“I’ll talk to him. It’ll be fine.”

She raises her eyebrows. “You’re going to talk to him?” She says skeptically. “And that’ll work?”

“It has so far.”

She huffs out a laugh. “What sort of talking will you two be doing? The horizontal kind?”

I make a face even as I laugh a little. “No. The normal kind of talking.”

She shakes her head. “Either you’re the world’s most convincing woman, Miriam, or these favors are going to eventually cost you.”

You are my wife, you will surrender to me, and you will be mine in every sense of the word before I’ve destroyed the last of this world.

Zara’s right. Nothing these days comes without a price, favors especially. And War has done me many favors.

At some point, he’s going to make me pay.

Chapter 22

I’ve broken Rule Three.

Avoid notice.

To be fair, War seems to have always taken notice of me. It’s now the rest of camp who is very, very aware of who I am.

I feel their stares as I mount Lady Godiva, a new horse that is way less interested in kicking me than Thunder was. The camp’s collective gaze makes my skin itch. It’s impossible to blend in, and I hate it.

Just like the horseman promised, today the army packed up. Ashdod has been eradicated, as has all the satellite communities that surround it. There’s nothing left for War to kill, so it’s time for us to go.

Like before, War and I ride at the head of the horde, putting enough distance between us that I can forget for a time that there’s a murderous army following in our wake.

The horseman drives us south along Highway 4. The land is too flat for me to see the ocean from here, but I swear I can smell it. It’s mere kilometers from the road. And by the conversations I overheard back at camp, we’ll be sticking close to the coastline over the next couple of days.

I try to keep my thoughts preoccupied on the journey itself, but inevitably they swing back to my travel companion, just as they have ever since we left camp.

For absolutely no logical reason whatsoever, today I’m unable to ignore him. Or maybe there is a reason; maybe War’s barbaric justice earlier today broke something in me.

Whatever the reason, now I can’t help but notice the sharp cut of his jaw; his dark, almost black hair; and those curving lips. I take in his red leather armor and his powerful thighs.

I’m having thigh fantasies. About my enemy.

I’m a fucking moron.

Naturally, of course, that doesn’t stop me from continuing to glance at War, and the longer I look, the more certain I am that I want to run my fingers over his strange, glowing markings and smear the kohl that lines his eyes. I want to taste those lips again.

I want it all, and I’m not supposed to, which makes me want it all the more.

“Why haven’t you been with any other women since we met?” The question just slips out, but as soon as it does, I want to die.

People who are into each other ask these sorts of questions. I’m flagrantly making him believe that this matters to me. And it doesn’t, it really doesn’t. I’m just curious. I mean, doesn’t everyone want to know about a horseman’s sex life?

No? Just me?

Shit.

War glances over. “Who told you I’d been with other women?”

“People talk.”

I remember when I first came to camp the women made it sound like War had a revolving door of women entering and exiting his tent.

“Ah,” the horseman says. “Humans and their foibles.” There’s a long stretch of silence.

“So?” I press. I’ve already embarrassed myself. I might as well see this question through. “Why haven’t you?”

War fully turns to me, his brown eyes glittering in the sun. “I am committed to you, wife, and you alone.”

I want to shrug the statement off. I might’ve even a few days ago. But for whatever reason, today, that explanation hits me low in the gut.

“Wow, I’m flattered.” I try to sound mocking and irreverent, but I don’t quite pull it off.

War gives me a pained smile, like the effort of abstinence hasn’t been without its challenges. The poor wittle horseman and his neglected dick. What ever will he do?

“What if I never sleep with you?” I ask.

“I have been inhuman for a long time, Miriam. I can manage my body well enough until I am inhuman once more.”

Shivers. I knew he wasn’t truly human, but hearing him say it is a whole lot more sobering than just generally being aware of it.

“You, on the other hand,” he continues, “have only ever been human, and you are bound to your most basic nature. We will see how long you last, wife.”

Today of all days, that statement finds its mark.

Out on the open road, there’s no mistaking that I am living in a terrible time. The most obvious sign of it are the bodies. Just like the first time I traveled with War, we pass by several of them. They’re bloated and stinking, and scavengers have already mutilated them. They lay out in the street, or half in, half out of residences. I’m sure there are more dead cooped up in houses, rotting away amongst all their worldly possessions.

Scattered near the bodies are piles of bones, and I know that War’s zombies are responsible for this.

But it’s not just the bodies.

We pass by Ashkelon, the city south of Ashdod. This place, too, has been sacked. Some of the buildings still smolder in the distance, and there’s a stillness to the air that feels utterly devoid of human life.

Even once we pass by the city, there are still strange sights that I would never have seen a decade ago. Out here, in between towns, our surroundings are speckled with junkyards and scrap metal. The carcasses of old cars and electronics and other useless technology sit abandoned along the side of the road.

I don’t know if the sight of all this old decadence and waste will ever stop being jarring to me. I’ve sifted through so many junkyards over the years, but even after visiting hundreds of times, I am still not immune to the prickling sensation up my back, like there are old ghosts about.

“Can you tell me about your brothers?” I ask, my eyes lingering on a rusted out dryer and a stained fridge we pass by.

“They are lethal and terrible just like me,” War says.

Even in the sweltering midday heat, the hairs on my arms rise.

“Where are they?” I ask.

“Where they need to be,” he replies cryptically.

“Even Pestilence?” I press. War had mentioned that the first horseman had been stopped.

The horseman curls his upper lip a little. His silence has my heart speeding up. “Where he is, is no concern of mine. His purpose has been served.”

I think … I think that’s War’s evasive way of saying his brothers really can be stopped.

Now I need to figure out how.

“When will Famine come?” I ask.

“When it is his time.”

“And … when is that?”

War shakes his head, squinting off in the distance. “After I have made my final judgment.”

“Your final judgment?” I say. “Of what? Humans?” I raise my eyebrows.

War turns his head and gives me a long look.