Famine (The Four Horsemen Book 3)

by Laura Thalassa

  I’m hungry and thirsty, but I don’t leave the room, fearful that if I cross paths with Famine again, he’ll once again force me to stay and watch.

  I consider fleeing—several times—but these damn manacles are a problem, and no one but Famine can get them off.

  About an hour or so after the sun sets and the screams stop, a guard opens the door to my room.

  “The horseman wants to see you,” he says.

  “Fuckboy can live without my company,” I reply.

  The man comes into my room and grabs me by the arm, lifting me up to my feet.

  “I hate this too,” he admits quietly as he drags me out. Even as he says it, I notice the blood crusted on his hands and splattered on his shirt.

  He clearly doesn’t hate the situation enough.

  I follow after him, my arms heavy from wearing the shackles all day. In the living room, many of the guards are now milling about, clearly waiting for Famine’s next order.

  The man himself sits at a table overflowing with all sorts of food, from steaming cassava to fruit cut into pleasing shapes and steak dripping in its own juices. There’s bacalhau and rice and a tray of assorted cheeses and another with various breads and crackers. There’s even a dessert platter, laden with cakes and custards, cookies and sugared candies.

  The smells are enough to make my stomach cramp with hunger.

  The guard releases me at the edge of the dining room, moving away to stand back at his post.

  Famine doesn’t look at me when he gestures for me to come closer.

  I narrow my eyes. Sex work has taught me a thing or two about reading people. Self-satisfied assholes like Famine—ones who expect me to be at their beck and call—are the cheapest of the lot. The value they place on you is next to nothing.

  I walk over to him, stopping just to the side of his chair.

  “Entertain me.” He still doesn’t look up.

  Casually I reach out and upend his plate, scattering food everywhere. “Go fuck yourself.”

  Now the horseman looks up at me, those cruel green eyes sparking with fire. I’ve issued a direct challenge in front of nearly half a dozen men; he’s going to do something.

  I should probably care more.

  Before the horseman can react, however, another guard of his closes in on me. He raises his arm and backhands me, hitting me so hard I fall against the table before crumpling to the floor.

  The sting against my cheek feels perversely good, just like the manacles around my wrists. They remind me who exactly the Reaper is.

  There’s several seconds of silence.

  “Well, that was foolish of you,” Famine says.

  I assume the horseman’s talking to me, but when I glance up, I see the Reaper’s blistering gaze is focused on the man who hit me.

  The guard’s eyes grow wide. “My Lord, I’m sorry,” he stammers out.

  “‘My Lord’?” Famine repeats. “I am no lord.”

  The Reaper adjusts himself in his seat. “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Ricardo.”

  “Ricardo,” Famine echoes. After a moment’s pause, the horseman spreads an arm towards the food in front of him. “Care to try anything?”

  Ricardo’s throat bobs. He gives his head a shake.

  “Go on,” Famine encourages.

  I push myself to my knees, my cheek hot and throbbing. I and everyone else in the house watch the two men raptly. It’s like seeing an accident happen in slow motion. You know it’s coming but you can’t stop it and you can’t look away.

  The same hand that struck me not a minute ago now shakes as it reaches out and takes a thin slice of cheese from one of the platters. The guard brings it to his lips, and after only pausing for a moment, he takes a bite of it.

  “Good?” Famine asks, raising his eyebrows.

  Ricardo nods, though I’d bet a whole night’s earnings that the slice of cheese tastes like dust in his mouth.

  Faster than I can follow, Famine grabs the steak knife in front of him and shoves it through the man’s sternum, rising to his feet as he does so.

  Ricardo makes a noise, and the bit of cheese he was chewing comes tumbling out.

  “Last I recall,” Famine says softly, holding the man in what appears to be an intimate embrace, “I didn’t ask you to hit the woman.”

  Ricardo chokes in response.

  “When I ask you to hit her, you hit her,” Famine continues. “When I ask you to guard her fucking ass, you guard her fucking ass.”

