Page 25 of Famine

“Special powers,” he mutters. “I can make plants perish—among other things,” he says.

“I had heard stories about you. That you’d been captured. I hadn’t thought they were true, but … were they? Have you been held somewhere?”

His breath begins to speed up again. “Mhm …”

Jesus.

I run my fingers through his hair. I really want to ask him about his captivity—where exactly he was, what they did to him, how long he was there—but it’s clearly a tender subject.

“What are you going to do now that you’re free?” I eventually ask.

Beneath my hand, he seems to go still.

I hear the menace in his voice when he says, “I’m going to get my revenge.”

I didn’t think I was capable of falling asleep in the horseman’s arms, yet I must’ve because I stir at the touch of soft fingertips.

I blink my eyes open, squinting at the morning light streaming in through a nearby window. A man looms over me, his green eyes piercing. After a moment, I realize I recognize those green eyes.

Famine.

I suck in a shocked breath when I truly take in the horseman.

All of him is strange and lovely.

When I found him yesterday, he wore blood and grime in place of clothing. But now he’s fully dressed, and over his black shirt and pants he wears bronze armorthat definitely wasn’t there last night. The metal breastplate gleams in the morning light.

How … ? Did he leave at some point to get his things?

But then my focus returns to his powerful build. Even kneeling, he looks intimidatingly large, and I don’t have to see the skin beneath his armor to know he has a body made for battle.

That’s nothing, though, compared to his face.

He’s … there aren’t words for this sort of male beauty. His caramel colored hair curls around the nape of his neck, and those brilliant green eyes are made all the brighter against his tan skin.

I don’t know where to look—at the sharp slice of his jawline or those high cheekbones—or those soft, sinner lips. He looks like some mythological figure taken straight out of a painting.

Heisa mythological figure.

I push myself up, the action forcing the horseman to move away.

His fingers are what woke me, I realize. He was brushing my hair from my face much the same way I had done to his throughout the night. Now his fingertips linger on the side of my face.

His fingertips …

“Your arms!” I gasp. Holy mother of … “How do you have hands?”

Famine smiles a little, and my whole body reacts to that smile. “Are you now worried about my capabilities?”

My gaze flicks skeptically from the hand touching me to his face. “Maybe … what are you doing?”

“I wanted to see you,” he says, his gaze moving over me as though he’s trying to commit my features to memory.

He stands, and for the first time I notice the other items lying next to him. One of them I can’t immediately identify but the other one I recognize as a scythe, its wicked blade gleaming.

Dear God, that thing looks deadly.

He picks up the scythe, and my heart begins to patter. Last night I didn’t realize just how massive he was, and now, with that weapon in hand, Famine looks especially lethal.