“I still don’t care,” Thanatos replies smoothly.
I turn to face him a little better. “What are you thinking of when you stare at me?” I dare to ask.
“That I could look at you for a thousand years and never get bored,” he says without missing a beat. “I am used to seeing a person’s essence, not their features, and I have taken the latter for granted.”
I give him a small smile, though he’s unsettled me.
“And when I look at you,” he continues. “I wish I could fully sense your soul the way I can other humans. I’m sure I would find that it is strange and lovely. It—you—are a mystery to me, and I am unused to mysteries.
I sit there, not knowing what to say. Because I don’t have anything reciprocal to say, except, perhaps, that beneath his powers, Thanatos is also strange and lovely.
“Come,” the horseman says suddenly, rising from the couch. He reaches a hand out for me. “I never showed you the outside of the house.”
I take his hand and let him lead me away from that fainting couch. We head across the room and through a door that opens to an expansive back patio. Death is quiet as he leads me on, his tattoos shimmering in the sun.
A pool glimmers in the distance, and that should be the most appealing feature on this warm day, but my eyes catch instead on the extravagant garden set at the corner of the house.
Now I’m the one who’s tugging on his hand as I lead us towards it. I wind us through the rows of raised garden beds, eyeing each one. When I notice the fruit trees running along the back of the garden, I make my way to them.
I stop in front of an apple tree, its branches laden with fruit. There’s a metal bucket sitting at the tree’s base, as though someone was thinking of harvesting these soon.
“This is what you wanted to see?” the horseman says from behind me, inspecting the tree like it holds some decipherable secret.
“I’m hungry,” I tell him.
“My servants have made—”
“I know what your servants have made for breakfast,” I tell him, suppressing a shudder at the thought. “But I wanted something a bit—” less death-touched, “more palatable.”
Thanatos’s gaze narrows. “I have spent months sourcing the most skilled servants when it comes to preparing food. I assure you, kismet, they can fulfill all your needs.”
“I know,” I say softly. That doesn’t stop me from still recoiling at the thought of those bones touching the food I eat.
My gaze flits over the apples. Spotting a ripe one, I reach out and pick it.
“You know,” I say, staring down at it, “our relationship began with an apple.”
This stupid, innocuous piece of fruit. It was there leading Adam and Eve into temptation, and now here we are, come full circle. From the first supposed fall of humankind to the last.
If, of course, the Bible is to be believed.
A part of me wants to chuck the fruit as far as I can and burn this entire orchard to the ground. Instead, I dust the apple off on my shirt and take a bite.
It’s just an apple, after all.
After I swallow, I offer it to Death. “Want a taste?”
He grimaces. “Not unless you have another kiss to bribe me with.”
I lower the fruit, tilting my head a little. “Would you really want that?” I ask.
His eyes move to mine, shining with intensity. “I would want more, kismet. But I will settle for taking what you offer.”
I keep my gaze trained on him. “I don’t think you know what you’re asking for, Thanatos.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” he says, his expression magnetic. “But I do know of the things humans do when they cannot stay away from one another.”
He doesn’t move any closer to me, but it feels like there’s no distance between us and no air to breathe in. It doesn’t help that he still hasn’t found his shirt, and his glowing tattoos are making him look particularly unearthly.
“And that’s what you want?” I ask again softly, my heart rate beginning to pick up.
I can’t believe we’re talking about this. Or that the man who thinks bread sucks is open to being intimate.
“I already told you, kismet. I would want more. Your flesh promises much, but for me, it is merely the beginning.”
We’re outside for a long time. I’ve taken to picking far more apples than I need, but there’s literally no one else around to enjoy them, so I try not to feel too guilty.
Death has dragged over a stone bench and butted the thing up against a nearby tree. He lounges on it, his back leaning against the tree trunk, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other one bent at the knee. This is the most comfortable I’ve ever seen him. It’s more than just his posture. The two of us have spent the morning chatting about things that don’t revolve around the fate of humanity or the sexual tension between us.