  The horseman withdraws the blade, blood gushing out of the wound, and Ricardo staggers a few steps, nearly tripping over me.

  “Someone, take care of him,” Famine says.

  Up until now, none of the other men have dared to move, but at the Reaper’s order, men suddenly jump into action, closing in on Ricardo, clearly nervous about disobeying the monster beside me.

  “Oh, and as for the rest of you,” Famine adds, his gaze sweeping over the group of them, “don’t even think about touching this woman.”

  Now that he’s very literally put the fear of God in these men, Famine resettles himself in his seat, grabbing an empty plate from the spot next to him and placing it in front of himself.

  “Ana,” he says as his men drag Ricardo out of the house. “Sit.”

  Like a good little captive, I do as I’m told, pulling out a chair next to the Reaper and sitting down in it.

  I stare passively at my place settings.

  “Well?” he finally says, turning to me.

  I meet his gaze, and his eyes move to my still-throbbing cheek. He frowns ever so slightly.

  “Entertain me—or can you do nothing useful?” he asks.

  “Oh, I can be useful,” I say, “but you’re not too interested in getting fucked.”

  The horseman cracks a smile, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise at the sight of it.

  “You haven’t reached for the food yet.”

  Unwillingly, my attention moves to the dishes in front of me. My stomach cramps at the sight of it all.

  “The last person who did that got stabbed,” I say. “I think I’ll go hungry.” Especially considering I pissed the horseman off only minutes ago.

  Another sly smile slips across Famine’s face, and it’s like I’m finally playing the game he can’t get anyone else to play.

  “I’m no longer so thirsty for blood,” the horseman says. He gestures to the food. “Have your fill, and I promise not to stab you.”

  I can feel the room’s eyes on me, and I hesitate just as Ricardo did.

  This feels an awful lot like a trap. Regardless, I’m too hungry to turn the opportunity down.

  I go for the water first. Grabbing the pitcher in front of me, I clumsily pour myself a glass and bring it to my lips. It’s crisp and cool and I can’t seem to drink enough of it. Only once I’m satiated do I move on to the food, grabbing a little of everything.

  Famine watches me, his green eyes glinting in the candlelight. I half expect him to lunge for me—or at the very least to upend my plate as I did his. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t do either. The horseman loves himself some tension.

  My fork is halfway to my mouth when the Reaper says, “Tell me about yourself.”

  I pause, giving him a skeptical look. “Now I know this is a trap.”

  “Why would you think that?” As he speaks, he runs his thumb across his lower lip, and it’s upsettingly sexy.

  I raise my eyebrows, my expression blatantly saying, prove me wrong.

  After a moment, the horseman flashes me a wicked smile. In the short time I’ve spent with him, I’ve learned he grins when he’s particularly dangerous to be around.

  Famine grabs his glass of wine and props his ankles on the table. “Let me start again: what makes a young girl choose to save a horseman of the apocalypse?”

  “You want to have that conversation now?” I ask, my gaze darting back at the men standing in the living room.

  Famine just continues to stare
at me, and I realize this simple question has been burning him up—maybe for years.

  Has he really experienced so little humanity that he can’t understand what I did?

  I take a few bites of my food before answering.

  “At the time, I thought what they did to you was wrong,” I say, not meeting his eyes.

  “You don’t think so anymore?” he asks.

  Another loaded question.

  Now I meet his gaze. “I can’t believe you have the audacity to ask that when I can still hear your victims’ moans.”

  The horseman makes a cavalier sound in the back of his throat. “And yet you still don’t hate me enough to kill me,” he reminds me.

  I think of the blade I pressed against his skin. How badly I wanted to hurt him—and how in the end I didn’t.

  “Give me a knife and we can test that theory,” I say.

  The horseman nods to my utensils. “Go ahead,” he says.

  I follow his gaze to the steak knife resting next to my plate, identical to the one he stabbed Ricardo with. I make no move to grab it.

