“Monsters.”
He flinched. He thought she was talking about him. She almost wished she was, at least that would be easily explained. She considered letting him believe he gave her nightmares. But she wasn’t that cruel.
“No, not like that,” she said, when she meant not like you. He visibly relaxed and that made her curious. “Would that bother you?”
“Of course it would.”
“But you like being what you are.”
His expression shifted, became troubled. He didn’t correct her. “I would not want to be the cause of your pain, even if it may be inevitable.” After a long silence, he spoke again. “Perhaps you should try to sleep again? I’ll let Parijahan know she can—”
“Stay,” Nadya said, cutting him off.
He frowned, already shaking his head. He started to stand but she caught his wrist.
“I care about you, Malachiasz,” she said, the words rapid as they rushed out of her. “I don’t know when it started, but it’s real and it terrifies me. You’re the single most frustrating person I have ever met and I’m still a little convinced we’re enemies and caring for you is literal heresy, but I do. You’ve been lying to me from the beginning and I can’t make myself stop caring for you.”
His expression was completely indecipherable and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Had she been reading him totally wrong? Had she said the wrong thing? She’d never done this before; she wasn’t really sure how it worked. She didn’t—
He kissed her. It was hungry and purposeful and spoke clearly of wanting. It surprised her, how desperate he felt. It frightened her—just a bit—as well.
It didn’t stop her from shifting up on her knees, leveling herself to him, and knotting her hands into his hair. Her heart was pounding and every inch of her felt shaky because this was wrong. If she didn’t die tomorrow she would certainly be punished.
But she didn’t care. She didn’t care. His hands gripped her waist as he pulled her closer. He broke away, his breath ragged and hot. His pale eyes were dark and dangerous as they searched her face.
“This is a terrible idea.” He spoke in Kalyazi. She was tired of hearing Tranavian.
“I know.”
“I wish you did,” he said, his voice hoarse. He lifted a hand, gently tracing her features with his fingertips. She shivered. When he reached her mouth she tilted her face up to kiss his palm.
He let out a long, tattered breath. She pulled his face back to hers, kissing him hard, feeling his body notch against her. She drew one hand out from his hair and let it slide down his neck, glancing fingers brushing against his collarbone. His skin was hot and she felt his hand trail up the ridges of her spine. He pressed forward, lowering her back onto the bed.
For a split second, she froze, suddenly realizing just how dangerous this was, how much further down she could throw herself if she allowed it.
He felt her instant of indecision and pulled back. A similar misgiving flickered on his face.
“Just stay,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Nadya, I…” he trailed off. Kissed her throat. Her jaw. The corner of her lips.
She was having trouble thinking clearly. Her mind focused solely on the feeling of his mouth against her skin. But she understood he wanted to say something serious to her so she opened her eyes.
“If something happens tomorrow…” He shifted so he was lying next to her. She turned on her side and moved closer so their foreheads were touching. “I want you to know you are the only good thing that has ever happened to me.”
Was her heart supposed to be in her throat like this? Was she supposed to feel so alive and so much like crying right now? She had no idea. All she knew was she had gone against everything she ever thought right and had fallen completely, irreversibly for this terrible, monstrous boy.
She curled her fingers against his face, the scratch of stubble beginning to dust his jaw and cheeks rough against them. His voice scared her, and not in the way it scared her when he was speaking as the Black Vulture. This was different. This was sadness. Desolation.
How could she be the only good thing to happen to him? She had almost slit his throat, had hung him off a railing. She didn’t even trust him, not really.
Maybe that wasn’t true. He had lied, he was a monster, but still she cared. A part of her had come to trust him. And that was the most terrifying thing of all.
“We’ll just have to make sure nothing happens, then,” she said.
That earned her a strained half smile from the Vulture boy. She kissed him, once more, a soft and slow and equally purposeful kiss, before she tucked her head down and settled herself against him.
* * *
Nadya woke with her head pillowed on Malachiasz’s chest, one hand pressed against his ribs. Soft, early morning light was slipping through the cracks in the curtains.
She sat up, trying not to think about what she would have to do by the day’s end. Malachiasz stirred beside her. He didn’t wake, just folded his body around her. She smiled and softly rested her fingers in his hair.
Lying on a nearby table was the iron mask he wore over his face as a Vulture. It was similar to the one she had seen him wearing when they first reached Grazyk, but this one had a vicious edge to it, designed to cover even more of his face.
Malachiasz stirred again, waking.
“How many more lies are you going to tell me before I finally hear the truth?” Nadya asked. She turned his mask around in her hands, the iron cold. She didn’t mean it in an accusatory way, she was merely curious.
Malachiasz frowned; the expression tugged at the tattoos on his forehead. He took his time answering. “When we met I gave you my name,” he said, his quiet voice scratchy with sleep. “It’s the only truth I have left.”
“It’s a truth you’ve given others as well.”
He turned, groaning, and pressed his face against her hip. “What do you want from me, Nadya?” His voice was teasing.
“I’m just pointing out: I am not the only person to know your name.”
“You’re just being difficult.”
She laughed and looked down at him. His black hair spilled onto the white pillows like ink. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them; thought about how when they were sitting in front of Alena’s altar he had practically admitted to her he was evil. He closed his eyes and his face was pleasant, peaceful. A monster king, feral and beautiful.
Her chest ached in the oddest of ways as it struck her again just how much she cared for this broken boy and how it terrified her. It would never stop terrifying her.
She laid back next to him. “Is it part of you? I mean, has it always been with you?” She didn’t need to clarify.
He was silent—she was getting used to his long silences—she hoped he said yes. That he had been born with iron in his body instead of bone. It would mean a curse of blood instead of something done to him by man. If he hadn’t been born with it, then it had been tortured into him. Experiments more gruesome than Nadya was willing to contemplate.
“I was born with the potential for monstrosity, as all people are,” he said finally. “The Salt Mines made it a reality. All I have is what they made me.”
Nadya pressed her mouth to his bare shoulder, another fracture making its way down her heart. She didn’t know what would happen to them at the end of this. She couldn’t even think that far. Her future was bleak and she knew it.