I pause, breaking away just a little. “What?”
“The smile you gave me while your lips were on mine—and the other thing, the sound you made just a moment ago.”
The moan. Dear lord.
This is all supposed to be happening this way. I’m doing everything right, yet suddenly—
I pull more fully away from him, my breathing labored and my heart racing like mad.
Death’s eyes are hooded when he stares at me, and he might not have any real experience with sex, but it’s clear he’s driven wild with want. That look is all it takes for me to once more feel like a cornered animal.
I slide off his lap, swaying a little on my feet as I gain my footing. I haven’t slept well in several nights, and it’s all catching up to me. The wine doesn’t help either. I back away, even as my body cries out in protest.
Thanatos watches me, the desire in his expression banking until all that’s left is a yearning so deep I can almost feel it. Or maybe that’s my own lonely soul seeking out connection, even though Death is the last person I should find it with.
“Don’t go, Lazarus,” he pleads.
But I do. I flee him then like I have so many times before.
The trouble is, I have a yearning within me that rivals the horseman’s. And I’m not ready to face it—not yet.
But I’ll have to, and soon.
Chapter 40
Sugar Land, Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I rub my eyes the next morning as I pad through the house. I didn’t get great sleep last night. I kept waking up feeling as though I was forgetting something, only to then remember that something was Ben.
Even though my mind knows he’s gone, instinct keeps demanding that I perform the same old parental habits I’ve done for the last six months.
I cut through the dining room, which has been cleared of last night’s meal, and enter an enormous, industrial kitchen, lured in by the smell of breakfast. I stop in my tracks when I see several skeletons hard at work in the room.
Just how many of these revenants are there?
One of them is frying eggs in a skillet, another is cutting fruit. And oh God, dead people really are preparing food and I have never dreaded my own hunger as much as I do now.
At least the revenants are nothing more than bones. If they were still fleshy … I don’t think I could stomach that. Unfortunately, there’s a faint smell that clings to them, one that I have no name for, but it must be what old, desiccated things smell like. That, or this kitchen has a funky odor all on its own.
One of the skeletons pauses their work and turns to me. I stare at the undead servant for several seconds before I realize—I think it’s waiting on me.
I clear my throat. “Um, good morning.”
Why are you saying good morning to the skeleton, Laz?
“Uh,” I continue, “you wouldn’t happen to have any coffee, would you?”
The revenant swivels around and heads for a French Press that I didn’t notice earlier.
I marvel.
It understands me.
The skeleton grabs a mug hanging in a nearby cupboard and fills it with the rich liquid.
Behind me the door to the kitchen swings open, and I sense Death a moment before I hear his deep voice.
“I see you’ve taken to my servants’ cooking, after all,” he says from behind me.
I spin around, my breath catching at the sight of him. Those dark eyes all but beckon me to come closer.
That’s when I register that from the waist up, Thanatos is naked. No armor, no shirt. Just hundreds of strange, glowing tattoos that bathe him in silvery light. I suck in a breath at the sight.
How have I never noticed these before?
Except … War had tattoos like this along his knuckles. Only his had been red.
I study the markings. They look like … language, though none I’ve ever seen, and they cover every inch of skin from the base of Death’s neck to his wrists. By the looks of it, the strange markings continue down beneath the waistline of his pants.
I try not to dwell on where else these tattoos might be.
“Where’s your shirt?” I say breathlessly, my gaze still pinned to his bare chest. The horseman is truly built like a god, his physique heavily muscled.
“Elsewhere,” Thanatos says.
Death’s gaze shifts over my shoulder, and I glance behind me, only to see the skeleton approaching me with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, a porcelain creamer in the other. Behind it, the other skeletons are still busy at work.
I reach out for the coffee. My fingers brush against the skeleton’s finger bones, and I nearly drop the mug.