War (The Four Horsemen Book 2)

by Laura Thalassa

  He stares at me for several long seconds. Then reluctantly, he stands, striding over to a chest where a holstered dagger rests. My eyes watch the way his massive body swaggers with each step of his.

  Stop it, Miriam.

  War picks up the dagger and comes back to me. Kneeling down, he places the weapon on my lap. “Anyone but me enters this tent,” he says, nodding to the tent flaps, “you gut them.”

  Said like a man who knows his way around a good murder.

  My hands clasp the weapon. Right now I’m not feeling too pious myself.

  “Ten minutes,” he vows rising to his feet.

  He heads to the tent flaps. He’s nearly left when he pauses, glancing over his shoulder at me.

  “There’s food on the table.” Giving me a heavy look, he repeats, “ten minutes.”

  With that, the horseman leaves, and for the first time since last night, I’m alone again.

  I was nearly raped and beaten to death.

  Now that War’s gone, I’m sort of just coming to terms with that.

  It probably doesn’t help that I’m in a tent again, and everything hurts, and I’m alone, and I don’t know how well I’d truly be able to defend myself if someone comes at me again.

  Not that I was about to tell the horseman that when he was considering staying. It’s one thing to feel vulnerable, another thing to showcase it to the world.

  I probe my face a little, trying to figure out by the feel of it just how bad off I am. Along with a split lip, my nose is tender and the skin around my eyes is swollen. Never have I been more thankful that there’s no mirror in sight. I don’t really want to see the pulpy remains of my face.

  I sit there for several minutes, bored and restless all at once. My skin throbs like it has a pulse, and you’d think that the pain would push out every other human urge, but it doesn’t.

  My stomach knots. God, am I hungry.

  I look forlornly towards the food War had mentioned. The table might as well be a million kilometers away in the state I’m in.

  I grab the dagger War gave me and I force myself to stand anyway—

  Holy balls, I’m going to barf. I’m going to barf all over War’s bed right now, and that holds none of the appeal it would’ve a day ago.

  I force my sickness back down and stagger over to the table, pushing my dark brown hair out of my eyes. With a heave, I plop down in a chair, setting my weapon on the table.

  I don’t think I should’ve gotten up. Things feel … broken. Or rather, freshly mended, like my bones are brittle twigs set to snap in the wind.

  Spread out before me is a platter full of dried Turkish apricots and figs and dates, olives, cured meat—probably goat or sheep because everything these days is goat or sheep, cheese cut and arranged, and several loaves of pita bread. Next to it all is a coffee pot and a gawa cup filled with thick Turkish coffee.

  The coffee has long since gone cold, the pita is a little hard, and the cheese has dried out some, but it all tastes like motherfucking heaven. Not even bruises and a split lip can stop that.

  As I eat, I look around me again. It’s weird to be in here, in War’s tent, not just as some sort of visitor but as a guest—and an injured one at that.

  You are not a guest, you are my wife. I can practically hear War’s response even now.

  I finish shoveling food into my face, and once I’m done, I sit there, putting off the walk back to the bed.

  Time to inspect the rest of my injuries.

  I glance down at myself. My ripped shirt reveals mottled, discolored skin. I gingerly move the ripped fabric out of the way to get a better look. Ugh. Right now, my flesh looks more akin to that of the zombies I fought yesterday than it does healthy human skin. Everything is swollen and discolored.

  I’m about to turn my attention to the lower half of my body when I hear the sound of footfalls heading my way. I pull my shirt together as best I can.

  The tent flaps are thrown open, and War strides in, his expression stormy. When he sees me at the table, his step falters, his face turning fierce in a whole different manner.

  “Miriam.” His voice is raw and gravely.

  I find I like the sound of my name on his lips. He makes me sound … formidable. I could use a good helping of formidable today.

  War walks over to the table and pulls out a chair. He sits down next to me, surveying the food then my face. Right now the horseman is all purpose and commanding energy, and I feel like squashed fruit.

