To think I did worse to Pestilence than even those men.

“Shhh,” I say, gently maneuvering myself out from under him. I arrange him on the couch, his long form barely fitting.

I take one of his hands in mine, brushing a kiss along his dirt-covered knuckles. “Try to sleep,” I say. “I’ll be right here.”

Pestilence mumbles something—I don’t even know how he’s making noise.

I shush him again, and he quiets, settling into something that, if not sleep, must be somewhat like it.

I make good on my promise, I stay by his side—leaving only to start a fire and dig up rags and water, which I use to wipe us down the best I can. Once I’m finished, I take his hand in mine, holding it closely to me.

As the hours tick by, I’m able to watch the slow but miraculous evolution of the horseman from something that ought to be dead to a beautiful sleeping man.

Looks like something straight out of a fairytale.

With a metallic groan, Pestilence’s hole-riddled breastplate bends back into place, the golden armor ever so slowly returning to its original, seamless surface. Just as wondrously, I watch his face rebuild itself, from sinew and bone to muscle and tendons and skin. Eventually, I even see the horseman’s long eyelashes sprout along his newly formed eyelid.

This is magic. This is faith. This is the barest glimpse of the leviathan that is God.

Even after his body has all but healed, Pestilence doesn’t wake. Beneath his closed lids, his eyes move back and forth.

What do horsemen dream about?

It makes me ache to think of him dreaming. He’s so much more human than I ever imagined him to be.

I had a hand in that—more than a hand if I’m being honest. He eats food because I gave him a taste for it, drinks beer because I offered it to him.

Makes love to me because I opened myself up to him.

Makes love. I worry my lower lip at the phrasing.

The hand I hold now tightens, scattering my thoughts. When I glance up, Pestilence’s eyes flutter open.

I sit up straighter, bringing our clasped hands to my lips.

A smile begins to bloom on his face, but then it’s wiped away, his brow creasing instead. “Are you okay?”

Those are his first words. Just when I thought this man couldn’t gut me anymore.

I pinch my lips together so the truth doesn’t leak out. Because no, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay since Pestilence was shot off his horse. Even before then, I’m not sure how okay I was.

I’m having more than a little trouble dealing with loving liking this horseman.

He begins to sit up, looking increasingly alarmed when he sees the blood on me. “Where are you hu—?”

“It’s not my blood, it’s yours. They … shot you.” I whisper this last part because emotion is chocking up my vocal cords. Already my stupid tear ducts are coming online; as I blink, a couple slip out. Now that Pestilence is awake, I’m having trouble staying strong.

He sits up, a frown on his face as he takes in my hazel eyes.

“Are you crying … for me?” he asks, his voice laced with disbelief.

I want to say something snarky. Instead I wipe my cheeks. “Maybe.”

Pestilence eyes me as though he can’t make sense of the sight. “You know I can’t be killed,” he says quietly.

“But you can be hurt.” And they hurt him so badly.

“That bothers you?” His voice gentles.

I gesture to my wet cheeks and red eyes. “Yes.”

His gaze goes soft. “Sara.” He says my name lovingly, and it’s what undoes me.

I lean forward, and my lips are on his. His arms come around me, half pulling me onto him as his mouth responds to mine, devouring me just as eagerly as I am him.

It’s easy to forget how strong he is when he’s hurt, but now that he’s regenerated, I feel his strength as it envelops me.

Still, he’s bloody and I hate that. And I hate that I hate that, but not nearly enough, and I’m making no sense, but honestly, absolutely nothing in my life makes sense right now, so …

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry for what those people did to you, and for what I did to you—and for what everyone else has done to you since you arrived.”

Pestilence came here with a grisly task, and he armored himself against the atrocity of it by convincing himself that humans were monsters. And we proved him right every time we attacked him.

That’s what hate does—it brings out your worst.

He’s only caught glimpses of our goodness, and yet that’s all it’s taken for his deeds to weigh on him.

Because that’s what compassion does—it brings out your best nature.

“I’m sorry for every stupid thing I said earlier,” I continue. “What we did together meant something to me. You mean something to me.”

Pestilence holds me close. “Does this mean you’re going to marry me?”

I laugh through my tears. “No, I don’t do pity proposals. But I’m open to make up sex.”

Pestilence kisses me again, one of his hands sliding reverently up my cheek and into my hair.

“It wasn’t a pity proposal, dear Sara,” he murmurs.

He sits up, my body tucked tightly against him, then stands, cradling me in his arms. His lips find mine once more, and we resume the kiss. I’m barely aware that we’re moving through the house until Pestilence lays me out on the bed in the master suite.

I shiver at the sight of the horseman above me as he removes his refashioned armor, his gaze searing me the entire time. He takes his crown off last, setting it on the bedside table.

Stripped bare of his golden adornments, he’s no longer my noble, otherworldly Pestilence, but my flesh-and-blood lover.

He comes back to me, fitting his body over mine.

“Sara, Sara, Sara,” he breathes, kissing my eyelids, my cheeks, my lips, my chin. “I confess, your earlier apologies have moved me, but they are unnecessary all the same. You needn’t ask for my forgiveness—you already have it and more, if you’ll but take what I offer.”

I think he means marriage … and for the first time, the thought intrigues the crap out of me.

I could marry him.

He kisses the column of my throat, right down to the hollow at the base of it. “You have my mercy, my mind, my adoration, my body, my … life.”

I could’ve sworn that for a moment, he was about to say another four letter “l” word, but maybe that’s just my imagination.

And for the first time, I’m disappointed that he didn’t say it. But that makes no sense.

Life is a big enough promise coming from an immortal man.

I’m just a greedy bitch.

Pestilence makes quick work removing his shirt. I almost sigh at the sight of his thick arm muscles and his tapered torso. My hands move first to his pecs, then to his abs, for once ignoring the markings that ring his skin. Beneath my fingertips, his muscles tense, like his skin is hyper-sensitive to my touch.

The horseman flashes me a purely masculine smile, enjoying my exploration. He sinks back down onto me, lifting my shirt to expose the skin of my belly.

I shiver at the feel of the chilly air along the band of bared flesh, but then Pestilence’s warm hands are moving over it, and his lips are claiming it kiss by kiss.