Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,20
tan skin.
I don’t know where to look—at the sharp slice of his jawline or those high cheekbones—or those soft, sinner lips. He looks like some mythological figure taken straight out of a painting.
He is a mythological figure.
I push myself up, the action forcing the horseman to move away.
His fingers are what woke me, I realize. He was brushing my hair from my face much the same way I had done to his throughout the night. Now his fingertips linger on the side of my face.
His fingertips …
“Your arms!” I gasp. Holy mother of … “How do you have hands?”
Famine smiles a little, and my whole body reacts to that smile. “Are you now worried about my capabilities?”
My gaze flicks skeptically from the hand touching me to his face. “Maybe … what are you doing?”
“I wanted to see you,” he says, his gaze moving over me as though he’s trying to commit my features to memory.
He stands, and for the first time I notice the other items lying next to him. One of them I can’t immediately identify but the other one I recognize as a scythe, its wicked blade gleaming.
Dear God, that thing looks deadly.
He picks up the scythe, and my heart begins to patter. Last night I didn’t realize just how massive he was, and now, with that weapon in hand, Famine looks especially lethal.
I edge away from him.
The horseman must see me cower because he gives me an exasperated look. “You slept on me last night. There’s nothing for you to fear.”
“You now have a blade—and hands,” I say. “How did you get them back?”
“My body regenerates.”
“Your body …” Dear baby Jesus, he can grow back limbs? “And the … the …” I gesture vaguely at his attire.
Famine presses his lips together, either in displeasure or because he’s trying not laugh. He doesn’t seem like the laughing type, so displeasure it is.
“I’m not of this world, flower.”
That’s not really an answer, but I’m sort of stuck on the fact that he called me flower.
That’s a compliment, right?
Looking at him, I want it to be a compliment.
Are you seriously crushing on one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, Ana?
Damnit, I think I am. But in my defense, they don’t make cheekbones that pretty here on earth.
“Come on,” Famine says, interrupting my thoughts, “we need to move.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, hurrying after him, grabbing my basket of fruit. I have some fatalistic hope that bringing this basket back home will somehow spare me my aunt’s wrath.
It’s a foolish hope, but then, I am a fool.
Famine doesn’t respond, and it’s just as well. We’re clearly headed back towards town, the two of us walking down the road I so recently found him on. My eyes linger on the scythe he holds; he decided to bring that but not the other, less threatening object, and I’m trying really, really hard not to think about the motives behind that decision. Or, for that matter, what’s going to happen the moment the townspeople meet Famine.
“Last night this road was swarming with men,” Famine says, more to himself than to me. “Now it’s deserted.”
The back of my neck pricks. “Do you think those men … ?”
“They’re setting a trap for me,” he says.
The thought is downright petrifying.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be on this road then … we could hide …” All I can see in my mind’s eye is how much torture Famine’s body endured when I first found him.
“I have waited years for this moment,” he says. “I will not hide from them. Their deaths are mine to savor.”
That’s right about when I have my first real misgivings about Famine.
“I didn’t save you so that you could kill a bunch of people,” I say.
“You know what I am, flower,”—that name again—“don’t pretend you don’t know my nature.”
Before I can debate with him more, we enter Anitápolis.
People are going about their morning when we walk down the street. They stop what they’re doing, however, when they notice Famine and his big-ass scythe.
As we move towards the middle of town, a coal-black horse comes galloping down the cracked asphalt, heading right for Famine. The steed looks spitting angry, but at the sight of the creature, the horseman seems to relax.
Wait. Is that his … ?
The steed slows, finally stopping in front of Famine.
The horseman leans his forehead against the horse’s muzzle. “It’s alright, boy,” he says, rubbing the side of the creature’s face. “You’re safe now,” he says, echoing the same platitudes I murmured to