Page 70 of Patron of Mercy

To his credit, he hadn’t known Charles was a bigot at first. He told Thanatos how he’d met Charles in Paris, where Charles was on tour after graduating from Banneker College of Magic. He’d had big ideas about how to change the world, make it better, but Lach hadn’t realized that he was only talking about making the world better for himself and people like him. Charles’s issue with the status quo wasn’t that injustice remained, but that people had begun to make feeble attempts to dismantle it.

“Sounds like the kind of man who’d appreciate Cronus,” Thanatos said mildly. Lach got the impression he was trying very hard not to pass judgement.

“Well, as soon as I realized, I told him where to stick it. The world doesn’t need more entitled assholes. But by then, I’d already told him everything. About me. How I became immortal. What the world had been like. It was stupid.” Thanatos frowned at him, but before he had the chance to say anything, Lach continued. “I don’t know. I guess I was lonely. He made it seem like he was listening, that he cared, and the idea of a better world—it sounded good. But I gave him all the information he needed to get here tonight. I set him on that path.”

“You’re not responsible for him, whatever you said. You could’ve told him to burn the world down, and if he’d listened to you, that’d be on him.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe Lach should be defending himself still, but Thanatos didn’t seem angry. There was nothing to defend himself from.

“Pants on or off?” Thanatos asked once he’d taken off Lach’s belt.

Lach wiggled his brows. “Off, obviously.”

It was a wonder that Thanatos didn’t scoff at him—Lach wouldn’t have been so strong. “We can have sex tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that,” he said steadily, his gaze boring into Lach as heat swept up Lach’s neck.

“That sounds good. Sex tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that,” Lach teased. He gripped the front of Thanatos’s shirt and pulled him in for another kiss. All Lach had ever had to do was ask, and Thanatos came for him. “And tonight.” His voice cracked. “I know it’s silly, but I thought I’d—” Lach blew out his cheeks, and his breath puffed out of him. “I thought I’d only see you one more time after tonight. To go to Elysium. And I—I wasted so much time being sostupid—”

“Stop saying that.”

Lach furrowed his brow.

“It’s inaccurate,” Thanatos clarified. “And offensive. If you had a smartphone, you’d know that.”

Lach sighed, but a smile crept onto his lips. “Okay. What I’m saying is that I wasted a lot of time without you, and I need you tonight. If—If you’re up to it, I mean.”

With his lips screwed to the side, Lach realized he might’ve been asking too much. However the night had affected him, Thanatos had been there too. He might need time, or space, or—

When Thanatos swept in to kiss him, he did it without a second’s hesitation. A moan rose from Lach’s throat when Thanatos’s tongue parted his lips. When he broke the kiss, he tipped his forehead to lean against Lach’s. His eyes were closed; Lach wished he’d open them.

“I didn’t know you were lonely all that time.”

“Oh.” Lach shrugged. “I did that to myself. I didn’t have to be.” He bit his lip, reaching for the hem of Thanatos’s shirt. He didn’t have patience for the buttons and tugged it over his head. “I’m not now.”

Thanatos leaned back to allow him to pull it off. He still looked tortured, worried about a time that had already passed, but he didn’t say anything.

Words were hard sometimes, so Lach sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. “We’ll go easy,” he whispered. “Okay?”

Thanatos nodded. He let Lach strip him of his trousers and kicked them off on the floor. Without Mis there, they were going to need to go shopping again, or, Hades forbid, do laundry themselves soon. Maybe Thanatos’s impervious god charm was transferrable and Lach would never get dirty again. A pirate could dream.

Right in front of him, naked and perfect, stood the best god in the whole pantheon, and Lach was overwhelmed with the sense that he could keep him. After running for so long, that actually sounded pretty damn good.

“I love you,” he said, running his rough hands over Thanatos’s silken hips.

Thanatos ducked his head, hiding a faint smile. “Love you too.”

And that was it—Thanatos the way he’d been before. Oh sure, he was a god, perfectly capable of killing someone with a wave of his hand. But he was Lach’s Thanatos—generous and kind and soft. And this time, Lach would care for him better.

“Come here?” he asked lowly.

Thanatos shook his head. “Scoot back?”

Before he did, Thanatos helped him shimmy out of his pants. Then, when Lach’s shoulders hit the headboard, Thanatos crawled into his lap.

There, like that, there was hardly a part of each other that they couldn’t touch. Lach took his time, tracing Thanatos’s graceful limbs, the lines of his stomach, like he had eternity to memorize him. Gods above, he hoped he did.

When Thanatos leaned over and searched out the lube, he pressed it into Lach’s hand. “Now,” he keened.

Lach didn’t have it in him to refuse Thanatos anything. There’d be other times for teasing. Other times to drive him to the edge and leave him hanging there. Now, he sank his fingers into Thanatos and spread him open. His own breath hissed as Thanatos rocked, the friction of their bodies making the whole world shrink to just the space between them.

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