Page 166 of Famine

Screw broken hearts. What good are they if you die and never actually get to experience anything worth experiencing?

I kiss the horseman with all the urgency I’ve held back until now. With all the desire and hope and all the terrible, wonderful emotions that have moved through me in the last day.

God, but this man feels like home, and that’s more than a little wondrous to a woman like me, who’s never really had a home.

Famine is kissing me with a ferocity to match my own, and around us, the rain is coming down in torrents, each drop hitting my skin so hard it stings. It washes away the mud and blood covering me, along with the last of my resistance.

The horseman’s hands slip down my cheeks, and I wince when he brushes my wound.

His lips pause, then he pulls away. “Ana.” The panic is back in his voice. His gaze dips to my neck.

“It’s not bad …” But even as I speak, I feel a little dizzy, a little disoriented.

Famine’s jaw clenches. “You are such a goddamned liar.”

A moment later he scoops me up and carries me inside. He sets me down on the blanket he laid out for me, then quickly removes his bronze armor, the metal clinking as he sets it aside.

He pulls his shirt off, revealing those mesmerizing tattoos that glow green in the darkness.

The Reaper kneels down at my side, pressing the black garment against my wound, staunching the flow of blood.

There’s nowhere to look that isn’t him, and I’m confronted once again by my feelings as I take in his features. The horseman is the most excruciatingly beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Usually, he looks like some proud, untouchable prince from a bygone era, but right now … he doesn’t look proud and untouchable. If anything, he looks young and uncertain and desperate.

He focuses on my injury, keeping his shirt pressed against my throat. I turn towards him, and the black cloth bushes against my cheek and nose as I do so. Even after a day of traveling, the material smells fresh, clean. If Famine were fully human, the shirt would probably smell like sweat and sour pussy—figuratively speaking, of course; the only pussy Famine’s been near is my own, and I pride myself on—

“Ana.”

“What?” I say, pushing away the thought.

“How bad is it?”

“How bad is what?” My gaze lingers on his lips.

“Your wound,” he says slowly, looking at me like I grew two heads.

“Oh.” I move his shirt away a little so I can probe the edges of the cut. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s too bad.” When I see the look in the Reaper’s eyes, I add, “I’m not lying.”

The injury hurts, I can feel the throb of it pounding just beneath my jawline, but I’ve lived through worse—much worse.

I stare at Famine, whose face is lit by the soft glow of his markings. His jaw clenches again, like he might be angry, and right then it really, truly hits me—

“You’re worried about me,” I say.

What a crazy, wondrous thing.

“Of course I am,” he says, his voice so low that I almost miss the words.

I feel warmth spread throughout my body.

This, even more than his compliments, is my undoing.

I reach for him, moving with confidence. My arms wrap around his neck.

He looks at me, shocked. “What are you—?”

Before he can finish his sentence, my lips find his and I kiss him with the same fervency I did outside. For a second or two, he responds … and then his mind catches up to him.

Famine breaks away, looking angry. “Are you just going to ignor—?”