War (The Four Horsemen, #2)(42)

“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. Someone 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.