Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79726 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79726 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“He’s definitely crazy,” I mutter.
She cracks a smile at that, and I’m so completely dazzled by her that I lose the thread of whatever I was saying. “Who’s not a little nuts these days?” she says. “We’re all living in a late-stage capitalist dystopia. Besides, sanity’s overrated.”
Then she turns around, attention back on the bread as she starts kneading it again.
Wait, how am I losing this argument? What point was I trying to make? Is she intentionally using her femininity as a weapon against me? Because it’s an excellent tactical tool.
I stride toward her but make sure to stop on the other side of the counter. Probably best to keep a hunk of stainless steel between me and her delectable curves if I’m going to keep my head.
“What I’m trying to say is that there’s no way Remus showed you who he really is. He’s dangerous.”
“So dangerous your brother locked him in a dungeon for two hundred years?” She looks angry as she says it. “Yeah, he told me. Who does that to their own family?”
“So he didn’t tell you why?”
She bites her bottom lip, and I think ah, finally, I’ve landed a point.
“Fine. Why?” she asks without looking up.
“Because he’s a psychopath who couldn’t be trusted not to continue rampaging the countryside.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means my brothers and I had just finished sacking Moscow on Napolean’s behalf after one of the bloodiest campaigns the world had ever seen. The rest of my brothers and I were exhausted by all the bloodshed, but Remus only felt energized by the war. It was the last time the Horsemen would ride before rebelling against our father and retiring for good.”
I see her brow furrowing. Good. She’s listening. So, I press my advantage. “My other brothers and I had blindly followed our father’s orders for so long, but Remus did it because he loved it. As the French finally left Moscow in defeat, he roused the peasants to attack in guerilla warfare, decimating the very army he was supposedly fighting for because he craved war so much. Nearly a million humans died in just six months, soldiers and civilians. Yet Remus only hungered for more.”
Her hands have withdrawn from the bowl, and she stares past me at the wall. “He said he was a soldier…”
I laugh harshly at that description, and she looks up at me.
“I knew he hadn’t told you everything. Did he mention the part where my brothers and I are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
She swallows hard, and her eyes go wide. “He might have left that part out.” Then she shakes her head and laughs a little. “Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I mean, are you even being serious right now?”
I look her in the eye. “Deadly. Remus and I are War. My eldest brother Abaddon is Pestilence, Kharon is Death, and the youngest, Layden, is Famine.”
She just blinks. “But, but,” she sputters, “I thought—” She waves a hand uselessly in the air, obviously confused. “Doesn’t Abaddon have a wife and a baby? And isn’t Kharon’s, Death, according to you, wife or consort or whatever pregnant?”
“Yes,” I say shortly, not wanting her to miss my point. “Like I said, we retired. And it was different for them. They were just trying to be good sons to our father. Obediently following his orders because they didn’t realize there was another way. They were just roles we played, not who we were. Except for Remus.”
She scoffs at this. “Are you kidding? You can’t have it both ways. He told me you’re all thousands of years old. Are you really going to blame everything you did on your dad? I’m pretty sure you’re considered a grown man after the first hundred years, let alone, thousand.”
I breathe out hard. No one has challenged me so equally in. . . well, a long time. “It’s true, what you say. It’s just a story we’ve told ourselves over the years. But you’re right. We had full responsibility for everything we did. We simply considered human life to be. . .” I breathe out again. “Of little consequence.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. You just said that out loud.”
I stand up straighter. “Unlike Remus, I will never lie to you about who I am. We thought ourselves gods. Humans were merely the fodder in our father’s games to gain power. He manipulated human leaders like pieces in a chess game and cared nothing at all for the pieces knocked off the board, especially pawns. His only concern was for gaining advantage and winning.”
“And Remus?” she asks. “What did he care about?”
“Nothing! He cared for nothing at all. He just delighted in chaos. He was a constant thorn in our father’s side because he didn’t care about winning or losing. He just wanted war, discord, and madness.”
She crosses her flour-dusted arms over her chest. “And you? What did you care about?”