Pestilence (The Four Horsemen #1)(94)

I shouldn’t have. Several times over I shouldn’t have. And now I’m honest enough with myself to admit that Pestilence has always been the reason why. He’s saved my life over and over again. And right now, his one reason for being here—to spread plague—has been put on hold.

All so that Pestilence can care for me.

Love has a funny way of rearranging priorities. It’s begun to rearrange mine.

And yet … I feel uneasy about this temporary respite. For as doting and infuriating and caring as Pestilence is, that hardness I first saw in the hospital still lingers in each one of his features.

We stay in that abandoned mansion for so long that the world thinks he’s gone. I happen to know this because, among other things, the house has a functioning television.

Even more shocking than news of the horseman’s “disappearance” is just how much reporters know about me. There are a couple blurry photos of me and the horseman, one from when I was still officially his captive, my wrists cuffed, and another later one taken while I sat astride his horse.

The reporters don’t know what to make of me. They don’t know whether I am his prisoner or his lover (“C”, all of the above), or what happened to us. The whole thing appears terribly confusing for them—should they laud me or condemn me? They’ve settled on pity.

Pestilence comes into the master bedroom where I’m cooped up—still in fucking bed—his large frame filling the doorway. He removes his bow and quiver and sets them down next to the doorway. Then off goes his armor. He leaves his crown on his head, his hair beneath it windswept.

I know without asking that he’s been patrolling the grounds. Not that he needs to. Anyone who comes remotely close to this place will fall ill. I think he does it more because he’s restless. The need to move through all the lands of man and spread disease must eat away at him.

He is not a patient man. Except, of course, when it comes to me and my oh-so-feeble human body.

He sits on the edge of the bed, the look in his eye raising my gooseflesh. There’s love there, but beneath it, there’s that same coldness. I don’t know what to make of it.

Pestilence lifts up the edge of my shirt and runs a finger over the uneven flesh.

He leans forward and kisses one of the scars.

“To think that if just one of these projectiles hit somewhere else, it could’ve killed you.”

I notice the very slight shiver that courses through his body at the mention.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“Healed.”

Pestilence narrows his eyes at me. It’s the same answer I’ve been giving him every day for weeks.

And it’s been true for a while, but try talking sense into a being who cannot die and does not intuitively know when a human is completely healed.

I grab his hand and tug him down next to me. For the first week or so that I was healing, he took to laying in bed with me, holding me close, his hand resting over my heart, just so he could feel the steady beat of it. Even once he assured himself that I was going to pull through, he still would come into bed with me, pressing his body close and falling asleep when he let himself.

But sleeping and cuddling was all he dared to do with me.

Now I roll onto him.

“Sara,” he protests.

“I’m not a porcelain doll,” I say, moving to straddle his hips. “I won’t break that easily.”

“You and I both know that’s not tr—”

I silence him with a long, slow kiss. I think he wants to resist, but Pestilence is still so shaken by the mysteries of the flesh (as he calls it) that he doesn’t do much to stop this.

His hands come up to cradle my face as my lips part his. I spend a few seconds simply breathing him in before my tongue presses against his. The moment it does so, his hands slide to my upper arms, gripping me tightly.

My own hands delve into his hair, knocking his crown askew. He has enough sense to set it on the bedside table.

I roll my hips against him, and he lets out a groan. “Sara, you are still heal—”

“Do I look like I’m in pain?” I ask.

He frowns at me, but doesn’t argue. Nor does he fight me when I remove first his shirt, then the rest of his clothes. But he doesn’t exactly help me either.

At some point, however, his tune changes. He begins to meet me, touch for touch, kiss for kiss, until he’s leading the charge. His hands rush over me, and there’s just not enough skin for his rough palms to cover.

He hooks his arm around me, and then he flips us, leaving me to gaze up at him.

So damn beautiful. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the sight of him.

Expertly, Pestilence removes my own clothes, tossing them carelessly aside.

Once I’m naked, his gaze rakes over my body, halting at the juncture between my thighs. He dips down, pressing his lips to my core. Reflexively, I buck up against him. He spreads my legs apart and continues to kiss me right—between—my—thighs.

Christ.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I ask, breathless.

I begin to sit up, only for him to push me back down to the bed.

“I assume it’s obvious,” he says. He nips at me, and oh Jesus, he is so fucking dirty. Where did he learn to be this dirty?

His tongue comes out, and he tastes me.

I moan, my back arching off the bed.