War (The Four Horsemen, #2)(54)

I don’t say anything, and eventually he continues.

“I have lived along the Somme, rested Normandy, and scattered myself on the ancient shores of Troy; I have tasted most parts of this earth, and my dead have sowed countless fields with their bodies. Even now I can feel those bodies deep beneath me in the soil.”

Goosebumps break out along my skin. Half of what he’s saying doesn’t make sense, but I can feel the truth of it. Every last word.

“I’m old and new and it is a terrible, burdensome experience.” Zing. He passes the whetstone over his sword again.

“But unlike my brothers, I am unique in one single, fundamental way.” He pauses, his gaze heavy on mine.

“What way is that?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

His eyes go to the fire. “I exist solely in the hearts of men.” War gazes at the flames. Now that I’ve opened him up, it seems as though his entire story is tumbling out. “All creatures can experience pestilence, famine, and death—but war, true war, that is a singularly human experience.”

As I stare at him, his face mostly eclipsed in shadow, realization dawns.

“That’s why you judge men’s hearts,” I say. Because War, borne of human strife, is the only one of the horseman to truly understand our hearts and our hearts alone.

War laughs, setting the whetstone and his sword aside. “All my brothers judge men’s hearts,” he leans forward, “it’s just that I happen to know their hearts. I have resided in them for a long, long time, wife.”

Again, a chill slides over me. War’s gaze is far too intense, and what he’s saying is making me feel like reality and the unknowable are actually separated by a thin curtain, and right now, the horseman is drawing that curtain aside.

On a whim, I move closer to him.

He doesn’t know anything beyond war. That’s been the entirety of his existence up until now.

Reaching out, I capture his hand between mine. I don’t know what I’m doing, only that the glow of his knuckle tattoos look like fireflies caught between my hands.

Immediately, War’s gaze moves to mine, and his fingers tighten.

“If you know men’s hearts,” I say, threading my fingers between his. What am I doing? “then you must also know that most men don’t want to fight.”

It’s countries and causes and kings that want war, and soldiers who pay the price for it.

“Are you really so sure of that, Miriam?” But for once, War is the one who sounds like he doesn’t want to fight.

I run my finger over his knuckles, tracing each glyph. “I am.”

I still have no idea what in God’s name I’m doing, but I know that War won’t stop me.

He’s been wanting us to touch for a lot longer than I have.

He stares at the action, his eyes deep, his body unusually still.

My finger slips over the back of his hand and up his tan forearm, beginning to touch all the skin I’ve told myself not to touch. Beneath my fingertip, I can feel the thick bands of his muscles. Muscles that, to the best of my knowledge, formed into existence a little over a decade ago.

“Wife.” War’s voice has gone rough with want, and there are a thousand desires in his eyes. He’s starting to lean forward, and he looks like he’s going to pounce on me at any second.

Fuck, I think I want to find out what that feels like, just as I want to know what it would feel like to have War’s hips nestled between my thighs, his massive body pressed against mine …

I’m leaning forward too.

I almost manage to forget everything else.

But then, there’s a lot to forget. Too much.

I can hear the screams from battle, and I can see the way the birds circled those conquered cities. I remember the corpses—all those corpses—littering so many kilometers of road, and War’s armor covered in blood.

I release his hand. He’s handsome and kind and he saved my life, but as he said— I am not like you, and you should never forget that.

Abruptly, I stand. “I think I need to go to bed.”

You idiot, Miriam. To think that you almost initiated something with the horseman.

Loneliness is clearly getting the better of me.

I can feel the horseman’s gaze on my back as I move over to my pallet. Just like the first time we traveled, mine is heaped with blankets. I’d take War’s instead, just to make a point that I can stand to sleep like a miser, but considering the way we were eye-fucking each other only a moment ago, he might get the wrong impression.

And I don’t think I’d have it in me to turn him down twice.

As I take off my boots, War puts out the last of the fire. I expect him to say something about what just happened—some promise for more, some frustration that I slipped from his grasp (literally) once again, but he doesn’t.

It’s unnerving as hell, mostly because I’m reminded that as brutal as War is, he’s a strategist. And I think he knows how to play me.

Shortly after I lay down on my pallet, he does the same, removing his shirt as he does so. I can see his tattoos glowing in the night.

“You don’t need to go to bed just because I am,” I say.

“I don’t want to be awake when you’re asleep. Talking with you reminds me of how lonely it is to exist.”