Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,49
help, but I’m also pretty fucking sure he has zero experience helping injured humans.
“Wait,” I say, taking shallow breaths through the pain.
Famine pauses.
“Alcohol.”
I feel his eyes on me. “You want to drink right now?”
I definitely wouldn’t mind.
“To disinfect the wound,” I say slowly.
Famine stares at me for a long, long moment. Finally, coming to some sort of decision, he gets up and heads to the kitchen. I can hear him rummaging around for an eternity.
When he returns, he’s holding a corked jug.
I make a face. It’s clearly something home-brewed and probably suspect.
Famine seems to agree. “This will sooner kill you than heal you,” he says.
“Just give it to me.” I go to swipe it from him, but the horseman moves the bottle out of my way.
“Hold still,” he says, uncorking the lid.
I give him a skeptical look. All I’ve seen of Famine is his ability to hurt and kill. I have little faith he knows how to tend to an injured person.
He grabs my wounded shoulder, careful not to touch the injury itself. Gently he tips the bottle of the mystery liquor, pouring a liberal amount onto the wound.
The moment the alcohol hits, the pain becomes blinding, and a gasped cry slips out.
“This was a stupid idea,” he says.
“Shut up,” I grit out.
Getting up from my side, Famine wanders through the house once more, returning a while later with a couple pieces of clothing. The first one he rips into strips then wraps around my shoulder. I bite back another cry as he jostles the wound.
Once he’s done, he shakes out the second garment, which looks like a shift dress.
“You don’t like looking at my tits, do you?” I guess.
I am, after all, still exposed to him.
“It’s cold.”
“Be honest,” I say, “you’re uncomfortable.”
“Fine, don’t wear the dress,” he says, backing away. “I don’t care.”
I do end up putting the thing on—or at least I try to. The problem is, my injured shoulder is bound up, making movement difficult.
In the darkness, I hear the Reaper exhale, then the sound of his ominous footfalls as he comes over once more. He kneels in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, and now I catch a glimpse of those luminous eyes in the darkness.
Ignoring me, he grabs the material and helps thread my arms through the sleeves.
I give him a curious look as he helps me, ignoring the pain as he inevitably bumps my wound again.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask again.
He stares intently at the fabric, and I think maybe I’m imagining his troubled look.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he says gruffly.
You were trying to hurt someone, I want to say.
But I can tell that, oddly enough, he is troubled by the fact that he hurt me.
“I know,” I say instead. As violent and cruel as the Reaper has been, he’s made a point of not inflicting pain on me. Which is confusing as hell, considering that I nearly lost my life when I last met him.
With my good hand, I run my fingers over the dress I wear. Just the feel of the cloth is enough for me to know that this shirt—big and old-lady-ish as it may be—is a thing from the world before.
For an instant, I’m hopelessly sad, though I’m not even sure why. I never knew that world. My sense of loss is completely made up. But from the stories, it always sounded like paradise—or, at least, a step up from the shithole world we have now.
“Thank you,” I say, still rubbing my fingers over the material.
Famine grunts in response.
After a moment, he says, “You shouldn’t have jumped in front of her.”
I sigh. “Can’t you just take a compliment without ruining it?”
“I don’t need or want compliments.”
Fuck it all. “Then I take it back,” I say. “I’m not grateful you helped me.”
The silence is heavy, and the horseman’s frowns are becoming legendary enough that I can sense them in the darkness.
Maybe he cares, maybe he doesn’t. He’s annoyed all the same.
That’s good enough for me.
“Why did you do it?” he asks.
Jump in front of the woman, he means.
“She wouldn’t have done the same for you,” he adds.
“You don’t know that,” I say.
But … in my heart of hearts, do I really believe some stranger would’ve sacrificed herself for me?
No. Definitely not. People are selfish assholes.
I don’t, however, admit that to Famine.
“I helped you once too—even though you wouldn’t have done the same for me,” I say instead.