I take War’s hand. “What do you want from me?” I ask.
He grimaces. “I will not make another bargain with you.”
“I’m not talking about bargains,” I say. “Back in your tent you told me that you wanted more than just my body. Do you still want that?”
War’s upper lip is twitching in anger and distaste. Probably not the best moment to ask him this kind of question. I think right now, he’d like nothing more than to annul our fake little marriage.
I squeeze his hand. “This is how you get everything,” I say softly.
His concessions, his kindness, his altruism and mercy—those are the things that will win me over.
“I will get what I want from you either way.”
“You won’t,” I say, steel in my voice.
The horseman’s gaze thins.
“You want me to stop hating you?” I say. “You want me to love you absolutely?”
At the word love, War straightens, like I’m finally speaking his language.
“This is how you get me to love you,” I say. It feels wrong promising the horseman things I don’t intend to give. And maybe he knows that because he looks at me for a long time.
He judges men’s hearts. What’s he finding inside mine?
The warlord turns from me and looks at the child. He grimaces.
His gaze flicks back to mine, and he gives me a final, long look, his upper lip still twitching with anger. “For your soft heart,” he says bitterly.
Dear God, did that actually … work?
War leaves my side, heading for Zara and her nephew. As he gets closer, Zara clutches the boy tight to her chest.
“No,” she begs.
“It’s alright, Zara. Truly,” I say. At least I hope it’s alright.
The horseman kneels down next to her, studying the boy’s injury. Reaching out, he rips the toddler’s shirt apart, causing Zara to jolt.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
Ignoring her, War reaches out, his hand hovering right above the wound. I can see his fierce frown. After a long moment, he presses his hand to the boy’s skin, and I see the toddler’s body shudder.
I move towards them, drawn in by War.
The horseman’s other hand moves to the arrow shaft.
“Brace him,” War instructs Zara as he fits his fingers around the weapon. “I’m going to take this out, and he’s not going to like it.”
Nodding, Zara wraps her arms more tightly around her nephew.
With a single, deft jerk, War rips the arrow from the toddler’s body.
The boy wakes with a shrill scream, beginning to kick and thrash. In a very real sense he’s fighting for his life.
Just as soon as the arrow is out, War’s hand is back on the injury, despite the boy’s bucking. The horseman stays there for a long time, even as the toddler continues to thrash and wail against his hold. War’s grip is unyielding, and eventually, the little boy loses his fight. He whimpers, then falls to exhausted silence.
Silent tears track down Zara’s face, and I can see her body visibly shaking. This is tearing her apart.
After what feels like an unending amount of time, War pulls his hand away from the wound.
“It’s not completely healed,” War says, “but it’s beyond the risk of serious infection now.”
He levels his eyes on Zara. “Twice I have helped you now. I expect some loyalty in return for it.”
My friend frowns but gives War a slight nod.
The horseman stands, turning from the two of them. His violent eyes lock on mine.
He steps in close to me. “Don’t ask this of me again, wife,” he says darkly. “You will be denied.”
With that, War brushes past me. He mounts Deimos, and then he’s gone.
Chapter 31
I kneel down next to Zara, who’s holding her nephew tightly to her, tears tracking down her face.
Her hands go to the wound. There’s still blood covering the area, but once she smears it away, it’s clear there’s nothing beneath the blood except a fresh scab. At the sight of it, a choked sob slips out of Zara.
“He saved Mamoon’s life.” She glances up at me. “How did he do that? And how did you know he could do that?”
I sit down heavily next to her. “He saved my life once before.”
He’s saved your life more than once.
Zara takes my hand and squeezes it. “I can’t repay you, Miriam. Thank you. I am forever in your debt.”
“You are not in my debt. Besides,” I reach over and pull Zara’s headscarf back over her hair. “You and your nephew are not safe yet.” I glance out at the ocean, where people paw at several of the capsized boats. Our earlier plan—to have Zara’s family escape to sea—has vanished like smoke in the wind. “Let me find you a horse so the two of you can return to camp safely—and remember, if anyone comes at you, kill them.”
There’s so much ferocity in Zara’s eyes. “Gladly.”
I leave them there, scanning the streets for any riderless horses. Inevitably, there’s always some spooked steed riding about. They don’t make for great transportation, but at least it will lessen the odds of Zara and her nephew getting attacked. War’s army doesn’t tend to target mounted men and women.
A block away, I see a horse tethered to a lamppost. I jog down the street towards it. It’s definitely some soldier’s ride, judging by the weapons and kitsch shoved into its saddle bags—the items clearly lifted from some poor soul’s house.
Too bad for that soldier, his stolen goods are about to get stolen from him.
As soon as I get to the horse, I begin to untie the creature’s reins.
“Hey!” a man shouts from above me.
Three stories up a soldier leans out the window. Apparently, this is the horse’s rider, busy pillaging another house.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yells at me.
Ignoring him, I finish untying the reins and haul myself onto the steed.
There’s something undeniably satisfying about stealing from a thief.
