War (The Four Horsemen, #2)

by Laura Thalassa

War and his steed manifest out of the darkness, Deimos’s deep red coat looking almost black right now. The horseman pulls up short. He looks at me, his eyes wild. “Where are you going?” His face is almost mad with panic. Be brave. “I was running from you,” I say. His face crumbles. It’s an expression I’ve never seen on him before. “Do you truly hate me that much?” he asks, his voice lowering with his emotion. “I don’t hate you at all, War,” I say, the evening breeze tugging at my hair. “And I should, I really should.” He stares down at me from Deimos, looking so tragic. The wind tugs at his own hair, and God, even cast in shadow, he’s magnificent. He could never pass for a mortal, not ever.

War hops off his mount, moving slowly, like I might run if he makes any sudden movements. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you, we can fix it—I will fix it.” He takes several steps forward, stopping just short of me. “Hate me, curse me, just please come back to me, Miriam,” he says. His voice breaks. “Please, come back.” He’s begging. And I’m trusting the universe to pull through for me because there are too many forces at work that are bigger than me. I begin to nod, closing the distance between us. That’s all the confirmation War needs to reel me into his arms. He holds me tightly for a long time, like I might slip away with the evening breeze. Eventually he pulls away enough to gaze down at me, his eyes intense. “I love you,” he confesses. I don’t breathe. “I love you, Miriam,” he repeats. “I hadn’t known until last night what this strange happiness I felt around you was. But I do now. Being with you makes me feel as though I have swallowed the sun. Everything is brighter, fuller, better because of you.”

War’s gaze moves down to my stomach. After a moment, he places one of his large hands on my abdomen. “You’re carrying my child.” His fingers flex against my flesh. “My child.” I see his throat work, and I’m petrified, utterly petrified. War’s gaze moves back to mine, and his eyes shine. Is he sad? Is he happy? The horseman takes my face into his. “I have never felt this … joy.” He lets out a laugh, and his eyes … his violent, scary eyes tear up. Oh my God. He’s happy. Obscenely happy. And now, for the first time since I found out I was pregnant, I feel a spark of happiness too. More than a spark. I smile a little shyly at him, and he takes my face.

“What do you know of it?” he asks. “Not much—other than the fact that women stay pregnant for nine months before giving birth,” I say. “I’ve probably been pregnant for a month or more already,” I add. “An entire month.” War digests that, looking fascinated and pleased. “My child has been in you that entire time. No wonder you’ve been so bloodthirsty.” Oh God.

My eyes go to the sword at his back. “I’m sorry,” I say. I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to muster the words, but it’s long overdue. “For what?” I touch his chest. “For almost killing you with your own sword.” He laughs and takes my hand. “You couldn’t have hurt me.” “I did hurt you though,” I say. Not all wounds leave marks.

War stares at me for a beat longer, then he brings my knuckles to his lips, his kohl-lined eyes fixed on mine as he kisses my hand. “I appreciate the apology, wife. All is forgiven.” I release my breath, and it feels like a weight has been lifted. I give him a smile. “My husband …” He lifts his eyebrows, his own grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “To hear that term on your lips … it is the sweetest music, wife.”

“You saved them,” I say. He stares at me for a long moment, then squints into the distance. “It is … not so easy to destroy them, knowing that they could’ve been mine,” he says, his eyes dropping to my stomach. My child, he means. He sees his own kid in them. For a moment, I don’t breathe. This might be the first time I’ve seen true empathy from War. “Is that why you spared them?” He glances down at me. “I did it for your soft heart,” he says. “But still, they could’ve been mine.”

“It greatly unnerved me, wife. There was so much about human nature that I didn’t know until I lived and walked amongst you all, and I felt stirrings of that nature within myself. I thought giving into those feelings was a weakness only mortals succumbed to. “However, once I met you, and I began wanting things I had never imagined wanting—things I had once rejected. At first I gave into these new feelings I had for you because I believed God had sent you to me. I was supposed to feel companionship and compassion because He decreed it. I was supposed to take you as my wife because He delivered you to me. It wasn’t wrong.” “Somewhere along the way, my reasons for giving into these human emotions changed. I no longer pursued you because I was supposed to. I craved your company, your smiles, your fierce anger and clever tongue because it brought me the same joy battle did. And the world bloomed into color. For the first time, I began to truly feel this body and every emotion within it.”

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.

“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.

