More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
That evil fucker made one huge mistake coming here: he didn’t make sure I was dead. And now he’s going to pay for it.
What’s the point of a Reaper blighting the land if he’s going to kill people before anyone can starve to death?
“Remember me now, motherfucker?”
“I don’t have hands at the moment. And until I reacquire them, I think you can save worrying about my capabilities.”
The third horseman of the apocalypse is having a mental breakdown right next to me.
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.
“You really should’ve stayed away. You may still be that same little flower who saved me, but then, I’m not known for letting flowers grow …”
“You are a human-shaped headache,” he mutters. “What a compliment to headaches everywhere.”
Shame. I was half excited about his supernatural dick too.
I suppress a shiver at his words. I’d like to say it’s from sheer terror, but there’s a sick part of me that still inappropriately reacts to the low, sultry timbre of his voice, just as I did when I was seventeen.
Reaper-boy fucked up. He was kind to me, and he knows it.
“Ungrateful human.” His voice sends a shiver through me. “I should force you back onto my horse and continue riding.” “You are so unnecessarily dramatic,” I say.
“Calm your tits. I’m not trying to deflower you.”
That last wayward thought steals my breath. What the hell, Ana? Sex with the monster is off the table … or on it, depending on whether there are platters of food nearby … No, no. No fucking the scary horseman.
“That’s the difference between me and my brothers,” he continues. “We are all meant to ravage the world, but we have our distinctions: War is the most human, Pestilence perhaps next. But even Thanatos—Death—is intimately connected to life. “I am the one least truly alive. I have more in common with wildfires and clouds and mountains than I do anything else. So to be something that lives and breathes is a stifling, unpleasant experience. I am ... trapped in this flesh.”
“One other inhuman thing about me, flower.” Famine turns his head slightly towards me. “I don’t simply exist, I hunger.”
“I saw the true extent of the pain and suffering humans can inflict on each other, and I endured every conceivable manner of torture.”
Famine’s eyes settle on mine for a moment. “Do not read into this.” Oh, I’m planning on reading the entire fucking series of Famine Acting Abnormally Kind and What it Means.
“Pestilence, for all his disease, has always been perversely drawn to humans. And War was made from human desires. Terrible as my brothers are, I am worse.”
“You mentioned how you were worse than Pestilence and War,” I say, “but what about Death?” Famine holds my gaze for a long minute, then gives me a slight nod, like he’s conceding a point to me. “Nothing is worse than him.”
definitely shouldn’t enjoy toying with him—people tend to die when this happens—but I can’t help it; he’s fun to tease. He takes it so poorly.
“Did I say something wrong? Don’t be mad—you’re much less pretty when you’re mad.” In response, he growls.
“Finally,” Famine says, a smile curving the corners of his lips, “a hint of your fire.”
I’d do all of it again for this man, because wicked or not, violent or not, Famine might be the only being who has ever truly seen me and cared for me. And … I might be the only person who has ever really seen and cared for him.
“Never, ever fuck with what is mine,” he says.
“No. You came to violate her. And my friend, we’re both discovering that nothing stokes my rage like trying to harm my flower.”
He defended me. I mean, he tortured a man—and killed several others—so I should probably focus on how bad that is. But I’ve long ago accepted that I’m no saint.
“You give God a bad name.” Famine forces out his own laugh. “You give humans a good one.”
Aw, did he think I’d given up on the uncomfortable sex jokes? Poor, naïve man.
Because I like making poor choices, and you look like the worst one yet.
“Because around you,” he says, “I feel the oddest urge to use my power to create rather than destroy.”
“This is … I want to be in you again. And I want another smile from you. Many of them. Your smiles make me feel more like my true self.”
What I do know is that the horseman has spent all this time on earth gorging himself on cruelty, but there are so many other experiences Famine hungers for. Maybe love most of all.
“You are the devil.” “Nope,” Famine responds smoothly. “He’s nicer than me.”