Tapping the horse’s sides, I take off, smiling at the string of colorful curses the soldier shouts at my back.
It takes barely any time at all to ride back to Zara and her nephew.
I swing off the horse, dust billowing in my wake. “Alright, you get on first, then I’ll lift your nephew—”
“Mamoon,” she interjects. She gives me a small smile. “His name is Mamoon.”
“—I’ll lift Mamoon to you.”
She hesitates, not wanting to be away from him for even a moment. But eventually she stands, lifting her exhausted nephew in her arms. She hands him to me, then pulls herself onto the steed.
I look down at the toddler in my arms, and my heart swells.
He’s alive when he might’ve died. War spared him.
War spared him.
Zara reaches out and I lift her nephew up and into her arms. Together the two of us settle him onto the saddle in front of Zara.
The moment Mamoon realizes he’s on a horse, he begins to cry. It’s not the burning houses or the screaming people, or even my weapons that ends up terrifying him. It’s the horse.
“Sssh. Mamoon,” my friend says. “Zaza’s got you.”
“Hey!” That same male voice from earlier shouts. I glance over, and I see the soldier stalking towards us.
I turn back to Zara. “Time to go.”
Zara glances over at the man.
“Will you be—?”
“I’ll be fine.” I’m already sliding my bow off my shoulder. “Go. I’ll see you later.”
Zara nods and gives the horse a swift tap to its sides, and her mount takes off.
“Hey!” the man says again. “That was my horse!”
“Get another one,” I say, turning to him as I pull an arrow from my quiver.
“I’m not going to fucking get another one,” he says, storming towards me, a sword on his hand. “You’re going to get my horse back, or you�
�re going to regret it.”
I nock the arrow and aim it at his chest. “Come any closer, and I will shoot.”
The soldier doesn’t so much as falter.
I release the arrow, and he sidesteps it. I aim and fire another and another—both he evades without even looking concerned.
“Is that the best you fucking got?” he shouts.
It’s about then that I notice the red sash around his arm.
A phobos rider.
“I don’t care how much the warlord likes your pussy; I’m going to carve you from limb to limb and leave you to rot.”
And he knows who I am—along with how to threaten the crap out of someone.
I grab two arrows and nock them at the same time, training them on the rider. I have only ever practiced this and always with shit results, but if I don’t hit the man soon, I’ll be forced to draw my blade, and against his sword … he will have the upper hand.
I pull back hard on the bowstring and release the two arrows. Both miss, one veering wildly off. But the shot distracts the rider, and the next arrow I release … that one hits the man square in the chest.
The phobos rider staggers, glancing down at his pierced flesh, his eyes wide.
Before he can do much else, I fire off two more arrows, one which hits him directly in the heart. The rider’s body recoils at the impact. Now his eyes aren’t wide so much as they’re unfocused.
He stumbles forward, then falls to his knees.
I’m just lowering my bow when I feel the tip of the sword at my back.
“The only reason you are not dead, girl,” says the voice behind me, “is because I want our warlord to know your crimes.”
Well, shit.
Chapter 32
Back at camp, under the rays of the setting sun, the soldiers line the traitors up.
I’m one of them.
The new captives have already sworn their allegiance—or they’re dead. Now it’s our turn for judgment.
I’m shoved forward, towards the clearing, my hands bound. People are yelling at me, putting their hands on me; their hate is a palpable thing. They do this to every traitor, and yet I’m singled out amongst the crowd, undoubtedly because by now everyone knows of my relationship with War.
The horseman sits in his throne at the head of the clearing. I’d almost forgotten about that throne. He’s a different person up there, different from how he is on the battlefield—bloodthirsty and calculating—and different from how he usually is with me—gentle and kind. Sitting on that throne, still clad in his bloody regalia, he’s haughty and aloof. Although, today, I’ll admit he does look more agitated than usual.
As I walk into the clearing, I keep my chin held high, despite the fact that the ground is soaked in fresh blood and the bodies of the newly dead prisoners are lying in a pile off to the side.
The crowd is screaming and spitting and raging, raging, raging. More than one person is literally throwing horse manure at us.
Dear God, is this really what you intended? To make men into demons and let hell reign on earth?
The line of us are forced to face War.
He looks the lot of us over, his bored gaze moving from traitor to traitor until his eyes land on me. For an instant, there’s a spark of relief. Then his face hardens.
I’m not positive, but I get the impression that none of his riders told him my whereabouts. I guess they wanted to take a more dramatic, more public approach to the entire thing.
War stands, and the crowd goes quiet. I don’t know what he’s thinking, what’s going on behind those turbulent eyes of his. It’s probably regret that for a second time today, I’m undermining all his carefully laid plans.
“Miriam.” His voice ripples across the camp, and no one is immune to it.
People pause in their dung-throwing so they can stare at the horseman, then me.
His gaze drops to my throat, then my bound hands. When he looks at me again, there’s an edge to his eyes.
“Release her.” He doesn’t attempt to speak in tongues.
“My Lord,” one of the phobos riders objects, stepping away from the other riders. “She killed one of your riders.”
