Page 5 of Thanatos' Craving

Ember tsked and put her hand on her hip. “You will rescue a woman there first, tonight.” She waved a finger at me. “The one I said that needs to be saved.” She pulled on my robe once more and grabbed her sphere, tucking it up under her arm and pulling me to her workspace to get us away from her children.

Lucifer stood tall with his arms crossed over his chest, his expression stern and unyielding toward his younger sister. Uriel’s wings rustled impatiently behind him as he spoke, and he gestured towards Lilith to stop killing her nannies. Lilith’s wild hair thrashed about as they dragged her towards the glass door, her hands flailing as she tried to break free from Lucifer’s grasp.

“Grey hair. They are all going to give me grey hair. I don’t know what is going to happen when Uriel pops out a baby.” Ember paused. “Oh, sweet Uriel, I hope they don’t have any babies anytime soon. She’s still such a child herself.”

Lucifer pops his head back into the glass dome. “Don’t worry, mother, not for a long time.”

“But babies are so cuuuuute!” Uriel whined from the other side of the door. She stomped her foot on the ground, her dress fluttering in the wind.

“We have to keep practicing making them, bunny. We must be really good at it first,” Lucifer pacified her.

She pouted. “But we do it allllll the time.”

Lilith gagged, and Ember's face twisted in disgust as she put her hands over her ears.

My shadows engulfed a circle around us. They were like whispers, like wind rustling through leaves. The shadows seemed to hum and sway as they wrapped around, creating a barrier from the chaotic noise of Uriel’s whine and Lucifer’s attempts to pacify her. It was almost as if the shadows had a mind of their own, moving in a hypnotic dance.

“Thanks, that was just awful. Anyway.” Ember waved her hand over the sphere and brought up a scene of a back alley, one I recognized instantly. It was the back of the club my reapers had scouted, Fuzzy Bunnies. “This is where you will find the next soul that will be on the brink of death right outside the club, the one you want to let die for the greater good.” Ember raised an eyebrow.

I nodded and her fingers wrapped around the sphere tightly. “Don’t let her die. She is someone’s mate, Thanatos. If she dies, he will die too, and the ripple effect will be irreparable. Besides, she may be of some help to you in finding you more information about the club. She’s been there quite a while.”

I tilted my head in curiosity. “Really? How do you know?”

“A feeling,” she sighed. “I can’t give you anymore answers. It wouldn’t be fair and really, I’ve given you too much.” She waved her hand in front of the sphere and it disappeared entirely. “Promise me you won’t let her die, Thanatos.”

My fingers curled around the shaft of my scythe like a steel vine, my knuckles standing out like jagged mountains against the sharp edges of bone. The sound of my bones rubbing together echoed through the air like a warning. It was the only way you could read my emotions. You do not bargain, promise,or ask the word of Death to save a soul. Death has the final word. Death makes the final decision.

Mortals can pray to the gods, beg for mercy for a soul to spend a few more miserable years in pain for their selfish desires. Only on the rare occasion will the gods intervene and heal a mortal where a reaper cannot take their soul.

Ember doesn’t hold the power to heal. She lives in the Underworld with the king of those who have passed. Now she asks me to let this woman to live?

To let someone live, when their body was battered and broken, their blood spilt onto the floor in pain. Isn’t that cruel enough? This female, this human, had been through enough in her life, in a strip club, and to prolong her life was insanely cruel.

I was about to let her live. And then what? Who would come for her? Help her? Where was this mate that Ember spoke of? Why isn’t he or she there to help her?

My jawbone cracked in annoyance. It was like the rusted gears of an ancient clock tower, and the shadows that encircled us danced like restless spirits that whispered secrets and tempting fate.

“Sorry.” Ember snapped. “I shouldn’t have asked that. I get it. Just–” She rubbed her chest. “Think very long and hard about this.”

“You must understand,” my voice grew cold. “I do not wish to take souls and bring them here. I do not delight or find joy—I believe is the term that one might use—when doing one’s duty. You, being mated to the King of the Underworld, would understand this.”

Ember nodded, her fingers fiddling with the sash of her dress.

“My decision to bring a soul to its last resting place is for either its peace or its judgment. And this female, depending on how I find her, may need more peace than the fight that you want her to have.”

Ember parted her lips to argue, but I held out my boned hand to silence her.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

I took my hand and wrapped it just above my other, and had it tighten around the scythe. The shadows that encapsulated Ember and me from the noise and others disturbing us fade away. It circled me in a thick smoke and engulfed me whole. I bowed my head, and it pushed downward on me until I felt my body disappear from the fake garden, and I reappeared right outside my home.

I took the ivory bones that was my hand and rubbed my forehead. This was why I stayed in the darkest part of the Underworld. No one to come running to the God of Death to ask for a favor for their favorite mortal, no one to ask for favors to help the dying here.

Even in the Underworld, gods were afraid of the dark.

Maybe except Uriel, because she was too naïve.

I just wished that many understood I did not wish to be the evil one. Not all of us could live forever. Bodies became weak, the souls must rest, and I must judge when those souls have had enough in those mortal bodies.

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