Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,81

among the wolves I’m surrounded by.

Only once it’s all over do I face the horseman again, my breathing a little heavy.

“Finally,” Famine says, a smile curving the corners of his lips, “a hint of your fire.”

Chapter 28

The horseman stands, his chair scraping out behind him. A few pieces of food fall out of his lap as he does so, but he doesn’t seem to notice them.

He closes the distance between us, looking just as scary and intimidating as ever. The Reaper steps in so close our chests nearly touch, keeping eye contact the entire time.

I’m still angry, but now there’s this confusion to add to it. I assumed acting out would piss Famine off. Instead, he’s looking at me like I’m wine he wants to taste.

The horseman takes my hand, his own dwarfing mine, and then he leads me from the room. And damn him and damn me, but I go along with it as though I didn’t learn my lesson the first time with Heitor.

“What are you doing?” I say as he pulls me along, moving through the expansive house. “Aren’t you mad?” I ask.

“That you lost control? Little flower, I’m enchanted. Your antics have been the best entertainment I’ve seen in a while.”

Really now? Killing people suddenly got boring?

The Reaper and I leave the main building and cut through the courtyard.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To my room, of course,” he responds.

I stumble over my feet.

Famine glances at me and smiles secretively, like he knows exactly where my mind is.

My gaze goes to his lips, and a sudden, shocking realization hits me: I want to kiss him again. Not to tease him or to distract him, but to taste those lips again in earnest and to feel the press of his body against mine.

I’ve absolutely lost it.

“W-why?” I ask.

He gives me another loaded glance, and I feel that look right to my core.

“Would you rather I leave you at the door to your room?” he asks.

“No,” I say too quickly, and ugh, I want to cringe. I sound like a horny teenager.

The Reaper’s mouth curves up on one side and the world feels like it’s turned on its axis.

Famine stops at a door just down the hall from mine. He opens it, then holds the door open for me.

I step inside the room. The place is already lit by candlelight, the flames dancing in wrought iron sconces.

I move towards a side table that has a globe made entirely from inlaid stone. I spin it a little before my attention moves to the stack of books sitting next to it, their names painted along their spines.

“Why yes, please explore my room,” Famine says, his voice laced with sarcasm.

“Was I not supposed to?” I say, raising an eyebrow as I turn to him. “You invited me here, after all.”

Famine doesn’t say anything to that, which I take for capitulation, so I continue to peruse his quarters. I toe the rugs, eye the bar in the corner of the room, stare at the mounted paintings, touch a sculpture of a nude male with a huge phallus—clearly wistful thinking on the artist’s part—and eye the bed. The entire time I feel Famine’s gaze on me.

I keep waiting for him to make some sort of move; he’s the one who led me here after all. He was the one with desire in his eyes and suggestion on his lips. But he doesn’t even try to approach me.

So weird.

As he watches me, Famine begins to unfasten his bronze armor. And now my blood heats. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

It doesn’t take him long to remove it all. The sight of the horseman in his black shirt and breeches has me swallowing. The candlelight does nothing but heighten his beauty, dancing over his sharp jaw, high cheekbones and bemused lips. He watches me like a panther, arms folded over his chest.

The sight causes my heart to leap and my abdomen to tighten in the strangest way …

Still, I am reluctant to move to the horseman, now that I’m acknowledging my own desire. I don’t want whatever this is between us to echo every other experience I’ve had, but I don’t know how to make it different. That’s why, when my gaze snags on the Reaper’s bronze scales, I move over to them instead of the horseman.

I’ve only caught glimpses of this device since I started traveling with the horseman.

I step up to the scales, drawn in by their odd existence. The delicate circular