  War reaches for his upper arm, his wavy hair shifting with the action.

  I tense when I see him grab the dagger sheathed there.

  The warlord extends the weapon to me. “This is yours.”

  I stare down at the weapon—his weapon. The one I took from him when I first arrived. He was carrying it in that upper arm holster then just like he is now.

  “It belongs to you,” I say.

  He sounds maybe a little exasperated when he says, “Take it.”

  Alright—I mean, I’m not going to fight this demon over a blade.

  I take the dagger from him and set it next to the other dagger he gave me.

  “How do you feel?” he asks for the second time today.

  “Like shit,” I answer for the second time today.

  He cracks a smile at that.

  I glance around us, making sure my eyes land anywhere but him. “Where do I go?”

  “You don’t go,” he says. “You’re staying here.”

  I begin to protest, but then the horseman takes my arm, lifting a sleeve of my shirt to study the bruising. “It looks better.” His eyes move to mine. “But you look tired.”

  I am tired. And I don’t really want to fight him, not when he’s been taking care of me. It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone take care of me, and I forgot how nice it is.

  You don’t need anyone to take care of you, Miriam, least of all the horseman.

  With that thought in mind, I begin to stand, but it hurts so damn much. I plop back down in my seat.

  War pushes himself out of his chair, his eyes pained as he takes me in. I couldn’t say what exactly he’s thinking, but if I had to guess, I’d say he’s realizing that he underestimated how hurt I am.

  He comes to my side, and wordlessly, he scoops me up and carries me back to his bed.

  The horseman lays me down, and my shirt, which was previously behaving, now gapes open—and there are my breasts.

  Could this get any fucking worse?

  But the horseman doesn’t look down, and I want to cry all over again that he of all people is the one with some common decency.

  Quickly I rearrange my shirt.

  War kneels next to me. “I need to touch you again.”

  I give him an incredulous look. “Why?”

  “You’re still wounded.”

  Oh. Right. He’s been tending to my injuries.

  I nod, chewing the inside of my cheek. Touch is still an iffy thing for me.

  His hand closes over my wrist, and he pushes the sleeve of my shirt up, revealing the discolored, swollen skin. My eyes are on the horseman, taking in his deep frown as he stares at my injuries. But then I’m distracted by the feel of his hands on me.

  War runs his palm over the tender flesh of my forearm, his tattoos bright against his knuckles. Beneath his touch, my skin warms. And then, something strange happens.

  Before my eyes, my bruises morph from plum to a brownish yellow, and some of my skin’s sickly pallor recedes, like poison being drawn from a wound.

  I glance up at War, my eyes wide as the realization hits me.

  “You’ve been healing me.”

  Chapter 19

  Not only can the horseman raise the dead, he can apparently heal the injured.

  That’s why he’s had his hands on me almost constantly since last night. I simply thought I was overly aware of his touch, but no, it seems this is how he heals.

  War meets my eyes for a moment, looking distinctly unsettled by my words. Someo
ne does not like the idea that he’s helping a human—wife or not.

  The horseman moves his hands to another section of my skin, and he begins to work on it, ignoring what I said. I don’t bother pushing him on it. I don’t want him to suddenly decide he’s too much of a hard-ass motherfucker to play nursemaid.

  For a while he works in silence, and I enjoy the view of his head bowed over me. His hair has been gathered—gold adornments and all—into a bun. I stare beneath it, at the sharp angles of his face. I watch his cheek tense and untense.

  All the while, my skin heats under his hands as my injuries slowly vanish. That touch that I flinched away from, that touch that still stirs strange emotions in me, that touch is healing me. I can’t wrap my mind around it.

  “I didn’t mean for this, wife. I never meant for this,” War murmurs. After several seconds, he adds, “When you cried, no one came. No one but me.” His voice is raw as he admits this.

  I swallow as I remember. I’d been so sure someone would come, someone would stop the men. No one did. We live in a city with no real walls. My screams were heard, they just went unheeded.