“My brother didn’t.” I go still. “So Pestilence is still alive?” War nods. “Do you want to know what happened to him?” he asks. “What really happened?” “How he was stopped, you mean?” I say. War’s fingers move to my scar, tracing the symbol. “It wasn’t violence that got him in the end. It was love.” I don’t breathe. “My brother fell in love with a human woman, and he gave up his divine mission to be with her. Which is exactly what my horseman seems to be doing. I try to keep my voice steady. “What happened to him?” What will happen to you? “He and his wife live—they have children too,” War says. I feel myself begin to breathe steadily again. “So they’re alive?” I ask. “And happy?” “As far as I know,” War says. Relief washes through me. War won’t die, just as Pestilence didn’t. He can leave the fighting behind, and we can have a good life together. A mundane and happy and hopefully long life.

“Wife,” he says, his own voice shocked. And then he pulls me against him. War buries his face in my neck, and his huge body begins to tremble. It takes me a moment to realize he’s weeping. “You’re alive,” I say, amazed, running my fingers through the hair on his head. I’d feared that this death was going to be his last. But how … ? “You shouldn’t have come for me,” he says, his voice hoarse. I pull away a little to look at him, and I touch one of his tears. I’ve never seen the horseman weep. “I love you,” I say. I bottled up those words until it was nearly too late. They rush out of me now. “I will never not come for you because I love you.” War’s face is naked emotion. Disbelief and joy fill his features, chasing away his tears.

He strokes my hair back. “I am free, Miriam.” I must’ve hit my head really hard because I’m not following. “Free of what?” “My purpose.” It’s as much as he’s admitted before, but this time, I truly process his words. “You really aren’t going to kill anymore?” I say. He shakes his head. “Not unless it’s to protect you—or our daughter.” I raise my eyebrows, then glance down at my stomach. “Our daughter?” He smiles at me, and that smile seems to stretch to every corner of his face. He’s so painfully gorgeous. “Sorry to ruin the surprise.”

“Are all your powers gone, or can you still speak every language that has ever existed?” “San sani du, seni nüşüna ukuvı?” Can you still understand me when I do? A laugh slips out. “I can.” War and I stare at each other, and for the first time, it truly sinks in. It’s over. It’s really over. The fighting and killing and suffering. I get to have this man and my child and a future too. My smile slips away. “What do we do now?” I ask him. “I don’t care, wife, so long as I do it with you.”

I got it right. I know it in an instant. She looks different—much, much older than I remember—but all the familiar features are still there. “Mom?” I say. For a moment, my mother just stands there, her face blank. She studies my own face, like this might be a joke, and then—there it is. Recognition flares in her eyes. She covers her mouth with her hands, her eyes welling up. “Miriam?” I draw in what feels like my first breath. I nod, blinking back my own tears. I’ve waited so long for this. Can’t believe it’s happening. “It’s me,” I say, my voice shaky. She lets out a sob, then opens her arms wide, sweeping me up into her embrace. My mom is really still alive. And I’m hugging her. Years of pain and separation dissolve away in that moment. I dreamed of this embrace so many times. Her entire body is shaking. “My baby. My daughter.” She’s now openly weeping and rocking me against her, and I can’t see straight through my own tears. She pets my hair back as she holds me. “For years I prayed to whatever god would listen,” she says, the apology thick in her voice. “I stayed here, on Crete, because I wanted to be close in case—”

I mean, men who hold toddlers always look a pinch less threatening—right? In War’s case, maybe it’s a very small pinch. I reach out to him. “This is—” I pause. I still call my horseman by his given name—War—but we’ve bent the rules when interacting with other people. He’s been all sorts of names, none of which really fit him. “I’m her husband,” he says for me. “War.”

War might’ve relinquished his task, but mortality hasn’t made him any less terrifying. Nor has it made the process of trying to explain his existence—and current virtuousness—an easy task. The tattoos on his knuckles still glow crimson, his stature is still as looming and lethal as it ever was, and his eyes still carry the memory of all that violence.

“This is your grandchild, Maya,” I say. “You have a daughter,” my mom says, glancing at me, and now her emotion is choking her up once more. “Do you want to hold her?” I ask. She nods, looking like she’s about to cry all over again. I glance at my husband. War hesitates, his eyes dropping to our daughter. He takes protectiveness to a whole new level with his daughter. To be fair, Maya looks equally unenthusiastic about leaving his arms. But eventually, he hands our daughter over.