesh itself is no more than a thin membrane.
Since that is the case, the easiest thing would simply be to pull the arrows all the way through. I grab the first arrowhead. Something about my grip has Death’s wings hiking up.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he says, turning his head a little towards me.
Slowly, I pull the arrow out through the hole it made in his skin. He doesn’t react to the sensation, though I can’t imagine it’s pleasant.
“I do, though,” I insist, giving the projectile one final tug to force the back end of it through. “I wouldn’t be pulling arrows out of you if you hadn’t agreed to my plan.”
It’s quiet for a few long seconds.
“You have an exceptional heart, Lazarus,” he finally says. “You shouldn’t apologize for it.”
I stare at the back of Death’s head, swallowing down the strange mixture of emotions rising in me. I see the best in humans, and he sees the best in me, and I’m not sure whether we’re both fools for it.
It’s intimate work, removing the arrows. Death’s wings jerk when I jostle the projectiles, so I’ve taken to smoothing my hand over his feathers. More than once I’ve heard the horseman sigh out a breath; he hasn’t said it, but I think those touches are soothing to him.
“What is it like, having wings?” I ask as I lift one to get at a trickier arrow. I watch in fascination as Death’s primary feathers splay out.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he says. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
I pull the arrow out as fast as I dare, making sure to keep my hand steady, even when his flesh catches on the projectile’s fletching.
It grows quiet again as I concentrate on my work, my hands slick with the horseman’s blood. I’m down to the final wound.
“Why did you do it?” Thanatos asks out of the blue.
“Do what?” I ask distractedly.
“You jumped in front of an arrow meant for me.”
Now I pause. Death is looking straight ahead, but I can sense his entire focus is on me.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
“Why?”
Because this is only supposed to be one-sided.
I pull this last arrow out a little too harshly.
“Because I don’t,” I say, tossing the projectile aside. A pile of bloody arrows now litter the road. “I’m all done.”
Thanatos stands, opening and closing his wings as though to test them. He turns to face me, and I can practically feel his dark power pressing down on me.
“Remember our game last night?” he says. “Tell me your unguarded truths.”
“That was your game,” I tell him, “and we’re not playing it anymore.”
Death takes a step closer to me, his blood dripping from his wings. “Why did you take an arrow meant for me?” he asks again. “You know I can’t die.”
“I can’t either,” I bite back.
“Lazarus.” He says my name like he’s calling to my very essence.
I sigh. I’m too weak to bicker and too tired to care anymore. The world is ending. What do my feelings matter?
“I don’t know,” I say. “Truly, I don’t. I saw that arrow coming and all I knew was that I’d rather get hurt than watch you suffer.”
Thanatos rears back a little, his eyes scouring my face, presumably to look for the lie. When he doesn’t find it, he looks … he looks very pleased by my words, though I’m more than a little uneasy.
Traveling with Death—seducing Death—was never supposed to be about me or my complicated feelings. But I’m afraid that despite everything, I do care for this monstrous man.
As we ride through the city of Rosenberg, my eyes sweep over the carnage. A few bodies lie out in the open, and overhead, carrion-eaters are already beginning to circle.
My grandiose plan has blown away like dust in the wind. In fact, I’m not sure it could’ve backfired more spectacularly than how it did.
It’s not until the sun is setting that Death stops his horse out of the blue. He swings off the steed without any sort of explanation, hopping to the ground.
When he begins to walk away from me, I feel an unwelcome sense of abandonment.
“Where are you going?” I call out.
He turns around, though he continues to back away. “Miss me already, kismet?” he says, a curving smile on his lips.
I frown at that smile, even as my stomach flips in the most off-putting way.
First I took an arrow for him, now this.
Befor
e I can answer, Death’s expression turns serious, his eyes intense. “Nothing in this world could part me from you for long.”
It sounds like a vow, and I think it’s supposed to be reassuring. And my stomach is definitely not supposed to do that stupid flip thing all over again.
Thanatos’s wings spread wide, and he looks as though he’s getting ready to fly off, but then he pauses.