  “What would be the use?” I say. “I’ve seen you heal from death before.”

  Famine doesn’t call out the fact that if I really felt this way, I would’ve never threatened him in the first place.

  Instead, he grabs his wine and swishes it around in his cup. “So, you regretfully saved me, I destroyed some things you cared about,”—he destroyed everything I cared about—“and we parted ways. How’ve you spent the rest of our time apart?” he asks.

  “Mainly with my mouth open and my legs spread,” I say.

  Usually, this sort of language is shocking, and I enjoy scandalizing my audience. But Famine doesn’t so much as lift an eyebrow.

  I will figure out how to push his buttons, damnit.

  “That seems uncomfortable,” he says smoothly.

  “No more so than having to wear manacles.” I raise my hands and jingle my chains just to emphasize my point.

  “So, you joined a whorehouse and made a living out of getting used?” he asks, his razor-sharp attention focused on me. Between his blinding good looks and his God-awful personality, that attention is particularly off-putting.

  “You disapprove,” I say.

  He lifts a shoulder. “I disapprove of everything you humans do. Don’t take it personally.”

  I don’t.

  Instead, I settle into my own seat. “Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to dip your wick?”

  When nothing registers on his face, I elaborate. “You know, polish the brass?”

  No reaction.

  “Hide the salami?”

  Nothing.

  “Do the devil’s dance?”

  Famine brings his glass to his lips. “Whatever you’re talking about, it all sounds highly insane,” he responds, “but given the idiotic pastimes you mortals are fond of, I’m not altogether surprised.” He drinks deeply from his wine.

  “Sex,” I finally say. “I’m talking about sex.”

  He grimaces.

  “Oh, don’t act like you’re somehow above the act,” I say. “You seem to enjoy the rest of our things well enough.” I look pointedly at his glass of wine. He’s been drinking all day; clearly he approves of some human things.

  Famine’s mouth twists into a wry grin. “Just because you like honey doesn’t mean you must also like the bee.”

  I frown at him, annoyed that he’s making any amount of sense.

  “The truth is,” Famine says, eyeing his drink speculatively, “a little alcohol washes away the memory of all sorts of sins.”

  I study him. “You’re trying to forget everything you’ve done?”

  I don’t want to linger on that thought. I can too easily empathize with it, and I don’t want to empathize with any part of this horseman.

  “It makes no difference what I’m trying to forget,” he says, setting his drink down.

  The Reaper’s gaze lifts to mine, and for an instant, I see a spark of pain, and I remember all over again how I found him mutilated and discarded off to the side of the road.

  I lean back in my chair and fork a piece of food and chew it, mostly to get the taste of pity out of my mouth. Famine doesn’t deserve my pity.

  Out of nowhere, the horseman drops his legs from the table. Reaching out, he takes one of my cuffs in his hands, and with a single, forceful jerk he rips the metal apart, freeing my wrist.

  I stare at him, aghast, even as he moves to my other wrist, tearing the manacle apart with his bare hands. The shackles go clattering to the ground.

  Holy shit. I had no idea he was that strong.

  He sits back in his seat again, acting as though he didn’t just literally rip apart iron. “Why did you join a—” He makes a face, “‘house of pleasure’?”

  “It was called ‘The Painted Angel,’” I say, still shaking off my shock. I take a drink from my water, my arms feeling unusually light now that they’re free. “And you make it sound like I had a choice.”

  I made it to the city of Laguna half-starved, without a penny to my name. I was lucky Elvita was the one who found me and not someone else, now that I better understand how this world deals with desperate girls.

  “You did have a choice,” Famine insists. “You could’ve come with me.”

  “But I couldn’t,” I say, setting down my water. “You know that. You know that.” My voice lowers, “I’m not the same as the people who hurt you; I can’t bear the sight of pain. That’s why I saved you. But then you killed my entire town. You became just like the people who hurt you.”

