War (The Four Horsemen #2) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,145
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.
“Yes, War. Yes, I’ll be your wife.”
He smiles so brightly it crinkles the corners of his eyes, his teeth blindingly white against his olive skin.
The horseman gets up and, grabbing me around the waist, spins me in his arms. Laughing a little, I press a hand to his cheek and lean in to kiss his lips.
Once we stop spinning, War takes my hand and begins to slide the ring onto my finger.
“Where did you learn about proposals?” I ask, remembering how he knelt on both knees. It wasn’t quite what human men do, but it was close enough to know he picked it up from someone somewhere.
“I’m not completely ignorant of human ways, wife. Just mostly.” He gives me a sly smile.
His response has me grinning back. I can’t bear to look away from him. He’s enraptured me. But then my curiosity has me glancing down at my ring.
It’s gold, with a round ruby at its center. It’s the color of War’s armor and his glyphs and his steed—well, and blood too, but I’m ignoring that one.
The ring is too loose for my ring finger, so the horseman slips it on my middle finger,