He removes his back holster, his sword and sheath coming loose. I stare at the blade that so recently slaughtered a man.

“I was told that you make weapons,” he says casually.

I close my eyes for a moment.

That soldier must’ve told War everything, including the fact that the horseman supposedly okayed my being in those woods.

I don’t mean to start shaking, but I do. I just saw this man turn a person into a human kabob for betraying him, and now he knows that I tried to defy him too.

“Apparently, I approved these plans of yours.”

This is why I have a rule against lying. It’s so easy to get caught.

I open my eyes and defiantly raise my chin.

He walks up to me, each footfall ominous. War steps in close—far too close. “Don’t ever use me in a lie again,” he says, his voice low.

I hear the unspoken threat in his words.

Or else I will punish you.

And I’ve now seen War’s justice. It’s every bit as terrifying as I could imagine.

The horseman’s eyes search my face. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you, wife?” He studies me some more. “Yes, definitely trouble,” he says to himself.

War removes the last of the space between us, his leather armor brushing against my chest. He’s close enough for me to see the gold flecks in his eyes. Those eyes are terrifying. Beautiful and terrifying.

“You’re wrong if you think that angers me.” His smile is menacing. “Everything you are has been made for me.”

This arrogant bastard. I bet he thinks all humans were created for his entertainment. To fight, to fuck, to kill.

The horseman reaches out and draws a finger over my collarbone, his gaze never leaving mine.

“I saw you, and for the first time, I wanted.”

His words pucker my flesh.

“And so, I took.”

Chapter 7

War’s touch pauses on my skin. “To think you almost got away.” He backs away then, reaching for his vambrace, his fingers unlacing the arm guard. “It’s a good thing you didn’t.”

He’s well and truly inhuman. Nothing of this earth could frighten me the way he does.

I’ve now tried to escape the horseman twice within that many days—once through death and once through desertion. If he’s just as merciless as he’s made himself seem, then my actions will have consequences.

“Can you really make weapons?” he asks.

I pause, unsure where he’s going with this.

“I’m not very good at it,” I say after a moment.

He glances up. “Is that a yes?”

Reluctantly, I nod.

War’s gaze drops to my lips. “Good. Then you will make my army these weapons I commissioned.”

Another fucking reason why I should never, ever break Rule Two and lie. Because now I have the job I made up only hours ago.

“I can’t make anything without my tools,” I say. “And those are back in my flat.”

War stares at me for several moments, perhaps trying to figure out whether I’m lying again. “Where did you live?”

Did. Past tense.

I stare at the horseman as that sinks in. As far as he’s concerned, my house is a thing of the past; this tented city is my home now.

After a moment’s hesitation, I rattle off my address. I normally wouldn’t give it out, but … if War’s seriously suggesting that he’ll get my tools for me, then I’ll take him up on it. After all, I’m being watched too closely to escape this place anytime soon.

“Can I go now?”

War’s searching gaze is back on me. He takes me in for several seconds, then redirects his attention to removing his armor.

“You don’t believe in God, do you?” he says.

Guess I don’t get to leave yet.

In spite of myself I raise my eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”

The corner of his mouth lifts, like the answer is some inside joke that I wouldn’t get. “It’s curious.”

“Why is it curious?”

War’s eyes move back to mine. “Come closer and I’ll tell you.”

He dangles the answer like bait.

I take a single step towards him.

Again, that smile, only this time it appears a little less humorous, a little more dangerous.

“Cowardice doesn’t suit you, wife.”

“I am not a coward,” I say from my safe distance away from him.

His dark gaze is weighty on mine. “Then prove it.”

Be brave.

I haltingly close the distance between us, until I can smell the sweat and dust clinging to him.

“Not a coward after all.” The horseman scrutinizes me. “As for your question—it’s curious that you don’t believe in God when I exist.”

“Why should that be strange? You aren’t God.”

I believe War is a supernatural entity. It’s everything else that I find hard to believe.

The horseman is completely unfazed by my words and the challenge in them.

“I’m not,” he agrees.

The horseman breaks eye contact to remove a greave, and I exhale sharply at the loss of that gaze on me. I don’t know why it feels like a loss; every time his eyes fall on me, I tremble like a leaf.

“I believe in God,” I say. “I just don’t believe in your God.”

My mother was Jewish, my father was Muslim. I grew up believing in everything and nothing all at once.

“That’s too bad,” War says, eyeing me, “because He seems to have taken an interest in you.”

There are more days of raids, days where the pounding of hoof beats marks the beginning of the day, and the bloody parade that returns marks its end.

It’s only on the fourth day when the sounds change.

I blink my eyes open and stare at the worn wood poles above me. Outside, I can hear women chatting.

I rub my eyes, stifling a yawn as I sit up. My knee knocks into a pile of branches that take up most of the room in my tent.

War made good on his end of the deal—I’ve been allowed to gather wood for weapon-making. With a chaperon, of course.

I give the pile an extra deliberate kick.

Rolling off my pallet, I grab my boots and begin to shove them on. Once I’m finished, I run my hands through my dark brown hair. These days I sleep in my clothes—I’m not brave enough to risk anything else in a city with no true doors—so I simply smooth down my shirt before I head outside.

All around me, tents are being broken down and packed up. I glance about in confusion. A woman bustles by.

“Excuse me,” I say to her, “what’s going on?”

She gives me a look like it should be obvious. “We’re moving.”

Moving.

Even now, when my tent is nothing more than a pile of sticks and cloth at my feet, the idea tightens my gut.

I hadn’t anticipated moving. But naturally that’s what a terrorizing horde does. They move and raid, move and raid.

“Miriam.”

I nearly jump at the voice behind me. When I swivel around, two men wearing red arm bands stand at my back. War’s phobos riders.

“The warlord wants to see you.”

My gut clenches again. It’s been half a week since I last spoke to the horseman, and I can’t decide whether I’m now terrified or exhilarated at the thought of meeting with him again. I had convinced myself that whatever interest he initially had in me had passed. That perhaps he’d found another woman to pester and call wife for seemingly no reason at all.