  Famine leans towards me, his arm moving to rest along the back of my seat. “I am nothing like them,” he growls, his eyes ablaze. “I came to your world to end your kind because of the evil that lives in you all.”

  “It lives in you, too,” I snap back.

  He scowls at me for a long moment. Abruptly, he drops his legs from the table and stands, staring down at me. I’m struck again by how ridiculously, exquisitely handsome this monster is.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am evil. I was made in your image, after all.”

  He pushes away from me then, upending my plate on his way out.

  Chapter 17

  The next day, I’ve only just gotten out of bed when my door is thrown open, the wood banging against the wall.

  Famine stands at the threshold, his armor on and his scythe in hand, looking all sorts of agitated. So, essentially, same as always.

  “Let’s go,” Famine says, jerking his head over his shoulder.

  “Good morning to you too,” I say, biting back a yawn as I stretch.

  “Ana, let’s. Go.”

  What in the world is the rush?

  “I need shoes first,” I say, lifting a dirty foot. I could probably also use another bath, but I doubt I’ll be getting one any time soon.

  “So you can run away?” he says skeptically. “I think not.”

  I sigh. “I thought we had made some progress on the imprisonment front last night.” He had removed my shackles, after all. I thought that was a step in the right direction. “Notice I didn’t run?”

  I did, however, collect every knife I could find in the kitchen and I hid them in various parts of the house. In this room alone, I have two under my mattress, two more in the closet, and another one in the top drawer of the bedside table.

  Just in case.

  “Am I supposed to be impressed by that? We already went over the fact that there is nowhere for you to go.”

  True.

  “That hasn’t stopped you from worrying I will run,” I say smoothly.

  “You are prone to stupid decisions—”

  “My stupid decisions once saved your life.”

  “I would’ve regenerated anyway.”

  I glare at him.

  He glares back.

  I fold my arms. “Where’s the girl?” I ask, still not moving towards him. The girl from yesterday, the one whose father heartlessly gave her away to the
horseman. Last I saw of her, she was being carted away to one of this home’s bedrooms. It’s bothered me ever since, all the horrors he might’ve inflicted on her.

  “What girl?” the horseman asks, momentarily distracted from our argument.

  “The one you spared,” I say euphemistically.

  The Reaper’s brows pull together, and I spend a traitorous moment enjoying how pretty he is. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still an asshole, and I wouldn’t fuck him unless I was especially desperate—or you know, the whole blowjob-for-humanity bit. But he is pretty.

  Famine’s brow smooths. “Ah, yes,” he says. “I almost forgot.”

  And then he walks away.

  That’s … not an answer. And that’s definitely not the end of the conversation.

  “What happened to her?” I press, rushing after him.

  “You humans are such curious, conniving creatures,” he says ahead of me, striding down the hall.

  “Did you rape her?” I ask. “Kill her?”

  “This conversation is almost as boring as she was,” the Reaper says, not bothering to turn to me.

  “‘Was’?” I say. “So you did kill her?” My stomach bottoms out, but of course he did. That’s what Famine does.

  The Reaper doesn’t answer, and I’m left to imagine all sorts of horrible scenarios in my head.

  I follow Famine out the front door. I can still hear low moans coming from the backyard, but I see no one—dead or alive.

  Famine whistles, and a minute later his horse comes galloping out of seemingly nowhere, its hooves clacking against the broken asphalt.

  I halt in my tracks. “Wait. Are we … leaving?”

  Already?

  “There’s nothing more I need to do here,” the Reaper says as his horse comes to a stop in front of him.

  Famine turns to me and, grabbing me by the waist, hoists me into the saddle. A moment later, he joins me.

  “Wait-wait-wait,” I say, “I haven’t even had breakfast, and I need my things!”

  “You don’t have things,” the horseman says calmly. He clicks his tongue, and his horse begins to trot away from the house.

  I glance over my shoulder forlornly. “Not anymore.” Goodbye, knives.