Famine (The Four Horsemen, #3)

by Laura Thalassa

out, his voice grating. I pause in my tracks,

“Why?” I challenge, now turning my blazing gaze back on the horseman. “What could you possibly do to me that hasn’t already been done before? I’m tired of watching my words and watching my actions. I’m fucking done being careful so that other people don’t have to be.”

“Do you think I have lived for eons to be consumed by something as trifling as sex?” he says softly. “Everything comes and goes. Animals, plants—even people. You are all so very … transitory. “So what consumes me?” He smiles a little hollowly at that. “Things that endure.”

Sauntering over to him, I swat his butt. “Sit.”

Famine moves towards a wheel of cheese and peers at it. “This smells like death. I’m immensely intrigued.”

“Why indeed?” Famine agrees. “I’ve asked myself the same question. Let me ask you this: why don’t birth and death happen at the same time?”

You broke me. And in the process I broke you. And now I fear the only way we will ever be whole again is together, all your jagged edges nestled against mine. I hate that I want that. But I do. I want to be whole with you.

“That’s your flower.” He pulls me in closer. “I get my own flower?” I say, raising my eyebrows. Famine traces my lips. “If I can’t make things grow in you, then I’ll have to make them grow around you.” “Is that supposed to flatter me?” I say. “Because that sounded creepy as fuck.”

“I am not human, Ana. Old age and wilted beauty do not repulse me. They are part of the life cycle—they are a part of what makes me, me.”

But the truth is, I actually like this derelict little house of ours, and I’m curious just how overgrown I can make it before Ana actually loses it.