War (The Four Horsemen, #2)(122)

“However, once I met you, and I began wanting things I had never imagined wanting—things I had once rejected. At first I gave into these new feelings I had for you because I believed God had sent you to me. I was supposed to feel companionship and compassion because He decreed it. I was supposed to take you as my wife because He delivered you to me. It wasn’t wrong.”

“Somewhere along the way, my reasons for giving into these human emotions changed. I no longer pursued you because I was supposed to. I craved your company, your smiles, your fierce anger and clever tongue because it brought me the same joy battle did. And the world bloomed into color. For the first time, I began to truly feel this body and every emotion within it.”

I had no idea. No idea that somewhere along all those winding weeks, when everything felt so hopeless to me, War was changing. Even before the vow he made to me, he was changing.

“I realize now,” he says, “this is what living, what being human, truly is.”

It’s late, and somehow I’m hungry and nauseous all at once. Which really isn’t any surprise because this has happened four other times within the last week.

I fucking hate morning sickness. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

I mean, at the very least it could mind its own damn business and just stick to the mornings.

I stumble out of bed. All the lamps are out but one, which is perched on the table. I stumble over to it.

Resting alongside the lamp is a pitcher of water, a glass, and a platter of fruit, cheese, pita bread, and what looks to be hummus.

Caught beneath the platter is a letter that reads, For my ferocious wife and child. I am hoping that if I feed you while I sleep, you won’t try to stab me again. Consider this a peace offering.

My lips twist into a smile at the note. Only War could make light of the fact that I kinda sorta tried to kill him.

I pick up the note, and much to my mortification, I can feel myself getting emotional.

It’s not even like this is a one-off event. For weeks War has been leaving out trays of food for me at night. He’s never commented on it; they’ve just appeared. I hadn’t noticed any notes before, but now I wonder if there were other nights with other midnight notes that went unnoticed. Notes that War cleaned up with the tray in the morning.

I’ve been so consumed by what was happening around me that I hadn’t noticed the single, terrible truth within me.

I love the horseman.

I love his violent eyes and the way he sees me. I love his strength and his humor and his ridiculous body, and that smile. That smile that I wait for. I love his voice and his mind. I love how he leaves me platters of food with little notes and how he stole my dagger all that time ago because it was mine. I love our arguments and our make-up sex and our midnight sex and our morning and afternoon and evening sex. I love War’s growing humanity and his otherness.

I love him.

Fuck.

I love him.

I run a hand down my face. I want to take it back. I want to undo whatever witchcraft he’s set on me.

I glance over at War’s sleeping form. I can barely make out his face in the darkness, but what I can see makes my stomach feel light.

This is a familiar story to me. Loving what you’re not supposed to. It happened to my parents, and now it’s happening to me. At least my parents had the benefit of being decent people. War’s decency is buried somewhere beneath his bloody agenda and his thirst for slaughter.

But that’s changing—War is changing, and the world is changing with him.





Chapter 52


With every city we pass through, more and more people are spared. First it’s the children, then it’s the innocents, then it becomes the elderly. Eventually, it’s not clear what distinguishes the people War saves from those he doesn’t. There’s so many spared civilians that eventually the horseman stops bringing them back to camp. If they’ve survived his raid, they get to keep not just their lives, but their homes and possessions too.

Today War and I wander through camp, the horseman’s eyes drifting to the people who live here. Camp itself is an altogether different beast than it was only months ago. There’s much more laughter and far fewer weapons.

I don’t know whether War’s aware of the metamorphosis this place has gone through, or that he’s the one responsible for this change, but I know that I feel a lightness inside me every time I see how things have improved.

When War and I hit the outskirts of camp, he turns to me.

“I have something for you,” he admits.

I stop walking, raising my eyebrows. The horseman has given me a lot of things since we first met—a tent, clothing, food, weapons, heartache, carnage, some zombies, and a baby. I’m not entirely sure I want anything more from him.

The horseman pulls out a ring, and I furrow my brows, not understanding.

It’s not until War kneels—on both knees—that I realize what this is.

“Will you be my wife?” War asks.

I stare at him dumbfounded, my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. “I already promised you I would.”

“But now I am asking you,” the horseman says, staring up at me from where he kneels. “No more deals between us, Miriam. I want this to truly be your choice.” He searches my eyes. “Will you be mine?”

I could say no.

For the first time, War is actually giving me an out in this relationship. Of course, it’s too late for me and my heart. And now he had to go and make himself a better man, a man worthy of saying yes to.