Suffer

The Next Day

Thanatos rubbed his temples for a third time as he read the paperwork before him.

"Is this everything?" He asked one of the guards, to which the man nodded.

"My sources say that she may have been into trafficking, but we haven't been able to confirm that."

Dismissively raising his hand, Thanatos waved off the statement, "We only deal with the things we can actually prove, besides there's more than enough here for me to make my decision."

Standing, he walked over towards the clearly terrified woman. This was the part that he'd loved, and on any other day the statement would still be true, but today Thanatos wanted nothing more than to be left alone. His mind had been all over the place, and work wasn't providing the distraction he'd hoped for.

"Do you know why you're here?" The woman nodded her head slowly. "Good, then we can speed this up…I have other things to do."

Looking back at his guard, Thanatos gave the orders, "Place her in the pit, no food, water, light…no shred of decency shall be given to her until her death. Then-" The corners of his mouth turned into a small smile, "The REAL fun begins. Your soul will till the land, and as long as you keep your head down, the guards won't harass you *much. *"

"WHA-THAT'S NOT FAIR. YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO ME!" She screamed, but instead Thanatos turned to his guard.

"We need to really talk about whatever advertisement they're putting out that references me as being fair and nice…it's starting to grind my gears."

A small laugh unintentionally escaped the guard's mouth, and he quickly regained his posture.

"Now that we got that out of the way, please follow-” Thanatos's statement came to an abrupt halt as a wad of saliva connected with his face.

"FUCK YOU!" The woman fumed angrily.

The guard immediately lunged for her, but Thanatos raised his hand stopping him in his tracks. Wiping the spit from his face, his lips contorted into a terrifying grin. He took a step towards her, locking his hands to each side of her collarbone before she could move. His pale eyes shifted, his nails finding their way deeper and deeper into her flesh. With every writhe of agony, he dug deeper, allowing his claw-like fingers to tear effortlessly through her skin.

"Don't look away dear, the fear in your eyes is something I want to immortalize."

Blood pooled at the corners of the woman's mouth. She tried to speak, but the tearing of each vein in her neck prevented her. With a gurgling sound, her body collapsed, it's weight still supported by the depth of Thanatos's nails. He looked at the dead woman, and then looked at how deep he'd managed to tear through her. The smell of her blood and death excited him, and his body seemed to come alive.

Well, that's new

His body tingled all over. Thanatos cocked his head and inhaled once more realizing there was a smell he'd initially missed, vanilla.

"Poppet," he said in an almost like growl. He didn't need to see her to know she was there.

"Reaper." Evie stood at the doorway admiring the flexed muscles of Thanatos' back. His body stiffened as he called out to her, and she could see the tension he was trying hard to hide.

"Leave us," he said turning to the man across from him.

Evie could hear the thump of something hitting the floor. As he moved towards his desk, her eyes locked with the dead eyes of a woman. She smirked, "That temper of yours is going to be your downfall."

Sitting at his desk, he wiped his hands clean before running them through his hair, "I've been told it's one of my most charming qualities."

The smell of death and blood in the air intoxicated her, and she moved further into the room. "You still avoiding me Thanatos?"

"I'm not avoiding you."

He didn't even believe what he'd just said. Of course, he'd been avoiding her. She was doing things to him, distracting him, changing him in ways he didn't like. He closed his eyes and rubbed the sides of his temples feeling his migraine return. Allowing himself to briefly disengage, he hadn't realized how close Evie was until he felt her soft hands in his hair. Instinctively, he grabbed them, whirling her around to his side. His pale eyes searched her face.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Helping you with your headache." Looking down at his hands around her wrist, she bore holes in them until he released her.

"I'm fine," he said in a grumble, but Evie didn't respond.

Instead, she positioned herself onto his desk, forcing Thanatos to roll backward away from her. She laughed, "Is the big bad Reaper afraid of little ole me?"

"Just being a gentleman."

Moving to the middle of the desk, she placed one foot under the rim of the chair forcing it to roll back towards her. Thanatos leaned forward to protest, but Evie caught his hair in her hands again. Slowly massaging, she worked her way throughout, finally landing at his temples. Thanatos felt the pressure slowly leaving his head yet ending up somewhere lower. Her green eyes stared into his, and he felt his dead heart jump.

"Better?"

"Yes, thank you."

She smiled, but neither of them moved allowing the electricity from their connection to continue to flow through them. "Reaper?"

"Hm?"

"I'm leaving today…to stay with Romulus."

Thanatos felt the wind leave his lungs. His eyes darkened slightly, and he glared at her, "No."

Evie tossed her head back and laughed, causing him to only get angrier. "There's that temper again." Locking her hands deep into his hair she tugged him forward until they were only inches apart. "Here's the thing Thanatos…you don't tell me what to do."

In a swift motion, he grabbed her, and she gasped as she landed on his lap. Placing his hands on the small of her back, he leaned forward allowing the stumble from his chin to rub the side of her face. He inhaled her scent, finding his hand lowering further down to her firm behind.

"Let's not play this game Evie…I don't play fair."

Evie tilted her head back so she could look at him once more and then slowly lowered her lips onto his. Before he could stop himself, Thanatos pulled her close. Her tongue grazed the outside of his lips. As he opened his mouth, Evie deepened the kiss.

Readjusting herself, she sat directly onto his manhood. She winded her hips slowly, all the while never breaking them apart. Thanatos groaned, his manhood hardening, the desire to strip her naked becoming almost unbearable. Biting his bottom lip slightly, she broke their kiss and Thanatos looked at her. Her eyes darkened, her lips plumped, the sight almost sending him over the edge.

"I don't need to play a game I've already won, Reaper. That dead heart of yours is mine." She leaned in close and whispered, "Which is why everything you do reminds you of me."

Getting off his lap, she walked over to the corpse onto the floor and placed her hand onto the shoulder. Within seconds, the body thrashed about on the ground, until finally, the eyes shot open.

"Where...where am I?" The woman spoke and Evie glared at her.

"I can smell the evil in you."

At those words, the woman grabbed at her neck, realizing she could reach right through it. "I-I don't…understand how I'm still alive?"

"Technically, you're dead…I hate the term zombie…but-" Evie shrugged, "I guess in this context it fits."

The woman's eyes widened, "Why did you bring me back?"

"So you can serve your sentence. You really should have just taken the initial punishment because at least then you would have found some release once you died.… now you will remain in that pit forever. Staving, in the dark with only your thoughts and the rats." Hearing this made Thanatos's stomach drop. His own words replayed in his mind.

*I'm cruel...angry, and vengeful. I kill and I enjoy it. Is this what you want in a Soul Tie? Hmm? Is that what you asked God's for? *

It was in that moment he realized something that left a chill up his spine. Perhaps he was exactly what Evie had asked for…because perhaps he wasn't the only wicked thing in the room. Standing, Evie dusted herself off.

"THAT IS SO CRUEL!" The woman shouted at her.

Evie faced Thanatos who remained quiet at his desk with a storm of emotions in his eyes, "No… that's life...because people don't listen. You had a good offer placed in front of you, and you snubbed it." Though her statements were said to the woman, Thanatos knew by her eyes, she was talking to him.

"Sometimes, people rather fight against what's natural…what’s right. In those moments you have to just watch from the sidelines as they make things harder for themselves and others. This is one of those moments and I'm going to enjoy watching you suffer because maybe in your suffering, you'll finally realize the beauty of what could have been." She turned on her heels and walked towards the door.

"I'll send for my things," she said over her shoulder as he watched her disappear causing the once small sinking feeling in his stomach, to travel throughout his entire body.