Death
Laura ThalassaSözler ve Alıntılar
“What’s your name?” I ask, keeping my arrow aimed at his chest. “Or do you only go by Death?”
“Oh, I have many names.” His gaze returns to my lips, and a muscle in his jaw flexes.
“And what are they?”
“Anubis. Yama. Xoltol. Vanth. Charon. Mors. Mara. Azrael—and many, many others.” His eyes flick to mine. “But for you, Thanatos.”
I can’t help it, I start laughing—I laugh so hard my entire body shakes with it.
“It’s really not,” I say, quieting down.
His eyes have returned to my face, and despite looking a little queasy, he stares at me like he’s never seen anything like me before.
“Do that again,” he says quietly.
“Do what?” I ask.
“Laugh.”
“Now will you tell me one of your secrets?” I say.
It’s quiet for several seconds.
“I do not like taking lives,” he admits softly.
I go still against him.
“What?” I turn in my seat, trying to see Thanatos better.
“I do not like taking lives,” he says again, more forcefully, his gaze almost challenging as he stares down at me.
“Unlike my brothers, I have never enjoyed it,” he continues. “I do it because I must, but, Lazarus, it is a terrible agony most of the time.”
Am I hearing him correctly? “But—”
“I am not saying that death is wrong,” he continues, “or that what lies beyond isn’t better. I am not even saying that I don’t believe in my task. But the act of taking someone who is scared of death, or who is happy with life, or who is not ready—and so few are ready—wearies me to the bone. I grimly do my job, but I have never gotten joy from taking a life.”
I am reeling.
“Is there joy in what you do?” I ask after a moment.
He’s quiet again.
“Yes,” he finally admits. “After I release them. When a soul sees what lies beyond, when they truly remember what they are and have been this entire time—that moment is joy.”
He’s trying to care for me, like some sort of good partner. I mocked his first attempt, so now he’s found the biggest house with the nicest things to make up for it.
Don’t you dare be moved by this, Lazarus. Don’t do it.
In spite of my brain’s very sage advice, I thaw—just a little.
“You are finally mine,” he says, his words exalted.
They send a strange mixture of dread and excitement through me. How I long to stop this monster. How I have to keep fighting my ridiculous attraction to him.
“I have imagined this moment countless times,” he admits.
“What do you feel for me?”
His lips fall to my ear. “Many, many things, Lazarus.”
Definitely wants to hate-fuck me.
My breath hitches at the thought of lying beneath Death, his body driving into mine.
Apparently I’m not completely against the idea either.
Jesus.
I frown as I study him. I’ve never seen anyone so … so grotesquely handsome—handsome and lethal. There should be a name for that kind of beauty, the kind that literally kills.
I look him over the same way he did me. I hate that I find everything about him beautiful—from that ancient, tragic face to those strange wings, to his massive frame and his intricate silver armor. It all calls to me.
The corner of his mouth lifts as he watches me scrutinize him.
He turns around, though he continues to back away. “Miss me already, kismet?” he says, a curving smile on his lips.
I frown at that smile, even as my stomach flips in the most off-putting way.
First I took an arrow for him, now this.