War (The Four Horsemen #2) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,87

but it is the first time I’ve noticed him.

His hair tickles against the skin of my neck, and I can feel his breath against my cheek. An arm comes around my waist, pressing me deeper into him, and I should not be so affected by this.

I mean, for fuck’s sake, I’ve had the man’s dick in my mouth.

“Stay with me in my tent,” War says against me, his breath fanning across my ear.

“What will be left of me if I do?” I don’t mean to say it out loud, but the words come out anyway.

“Wife, I’m not going to eat you if you move in—well, I will eat you, but I know you enjoy that sort of thing.”

I feel my cheeks heat, remembering the feel of his mouth between my thighs.

I half turn my head to him. “Can you not say stuff like that?”

War’s hand tightens against my stomach. “Stay with me, Miriam.”

“No—unless you want to make another trade.”

The horseman is quiet. “You do realize I could simply make you stay with me.”

So he’s threatened before.

“Then do it,” I say, knowing he won’t.

It must be odd for him, a man of action, to make empty threats. He’s never had to before me. When you want the world dead, it’s easy to make real threats—or, more War’s style, simply kill without ever threatening someone at all.

“You will fall to me, wife, just as everyone and everything else has.”

That is exactly what I’m afraid of.

The horseman steers us south, into the desert. There’s nothing out here except rolling expanses of dry earth. It’s beautiful in a very austere sort of way.

We’ve only ridden for maybe five or ten minutes when War stops his horse.

“Where are we?” I ask, glancing around as I hop off Deimos.

“I don’t exactly know,” he says, dismounting, his kohl-lined gaze squinting at the sun.

I glance around. “So there’s no particular reason why you brought me here?” I ask.

“Oh, there’s a reason,” he says, “it just has nothing to do with our surroundings.”

I’ve taken a few steps away from him, but now I glance back. “What’s the reason?” I ask.

“I want to hear what you sound like when no one but me is listening.”

Chapter 34

When it comes to intimacy, War gives more than he takes. Which is a lot. It’s all a lot. He has the appetite of a deity, and I can barely keep up on either end.

He’s making me work for those aviaries.

I lay on a blanket with him, our clothes cast aside.

“I like it when you’re like this,” he says, trailing a finger over my bare abdomen.

I glance over at him. “I bet you do.”

“Not just in that way, wife,” he says, giving a low laugh. “You are more open with me in these moments.”

I am? Alarm bells are going off.

“And you like that?” I say.

“Of course I do.”

I study the horseman’s face. “Why?”

His gaze searches mine. The gold in his eyes glitters in the light.

He’s more than just enamored with you. Zara’s words ring in my ears.

Before War says anything, something moves in the distance, causing me to jolt in surprise. My entire body is exposed. I desperately gather my clothes to me, trying to cover myself.

“What is it?” War says, his voice sharp. His gaze follows mine.

It’s a person, one I’ve now doomed to death.

But when the horseman sees him, the tension in his body eases. “Relax, wife. He’s one of mine.”

“One of yours?” Does he mean one of his soldiers? Because I really wouldn’t want one of them seeing me naked.

“The re-animated dead,” War explains.

The hairs on my arm stand up. I’d almost forgotten about that ghoulish ability of his.

I take the distant figure in again. “What is it doing out here?”

“Miriam, my undead linger everywhere I am or have been. They patrol every piece of earth I’ve touched.”

I figured as much after encountering his zombies back in Ashdod.

“How long do they patrol a city?”

“Forever. Once I’ve claimed a territory, I do not give it up.”

Chills.

Every single place that War has been, his undead are there still, never sleeping, never ceasing, but always, always hunting.

Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, I scoot away from the horseman, an action he notices. I keep letting myself forget about War’s true nature.

“You have seen me kill many times, Miriam, and yet this bothers you?”

“Of course it bothers me,” I say. “It makes me not want to touch you.”

War’s face … that violence is back in his eyes, but for a single instant—a single, brief