A cruel smile curves up the side of Thanatos’s mouth, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Ah, how I’ve longed to see that battle-hardened look of yours. My fierce kismet, what have you done with the soul I was to collect?”
“Does it matter?” I say. “It’s not him you want.”
Death’s eyes burn as they look at me. “Lazarus,” His voice is stripped of all pretense, “it was his time.”
My throat works. So the horseman does know my son still lives.
“Your brothers didn’t feel the same way,” I say. “They made me the deal that you would not.”
Thanatos is quiet for a long moment.
“What did they bargain for?” he eventually asks. He voice holds a note of—something. I can’t place what.
I’m quiet.
Death’s jaw clenches. “For all they claim to love humanity, they wouldn’t just save a child slated to die. What did they ask for?” he demands.
I gaze at him for a long moment, and then, very deliberately, I drop my blade.
“I give up,” I say. “I will go with you—wherever you want.”
For a long moment Thanatos just stares at me, and I swear those deep, dark eyes see everything. Eventually, that gaze fills with heated triumph.
Death takes a single step forward, then another, and another, his silver armor clinking with the movement.
He reaches a hand to his shoulder, and piece by piece he removes that armor as he cuts across the field. His gaze remains fixed on mine the entire time.
He casts the last of his metal trappings aside right as he steps up to me.
I gaze up at him, feeling both fearful and laid bare.
He cups my cheek. “I’ve searched for you for a very long time,” Death says, his voice lethally soft. His eyes blaze. “I don’t intend to let you go.”
I swallow.
Cannot believe I’m doing this.
His gaze drops to my lips, just as they have many times before. But now he leans down, his mouth a hairsbreadth from mine.
“Now’s your last chance to run, Lazarus.”
I don’t run. I don’t retreat at all, my gaze transfixed to those expressive lips of his.
His eyes flick to mine and for the briefest of moments he smiles, looking both victorious and wicked. Then his mouth claims mine.
The shock of his kiss has me stumbling back, but Thanatos’s arm is there, first steadying me, then drawing me as close to him as he can, his fingers pressing into the small of my back.
His mouth moves against mine, and though I’ve kissed a dozen men and Death has likely kissed no one at all, the two of us feel evenly matched, his fire pitted against mine.
That’s about the moment I realize I am, in fact, kissing him back. I’m angry and terrified and lost, and my lips are doing battle with his more than anything else. But still. I am kissing him.
He smiles against my mouth, like he’s collecting this little victory, too. I feel that grin straight to my core.
Death bends just the slightest bit, so he can slip his arm behind my knees. A moment later he scoops me up, cradling my body against his.
I don’t see his wings spread wide, but I do feel his arms tighten around me.
And then Thanatos makes good on his long-held threat.
He takes me away.
Part II
Chapter 38
Orange, Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I grip Thanatos tightly as we rise higher and higher, my heart hammering in my chest.
I’ve given up and given in, and yet I still can’t banish the dread at being in Death’s arms. Everything about him was made to end lives, and this close to him I can feel the wrongness of my continued existence.
Not to mention that the last time he held me like this, he dropped me. And okay, that only happened after I stabbed him, but still, the thought seizes me up.
“You’re not going to let me fall again, are you?” I ask, my voice hushed.
His mouth brushes my ear, his breath warm and his voice low like a lover’s when he says, “Not on my life, Lazarus. That is behind us.”
Does he realize there’s sex in his voice? His words practically drip with it, and my body seems to awaken—my stomach fluttering and my core heating.
We fly for hours, my body clasped tight in Death’s arms. I assumed that even this all-powerful horseman would get fatigued trying to stay airborne while holding a full-grown woman, but I should’ve known better. The being that can kill off a city’s population in an instant is more than capable of whisking away one measly human.
All the while, I’m burning with questions for the horseman: Where is your horse? Where are you taking me? What happens now?