  If he hadn’t intervened, I’d probably be dead. Dead and defiled.

  “How did you know to come?”

  “I heard your cries.”

  “How did you know they were mine?” I ask. There are hundreds of women in his camp; surely my voice isn’t that distinct.

  Now his eyes meet mine. “The same way you know my words when I speak them. Wife, we are connected in ways that defy human nature.”

  It’s a ridiculous answer, and I don’t know if I believe it. I know I don’t want to.

  “I still hate you,” I say, without any heat. Mostly because I need to remind myself.

  I draw those words around me like a cloak.

  The corner of his mouth curves up. “I’m aware,” he says.

  War works in silence for a bit longer, and I watch him and his careful hands, the wonder of it all not wearing off.

  “How do you do it?” I finally ask. “Heal me, I mean.”

  “I will it. It is as simple as that.” He pauses, and I think that’s the end of his explanation, but then War adds, “My brothers and I can all do the opposite of our powers—Pestilence can spread sickness and cure it. Famine can destroy crops and grow them. Death can give and take life at will.” War pauses. “I can injure … and I can heal.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. I think my mind is being blown right now. They were all tasked to end humanity … but they were also given the tools to save it.

  War stares at me for a long moment, then his eyes go to my lips. This time, I can feel the kiss about to happen. War is unconsciously leaning closer, and I am angling my face to better meet his mouth.

  War is violent and uncompromising, but he’s not pure evil. He’s proving it right now while his touch still warms on my skin.

  I’m leaning in, and he is too—

  At the last moment, I turn my head away.

  I can’t.

  Forgiveness is one thing. This is another. I can’t cross that line.

  I can’t.

  I keep waiting for that horrible moment when War’s going to want his bed back, but it doesn’t come. Not that afternoon, when I drift in and out of sleep, and not that evening, once the sun has gone down and the camp has quieted.

  War comes to me several times, either to quietly set food by my bed, or to place his hands on my skin and continue to heal my injuries, his ruby red tattoos glowing in the darkness.

  “How are you still awake?” I mumble when I feel his hands on me for what has to be the fifth time tonight.

  “I don’t need to sleep,” he says.

  I crack my eyes open at that.

  After a pause he adds. “My body doesn’t require it. It’s a human trait I’ve simply taken up over the months.”

  At first, it doesn’t really compute. My brain is too foggy from sleep. But then it does.

  “You really don’t need it?” I sit up a little at that.

  “I can heal the injured and raise the dead, but you’re shocked by this?” he asks, a wry smile on his face.

  Fair point.

  I lay back down. “What else can you do?” I ask.

  “You already know all my other secrets. I don’t need to eat or drink—though I do enjoy it. My body can heal itself. I can speak every language known or once known to man, though I prefer to speak in dead languages when giving orders. And I can raise the dead.”

  It falls quiet, and I close my eyes again, letting him work. But I can’t slip back to sleep. Not when his hands are on me, and I almost kissed him earlier, and I’m still a bit confused that I even briefly wanted his lips on me so soon after I was attacked.

  I open my eyes again.

  “Why did they do it?” I ask softly. “Why did those men attack me?”

  I gaze at the horseman, and maybe the darkness is playing tricks on me, but in the dim light of the tent, his eyes look so sad, so very, very sad. I’ve never noticed that before. I’ve been too stuck on how frightening he was. But now his expression doesn’t look so battle hungry, and that changes the horseman’s entire face.

  “Men’s hearts are full of evil, wife,” he admits.

  I don’t have it in me to disagree. I hate the horsemen—I do—but right now I think I might hate my own kind more. Were we always this way? This cruel? Or did the four devils that rode onto earth make us like this?

  War’s hands leave my skin. “Sleep, Miriam. And don’t worry about those men or their motives. You will have your justice.”

  That’s oddly foreboding.

  With that, War retreats, and I’m left to drift off into uneasy sleep.

