My attention returns to the dishes in front of me. I wish I had no appetite. I wish what Thanatos just admitted would make some sort of difference, but the truth is, I haven’t eaten much in the last several days, and right now, I’m willing to try corpse-made food.
“Is it going to taste normal?” I ask.
“I expect that it will taste exactly like food made by the living,” Thanatos says.
I let out a shaky breath.
Alright. I’m doing it.
I reach for the pasta first and place a little on my plate. After a second’s hesitation, I add a little to Death’s plate as well.
“What are you doing?” His curious eyes are fixed on me.
“Serving you,” I state. “You’re the one, after all, who invited me to your ‘victory dinner’。”
His eyes are hard, but he still somehow looks wickedly pleased, though I imagine it has more to do with the idea of this victory dinner than the actual food itself.
I end up putting a little of everything on both of our plates while the horseman leans back in his seat, watching me with a devious, calculating expression.
Once I’m done, I sit back down in my chair and survey the table. “So this is what mighty Thanatos is using his dark powers for—getting revenants to cook for him,” I say.
He gives me a dark smile. “Would you prefer I simply let the dead sack cities and kill the living?” he asks. “War made quite a name for himself doing just that.”
I feel my eyes widen with shock. The War I know—and I admit I don’t know him all that well—seems like a reasonable man, even if he did throw me under a horse cart by forcing me to agree to this situation. He definitely doesn’t seem like someone who’d do something so … gruesome and perverse.
“You didn’t know,” Death states, reading my expression. “I assure you, every one of my brothers has killed entire regions of the world. And unlike me, most of their actions were cruel and full of suffering.”
I search Thanatos’s face, looking for the lie. Instead I find an unsettling truth.
And I sent Ben with them.
“Is my son okay?”
Death’s brows pull together at the change of subject. Or maybe he’s simply confused by my question.
“He’s alive,” he states. “And healthy. I can sense no more than that.”
My body falls back heavily against my chair. Ben is not dying. Whether or not he’s okay is another matter entirely.
I force away my fears. I have met these men, and I learned their motives. Perhaps they were once monstrous, but I have to trust that they aren’t any longer. They have humanity’s best interests in mind. If they didn’t, they would’ve let my son die and Death and I continue on as enemies.
Despite my own reassurances I still have to take a few steadying breaths.
Thanatos studies my expression, and I swear he’s noticing every little tick as though they were words on a page.
“Where are my brothers taking your son?” Thanatos eventually asks.
In response, I press my lips together.
Death continues to study my features. “Do you think I want to hurt him? That I seek to cause you pain? I seek to cause no one pain. I am the end of it, kismet.”
He has yet to realize that you don’t have to cut someone to make them bleed. Take away the most precious thing they have, and they will suffer.
Death settles back in his chair. “So, my brothers scheme. I cannot fathom what it is they hope to gain by having you surrender to me.”
War’s words ring out in my head.
Seduce Death.
I keep my thoughts to myself. But then the seconds stretch on, and the only thing punctuating them is a distant shuffling sound that must be Death’s skeletal servants. The entire time, the horseman stares at me.
“It’s rude to stare,” I eventually say.
“I don’t care about your silly human taboos,” he replies. And he continues staring. And staring.
I want to look everywhere but him, but if he’s not going to follow social etiquette, then fuck it, neither am I. So … I decide to look my fill.
Almost instantly, I realize my mistake. He’s utterly perfect. Like something crafted out of my deepest yearnings. That black hair is beckoning me to run my fingers through it, and those sad, solemn eyes are begging for connection that only I can give. And those lips … how I ache to taste them again.
The longer I look, the more my blood seems to heat. I can’t help it. I’m not made to withstand men this pretty.
But it’s not just his beauty. My attention returns to those ancient eyes, which hold all sorts of secrets. The longer I look, the more I seem to fall into their depths. And the longer he looks at me, the more heated his gaze becomes. Fuck me, but my pulse is hammering away and this cavernous dining room suddenly feels too small.