“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I say, my fingers threading themselves in his silky hair.
He laughs against my flesh, where he trails more kisses down my sternum. “I’m not talking about sex.”
“Then what are you talking about?” I ask, feeling suddenly ill at ease.
Slowly Thanatos’s gaze lifts, and when it settles on my own, I see it in his eyes.
I want your love.
He doesn’t say the words, but he doesn’t have to.
I’m shaking my head, my throat closing up. “I can’t.” I barely get the words out.
He took my family from me. He almost took my son from me. I don’t care that he is Death and it’s his job. I don’t even care that he gets no enjoyment from the act. He has still done it, and he will continue to do it. That’s a hard line for me.
“You can’t what?” he says softly.
He’s going to make me say it.
“I can’t love you.”
For an instant, the horseman looks wounded. Then the expression is gone like it never existed at all.
I see his shoulders rise and fall as he takes in a deep breath. “You can’t or you won’t?”
I hesitate.
Thanatos notices.
“Ah, you won’t.” Triumph flashes in his eyes and his lips curve into a cunning smile. “I’m correct, aren’t I?”
I don’t bother denying it.
“Why are you smiling?” I demand instead.
“It would be one thing if you couldn’t love me—that you were incapable of it,” he says. “But you won’t love me, and that is a choice.”
“Exactly.” I’m choosing not to love him.
Why does he still look so pleased?
He answers as though he heard my thoughts. “I don’t need your mind to change, kismet, simply your heart.”
My pulse is climbing. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Your mind is strong, Laz, but your heart is stronger still. All I need to do is convince your heart that this is real and true, and your mind will follow.”
“I still won’t change my mind,” I say stubbornly. He’s seen how long I can hold onto a cause.
Now his expression is downright wicked. “You and I are immortal. Even if it takes centuries, even if you and I are the last creatures in existence, I vow to you this: I will get you to love me—mind, body, and heart.”
Chapter 54
Interstate 10, Southwestern United States
August, Year 27 of the Horsemen
The days sift away like soil through my fingertips and the road stretches on before us. Some days we don’t leave the home we’ve occupied or the camp we’ve made—sometimes we don’t leave our bed at all. Death might have no appetite for food, but he’s nearly insatiable when it comes to sex. I’m hardly better.
I tell myself I’m buying the world a little extra time—or perhaps, if this mad plan actually works, an end to this apocalypse altogether—but the truth is that I’m just as greedy to give into this desire I’ve ignored for months and months.
However, when we do get back in the saddle and continue on, guilt presses in on me. I’m supposed to be encouraging Death to travel as fast as possible to get to my son. Anything less feels like a betrayal to Ben. But not even that guilt is enough for me to change my ways, especially when every extra hour in the horseman’s arms brings me that much closer to convincing him to stop the killing.
And so Death and I travel at a slow, leisurely pace.
The farther west we head, the more the cities thin out. This part of the country is truly empty. Just miles and miles of harsh desert. It’s a sharp, strange landscape, empty of color save for the lowlying shrubs and the blue sky above me—though even these, too, seem to be muted, as though the sun bleached it all of color.
I long for the verdant land where I grew up.
We still rest in homes if we come across them, but Death has had to give up on his quest to house me in sprawling estates. The truth is, this bone-dry earth is too harsh to make much of a living on. Based on what little evidence I’ve seen, the only steady occupation in these parts comes from the ranchers and cowboys who drive wild herds of cattle across the plains, and they are not living like kings.
Of the houses we do pass, most of them are left over from the time before the horsemen. As the sun begins to set, we stop at one of these abandoned dwellings. It’s a weather-worn, dull thing; the sun has bleached its bones and the home’s well has long since dried up. The inside is full of fine dirt and a couple of frightened lizards.