“I…” His voice faltered, and Thanatos blushed for me in the pale moonlight. “No, I have not. I have never felt…neverwanted…” He regarded me with a sudden intensity, his brow furrowed.
“I have always been content as I am,” he told me. “I have never felt the need to concern myself with these things, with lust and with…love. I thought it was just because I am Death! I mean, I do not even interact with this realm very much! I am not like the other immortals. I have no need to eat or sleep or touch…so why would I need this?”
But he was giving me a desperately needy look right now. I nuzzled closer, brushing my lips over his ear. “So you can feel likethis.” I nibbled his earlobe gently, then trailed soft kisses down his neck. A happy sigh escaped his throat. “Do you feel me?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve been denying yourself,” I said, leaning back to gauge his response.
His wings twitched, and a befuddled expression passed over his features. He shook his head slowly. “No. I think it more likely that I am incapable of this sensation without first feeling safe and wanted.”
“Safe and wanted?”
“Mortals flee from me, Cyrie,” he explained with a groan. “If they want something, it is my secrets or my mercy. The gods of the Underworld want the souls they are due. Even Hypnos requires the dark shadow to his reverie. After ages spent as a fixture of nature, I cannot think of anyone who has ever wanted just…me.”
“I see you as you are,” I breathed.
“And you want me even so,” he finished. “It is confounding. Exhilarating. And now I crave you so very much.Hades fair, what have you done to me? I have never felt anything so consuming, not in all of my existence.”
I smiled shyly, my heartbeat racing. It was a sentiment I shared, although I suspected it meant a bit less coming from a mortal confined to a temple. “Neither have I,” I admitted. “But it’s lovely, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He smiled, and brushed his thumb softly over my lips. “Kiss me again.”
I obeyed. I cradled his hauntingly beautiful face and kissed him with all the fervor that was welling up inside me, threatening to burst. And when he kissed me back, I wondered sincerely whether the highest paradise of Elysium could ever compare to this feeling of heady, passionate exploration. I never wanted this night to end.
Thanatos doted on me until the early hours of morning when I lay half asleep on his shoulder. “I should take you back,” he said then.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I pouted.
“You have to go to sleep.”
“But I want to kiss you forever.”
He chuckled into my hair. “You can kiss me more tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“…Okay.”
We flickered together into the empty hall at the base of my tower. Thanatos squeezed me tightly and murmured one last thing into my ear. “I never really understood the Olympians and their favorites,” he said. “The lengths they go to, the mountains they move to protect the mortals they love. But I do now.”
“The mortals…they love?” I whispered, stunned.
He kissed my forehead tenderly. “Yes.”
He disappeared and left me alone in the silent hall. I sneaked up the stairs to my bedroom with tears in my eyes once more.
7
How had I become the woman who fell for a god? Just a couple of weeks ago I’d been Halieis’ worst oracle, trudging along through an odd but still somewhat uninteresting life. Now I lay drowsy but sleepless, staring up at the ceiling, unable to stop thinking about the next time I could leap into the arms of Death. That’s the sort of thing that shatters any plans or expectations one could have for their life. Not that I was complaining, of course.
But despite what he’d said, it was wishful thinking to believe that I could simply behis. I belonged to rival gods, after all. Because of that, I’d have to be extremely careful with our visits. Our relationship would be hard to hide, even knowing that he’d be invisible and could sweep us away in an instant. I hadn’t ever heard tell of an oracle caught with a man, but we’d been threatened enough throughout our childhood to be terrified of the consequences. And with how much I wanted to see him, I expected unavoidable risk.
Then there was the bit about Thanatos being immortal. I didn’t know what immortality was like, but I imagined being with me would end up feeling like no time at all in the grand scheme of his existence. Did that make us more special, or less? And how was I going to deal withagingover the years, slowly unraveling against his perfection?
Of course, I was already getting ahead of myself, and I should cut it out with the hope already. They were just kisses,after all. Wonderful, perfect kisses that overwhelmed me with aching desire and pleasure. Oh,no. Damn it all, I was already in this way too deep. I already cared for him enough that prying us apart would be agony. Dear gods, was that supposed to happen so quickly? I didn’t know.