His gaze finds mine. “Would you like to join me, Laz?”
“Where?” I ask skeptically. “In the sky?”
He inclines his head.
No, I wouldn’t. I distinctly hate flying and the horseman and—
I’m off his horse before I can complete the thought.
I cross over to where he stands in the middle of the highway, nothing but fields stretching out on either side of us.
Death stretches out a hand. Ignoring it, I step into him, my arms going around his neck. I tell myself I’m doing this all for Ben and humanity, but then Death smiles at me, and now the lightness in my stomach is back.
The horseman’s massive arms wrap around me.
“Please don’t drop me,” I say softly.
A muscle in his jaw jumps. “Never again,” he vows.
Then, as he stares down at me, another slow, delicious smile spreads across his face, even as something softer enters those glittering eyes of his.
“First you protected me, and now you come to me of your own free will.”
He’s now noticing the same awful pattern I am—I’m going soft.
Death leans in. “I will make sure you don’t regret it.”
With that, he wraps one of my legs around his waist, then the other. My pelvis is pressed against his lower abdomen, and with my arms wrapped around his neck and my face mere inches from his, this feels intimate. Very, very intimate.
That feeling only increases when Death’s arms come around me again, bracing me against him.
“Hold on, Lazarus,” he breathes, gazing down at me.
His wings spread wide, then with a leap, we’re rising into the air. The pound of the horseman’s wings is almost violent, and yet it’s like the two of us are in the eye of the storm.
I stare up at Thanatos as we rise. I drink in that ancient face as the wind stirs his hair, my eyes lingering on his beguiling lips and sharp cheekbones. For once his own gaze isn’t fixed on me. Instead, it roves over the land around us.
“What are you searching for?” I ask.
“A home fit for a queen,” he responds, his eyes still scanning the landscape.
I continue to stare at him, feeling like even though I’m soaring, I’m also in freefall. I lean forward and press a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw. I know I’m immune to death, and yet somehow I’m sure I’m not going to survive this.
After a small eternity in the air, we descend towards an unremarkable patch of land. I see green grass and trees nestled close together and some dirt roads that this far away look crudely carved into the earth. It’s only as my eyes follow that dirt road that I realize Thanatos did find another house, one just as palatial as the last.
The ground grows closer and closer, and I can make out a soft knoll that gives way to a muddy pond, and a tiny chapel built off to the side of the house. Lastly, my eyes land on the hacienda-style house with terracotta-colored walls and a red-tiled roof.
Death lands in front of it with me in his arms. I’m reluctant to let go of him, though I tell myself it’s just because my arms are stiff from holding on for so long.
Giving me an indulgent look, the horseman releases me.
The sun is low on the horizon, and already, the lampposts set around the property have been lit. Someone had to light each one manually, which means that either the people who live here are still alive … or Death has just killed them.
I shiver at the thought.
“Cold?” Thanatos asks.
I shake my head, even as I wrap my arms around myself. I begin to walk around the house, my eyes catching on the painted tiles that border each window.
“This is where we’re staying?” I ask over my shoulder.
“Mmm,” Death murmurs, which I take for a yes.
I run a hand along the wall, only moving away when I notice the large, prickly cactus plants growing up ahead.
“I wouldn’t go back there if I were you,” Death calls out to me.
To the back of the house?
“Why—?” The word dies on my tongue as I catch sight of movement up ahead.
People are making their way out of the house and towards the trees that surround the property. No one speaks, no one interacts with each other, all of them just robotically march in the same direction.
Just like Death’s skeletons.
A shiver wracks my body.
“Lazarus.” The horseman’s voice holds a world of meaning in it. “Look away.”
“Why?” I say, transfixed by the sight ahead of me. “You’ve never given me the luxury before.”
The ground gives a violent shake, and I barely catch myself from falling. Far in the distance, I hear a deep groan come from the earth itself.
Two hundred feet ahead of me the soil rips open, gaping like the maw of some primeval monster. The group of people I’m watching all seem to be headed straight for that rift in the earth. The first person steps into it, their body slipping from view.
