War (The Four Horsemen #2) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,103

and step away. Their eyes look spooked, and they keep glancing behind them at something outside the tent.

“Do you need anything else?” one of them asks, turning her attention from the tent flaps to me and War. Her eyes move curiously over me, taking in my bare shoulders and my dirty appearance and the fact that I’m in the horseman’s bed. A blush creeps across her cheeks.

“That’s all.” War waves them away.

Once we’re alone again, he nods at the tub. “Would you like a bath?”

I would give my left tit for a bath.

My blankets are off in an instant. It’s only as I get up, naked from head to foot, that I truly feel my fatigue. I sway a little from it. My throat burns, my lungs rattle, the sword wounds on my arm, neck, and torso sting, and my legs want to fold under me.

I take a few shaky steps forward before the horseman comes over and scoops me up.

“I can walk,” I protest.

“Let me do this, wife,” he says, his lips close to my ear.

Reluctantly, I let him carry me across the room to the bath. He sets me in the water, which is scalding.

I melt into it.

Swear nothing has felt this good in a long time.

That’s not true though, is it? I’ve had many, many experiences with War that outshine this one. Just the thought has my cheeks flushing and my abdomen clenching.

I really could use a happy-to-be-alive orgasm right about now, despite my fatigue.

Leaning forward, I wrap my arms around my legs and turn my head so I can rest my cheek against my knees. My eyes flutter closed at the pleasant feel of it.

I hear War settle down beside the tub then dip something into the water. A moment later, I feel the press of wet cloth against my back.

My eyes open. “What are you doing?”

“Washing my wife.”

My back stiffens. We’re venturing into unfamiliar territory. There’s the sexual touches and the healing touches—those I’ve gotten used to. But allowing the horseman to bathe me is a new sort of intimacy.

Up until now, I’d fought this off. Maybe I’m just too tired or maybe it was the revelation that there is still so much unsaid and undone between me and War. Whatever the reason, I don’t fight it this time.

“Okay,” I say.

War doesn’t respond to that, but I feel him drag the cloth up and down my back, carefully tracing around the wound at the back of my neck. The washcloth slips into the water, turning the warm liquid a little redder.

Once he’s done with my back, he moves around to the front of the tub and begins to wash my arms, once again being careful to clean my sword wounds.

“I have been a fool,” he admits.

My eyes snap to his.

“You’re not going to fight in any more battles, Miriam,” he says. It’s not a question.

I pause at his words. No more battles?

How to spread the word then?

His eyes meet mine. “I won’t lose you,” he says vehemently.

My throat thickens.

“I can’t believe I ever allowed myself the luxury of thinking it couldn’t happen,” he adds, his gaze dropping back to my wounds. “Especially after you were attacked. I simply never thought He would allow—”

Just then a soldier enters the tent. “War—” he begins.

God Almighty! Is privacy dead?

I cover what I can of myself.

The horseman doesn’t look up from where he’s washing me. “Get out.”

“But you haven’t raised the dead—”

Awareness sharpens in War’s eyes. They lift from my skin, meeting mine once more. The horseman is a man of habit, and his most consistent habit is that at the end of every battle he raises his dead.

I think of those few birds I released. How paltry my efforts were in the face of the horseman’s undead.

War starts to stand, pulling away from me, his expression turning serious, calculating. I got the barest glimpse of this new man, one who has heart and compassion. I’m not ready to lose him so soon.

I catch War’s hand.

“Please don’t.” It comes out as a whisper. “Please War. All those people who survived—please don’t kill them.” I squeeze his hand tightly.

He stares down at me, searching my face.

Beyond him, the soldier shifts a bit impatiently at the entrance.

War has no reason to listen to me now. I have nothing new and compelling to tell him that I haven’t already tried to, and I have nothing else to offer him that I haven’t already offered.

But something about today has changed the horseman. I