“I … am just not feeling well.”

“No,” he says simply.

Damn him.

“So now you think I’m a liar?” I accuse.

“I know you’re a liar.” All at once, he releases my jaw. “But keep your thoughts to yourself. I’ll learn them soon enough.”

This new revelation sits like a stone in my stomach.

Falling for the horseman.

I don’t want to fall in love. Everyone I’ve loved has either died or hurt me and then died. My parents, my aunt, even Elvita.

And then, of course, there was that one previous time I fell in love, and that whole thing went about as smoothly as the apocalypse.

Martim had just turned twenty when he met me. I had already been at the bordello for a couple years, but in many ways I was still young and naïve when I first met the rancher.

He was all gangly limbs, but he had kind eyes and a gentle smile, and he never saw me as just some floozy to stick his dick in. His buddies were the ones who paid for our first night together, but after that he came back for himself.

The other girls had warned me not to fall for clients. So many of them had been burned in the past by men who wanted free sex or who had savior complexes. But naturally, I thought I was different, and I thought Martim was different, too.

Short story: he wasn’t.

When his parents learned that he loved me, they threatened to disown him. No family, no ranch, no carefully crafted future that he had prepared his entire life for. That’s what he stood to lose. He had tears in his eyes when he told me. I think he assumed I would understand.

The only thing I understood was that the world loves to kick you when you’re down.

Less than a year later, Martim married a respectable woman. And just when I thought my broken heart had mended itself, it broke all over again.

Not too long after the wedding, Martim tried to visit me at the bordello, but not for all the money in the world would I let him touch me again, and he didn’t seem to want to sleep with anyone else at The Painted Angel. So that was that.

The pain that used to accompany Martim’s memory is only a shadow of its former self. Unfortunately, there’s a new emotion I feel—panic.

I don’t want to be in love again. And with the Reaper of all people.

“I will figure it out.” Famine’s breath tickles my ear.

Holy hell.

“Will you stop?” I say. “There’s nothing to figure out.”

“Liar.”

I hate that he’s right, and I hate that he’s so astute. In all likelihood, not only will the horseman probably learn my secret by this evening, he’ll manage to pulverize my brittle little heart while he’s at it.

Because such is my luck.

The sun is setting when Famine steers us to an obviously abandoned house.

I eye the dilapidated structure. “And here I thought that you never wanted to stay in another one of these again.”

“Would you prefer to sleep outside?” he asks, his fingers rubbing the obviously wet fabric of my dress together. It’s rained off and on all day.

“You could always fix the weather.”

He makes a derisive sound. “Of course you would ask me to change the weather just to make yourself more comfortable.”

“Oh my God, Famine, calm your tits.”

“I don’t have t—”

“I’m not trying to make you do anything. I’m just reminding you that you threw the world’s biggest hissy when we stopped at the last abandoned house,” I say.

“And you threw an equally big hissy when we stopped at an occupied house,” he replies.

I sputter. “Yeah, because you were going to kill a woman.”

“And so I brought you to an abandoned house,” he says slowly, gesturing to the building in front of us.

Humph.

“Fine,” I say begrudgingly. “You made your point.”

He guides the horse almost all the way up to the front door before stopping his steed and hopping off. After a moment, I dismount and follow him inside.

Unlike the last abandoned house we stayed at, this one is in much better condition—relatively speaking. There’s even a hand pump well just outside the back of the house. The place also shows signs that other travelers have stayed in it. Used up matches, cigarette butts, a beat up book, a few empty liquor bottles, and a clay oil lamp someone left behind.

Famine turns around, his gaze finding mine. A moment later, his eyes dip to my chest. Belatedly, I realize that my rose colored dress is soaked through, molding perfectly to my breasts. Breasts that the Reaper is now staring at.

Just like that, it seems as though last night never ended. I can see Famine’s hunger; it matches my own.

It looks like it takes him enormous effort, but he eventually tears his gaze away, his eyes landing heavily on mine as he exhales.

This is going to be harder than I thought, his expression seems to say. Or maybe those are my own thoughts.

The horseman brushes past me then, heading back outside.

“Why don’t you just bring your horse inside?” I call after him. It’s not like anyone cares about what a horse might do to this place.

The Reaper comes back in carrying several sacks and his scythe. He tosses his weapon onto the floor, the metal clattering as it skids along the ground. “Make him endure this moldy, cramped space? I may be wicked, but I am not that wicked.”

I give him a funny look. “You are so odd.”

Everything he believes—all his opinions and assumptions—are unlike anything I’ve ever come across.

“No, my flower, it is you who are odd. Lewd and witty and very, exceptionally odd.”

He sets the packs he’s carrying onto a derelict table, the wood swollen and warped. In one of them, I hear the clink of what must be Famine’s scales. He, however, turns his attention to the other bag. From it, he pulls out a blanket and the remnants of last night’s food.

I stare at the items with rising apprehension. “You packed,” I say. “For me.”

He thinks of me and my needs even when I’m not around—needs that he doesn’t share. My chest tightens in an almost painful way. But the sensation is soon followed by fear.

“You look like you’re going to hurl,” the horseman says conversationally as he tucks the blanket under his arm.

“I’m just—that was kind of you. Is all,” I say like an idiot.

He lifts an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you take to kindness about as well as I do. I’m actually strangely pleased by this.”

He strides down the hall, peering into one of the far rooms. “There’s a mattress back here you could sleep on, but full disclosure—there are more lifeforms growing on it than there are in the rest of the house.”

That snaps me out of my thoughts.

“The floor is fine.”

The Reaper returns to the living room and kicks aside a beat up coffee table before unfurling the blanket, laying it in the middle of the room.

Once he’s finished straightening it out, Famine stands back, looking mighty pleased with himself. Because he made me a bed. Never mind that there’s no pillow or a top sheet to cover myself with. The man who gets everyone to do his bidding went out of his way yet again to do something for me.

My heart is beating loudly in my chest.