Page 119 of War

“Every last bit.”

Awesome.

He takes my hand. “Come, I want to have you alone to myself.”

I take his hand, even as my eyebrows furrow. “Where are we going?”

He whistles. “You’ll see.”

A minute later, Deimos comes galloping towards us, his deep red coat shining in the sun. He still has his saddle and bridle on from the morning raid.

The horse comes to a stop next to us.

“How do you get him to do that?” I ask. He doesn’t need to be stabled, and he comes at his master’s call. I haven’t met that many horses, but I don’t think this is normal.

War leans towards me. “He is no more a horse than I am a man.”

Point taken.

The horseman gestures for me to mount Deimos. For a moment, I hesitate, not sure that I want to spend more time with War than is absolutely necessary. But in the end, I get on.

War swings into the saddle behind me, so close his thighs encase mine, and his chest presses against my back. This isn’t the first time I’ve shared a saddle with the horseman, but it is the first time I’venoticedhim.

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, Iwilleat 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 simplymakeyou 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 steersus 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.

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