Long after we’ve finished, Montes clasps me to him. A light and fizzy emotion surges through me. Hope.

If not war, then love.

I don’t know the first thing about it—love. I don’t know if I’m even capable of it. But I also know that I have a limited time to learn. I’m still dying. If I hope to help the world before my time’s up, then I’ll have to work with the king to achieve it.

That’s asking a lot of the two of us—working together. We’re the last people for any of this. But it will happen. I’ll make sure of it.

“Weeks ago you promised I could get involved with medical relief,” I murmur.

Montes’s fingers trail my back. “I did.”

“I want to start tomorrow.”

His fingers halt. They tap against my skin once, twice. “Then I’ll put you in touch with the advisor on global health and wellness first thing,” he says. Whether the king is actually doting on me or just interested in keeping me busy doesn’t matter. I’ll get to work immediately.

Neither of us speaks again for several minutes.

Eventually, Montes breaks the silence. “What do you fear above all else, Serenity?” he asks quietly.

It’s a strange question, given our circumstances.

“You,” I say automatically.

I glance up at him, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring at the ceiling, a faraway expression on his face.

His thumb strokes my shoulder. “Is this another one of your ‘facts’?” Now his eyes do travel to mine.

I give him a shove, even as my lips curve up. He has me there. One doesn’t make love with one’s fears. Not willingly. Then again … perhaps I am the poster child for immersion therapy.

“Aside from me, is there anything you fear?”

My brows furrow.

When I don’t respond, Montes says, “You can’t answer my question.”

I can’t. Death doesn’t scare me. Nor does pain. I might’ve said I feared losing the things that I love … but I’ve already lost them all.

“What do you fear?” I ask.

He’s silent. “I don’t know,” he finally says.

“You do,” I accuse.

He sits up, the action causing the blanket to draw down and expose my breasts. I push myself up as well, dragging the sheet back over my chest.

“They kept blood and oxygen flowing to my brain,” Montes says, rubbing his jaw. “That’s how they did it—how they kept me alive even after I’d been shot. You can replace everything but the brain. If that goes, a person is well and truly dead.”

My hands tighten on the cloth. I don’t know why he’s decided to confide in me now, but I don’t stop him. People have killed and died to learn what he’s telling me. And he’s telling me, the woman who’s threatened to kill him to his face.

He knows things have changed between us.

“The origins of this war began decades ago, when I was just a successful businessman trying my hand at politics. I’d caught wind of a company developing an Alzheimer’s drug with unusual side effects. It could turn back the clock—it could return a patient to their brain’s peak performance, reverse baldness and bone loss, increase skin’s elasticity, repair torn tissue.

“I took a chance and bought the majority shareholding of the company, and gave it the capital needed to continue testing. The drug was further tweaked, and we found a way to prevent aging completely.”

Will had been right; Montes had stumbled upon the fountain of youth.

“The company’s shares skyrocketed, and for a while, there was real concern in the medical field that the drug had just made tens of thousands of health related jobs obsolete.” The king gives a dry laugh. “It probably would’ve too.”

That sounded ominous.

“A super-virus swept through the Eastern Hemisphere. It spread rapidly, killing seventy to eighty percent of its victims. People panicked. The world hadn’t seen something like this in centuries.”

Apprehension skitters through my veins.

“Then one of my researchers discovered that my drug could cure the illness—if taken in the right dosage for the right amount of time. ”

The king stares down at his palms. “People demanded I mass produce it and hand it out for free.”

It dawns on me, how these long ago events affected the present. “You didn’t?”

“No,” he says quietly. “I didn’t. I sold it for profit instead. And as the world got sicker, I became richer.”

Montes shoves a hand through his hair. “In the beginning, I didn’t want power, I just didn’t want to lose everything I’d built. But somewhere along the way the line between money and power blurred, until I became king of it all.”

All those people that died when they could’ve been saved.

I cover my mouth with my hand and scramble out of bed, no longer caring that I’m exposing myself. My entire body is shaking.

“I should never have saved you,” I whisper.

A muscle in Montes’s cheek ticks. It’s the only sign that my words affect him.

He pushes himself out of bed and stalks towards me. “You wanted to know what I fear most? Here it is: I fear I will always be alone. That no one who truly knows me will love me. Not even my wife.”

I balk at this. “You’ve made piss poor life choices, and you want me to love you in spite of it? You’re insane.”