Page 30 of The Last War We Ever Fought

Elijah couldn’t understand her pleas or the desperation behind them, but he put the sewing box at the edge of her bed, ever so slowly, because she was shaking and looking like a scared little animal who was about to run away from him any minute.

Backing away from her just as slowly, he took a seat on the stool on the far edge of her small tent and remained there, watching—helplessly watching. That had always been his true curse. To helplessly watch.

Rowan reached for the box with a trembling hand and pulled her loose shirt down one shoulder with the other, revealing the wound that was now an angry red. Glancing at him from time to time, she began dabbing a cotton of alcohol around it, wincing and strangling a small tearless sob every once in a while. A whimper escaped her when she made that first stitch. He didn’t know why. The wound had to hurt more if it had been left as it was. It must have hurt the same ever since she’d gotten it. Elijah couldn’t understand that the bearer of pain that she was couldn’t bear the sting of a needle on skin that should have already been numb from burning pain and infection.

Feeling the wound around with her finger, she tried to push the needle through it with shaky fingers and failed. It was too far out of her reach and sight. After struggling with it for what seemed like too many hours, she raised two surrendered green eyes up at him.

No words were exchanged.

Not a single one.

But Elijah stood and just as slowly as he’d left her, he neared her again. Without being told to or asked to, he took the bloodied needle from her fingers and looked at her, seeking permission down the abyss of her soulless eyes. Hoping he might find her soul down there too now that she’d surrendered something to him.

He heard her hold in a breath when his hand rested next to the wound, touching her warmed skin.

“How do you know how to do that?”

“Watched it done more times than one can count.” What Elijah couldn't understand was why did it feel different this time? Why he not only wanted to step in, but he needed to. “Why don’t you stitch your wounds?” All of her scars had healed horribly.

“Why does it matter? If Death wishes to take me, he will take me.” She pulled her shirt forward to show him a scar on her chest. “That was the very first one. I realised that week I spent with fever that if I didn’t die then, I would never die if it wasn’t meant to be.” Her teeth dug on her bottom lip, attempting to stop the gentle tremble. Once she caught her rapid breaths, she sighed and said, “I was right.”

“It isn’t always just about death.”

“It is,” Rowan said, resting her chin on top of her knees, her eyes dropping to the ground, ever so lost. “If I take care of them, I feel like I’m begging him to let me live longer or show him that I am trying to live longer. I don’t want him to think that.” Turning her face away, she ran her sleeve over her green eyes that she was now hiding from him, and whispered, “You better tell him that you forced me to do this.”

Elijah had frozen at her words. The ache in his heart had never felt as raw, as red, as human as it felt at that moment. It hurt to think of how many times he’d begged Death to let her live since he’d found her many moons ago while she’d done everything to convince him otherwise. How many times had the King of Gods gone to his knees in front of the gates of the afterlife to beg. How many days had he spent there, waiting for Death to hear his pleas? So selfishly he’d held onto the woman who reminded him of tranquil—of the peace he had once lost. So selfishly, he’d done it because she reminded him of his peace.

“Promise me,” she said, turning her glassy eyes to him. The ones he was sure no one but him had ever seen before.

The vivid green of her irises was plagued with something else besides lifelessness. Once he saw the hopelessness there, he couldn’t say anything besides, “I promise.”

After finishing stitching her wound, he stayed there a while longer, his hands still on her, breathing near her, and she let him. She even let him skitter his touch down her many scars.

Elijah frowned to himself, wondering—he’d done too much of that lately. Why was he wondering about her scars? Why was he wanting to know? Even when he had all the answers to the questions he wanted to ask her.

She’d been made to fight. She’d been made for battle. She’d been made to bear scars.

He wondered—wondered if it had been through one of them that her soul had bled through and away from her gaze. He wanted to find out which battle it had been, which blade, which person had held it. He wanted to hunt down that moment and see how it had happened. He wanted—he was wanting these days, too. The God of War never wanted. He had all he wanted. He had no desires. He fed from others' desires.

“Are you done?” she asked, voice empty. If she had not been near enough for him to feel the vibrations of her words on his skin, he would have thought her to be far away from him. The words were so far away from her, too. So was her mind. So was her soul.

He wanted—he wanted to find it and give it back to her. To see how she looked with one, if she was just as exquisite with it as she was without.

“Elijah?”

“Yes, little thief?” he asked, attempting to contain the smile from his words. It was the first time she had called him by the name his mother had given him. There were only two creatures who were privy to that knowledge, and only two who had ever called him that. Elijah had not intended to give her his true name, but he’d also not intended to give her permission to end his life either. He felt like she owed both those rights. To know his name and end him, too. He dared press his lips to her shoulder, smiling when she shivered and gasped. “Now I am.”

“You’ve never told me what I’ve stolen,” she breathlessly said, pulling her sleeve up her shoulder, her shaky fingers brushing over where his lips had just been.

“You’re a very bad thief, that is why.”

She shook her head. “I’m not rested enough to figure out any meaning in that.”

“Is this an offer to lay with you?”

“That’s an offer for you to get the fuck out.”

“Rowan, Rowan,” he cooed, standing. “Stop being so horrible to me, you’re going to steal my heart, too.”