Zara takes a deep, shuddering breath and nods.

She wipes her eyes again and looks me over. “How are you?” she asks, pulling herself together. Alarm rushes into her eyes. “Oh my God, this afternoon,” she says, like she’s realizing what happened for the first time. “You did so much for my nephew, and then you were caught for it—I’m so sorry.” She begins to cry again, and I catch her hand.

“Hey, hey—hey,” I say. “I got myself into that mess. Not you. Don’t be sorry for it. Besides, War won’t let me die, so …” So I get to be the little asshole that wrecks his plans. Kind of. I then have to make up for it in sexual favors that I enjoy more than I should.

“I don’t want you to suffer for my situation,” Zara says.

Suffer might not be the word I’d use …

“I’m not,” I assure her.

“Be careful with the horseman,” she says to me. “What he did today … he’s more than just enamored with you.”

I swallow a little. I assumed War liked me solely because he believed his god made me for him. To think that there might actually be real feelings …

No, Zara must be mistaken. War feels passion and possession towards me but nothing more.

Absolutely nothing more.

“The warlord wants to see you,” Hussain calls out from the other side of my tent late that same night.

By then I’ve long since returned from seeing Zara and her nephew. I’ve even managed to finish making two arrows.

I set the book I’m reading aside, blow out my oil lamp, and leave the tent, following the phobos rider towards War’s quarters.

Out of nowhere Hussain says, “You better watch your back, Miriam.”

I glance at him sharply. Is he threatening me?

He meets my gaze, then sighs. “The men have been talking about you, and they haven’t been saying anything good.”

It’s not a threat, I realize, it’s insider information he’s passing along.

“Listen, Miriam, just … be on your guard,” he continues. “War doesn’t pick his phobos riders for their honor.”

Meaning that I’m a marked woman. My arms break out in goosebumps at that.

The two of us arrive at War’s tent. Hussain bows his head, then backs away into the darkness, leaving me alone.

I take a breath and force myself to set aside that worry for another time. I have more immediate matters to deal with. I pull back the flaps of the horseman’s tent and step inside.

Only … the horseman is nowhere to be seen.

Panic.

This was a setup. Whatever Hussain was alluding to, it’s not going to happen at some point in the future; it’s about to happen right now.

I pull my dagger from its sheath just as the tent flaps are pulled back.

War walks in bare-chested and he’s drunk. Very drunk.

“Wife.” His eyes alight when he sees me. He crosses the room, wholly ignoring the dagger in my hand. Sweeping my hair back from my ears, he takes my face in his hands.

His eyes are bleary. “Lay with me.”

For a moment, I don’t breathe. I don’t move at all, even though those three words have pulled all sorts of inappropriate responses from my body.

A minute ago I was sure I was about to be ambushed; instead I’m getting propositioned. By a drunken horseman.

“I thought you wanted me to surrender first,” I say.

“I changed my mind.” His thumbs stroke my cheeks, and it’s so damn tempting. So, so tempting.

He must see how weak I am because he leans in and kisses me ferociously. The second he does, I taste the spirits on his tongue.

I pull away. “How much did you drink?” I ask him suspiciously. War’s a big man; he’d likely need to drink an entire trough of alcohol to get to this point.

“Enough to cast aside my reservations.”

Lay with me.

I lean my forehead against his shoulder as a thought comes to me. “Even if I wanted to—

“You want to,” he says, his voice sure.

My stomach clenches at his voice. It’s low and certain, and he sounds like a lover—like my lover.

“What about protection?” I say. Something I distinctly haven’t thought about until now, though I definitely should’ve.

He pulls my face away from his shoulder, his bleary eyes sharpening.

“Protection?” he says. “From what? I am the embodiment of war. Whoever attempts to cross me will find themselves dead.”

I want to laugh. I want to melt into the floor.

“Not that sort of protection,” I say.

Oh boy. I didn’t expect to have this conversation today.

The horseman’s eyebrows pull together.

“I could get pregnant,” I say slowly.

I can’t tell by his expression whether or not he’s following.

Maybe I’ve gotten this all wrong. Maybe War can’t have kids. I mean, he’s no ordinary human.

I take one look at his muscle-packed body. I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen a more virile man. I feel like one long look from him could knock me up.

My next question just spills out of me.

“Have you ever gotten a woman pregnant?”

Those glowing tattoos shine from the darkness. The horseman stares at me, looking like he’s poised to strike. In fact, the longer I stare, the more menacing he appears.

“Why would you ask such a question?” he says.

Curiosity mostly.

“Have you?” I press.

Whatever state of inebriation War was in when he entered his tent, it’s gone.

“What do you think, Miriam?” Those violent eyes are locked on mine, and he sounds particularly dangerous. “Do you think I impregnated a woman while I moved across your land? Do you think I then killed my child, along with its mother?

“Or do you believe that they are both here somewhere in camp, hidden from view?”

I don’t know. I wouldn’t put any of it past him, despite the fact that he sounds offended. So offended, in fact, that I’m now pretty sure that despite the sex fest he’s had since coming to earth, he has no children.

That thought should relieve me. Instead, the whole conversation is reminding me of all the reasons why sleeping with War is a bad idea. Fooling around with him is only fun when I don’t have to think too much about it.

“Coming here was a mistake,” I say. I begin to walk past him, towards the exit.

He catches my arm and spins me to face him. “This was not a mistake.”

“Sleep it off, War,” I say. “You’ll feel better once you do.”

“So you’re fleeing then?” he accuses.

“Isn’t that what all us humans do?” I ask.

“Not you, savage woman,” he says, his expression dark and cunning as he grips my arm. “You fight even when it’s unwise to do so.”

“What would you do, if you got a woman pregnant?” I ask.

War just stares at me.

He has absolutely no idea, and that is terrifying in its own right.

“Goodnight, War,” I say.

I jerk my arm from his hold, and I leave his tent.

I don’t see War again until the next day. By the time he comes to me, he’s already returned from raiding all the satellite communities around Arish. From what I’ve seen of Egypt so far, there aren’t many of these. Out here, there’s desert and ocean and sky and nothing else.