“That’s not why I stopped us, kismet,” Death says, swinging himself off the horse. He lands with a heavy thunk.
Turning back to me, he reaches to help me off his horse.
I stare down at his hands but don’t make a move to get off his mount. “Then why have we stopped?” I ask.
He gives me a funny look, like it should be obvious. “I made the mistake last night of waiting too long to search for a house. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
A house. Right. Death has got it in his head that I need to be pampered with the most lavish houses, though for him that means choosing places that are sometimes far from the highways he travels. And once we’re there, we’ll stay for days. I can already feel the horseman’s sweat-slicked body gliding against mine as he thrusts into me, and I can picture the exact way his wings will loom over us, closing out the outside world.
My blood rushes through my veins just thinking about it. I want that so badly. So, so badly.
But there’s another warring desire that keeps me firmly seated in the saddle—Ben. Right now I have this itchy, pressing need to get to him as quickly as I can, even if that means robbing the cities en route of a few extra days of life.
“Lazarus?” Death is still reaching for me, still waiting.
I stare down at one of his armor-clad forearms. A procession of mourners is hammered into the silver metal; I follow the line of those mourners, the design continuing up his vambrace and onto his breastplate.
My gaze moves up to his. “Let’s not stop.”
A line forms between his brows, and he frowns. “But you need rest.” And I don’t want you to think me a monster. I can almost hear those unspoken words of his.
“When night falls,” I say, “we can rest off to the side of the road.”
“No.” There’s iron in his voice.
I still don’t leave the saddle.
“I don’t need fancy houses,” I say. “I just need—you.” That last part slips out.
“Kismet,” he finally says. The word is full of so much breathless hope. His strange, lovely eyes search mine. “I have yearned to hear you say such things. And I have long feared I never would.” His attention drops to my lips, and I can feel his desire to steal a kiss—and more.
The horseman’s gaze returns to my eyes. “I can deny you precious little.” He works his jaw. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll grant you this wish—for now. Tonight, it will be just you and me and the world before us.”
Chapter 53
Harper, Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
When we do eventually stop, it is truly out in the middle of nowhere. The land is a patchwork of wild elm trees and grassy expanses and little else.
“You are sure you don’t want to stay inside a house?” Thanatos asks for the twentieth time. The setting sun is casting him in the softest light, and it’s tempering all his hard edges.
“This is fine,” I insist, trying to ignore what the sight of him is doing to me.
He frowns like he doesn’t believe me.
Death unfastens his breastplate, casting it aside. I can see in his starlight eyes that he relishes unburdening himself of it.
Like taking off a bra at the end of the day.
A big-ass, metal bra.
My gaze returns to the breastplate as he works on removing the rest of his armor. On a whim, I move over to the discarded piece of metal, kneeling down next to it so I can study the images hammered into it. There are roses and gravestones and skeletons and a boat drawing people onward. There’s what looks like an egg and a snake eating its own tail. There are crescent moons and spirals, and right over the heart is that image of the woman caught in a skeleton’s embrace.
I run my fingers over the strange and seemingly unrelated images. The longer I stare, the more I find, and I’m so confused by it all.
“What are all these designs?” I say. I’ve seen similar detailing on Death’s saddle.
The horseman tosses aside another piece of armor.
“They’re chthonic images.”
I stare at him blankly.
“Images of death,” he says.
“They don’t all look like death.” Skeletons and graves aside. “There’s an egg on here,” I say.
“That’s the cosmic egg, from which everything was born.”
I frown, staring at the image. “Did everything start from an egg?”
“They are human symbols, kismet, not heavenly ones,” he says, removing the last piece of armor and coming over to my side.