My heart pounds madly as I lose myself in those eyes of his. There’s nothing I can say to match his words, so instead I lean forward and kiss my horseman.
Death wraps an arm around my waist and rolls us. As he does so, he hikes up one of my legs and slides himself into me. And then the two of us are lost in each other once more.
Chapter 65
Los Angeles, California
October, Year 27 of the Horsemen
The sun is setting the next day when I coax Death into the home’s grand kitchen. Not that it took much effort. We’ve been playing the let’s-christen-each-room-of-this-house game, so Thanatos probably thinks this is me trying to add a food kink to our sex, which—good idea, but that’s not where my head’s at.
All around me are half a dozen skeletons, each one busy chopping or baking or stirring something.
Turning to Thanatos, I ask, “Can you tell your servants to leave the kitchen?”
He tilts his head. “Why? Aren’t you hungry?”
“I thought we might do something a little different tonight,” I say.
He stares at me for a long moment, and yep, he definitely thinks he’s going to get boned.
Death must give his servants some wordless instruction because suddenly, every skeleton stops what they’re doing. Putting down stirring spoons and knives and all other manner of utensils, they leave the room at once.
It’s strange, those creatures are nothing more than puppets pulled by magical strings, and yet now that they are gone, the room feels so much more intimate.
Thanatos takes a step towards me, his gaze growing hungry.
Before he can do something that distracts me into christening the kitchen, I put a hand on his chest.
“Wait,” I say breathlessly.
Death’s eyes are heated, and though he pauses, he’s clearly just waiting for me to finish whatever it is I want to say so that he can continue.
And I’m getting awfully distracted by the look in his eyes.
“I wanted to show you something—something about me.” I’m grasping at words, trying to turn my mind away from the thought of his skin pressed against mine, his lips dragging along my flesh— “You want my human secrets,” I say. “And I wanted to show this one to you.”
Thanatos’s eyes gleam.
“It’s not sex,” I feel the need to add.
“Alright,” he says good-naturedly. “You’ll share this secret, I’ll bask in the wonder of your existence, and then I’ll make love to you.”
My God.
He leans a hip against a nearby counter, his wings rustling as he folds his arms. He’s still gazing at me like he could eat me up, and it’s all I can do to concentrate on finding flour and sugar and all the other ingredients I’m going to need. Then, rummaging around, I manage to procure a mixing bowl and some measuring cups and spoons.
Grabbing a wooden cutting board, I bring the items to a bit of counter space that Death’s servants haven’t already made use of.
“What are you doing?” Thanatos asks, nodding at the gathered ingredients. It’s as though he’s never seen his skeletons working with the same items.
I glance over then, a small smile curving the corner of one of my lips up. I’m actually kind of thrilled to be doing this. “I want to cook with you.”
Now some trepidation enters the horseman’s eyes. “What are … we cooking?”
I relax a little, hearing his words. Death might not like food, but he’s willing to do this with me.
I turn back to the cutting board and the gathered ingredients. “My mother liked to call this soul bread.”
Just the thought of her conjures the memory of her brief resurrection.
Whatever you have done to bring me here, you undo it.
I swallow down the pain and guilt I feel.
Death’s brows pinch together. “I know what spirits are, and I know what bread is. I do not know how the two of them meet up.”
“Mom used to tell me that there are certain foods you make with love. You press a bit of your very soul into the ingredients—hence the name. ”
“What a monstrous thought,” Death says, looking offended. “I can assure you, Lazarus, the souls I collect are entirely intact.”
I laugh at that. “Not everything is literal, Thanatos.”
His eyes heat when he hears his name on my lips.
“Supposedly this is a family recipe that spans hundreds of years,” I continue, beginning to add the ingredients together. Quieter, I say, “Sometimes, I like to imagine all those women—or at least, I assume they were women—making this recipe. That in this moment, I am linked to an unbroken chain of people all brought together by the joy of feeding their loved ones.”
“That’s not how it works,” he insists.
I laugh again. “For a supernatural being, you have zero imagination.” I move over a little. “Here,” I say, handing him a container of salt, “help me.”
Death looks at the salt as though it might grow eyes and teeth, but he does push away from the counter and reluctantly take it.
Together I help him measure out the salt and the last of the ingredients.
Now for the fun part.
I take his hands and move them to the bowl.
“What are you—?”
Pushing down, I plunge his hands into the mix, a powdery cloud of flour billowing up around our wrists.
“Lazarus.”
“Oh my God,” I say, “don’t act like I took your firstborn. This is how we mix bread dough.”
Death grimaces, though I can’t be sure whether it’s this method of mixing or the thought of bread itself that displeases him. And to be honest, I could’ve used a spoon for this part.
Regardless, he does let me lead him through mixing, then kneading, the dough.
The movements are unfamiliar to the horseman, but somehow those deft hands of his aren’t clumsy. Not that it makes him appreciate it any more.
“This seems like a frivolous task,” he says, the edge of one of his wings brushing against my back.
“I imagine if I were an ageless, deathless angel who didn’t need to eat, it might feel frivolous to me too,” I say.
Thanatos’s eyes move to my face and after a moment, I meet his gaze.
You see me, his expression seems to say.
I briefly glance at our hands.
“Now you’ve pressed a little of your soul into the recipe too.”
“That’s ridiculous, kismet.” But now he sounds less skeptical and more curious.
A little smile slips out.
“So it’s done?” he asks.
“Technically it is, but—” We still have to cook it.
I never get that last part out.
Death lifts me onto one of the counters, knocking over a bowl of red sauce that one of the skeletons worked hard at making. It shatters against the ground, splattering both me and him.
Neither of us pays it any attention.
“Good. That was a fun secret,” he says, his gaze fixed on my lips. His hands move to the edge of my shirt, his fingers still sticky from the dough. He lifts the garment off over my head.
Death glances speculatively around. “Now, it seems to me that a kitchen is the last sort of place one should be caught fooling around.” He flashes me a mischievous smile and pulls me to the edge of the counter. Grabbing my legs, he wraps them, one by one, around his waist.
I mean, in this post-apocalyptic hellscape of a world, there are definitely worse places to get down and dirty …
I tug on his black shirt, pulling it off of him and revealing his sculpted chest and the lines of glowing writing that stream down it.
Thanatos’s grin falls away and he cups my face, his gaze growing heated.
“You were made for me,” he says fervently. “And I for you.”
He kisses me savagely, and we forget all about the soul bread.
The fully cooked bread loaf sits on a platter on the dining room table. Death stares at it like an adversary.
“You don’t have to try it,” I say.
“Of course I must,” he replies. “It’s soul food, and I am the overseer of souls.”
I give Thanatos a cautious look as I begin to cut it. Last time the horseman tried bread, he hated it.