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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.Youmean 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.

Icouldmarry 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’mdisappointedthat he didn’t say it. But that makes no sense.

Lifeis 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.

“Once again, I have you to thank for protecting me—savingme,” he says against my skin.