“Do what?” I force my eyes open.
“Don’t act like I’m the monster. They were going to let you die.” His gaze burns, like he’s still trapped in the flames.
“Not all of them,” I whisper.
“Enough.”
I glance away from the horseman.
“This is what I was created to do!” he says hotly. “They died fast. Doesn’t that count for something?”
It does. And they would’ve died regardless. It’s just that I saw all those bodies, and that is a sight I can never unsee.
It’s one thing to watch a family die in their homes, to talk to them and care for them and witness their deaths. It’s another to see a building full of rotting corpses, their faces awash with terror. I can’t see them for the people they once were, and that makes them all the more grotesque.
I don’t respond. Honestly, I’m too damn tired to argue with Pestilence right now.
“So be it,” he says.
So be it. That’s also what he said right before he pressed his will on a room full of doctors and nurses and sick people.
I shiver again, ignoring the frustrated growl that leaves his throat. He stalks back to his horse and swings himself into the saddle. Even the click of his tongue sounds irritated.
The cart bumps as it rolls over the bodies. I grimace as it jostles my injuries, the pain so intense it closes my throat up, but it’s the thought of all those bodies that causes me to dry heave.
He gave those people a quick death; I shouldn’t be upset. It’s just that this time, he was angry when he killed them.
And I’m to blame for that.
For the first time, a dark, insidious realization creeps up on me— Pestilence’s love for me might not save human lives. It might end them all the faster.
Chapter 48
The more kilometers we put between us and the hospital, the more my horror fades.
Now what I’m remembering most viscerally are Pestilence’s cries as he was tortured, and the way those people had enjoyed his pain. I can still see the charred husk of the horseman moving towards me, calling to me from the wasteland of his body.
What unimaginable pain he must’ve been in, and still he clawed his way to me. But he did more than that. I can remember Pestilence’s broken body as he carried me in his arms. Arms that were undoubtedly burnt away completely in places.
He endured all of that to save me.
By the time Pestilence pulls Trixie to a stop—in front of a mansion no less—I’m feeling sorrowful, penitent.
When he makes his way to the back of the cart, I can tell he’s expecting another argument. His shoulders are rigid, and his mouth is pressed shut. I can almost hear all the arguments and counter arguments he’s spent the ride thinking about.
But I don’t fight him.
Instead I open my arms.
He hesitates, clearly bewildered and unsure where I’m going with this. At last, he kneels and takes me into his arms, embracing me like I’m life itself. I hold him close, even though my chest feels like it’s getting shot all over again.
“I’ve never been more scared in my life,” I whisper.
He nods against me.
“For you, I mean.”
He pulls away to meet my eyes.
“I never want to see that happen to you again,” I say hoarsely.
Pestilence touches my cheek. “Nor I you.” Softer, he says, “I thought you were dead.” His voice breaks upon the last word.
I might’ve been, I think, remembering the strange vision I had of Thanatos.
He searches my face. “Never have I felt such … fear. It’s a horrible emotion.”
It is.
“And never have I felt such hate.”
I don’t blame him—what those people did was sickening—and yet I quake at his words.
The horseman closes his eyes, leaning his forehead against mine. When he opens them, they’re pained. “This saving and dying business is becoming a disturbing pattern between us.”
“It is.” But I don’t want to dwell on that. I move my hand so that I can stroke his pretty lips. “Say it again,” I whisper.
His brows pull together. “Say what?”
“Tell me how you feel about me.”
His face seems to come alive with realization, his lips curling into a rakish grin before he becomes solemn once more.
“I love you,” he says. “Before I even understood the term, I loved you. I love your laughter and your bawdy humor. I love your compassion and your vivacity, your fierceness and your loyalty.
“I meant to make you suffer, and look at me now—desperate to keep you in this land.”
The soft look on his face makes my stomach flip.
A gust of blustery wind tears through my clothes, forcing a shiver out of me, and that’s enough to break the spell.
“Let’s get you inside,” Pestilence says.
“Only if you continue to tell me everything you feel,” I say, greedy to hear it all.
“Gladly, dear Sara. There are many, many things I have yet to share. I wish for you to know them all.”
He begins to slide his arms under my body, clearly meaning to carry me.
I put a hand on his chest. “I can stand,” I insist.
Pestilence appears dubious, but backs off.
Gingerly, I swing my legs out over the side of the cart, hissing a little as I do so. Black spots dance at the edge of my vision.
Push through it, Burns.
I force myself to my feet, my body screaming in protest, those black spots spreading.
Wasn’t this bad at the hospital.
Pestilence stands in front of me, all his earlier tenderness gone, a disapproving frown growing on his face.
I take a step towards him and collapse in his arms.
Trying to walk was a mistake. I see that in hindsight.
Pestilence keeps me bedridden in the (evacuated) mansion while he plays nursemaid. At first I assume the whole situation is a temporary one. But then one day turns into two, then three, then four, then five—six—seven—nine—thirteen … ?
The days tick by as my wound heals, and time begins to bleed together until I can’t remember how long we’ve been here. Long enough for me to discover that Pestilence can be bossy and overprotective, particularly when I try to do anything that remotely resembles living.
“I don’t remember you being like this when you came close to killing me,” I say testily, throwing back my covers on day fifteen? sixteen? Twenty?
“Am I to be punished for caring too much?” Pestilence asks from where he stands next to the bed. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”
Damn him for twisting my words.
“I am not staying in this shitty bed another hour.” It’s really not a shitty bed. Pain and idleness have just made me testy, that’s all.
“By God you are, and if I have to hold you down in it, so help me, Sara, I will.”
Pushy horsemen also make me testy.
“I’m healed!”
“I fight infection off your body even now! You are not.”
“Just let me walk around!”
“So that you collapse on me again? I think not!”
“That was weeks ago.”
It feels even longer. I need to move around.
“You’re hardly better now than you were then! Your feeble body is still badly injured.”
Feeble body?
“You’re being a fucking bully!” I seethe.
“I’m your fucking savior at the moment.” Pestilence looks utterly done with me.
I don’t remember being this combustible with him before.
He’s scared of you dying, and you’re scared of letting him in the way you want to.
He runs a hand through his hair, then glances over his shoulder at the door.
His body seems to deflate. “I will not argue with you,” he says. Gone is the heat from his voice. He begins to back up, then turns on his heel, making a hasty retreat for the exit.
“Wait,” I call when he’s nearly to the door of the master suite.
I don’t want to fight.
The horseman pauses.
“I’m sorry, come back.”
And he does, his imposing frame sitting down on the mattress. All it takes is for me to show a tiny bit of vulnerability, and Pestilence caves, trading in his tirade for soft touches and even softer kisses. He won’t go further than that, but it doesn’t matter. Right now all I want to feel is the breath of his love.
His love.