  The next day, I wake up to a cold breakfast and a pile of my things laid out next to War’s pallet.

  Oh, and no sign of the horseman.

  Off making war, no doubt …

  At least he feels more comfortable leaving me alone today than he did yesterday.

  I grab the plate of food and pick at the breakfast, thinking that I have myself a pretty sweet deal: I’m being waited on hand and foot by one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, and he hasn’t asked for anything in return.

  Yet.

  I can hear my earlier warning to Zara ringing in my ears. I can only get away with so much for so long. That’s the way this world works.

  Of course, that’s not nearly so distracting as the fact that now I’m starting to wonder what it would feel like to be with someone like War. Someone who’s more a force of nature than an actual man. And I’m not altogether put off by the idea …

  After breakfast, I pick through my things. There’s my wood for arrow shafts, my shoes, my woodworking tools, my inherited coffee set, and most titillating of all, the tattered bodice ripper I was bequeathed.

  There’s also a pile of new clothing sitting among my items, along with a note.

  There’s a bath waiting for you. It might be cold by now. Enjoy anyway.

  I glance up from the slip of paper, and immediately, my eyes land on the metal basin at the back of the room.

  I have the oddest urge to cry. Most water is pumped from wells these days, so a bath is a production. Especially a warm one.

  I glance back down at the note, running my thumb over the sure, sweeping grace of War’s writing. Just like everything else about him, there’s a commanding certainty to his penmanship; you’d think he’d been jotting down notes for decades.

  Setting the paper aside, I grab the clothes and head over to the basin.

  One of the things I’ve learned about myself since joining War’s army: baths are an anxiety-inducing experience. The sound of every passerby has me ready to leap out of the tub. Which is a shame, because the water—while not warm—still feels amazing.

  God, I miss indoor plumbing. I miss it so, so much.

  At least I get a chance to inspect my wounds. The bruises across my skin are fainter and smaller than they were yesterday. The cut on my lip is comp
letely gone, and my chest doesn’t hurt so much when I breathe anymore.

  All that being said, I feel tired and weak, like I’ve been remade in the last two days—which isn’t terribly far from the truth. So in spite of the conversations that drift by and have me tensing in the tub, I let myself linger in the water for a while.

  Also, I just really miss good soaks. Sponge baths aren’t the same.

  I’m just about to get out when I hear someone walking towards the tent. I hold my breath, waiting for them to pass by.

  Instead, the tent flaps are thrown open and War stalks inside.

  I freeze at the sight of him, naked as the day I was born.

  The horseman’s face and armor are speckled with blood and a thin coat of dust. Some of it sticks to his hair. My stomach drops at the sight.

  War’s eyes find mine, and they heat.

  This is awkward.

  So, so awkward.

  I sink a little lower into the tub. “Hi.”

  Hi? The fuck, Miriam?

  Also, unrelated, but can he see my nipples? That’s a pretty large concern of mine.

  “Wife.” His voice is gruffer than usual, and my core clenches at the sound. “You found my note.”

  I did. A little too late judging from the fact that he’s already back. How freaking long did I sleep?

  Better question: how long was War even gone?

  “Aren’t you still supposed to be out …” I can’t bring myself to say it. Killing people. “raiding?”

  My eyes drop to his armor. The last time I saw him wearing his gear, it was riddled with bullet holes from Zara’s gun. Now, despite the dirt and blood splatter, the leather armor is smooth and whole once more.

  How is that possible?

  War strides inside his tent, distracting me. He begins to take off his regalia, starting with his big-ass sword. “I grew … anxious leaving you alone,” he says.

  Him anxious? It’s me who’s the anxious one.

  He removes his vambraces, then his leather shoulder guards. Next, he unlaces his chest armor, letting it all fall to the floor. Lastly, he removes his shirt.

  I suck in a breath at the sight of him shirtless. Beneath all that armor is sweat-slick muscle. The tattoos on his chest burn crimson against his skin.