I don’t recognize the man speaking, but I do know he isn’t the soldier who captured me today. That ended up being Uzair, the same phobos rider who also caught me loitering outside War’s tent when the horseman was discussing battle strategies with his men. Right now, Uzair stands with the other riders, his jaw hard.
“Why are you keeping her around?” demands this new phobos rider, stepping into the clearing.
War looks bored as he stares down at his man.
Several soldiers are approaching me, presumably on War’s order to release me, but their expressions are hard. It’s clear they believe I should die today.
They come up to my side and take me by my upper arms, leading me away from the lineup.
“She kills our men, sabotages your plans, and yet you spare her? Her?” the phobos rider says, incensed. “Never have you made exceptions before. Why now, and for what? A whore?”
War’s eyes narrow.
“Kikle vležoš di je rizvoroš maeto vlegeve ika no ja rizberiš Vlegi?” the horseman says, now reverting to one of his dead languages.
How could you understand my motives if you don’t understand God?
“Has she made your mind weak, horseman?” At this point, the phobos rider just seems to be openly baiting War, which is never a good idea when dealing with a dude who happens to relish bloodshed.
The horseman takes an ominous step forward, and the crowd ripples with unease. He takes another and another, descending down his dais and entering the clearing.
He strides over to the man until he looms over his rider.
It happens so fast I barely have time to register. War pulls out a dagger from his hip and shoves it through the soldier’s heart. The rider’s lips part, and his eyes are just as wide as the phobos rider I killed earlier, like death comes as a surprise to him.
War withdraws his blade, and blood cascades out of the open wound.
The phobos rider chokes a little, his gaze swinging around at all the quiet people. He sways for a moment, then falls to the ground, dead.
The phobos rider’s blood hasn’t cooled before War muscles his way between the soldiers and scoops me up.
He’s quiet as he carries me back to his tent. I don’t bother telling him I can walk. I’m not too interested in opposing him right now, when he’s defied his own conventions twice in one day for me.
Behind us, the crowd is quiet, but once we’re well out of eyesight, I hear the noise ratchet up again, and then, all at once, the crowd seems to roar—undoubtedly as a result of the rest of the traitors’ executions.
I close my eyes against the thought of all those people I stood with minutes ago. They dared to stop the army, and they died for it.
The horseman carries me into his tent. It’s only once we’re inside that he sets me down.
He pulls out one of his blades and saws through my bindings, freeing my wrists before tossing aside the thick rope.
“War—” I begin.
“Don’t.”
One look at his expression, and it’s clear he isn’t fucking around.
Agitatedly he begins to remove the rest of his weapons.
“God didn’t send me a wife,” he says under his breath. “He sent me my reckoning.”
I stand there, rubbing my wrists, unsure where my feelings lie. On the one hand, I saw so much gruesome death today—and this man is responsible for it all. On the other hand, he saved a child, then spared me. I’m disgusted by his world, but I’m also strangely indebted to him.
“You shouldn’t be attacking my army,” he says roughly.
“Why not?”
“Because I said so!” he bellows. War turns on me now, his face enflamed in anger. “I saved a life for you—I went against my very nature to do so—and you thank me by killing my men in return?”
“That
man was going to kill me!”
His face sharpens. “Don’t lie and pretend it was just one man who you killed.”
“Why does it suddenly matter?” I say, my own voice heating. “You gave me the bow and arrow knowing full well what I intended to do with it.”
“You’ve created dissention in my ranks,” he says.
I undoubtedly have. And people will hate us both for it.
“There’s already dissention in your ranks, or have you forgotten that you destroyed all these people’s cities and killed their families before you took them prisoner?”
A muscle in his jaw jumps.
War steps up to me, coming in so close our chests touch. “I have been lenient with you. I won’t make that mistake again.”
My heart drops at that. It was his leniency that spared Mamoon. That’s the one part of him I don’t want changing.
He begins to brush past me when I catch his arm.
The horseman pauses, glancing at me. His eyes are still furious.
“Thank you,” I say. “For saving the boy.”
War leans away, looking a little disgusted, like I’ve managed to offend his delicate sensibilities.
I grip his arm a little tighter. “Seriously. You cannot know what that means to me.” He spared a stranger’s life. It’s almost inconsequential next to the heaps of people he killed, but he’s never saved someone outside of his own self-interest. Not until today.
War searches my eyes, maybe looking for validation that he did something right, even though to him it felt wrong.
My throat bobs, and I realize that there are things I am going to have to do if I want War to ever consider saving another life.
I move my hand from his arm to the back of his neck, and I draw him down towards me. When he is within reach, I lift myself on my tiptoes and I kiss away any last regrets he may harbor.
He doesn’t fall into it—not right away. But once he does give himself over to the kiss, he gives himself wholly. His hands are suddenly in my hair and his pent up anger is turning itself into passion.
There is nothing so satisfying as a fight followed by a fuck, he’d said.
Show him how grateful you are for the lives spared today. Maybe then War will again consider being lenient in the future.
War (The Four Horsemen Book 2) Page 21
