Page 28 of Falling for Famine
He didn’t answer, but nothing about his expression suggested he was put off by my curiosity. I had a lot of questions, but I didn’t want to bombard him with them, so I stuck to the topics that mattered to both of us.
“Why are you tracking Michael instead of Ares?” After giving the room another searching glance, I looked over at the quiet Horseman next to me and noticed he was staring at my chest. The second my eyes landed on him, his gaze flicked up.
My heart gave a few extra beats of excitement. I’d seen that look before, but I never thought it’d be one Ghost gave me. For some reason, I got the feeling he wasn’t someone who gave into lust, and most of his touches felt absentminded—as if he didn’t do them with any other motive but to touch me.
But his answer cut off my detective work. “No one can find Ares if she doesn’t want to be found, but she made a mistake, and now Michael knows where she is.”
“And that’s bad?” I pressed.
His gaze flickered with something. “It is. Michael wants the end of the world. Ares does not.”
“So, Michael is a threat to her,” I surmised, finally understanding.
“And to you,” he added to my surprise.
“Me? Because I’m one of the souls meant to start it?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and the odd sensation inside me writhed to life—the urge to kiss him. This close to Ghost, and it always surged to the surface.
His mouth had been so soft, his tongue so wicked. Looking at him you’d never guess the man kissed like he intended to devour you, but he did. And the memory of it was enough to make my body flush with heat.
“She threatened to go after Ares if I didn’t ripen my Counter Soul for the apocalypse.”
Ripen? That word was…a choice.
A breath escaped me. “Counter Soul? You mean me? Is that why—but you told me—”
“I never intended to do as she asked,” he interrupted, suddenly closer than before.
His eyes only briefly left my mouth before returning to it. My pulse was going crazy. Between us, it was nothing but tension, and I couldn’t be sure what caused it. With Ghost, I never knew. He touched me out of nowhere. He said things out of nowhere. He kissed me out of nowhere. I couldn’t figure him out, so I stopped trying.
The beautiful man in front of me was led almost entirely by impulse like the cuties bouncing around us, and as much as I’d love to say it bothered me, it didn’t. Not at all. Because those impulses were the ones I denied myself most of the time, and it gave me an excuse when he took what he wanted.
Biting my lower lip, I somehow kept my voice steady. “Ah, then you were there to give her the impression you planned to take my soul so you could track down Ares?”
In a moment of reprieve—I wasn’t sure how long my heart would’ve held out with how hard it pounded—his eyes returned to mine. “Yes.”
I nodded, dry in the mouth and ridiculously hot between the legs for a woman who barely blushed over smutty storiesanymore. “That makes sense. It’s smart. She probably let her guard down when she thought you were doing what she asked.”
The smile he gave me was brief but impactful. “You and Ares would get along. You remind me of her.”
Well, damn. Okay. Not a great thing to hear when you had the hots for someone that said you reminded them of their sister, but still flattering.
I deflated a bit but tried to keep the conversation going. “War? Really? She sounds incredibly powerful and smart.”
“You are too, little wisp.”
I was melting again, totally under his spell. It was probably the most idiotic thing I could do, but I might be falling for Famine. It was impossible to stop. I was drawn to him in ways I never had been with anyone else, and I couldn’t get away no matter how much I tried.
And honestly, I didn’t want to get away. Maybe because he saved me when he didn’t have to, or because he’d never gone out of his way to lie to me. Or maybe because he’d done everything he could to protect me and Felix.
I was sinking with this ship.
I was falling so damn hard.
The distance between us had closed while I spiraled with revelations, his mouth a hairsbreadth away—close enough to kiss him again, but far enough that I could stop it. But did I want to? He might be protecting me, but I wasn’t guaranteed tomorrow.
I’d been ready to die today.