I suck in my scream, even as another person calmly steps off the ledge of soil and into that hole, falling from view. One by one, this property’s former inhabitants do this until every last one of them is gone.
The earth trembles once more and with another rumble the rift seals itself back up.
I stand there for several seconds more, just staring.
“You shouldn’t have looked,” Death says from behind me.
I make a small noise—my horror nearly palpable.
“They were already dead,” he continues.
Like that makes any sort of difference.
Thanatos comes to my side, studying my face. Whatever he sees causes a spark of panic to flare in his eyes.
The land quakes once more, and prickly cacti begin to rise around the perimeter of the property, sealing me and Death inside.
“Why did you do that?” My voice comes out whisper soft.
“I see your fear,” he says. “I won’t let you escape.”
I feel like we’re right back where we started. How do I stop this man? How do I not lose myself or my integrity in the process? I haven’t figured any of it out, and I don’t see how I’m going to. The other horsemen were wrong. There’s no overcoming all the bad blood between us.
I tilt my head. “Would you take me too?” I ask. “If I were to become truly mortal?”
Thanatos’s wings open and resettle. “It does not matter. You are not mort—”
“Would you?” I insist.
He falls quiet, the two of us squared off against one another. Finally, he says, “Lazarus, I wouldn’t have a choice. One brush of my skin—”
“I don’t care about that,” I say. “Would you intentionally kill me if you could, even now?”
He stares at me, those strange and lovely eyes of his particularly tragic.
“Yes, Lazarus, if I could, I would. I must.”
I don’t know why that hurts, but it does. It feels like a knife to my chest.
I look around at the property, then up at the stars, blinking, blinking.
“Kismet, it doesn’t matter—”
My gaze snaps back to him. “You know it matters,” I say. This is the same man who refused Famine his mortality because the Reaper had the wrong motives.
Death flinches at my words. He must see me retreating emotionally because he closes the distance between us, reaching out for me.
“Do not touch me,” I warn him.
Death’s eyes gleam and his wings widen a little behind him in what feels like a weird dominance display—if I knew shit about birds.
“Or what, Lazarus?” he says, his voice unn
ervingly calm. He takes a step into my space.
“Perhaps we should flip your question around: What would you do, kismet, if you could truly kill me for good?” he demands. “Imagine if my death could cause all of humanity to go back to the way it was, and you could be reunited with your son once more. Would you do it? Would you kill me?”
In an instant I would, God help me.
I glare at him, my jaw tightening.
Thanatos sees my answer written on my face. I know he does.
“Stop pretending we are normal,” he says. “We are not. There is no one like us. I cannot kill you and you cannot kill me. We’ve tried that. It hasn’t worked. So let’s try something else.”
With that, he closes the last of the space between us and kisses me savagely.
Chapter 46
Hallettsville, Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I said I didn’t want him to touch me, but I’m a liar. This is the only truth I know in the mess of our relationship.
I fall into the kiss, my arms snaking under the horseman’s, my fingers brushing against the base of his wings.
He groans at the touch, pulling me tighter against him.
Stop pretending we’re normal. We are not.
I think I needed that reassurance. I needed to be dug up from all of the assumptions of right and wrong that I’ve held my entire life.
While my lips glide against his, he bends. One of his arms slips under my knees, and never breaking off the kiss, he lifts me into his arms. He begins to move, and distantly I’m aware that he’s heading for the house.
I’m only pulled from the kiss when Thanatos makes it to the front door. He lifts a leg and—
Crack, he kicks the door in, the wood ripping from the hinges.
I jolt at the sound, tearing my lips away. With a firm hand, Death turns my head towards him and reclaims my mouth.
Thanatos crosses the threshold, his footfalls echoing through the house as he resumes striding forward, still holding me close. I’m distracted by the kiss, but not so distracted that I fail to notice when we enter a bedroom, a massive bed on display. My stomach tumbles at the sight, even as my pulse pounds.
I’ve been so focused on seducing Death, that I never really gave much thought to him seducing me. But it’s clear enough that’s where things are headed.
Death (The Four Horsemen Book 4) Page 25