War (The Four Horsemen #2) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,37

time,” he says. “For the sake of your soft heart, I will let her live—for now.”

He whistles to a nearby soldier and beckons him over. The man jogs to War’s side. Leaning in close, the horseman whispers something to the soldier. The man nods in response, then breaks away.

I glance behind me. The woman is still standing in the middle of the road, though at some point she procured a knife.

Why didn’t you run when you had the chance? I want to ask her.

She shifts her weight from foot to foot, her eyes going to me, then to War and the soldier. She has an angry, desperate look about her.

The man breaks away from War, striding over to the woman.

“What is he doing?” I ask War, alarmed.

The horseman’s upper lip curls. “Sparing her,” he says, a note of disgust in his voice.

The woman raises her weapon as the soldier comes in close, but the man easily knocks away the blade, grabbing her by the shoulder. As soon as the soldier touches her, she goes berserk, scratching and kicking and screaming.

Gritting his teeth, the soldier begins to explain himself to her, gesturing first to the horseman and me, and then to a nearby horse. Whatever the soldier is telling her, it’s causing her to slowly, reluctantly cooperate.

A minute later, he takes the woman to a nearby horse and helps her onto the saddle, murmuring quietly to her.

“Are you sure he’s not just going to slit her throat the moment we’re out of sight?” I ask War while I stare at the two of them. I don’t even know why I’m so invested in this. Maybe it is simply because the woman hurt War.

“No,” he responds as the soldier and the woman ride off, “I’m not. The hearts of men are fickle and cruel.”

I give him a look just as another bullet wiggles its way out of his armor, clinking to the ground.

The horseman steps in close, and without warning, he cups the back of my head and pulls me in for a savage kiss. The world is spinning on its head, but the moment War’s lips touch mine, the cyclone seems to stop.

There’s no more battle, no more death and violence, no more heaven pitted against earth. It’s just him and me.

He tastes like smoke and steel, and my lips respond to his, just as they did last night. It seems I can’t not kiss him, even when he represents everything I’m fighting against.

His mouth scours mine over and over and—

War breaks away from the kiss, and the world rushes back in.

I stare at the horseman, dazed, as he backs away, his kohl-lined eyes fixed to mine.

“Deimos!” he calls out, not looking away from me.

War’s steed comes galloping to him like it had been just waiting for the order.

The horseman mounts the beast while I stand there, wondering what the fuck I was thinking just now when I kissed him back.

War doesn’t say anything else. With a final look at me, he rides back into the fray.

By the time the fighting is done, no one is left.

The streets are filled with the dead and dying. The buildings are ashes and rubble. The once blue sky is now a hazy red-brown and ash drifts down like snow.

The captives have been taken away, and the rest of us are filtering back out the way we came.

My hands shake from pain and exhaustion and hunger and a deep sense of wrongness. What happened today wasn’t right.

I stumble across the horseman again on my way out of the city.

War is standing at a crossroads, his back to me, a field of bodies spread around him. He’s splashed with blood, calmly surveying the destruction.

He can’t be something holy. He can’t. Nothing pure can be responsible for pain like this.

But then he turns, and his eyes meet mine. Beneath the bloodlust, there’s a weight and a resolve in his gaze. And if I stare long enough, I might even say that he looks a bit burdened.

I glance away before that can happen.

I continue walking on, skirting around the bodies and strolling right past him as though he were invisible.

Not two minutes later, I hear galloping behind me. I swivel around just in time to see the horseman astride his warhorse, Deimos, the two of them heading straight for me.

War leans out of his saddle, his arm outstretched. I begin to move out of the way, but War simply adjusts his trajectory so that he’s still closing in