Pestilence (The Four Horsemen #1)(42)

Across from me, the horseman’s gaze is riveted to my mouth. He tears his gaze away to look down at his plate. Lifting his fork, he tries to take a bite himself, but the thin pasta noodles slide uselessly between the metal tines.

I can’t help it, I laugh. Getting up, I come over to his side of the table. He glances at me, his eyes bright and perhaps a little vulnerable. I think the alcohol is getting to us both.

Leaning over his shoulder and trying not to notice how pretty his torso is (for shame, Sara, he’s still hurt), I take the hand that’s holding the fork.

“What are you doing?” he asks, staring at our joined hands. There’s a note in his voice …

“Here, turn your fork like this.” Awkwardly, I maneuver the utensil in a circle. “Then scoop.” I lift the fork, strands of pasta now wrapped around it. “This is how you eat it.”

I can’t see his expression, and he doesn’t say anything in response, so I return to my seat, feeling like I overstepped, which is ridiculous in light of everything the two of us have been through.

Pestilence takes a tentative bite of the pasta. If I was hoping for some sort of amazing reaction, I’m sorely disappointed. He simply glowers at the dish as he chews.

“I shouldn’t be eating this.”

I don’t bother to ask him why not. I already know it’s his weird hang up on “mortal vices.” I think he’s finding out the hard way that despite how willing a horseman’s spirit is, even their flesh is weak.

Speaking of horseman …

“Where are your other three riders?” I ask. This is one of the many questions that haunt the world—where the other three horsemen were. It’s too much to assume that they’re somehow gone; if Pestilence exists, so do the others.

Pestilence pokes at his pasta before tentatively twisting his fork around on his plate. “My brothers still sleep,” he says, frowning as he takes another bite off his plate.

Sleep?

“Uh, when will they wake?”

He doesn’t look up. “When it is time.”

Go figure that even buzzed, Pestilence still manages to answer questions as cryptically as possible.

Despite feeling guilty about partaking in food and drink, the horseman makes quick work of his meal and most of his bourbon.

I move through the liquor considerably slower than him. I’m what you affectionately call a cheap date. If I can stretch my drinks out, I will.

I lean back in my seat. “After you arrived here on earth, did you also sleep?” There were, after all, five years where he was unaccounted for.

He nods, pushing his plate away.

I sort of want to ask him where he managed to sleep for five years undetected.

“Why sleep at all?” Why wait at all?

“There was the possibility …” He trails off, lost in some thought.

“What possibility?” I prod.

He rouses himself. “The possibility that humanity would redeem itself.” He grabs his glass and swirls it. “But alas, not even the End of Days can alter the depraved nature of your cursed kind.”

Ah, this spiel again. Just when I thought the horseman was done harping on humans for a while, too.

Pestilence lifts his cup up and stares at the little liquid that remains, his eyelids looking a little heavy. “This is poison,” he says, out of the blue.

“Mhm,” I agree. I mean, technically, it is.

His eyes slide to me. “Was that your plan all along? To poison me?”

Oh God, and now this poison-business. How idiotic must he think I am to try to poison an undying man?

“You’re the one pouring,” I say.

That logic seems to mollify him. Somewhat.

All of a sudden, Pestilence stands, grabbing his chair and dragging it around the table so that it’s next to mine. He sits on it backwards, unaware of just how sexy my traitorous eyes find him. He gives me one of his piercing stares.

I lean away from him nervously. “What?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I feel … something when I look at you.”

My mind flashes back to the bathroom and the heated expression on his face. A blush creeps up my neck, the alcohol making it burn hotter and spread wider than it would if I were sober. I force my eyes to stay on his face when all they really want to do is dip down to his torso.

“I cannot figure out what that something is,” he continues. “And hear me Sara, it is driving me mad.”

Join the motherfucking club. We’re taking applicants.

“You’re human,” he says. “I don’t like your kind. I’m not supposed to like you.”

I don’t breathe for a second.

Don’t ask the question, Burns. Don’t—

“But you do?” I say.

His eyes drop to my mouth. He touches my lower lip with his thumb, rubbing it gently. “God forgive me, I do.”





Chapter 22


I swallow, feeling that unnerving lightness in my belly. This close, Pestilence takes up my entire vision. I can see the remains of the bullet wound just above his collarbone, and his thick golden hair, which is still matted with blood and sea spray. It doesn’t at all take away from the glory of him. I can see the ocean in his eyes, his blue, blue eyes, and the thick lashes that surround them.