“Of course,” I say, letting his hand go so that I can sink into the bath.
Ahhh. This is divine.
I think it’s my ease that finally convinces the horseman to get in—that or my boobs, since they’re basically waving to him.
Thanatos steps into the water, doing his best to sit down across from me. He glances over his shoulder at his wings, which do in fact drape over the edge of the basin. “I clearly wasn’t designed with bathtubs in mind.”
He really wasn’t designed for human life in general—not with those wings.
The horseman settles back as best as he can. “What now?” he asks.
“Now you enjoy it. I mean, if this was a cold bath, you’d grab a bar of soap and scrub yourself as fast as you could. But hot baths you soak in.”
Death sits there gazing at the water, a frown tugging at the corners of his lips, as though he doesn’t know how to just idly sit and enjoy something.
On a whim, I move over to him, slipping onto his lap and straddling his thighs, his cock trapped between us. Beneath me, I can feel it thickening.
His hands slide around my waist, and I can see the want in his gaze, but he doesn’t press me for any sort of intimacy. To be honest, the horseman probably has no idea how much sex is too much for a mortal to take. Death really doesn’t have limits.
The thought of sheathing myself on him has my core aching despite the fact that I am sore. Instead of acting on the impulse, I slide my hands over the horseman’s arms, touching his countless markings. My eyes keep coming back to them, these glowing glyphs that cover almost the entirety of his body. They start low on his neck and drip down his arms and torso, only tapering off near his hands and ankles.
“What are these?” I ask, tracing one. My finger tingles a little as I make the shape.
Death gazes down at me, his eyes intense. “They are my most innate language—Angelic.”
“Angelic,” I echo, staring at them. I think I understood that from the very first time I saw them, and yet I hadn’t actually considered what that meant.
My fingers move from his arms to his chest. “What do they say?”
“Many things, kismet, but mostly, they speak of creation … and destruction.”
A shiver races through me. There’s so much writing—his entire body is painted with it. The glow from all of them is making the bathwater luminous.
“Can you read me some of them?”
He stares at me. “These words are not for human ears.”
Go figure. I trace a particularly unusual one.
“However,” he continues, “you are not quite human either, are you, Lazarus?”
My eyes snap to his. Death stares at me with such naked longing. We’ve tasted and touched each other—there should be nothing left to long for. But it’s there, in his eyes.
He holds my gaze. “Inwapiv vip jurutav pua, uwa epru juriv petda og ruvawup keparip pufip hute. Ojatev uetip gurajaturwa, oraponao uetip hijaurwa. Reparu pue peyudirwit petwonuv, uwa worjurwa eprao fogirwa. Uje urap haraop pirgip.”
I close my eyes, my fingers digging into Death’s skin as he speaks. I begin to tremble because I feel those words, though I don’t understand them, and I swear they’re strangling me from the inside out even though I can also sense their sanctity.
Death translates. “I am the last of my kind, and I bring with me every manner of malady to plague humankind. Their fields shall blacken, their creatures shall flee. Mortals will quake before my name and all will fall to my touch. For I will end the world.”
When I open my eyes, I see the horseman for what he is—death. And I feel that stillness around us, the one that I have gotten so used to since being with him, and I once again smell the scent of frankincense and myrrh, even though the water should’ve rinsed most of it away.
“Yes, you understand, don’t you?” he says quietly. “I am no man.”
I swallow. “Tell me something else,” I say softly.
His eyes flick to mine. “You want to know more?” he says.
“I want to know everything about you,” I admit. And it’s the truth, even if it’s an echo of Death’s own words.
I want to learn about him the same way he wants to learn about me.
Thanatos’s eyes gleam. I think he’s actually moved by my answer.
After a moment, he says, “Ask, and I will answer as best I can.”
I’m supposed to pick a question? I don’t even know where to begin.
I settle for, “Why me?”
He scrutinizes me. “You mean, why, out of the millions of people alive, are you the one who is here, at my side?”