“I have been thinking,” Thanatos says, his boots crunching over shattered glass. “We could stop fighting.”
“We could,” I agree, gripping my knife tighter. My other blade is now in Death’s hand. “You only have to end the killing.”
His eyes flash. “I cannot. You know I cannot.”
The horseman begins to circle me.
“So what you’re really asking is for me to stop defending humanity,” I say, turning my body with him so that my back is never exposed.
Out of nowhere, the horseman lunges forward, and I have to leap out of the way. Despite the chill air, sweat drips down my chest.
“It is as useless a task as it is thankless,” Death says, retreating back a step.
I rush forward as he moves away, swinging my knife.
Clang. The short blades meet.
Death leans his weight against our locked weapons, forcing me down to a knee.
“It’s not thankless,” I pant. I drop my free hand to the ground. There are pebbles and shards of glass and other debris dusting the road. My hand closes around a fistful of it. “Sometimes I best you, and that is very, very gratifying.”
I fling the rubble at his face, causing him to stumble back, his blade sliding from mine with a zing.
Dropping my own knife, I dive towards him, catching the horseman by one of his ankles.
He trips, then falls.
Before he has a chance to get up, I crawl over to the horseman, and then, hesitating only a moment, I pull myself onto him, swinging a leg over his torso.
I’m breathing heavily, my chest rising and falling with my exertion.
For a moment, Thanatos looks bewildered. He expects my attacks; what he doesn’t expect is to find me sitting astride him, weaponless.
Well, nearly weaponless.
“What are you doing?” Death demands.
I lean forward, grabbing one of his wrists.
Death’s gaze unwittingly moves to my cleavage, which is more on display than usual, thanks to a well-placed slice of his knife.
Thanatos stares … and stares, and it would be fucking rude except this horseman clearly has never come face-to-face with boobs.
“What are you doing?” he echoes, but his voice has roughened.
Breasts are, apparently, his undoing.
I grab his other hand, bringing the two of them over his head. I lean forward as I do so until The Girls are up close and personal with Thanatos.
Did I plan on distracting Death with my tits today?
No.
Will I take it?
Yes.
“I’m subduing you.” As I speak, I unhook the rope I have at my waist. I didn’t plan on this, but … like I said, things have changed between us.
“You’re subduing me?” Death murmurs distractedly. He’s still staring at my cleavage.
While he’s busy discovering hormones, I begin binding his wrists together above his head. After our last encounter, I’ve discovered that ties won’t hold him forever, but it’s better than nothing. Plus, this rope is much thicker than the clothing line I used last time.
Thanatos’s eyes finally move away from my cleavage, flicking up to my face.
Death’s gaze sharpens. “I want you.” The words rip free from him.
Absolute silence follows in their wake.
I don’t know who’s more shocked, him or me. The admission is so unexpected and so grotesquely inappropriate, given that the two of us are mortal enemies—or immortal ones, but whatever.
I wait for Death to take the words back, or at least qualify them. He doesn’t.
I turn back to my work, ready to pretend the last twenty seconds away, but my hands have begun to tremble, and I can’t seem to secure the knot around his wrists as tight as I’d like.
“Look at me,” Thanatos demands softly.
I shake my head.
“Lazarus, look at me.”
“I don’t take orders from a horseman,” I say, dragging in a deep breath.
He lets out a low laugh, one that raises the hairs on my arms. “You won’t look at me because you feel it too, and you know I’d see it in your eyes.”
“You are delusional,” I say.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him grin, and my stomach does a weird flip at the sight.
Finish what you started, I command myself, refocusing on the knot. My hands, however, are still shaking.
“We keep fighting this pull between us,” Death says.
“There is no pull between us,” I say adamantly. “You are my enemy.”
“Oh, there is a pull between us.”
I glare down at him. “There isn’t.”
Thanatos stares deeply into my eyes. After a moment, a slow grin spreads across his face. “There it is. You want me too.”
“How would you even know what want looks like?” I accuse.
“There are many souls who crave me, in the end,” he says.
People who crave death, he means.
I frown. “Well, I’m not one of them.”
His grin only grows, making my stomach flutter in the most infuriating way.
“I’m not,” I say defensively. “You’re beautiful. That’s all.”
Dear God, did I actually just say that out loud?
The horseman’s expression grows more intense, his eyes seeming to burn. “You think I’m beautiful.”
Death no longer needs to kill me, I think my own embarrassment will do the job just fine.
Why did I say that?
His gaze is still heated, his expression still challenging me.
“Aren’t you tired of all this?” He nods towards the ruins of Kansas City. “Aren’t you tired of the fighting, the struggle, the pain?”
God, but I am. For every town I save, there are at least five others I can’t.
“Of course I’m tired.”
Tired to my bones.
It doesn’t change anything.
Death’s gaze gentles and he says softly, “Then come with me.”
For a moment, the offer sounds unbearably good, like falling into bed after a long day.
I stare into Thanatos’s eyes, which are full of so many secrets. So, so many secrets.
“Come with me,” he says again.
I could. No more fighting. No more exhaustion. I’d just … give in. Perhaps I cannot die and my body can never know true and final peace, but this seems like a close second.
“We would just keep fighting,” I argue with myself out loud.
“What if we decided to stop hurting one another?” he counters, and he’s the devil in my ear. “I despise seeing you suffer, and I know it’s no different for you.”
My heart is beating fast. He’s saying all the right things, and I am being lured in by those sweet promises.
Which is why I get off of him and force myself to back up.
“You’re not taking me anywhere,” I say. Assuming, of course, that I bind up his feet—and his wings too. I have more rope in my bag, but my bag is across the street, and getting to it means giving this horseman my back.
He lays there on the ground, then laughs, the sound building on itself. “Do you truly think you are in control?” he says. “That despite your previous failed efforts, you can just tie me up and walk away?”
All at once he lifts his bound wrists, then rips them apart, the rope tearing like tissue.
I stumble back, my eyes wide.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
With catlike grace, the horseman pushes himself to his feet. He straightens, his black wings folding at his back.
He paces towards me. “I think we’ve already discovered that I make a poor captive,” he says carefully. “I slip my restraints a little too easily.”
Thanatos stops several feet from me. He extends his hand. “Let there be no more pain between us. No more strife. Come with me, Lazarus.”
I’m still shaken by his show of strength, and that I sat on his chest for minutes, and in all that time, he could’ve ripped the rope apart and grabbed me.
But he didn’t.
And now … his offer and his earnest expression wriggle their way under my skin.
No more pain. No more gnawing loneliness. No more scheming and breaking myself trying to stop this man.
It’s overwhelmingly alluring.
I take a step towards him.
Death’s eyes alight with some intense emotion.
I reach for his outstretched hand, giving into this moment of weakness. My hand hovers over his open palm.
Only then do I hesitate.
My gaze flicks up to Thanatos. Thanatos, who might stop fighting me, but who will never, ever stop the rampage. Thanatos who wants me to give up everything while he concedes nothing.