Page 15 of On a Pale Horse
“Sure.”
“I’ll leave information for my hostess at the door, so you won’t have any trouble getting in without a membership number.”
She laughed and stood up smoothly from the grass, “Baby, I’ve been a member since you guys opened.”
He had nothing to say to that, so he stood and headed toward the door.
She called after him. “Can I bring my own toys?”
Seven
Katherine
Katherine straightened from where she organized a stack of books. Ones Arwan had placed haphazardly around a table to grab later. Even though she had an entire wall of perfectly good bookshelves, he could place things on. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Arwan glanced up at her over the silver cap of the flask clutched tight between his hands. “I’m pretty hard to kill.”
She huffed and smoothed some errant black curls which sprang from her loose ponytail. “And yet, I had to nurse you back to health only a short time ago.”
He gestured toward the door like one of the Horseman was about to walk into the brownstone any second. “But it will help your friends and maybe make them trust me.”
Katherine collapsed across from him to sitting on the carpet of her living room. She reached out and pressed her hands to his cheeks. “They trust you.”
He didn’t even bother responding to that. The lie fell flat regardless. Her friends didn’t not trust him, they were simply wary of outsiders. Hell, they’d only all finally began to completely accept Tyr, and he was the first to start the dominos of fate toppling.
Arwan unscrewed the cap of the flask and sniffed the contents. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
She ran a knuckle down the side of his scruffy cheek. “Uh … you die.”
“And the best thing?”
She shrugged, suddenly feigning interest in the carpet fibers.
He answered for her. “We put Hel down once and for all. It’s worth the risk in my opinion.”
It was dumb to think he wouldn’t drink that flask. She knew it from the second Gwyn handed it to him. The fae didn’t bring it to her because he likely knew she’d have dumped it down the drain.The bastard.
Arwan wanted Hel’s head on a spike almost as much as Hades.
Katherine wanted it as well, but not at the risk of losing him. Having him in her life had opened her up in ways she didn’t know possible. As much as she loved her friends, her family, she couldn’t risk Arwan for them. And it ate at her they would ask this of them, of him.
To be fair, it wasn’t them asking; it was Gwyn, even if he had no stake in the game. Bianca couldn’t be human. Neither could Victor. Scarlet, Cloris, and Katherine were the ones this expedition would affect. The ones who had to fix things when it all fell to shit.
She let out a sigh and fiddled with the edge of her jeans. “You’re going to do it, anyway. I don’t know why I’m trying to talk you out of it.”
He reached out and took her hand with his empty one. “I care what you think. But you also know how much taking Hel down means to me.”
She cast her gaze between his eyes and the flask in his hand.
A few long silent moments passed, and he handed her the flask. “Do you want to do it? Would that make it easier for you to handle? Do you think I’d feel any more comfortable with you drinking whatever this is?”
She held the cold metal for a moment, and for a second wished she were the kind of person who could walk into the other room and dump the dreams the other Horseman had down the drain. Get rid of it so it couldn’t hurt the man she loved. But she wasn’t that person, she’d always been the one who put everyone else above herself, and this time wouldn’t be any different.
She closed both his hands around the silver flask and focused on not letting the tears pooling at the edges of her eyes fall. “Then do it and let’s get this over with.”
There wasn’t anything else to argue about. Arwan tilted it to his lips and downed the liquid in a few gulps.
Katherine watched him carefully as he lowered the flask to his lap. Waiting for an indication his head might pop off or he might suddenly turn into a fae with sociopathic tendencies. The universe could only handle one Gwyn, and Katherine definitely didn’t have Bianca’s strength of will when it came to handling men.
