I swallow. I want nothing to do with that sad, scared little girl, and the sad, scary life she left behind. “Lark.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t confirm the name in any way. He’s about my height, sitting on the overstuffed cushion, with me standing. A little shorter. Staring at him, being close to him, is awful and agonizing. His presence is hotter and brighter than the fire at my back. I want to fall into him and be burned.
But I am nothing if not a survivor.
I turn away. Take half a step. Fight with my warring mind. But I’ve already thrown myself at him once. What more damage could I do? If he’s leaving Montra housing, I might not get another chance.
“I know what I am, and what you are.” My voice is quiet, my throat too tight, so I force myself to turn back. The fire feels too hot now. “I haven’t told a soul about you, and I won’t speak of it again after this. But I need to hear it from your mouth, Azmar. I need you to remind me that I’m human, that I’m repulsive and below you, that the only thing you feel for me is pity.” His stare is too intense, so I lift my focus to his brow. “Just tell me that I’m a fool. That I’m in the way. Just tell me, and I’ll leave you be. I’ll change my shifts so our paths never cross. I’ll even leave Cagmar, if that’s what you—”
His calloused hand finds mine again, but this time he tugs me toward him. My words jumble on my tongue as his other hand touches my hair. I barely process that I’m falling before he kisses me. Not a meager brush of the lips, but a true kiss, and something inside me shatters and is rebuilt again.
His lips are warm and soft, thicker than mine. One of his short tusks glides across my cheek. My pulse roars in my ears. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But Azmar’s hand clutches my hair, his other encircling my waist to pull me closer, and it sings, Right, right, right. The flames seem to leap from the fireplace and ignite every inch of me, and the complicated plait of my thoughts loosens and disintegrates, until there is nothing in my head but the ashes of him.
Our mouths learn one another slowly, measurably. It’s tantalizing, invigorating. I cup his strong jaw in my hands. He turns his head and coaxes my lips to part. I give in eagerly, and the heat of him flows through me, over my tongue and down my throat, feeding that secret space deep within. And then I am on his lap, tracing his mouth with my tongue, crazed on the scents of white cedarwood and ginger. His fingers map the length of my spine, each pad a smoldering ember against my skin. It makes me feel so fragile, and yet so strong at the same time. Our breaths mix together, dancing. I lean into him, desperate to be closer to him, relishing the feeling of his hard body against mine. Our tongues intertwine, and he makes a low sound in his throat that is as delicious as it is addicting.
The kiss slows, gradual and reluctant, until our lips break apart and I can feel blood swelling in mine. I search Azmar’s eyes, his pupils so large and dark there’s barely any topaz left in them. I’m sitting on him, the cushion bulging against either side of my thighs. There would be no easy explanation for this, should Unach walk in.
My heartbeats thrum too swiftly to count. I search Azmar’s face. “Your fault this time,” I whisper.
He runs a hand behind my ear and over my braid. “Perhaps do not tell Unach about this, either.”
A sudden shyness overtakes me. Leaning back, I pull my legs to myself so I’m no longer straddling but sitting modestly beside him. Trying not to think of the telltale sign of desire I’d felt, which is definitely the same with trollis as it is with humans. I murmur, “What would she do?”
“She would not take it well.” He wipes a hand down his face. “None of them would.”
I’m glad he doesn’t sugarcoat it for me. And yet it stabs me in the chest like a rusted nail. I think of Perg’s mother, casting herself into the canyon . . .
Unach would never support us. Even Perg would never support us. And if they won’t, no one will.
We’re doomed before we begin.
“Which is why I’ve requested my own quarters,” he continues. “They would be much smaller, but more . . . private.”
My face warms. “Oh,” I say stupidly. “But this . . . The law . . .”
“There is no law against it . . . officially.” He leans his elbows on his knees.
I study him, the concern knotted at the corners of his eyes. “Because it should be obvious without the council declaring it.”
He nods. “Because aside from Perg, it’s unheard of.”
That wilted hope from last night grows new roots.
A moment passes in silence before I ask, “Why did you change your mind, Azmar? Last night . . .” I can’t find a way to finish the sentence without feeling foolish. I can still taste him on my lips. My pulse is erratic in the aura of his calmness.
“I did not change it,” he said, allowing an iota of panic to surge into me. “I merely accepted it.”
I study his profile, and then his eyes when he turns toward me, so resolute. I reach forward and splay my hand on his chest, over his shirt, where his heart is. Despite the firmness of his voice and the stoniness of his features, his heart beats swiftly, one hard pulse for every two of mine.
A strange jubilation burns in my core, and despite everything—Cagmar, Unach, the council, the laws—I find myself smiling.
His lip quirks at my countenance. “Did you think me heartless, Lark?”
I don’t pull away. “Only worried.”
His hand touches my thigh, and he leans in, but before I can kiss him again, loud footsteps sound outside the door.
I’m up so fast—smoothing my skirt, skittering away from the fire—that the room spins.
Unach barges in with such intensity that the door crashes against the wall behind it. Azmar stands, his expression utterly stoic, his body poised as though ready to fight.
My gut hits the floor. There is no way Unach could already know—
“Seven trollis,” she says, and confusion replaces my trepidation. “Seven trollis adolescents murdered, their heads left on pikes for us to find!”
My jaw drops in shock. And given the scathing look Unach throws my way, I know exactly who the perpetrators are.
Humans.
Chapter 19
Ufreya the queen and Sankan the oak tree.
Did the stars predict this?
Azmar answers Unach first. “Where? When?”
Unach whirls around and kicks the door shut. It seems all of Cagmar shakes with the frame. She stares it down, as though it might attempt to war with her, before turning to face us. Her green skin is especially bright, her glare hotter than the fire behind me.
“East fan,” she says. It’s a trollis district, not anything labeled on human-made maps. “Right on the border of the East Arrow.”
From what I can remember of trollis geography, she means somewhere south of Dorys, the township I’d run from after my father’s men attacked me in the stable I was sleeping in, in the earliest hours of the morning.
I shudder and hug myself. “Were they scouts, or—”
Unach reels on me. “Or what?”
“Unach.” Sadness brims Azmar’s calm cadence.