Of Beast and Beauty, стр. 30

better-sounding than her grumpy moan. “What are … Where …” She blinks,

and for a second it looks as if her eyes are trying to focus before they go

empty once more.

“Do your eyes hurt?” I ask, hoping her cold sleep hasn’t left lasting

damage.

“No, but my head does. A little.” She winces. “More than a little.” Her

lids droop, and for a second I worry she’s falling back asleep, but then she

asks, “What happened?”

“I was about to ask you.” She shifts in my lap, and I’m suddenly very

conscious of the places where we touch and everything I was thinking

before she opened her eyes. Everything I was feeling. When I speak again,

my voice is rougher than hers. “I found you on the trail. You were cold and I

couldn’t wake you. I brought you back here and rebuilt the fire, but for a

while I wasn’t sure … I thought …” My arms tighten around her, but Isra

doesn’t seem to mind.

She turns her head, resting her cheek on my chest with a sigh. “I’m

sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“I shouldn’t have let the fire go out,” she says. “But I couldn’t find the

wood and I got scared, and then I was so cold and confused and … I … I

started remembering things. About my mother … her buttons …” Her hand

drifts to her chest, but hesitates there only a moment before coming to rest

on mine.

“I never meant for this to happen,” I say. “I didn’t understand. I—I

never meant to cut you that first night; I had no idea how fragile your skin

was. And tonight, when I left—I thought—I didn’t know it was so dangerous

for you to get cold.”

“I didn’t, either,” she says. “It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right.”

“It is.” Her fingers slip between the buttons on my shirt, brushing

bare skin. It becomes even harder to breathe. “I forgive you. Can you

forgive me?”

I start to assure her there’s nothing to forgive, but I can’t tell any

more lies. “I don’t know.”

She bites her lip. “Is that why you sound angry?”

“I’m not angry. Not at you. I’m just …”

“Just what?”

“Happy that you’re alive.”

“Me too. And grateful. To you. I …” She swallows, and her next words

seem to come harder. “I meant what I said. I’m not afraid of you. I’m … I

know it’s crazy … but I …” She lets out a tired sigh, and when she speaks

again, her voice isn’t much more than a whisper. “I’d like to see your face

again. May I?”

At first I think she means see me the way she did the first night, in

the garden, but then she lifts a hand into the air and I understand. She

wants to touch me.

“Yes,” I say, doing my best not to shiver as her fingers feather around

my eyes and down my nose, before her thumb smoothes across my bottom

lip. “Thank you for asking,” I whisper, lips moving beneath her lingering

touch.

She sits up, bringing her face even with mine. Her mouth is close; her

breath warms my chin. For the first time, she doesn’t smell like roses. She

smells like cactus milk—clean and salty and of the desert, like my

people—and I suddenly wonder if she would taste like all the girls I’ve

kissed in my life. There were other girls before Meer. After she found Hant,

I always assumed there would be more, but I never thought …

Even a moment ago when I …

I didn’t think … imagine … that she might …

A part of me still refuses to believe it, but another part knows what a

girl wants when her fingers linger too long on a boy’s mouth, and it knows

better than to hesitate. So I don’t. I pull her hand away, and risk a kiss.

Our lips brush, soft on softer, timid and testing, the barest friction of

skin against skin, but that’s all it takes to know that it’s right. Isra sighs and

twines her arm around my neck. My blood rushes and my body comes alive

and everything in me lights up like a sunrise. Like a night sky spitting stars.

Like her eyes when she smiles.

She kisses me again. And then again, harder and longer, and I forget

every reason this shouldn’t happen. I pull her closer and warm her mouth

with mine, moaning when her tongue slips between my lips and I taste

cactus and salt, but also a hint of sweet and a dark, velvety spice that isn’t

Smooth Skin or Desert Woman, that is only Isra.

And for a moment she is my Isra, and nothing is impossible.

TWELVE

ISRA

THIS is a kiss. This. This, this, this …

His smoke and wood smell filling my head, his Gem taste bittersweet

and perfect on my tongue, his arms around me and my hands everywhere

I’ve been dying to touch, and the memory of the killing cold banished by

the way he makes me burn.

I don’t care what he is, who I am, what’s wrong or right. There is no

shame or fear, only the driving need to get closer, kiss deeper, consume

and be consumed, to lose myself so completely that I will never be found.

I want to stay this way forever, with his chest pressed tightly to mine,

and his lips moving at my throat. With my fingers in his soft hair, his breath

warm on my skin, his hand—so hot I can feel it through my clothes—sliding

between us, down my ribs, over my stomach, down until—

I gasp and my eyes fly open, and for a bare moment I think I see

something in the air above my head—a hint of color, a flicker of light,

something strange and unexpected that makes me hesitate to push Gem’s

hand away. By the time the flicker vanishes and the familiar darkness

settles in, I am still … hesitating …

Hesitating …

A quiet, shame-filled voice inside demands I put a stop to that.

Immediately. But oh, it feels so good. So unbelievably good. I had no idea

that the ache inside could tighten into such a fierce, sweet knot … or that

Gem would know exactly how to untangle it.

Untangle me.

“Isra,” he whispers, making me shiver. I never thought … I never

imagined that he would feel it, too, this pull, this longing to touch and be

touched and oh …

I draw his mouth back to mine and kiss him until my lips feel bruised

and my breath comes faster. Faster and faster, until my head spins and

something overwhelming and frightening and beautiful rises inside me. My

fingers dig into the back of Gem’s neck and my legs tremble and I shift in his

arms, bringing my hip into contact with something I hadn’t considered.

Something that—despite what the bawdy ballads claim—feels

nothing at all like a pelican beak.

I bleat like a sheep and roll off Gem’s lap so fast, I nearly tumble into

the fire. I try to stand, but my legs are trembling and my knees are liquid

and I end up flopping onto my bottom and kicking a foot into the flames,

and suddenly Gem is cursing his ancestors—or my ancestors, I can’t really

tell—and snatching my boot from the fire and slapping at it, and the acrid

smell of burned animal skin sours the air, and the warm, beautiful feeling

vanishes in a puff of smoke.

I suck in a deep breath, and for the first time since Gem pulled me

back from the cold, my head clears. This is not a dream or a delusion. This is

real.

I really kissed the Monstrous boy I’ve been holding prisoner. I really

drove my fingers through his hair and tasted his taste and let him touch me

for so long my cheeks heat just thinking about it. It’s madness, but in the

moment the madness made perfect sense. I had no idea it would be like