War kneels next to me. “I need to touch you again.”

I give him an incredulous look. “Why?”

“You’re still wounded.”

Oh. Right. He’s been tending to my injuries.

I nod, chewing the inside of my cheek. Touch is still an iffy thing for me.

His hand closes over my wrist, and he pushes the sleeve of my shirt up, revealing the discolored, swollen skin. My eyes are on the horseman, taking in his deep frown as he stares at my injuries. But then I’m distracted by the feel of his hands on me.

War runs his palm over the tender flesh of my forearm, his tattoos bright against his knuckles. Beneath his touch, my skin warms. And then, something strange happens.

Before my eyes, my bruises morph from plum to a brownish yellow, and some of my skin’s sickly pallor recedes, like poison being drawn from a wound.

I glance up at War, my eyes wide as the realization hits me.

“You’ve been healing me.”

Chapter 19

Not only can the horseman raise the dead, he can apparently heal the injured.

That’s why he’s had his hands on me almost constantly since last night. I simply thought I was overly aware of his touch, but no, it seems this is how he heals.

War meets my eyes for a moment, looking distinctly unsettled by my words. Someone does not like the idea that he’s helping a human—wife or not.

The horseman moves his hands to another section of my skin, and he begins to work on it, ignoring what I said. I don’t bother pushing him on it. I don’t want him to suddenly decide he’s too much of a hard-ass motherfucker to play nursemaid.

For a while he works in silence, and I enjoy the view of his head bowed over me. His hair has been gathered—gold adornments and all—into a bun. I stare beneath it, at the sharp angles of his face. I watch his cheek tense and untense.

All the while, my skin heats under his hands as my injuries slowly vanish. That touch that I flinched away from, that touch that still stirs strange emotions in me, that touch is healing me. I can’t wrap my mind around it.

“I didn’t mean for this, wife. I never meant for this,” War murmurs. After several seconds, he adds, “When you cried, no one came. No one but me.” His voice is raw as he admits this.

I swallow as I remember. I’d been so sure someone would come, someone would stop the men. No one did. We live in a city with no real walls. My screams were heard, they just went unheeded.

If he hadn’t intervened, I’d probably be dead. Dead and defiled.

“How did you know to come?”

“I heard your cries.”

“How did you know they were mine?” I ask. There are hundreds of women in his camp; surely my voice isn’t that distinct.

Now his eyes meet mine. “The same way you know my words when I speak them. Wife, we are connected in ways that defy human nature.”

It’s a ridiculous answer, and I don’t know if I believe it. I know I don’t want to.

“I still hate you,” I say, without any heat. Mostly because I need to remind myself.

I draw those words around me like a cloak.

The corner of his mouth curves up. “I’m aware,” he says.

War works in silence for a bit longer, and I watch him and his careful hands, the wonder of it all not wearing off.

“How do you do it?” I finally ask. “Heal me, I mean.”

“I will it. It is as simple as that.” He pauses, and I think that’s the end of his explanation, but then War adds, “My brothers and I can all do the opposite of our powers—Pestilence can spread sickness and cure it. Famine can destroy crops and grow them. Death can give and take life at will.” War pauses. “I can injure … and I can heal.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I think my mind is being blown right now. They were all tasked to end humanity … but they were also given the tools to save it.

War stares at me for a long moment, then his eyes go to my lips. This time, I can feel the kiss about to happen. War is unconsciously leaning closer, and I am angling my face to better meet his mouth.

War is violent and uncompromising, but he’s not pure evil. He’s proving it right now while his touch still warms on my skin.

I’m leaning in, and he is too—

At the last moment, I turn my head away.

I can’t.

Forgiveness is one thing. This is another. I can’t cross that line.

I can’t.

I keep waiting for that horrible moment when War’s going to want his bed back, but it doesn’t come. Not that afternoon, when I drift in and out of sleep, and not that evening, once the sun has gone down and the camp has quieted.

War comes to me several times, either to quietly set food by my bed, or to place his hands on my skin and continue to heal my injuries, his ruby red tattoos glowing in the darkness.

“How are you still awake?” I mumble when I feel his hands on me for what has to be the fifth time tonight.

“I don’t need to sleep,” he says.

I crack my eyes open at that.

After a pause he adds. “My body doesn’t require it. It’s a human trait I’ve simply taken up over the months.”

At first, it doesn’t really compute. My brain is too foggy from sleep. But then it does.

“You really don’t need it?” I sit up a little at that.

“I can heal the injured and raise the dead, but you’re shocked by this?” he asks, a wry smile on his face.

Fair point.

I lay back down. “What else can you do?” I ask.

“You already know all my other secrets. I don’t need to eat or drink—though I do enjoy it. My body can heal itself. I can speak every language known or once known to man, though I prefer to speak in dead languages when giving orders. And I can raise the dead.”

It falls quiet, and I close my eyes again, letting him work. But I can’t slip back to sleep. Not when his hands are on me, and I almost kissed him earlier, and I’m still a bit confused that I even briefly wanted his lips on me so soon after I was attacked.

I open my eyes again.

“Why did they do it?” I ask softly. “Why did those men attack me?”

I gaze at the horseman, and maybe the darkness is playing tricks on me, but in the dim light of the tent, his eyes look so sad, so very, very sad. I’ve never noticed that before. I’ve been too stuck on how frightening he was. But now his expression doesn’t look so battle hungry, and that changes the horseman’s entire face.

“Men’s hearts are full of evil, wife,” he admits.

I don’t have it in me to disagree. I hate the horsemen—I do—but right now I think I might hate my own kind more. Were we always this way? This cruel? Or did the four devils that rode onto earth make us like this?

War’s hands leave my skin. “Sleep, Miriam. And don’t worry about those men or their motives. You will have your justice.”

That’s oddly foreboding.

With that, War retreats, and I’m left to drift off into uneasy sleep.

The next day, I wake up to a cold breakfast and a pile of my things laid out next to War’s pallet.

Oh, and no sign of the horseman.

Off making war, no doubt …

At least he feels more comfortable leaving me alone today than he did yesterday.