I raised a brow. “That is almost certainly not true.”
“No? You were shirtless when we first met, so I had the chance to see quite a bit of you before I knew who you were.”
I laughed again, causing my bare chest to press against hers, and we both gasped at the contact. She reached up, threading her fingers through my hair and pulling my mouth down to hers. Our kiss was eager and messy and freeing. As if we’d been unleashed, our words finally releasing whatever had been holding us back from giving ourselves completely.
My hands tangled with hers on the bed, and she cradled my hips in her own. I pulled away from her, searching her eyes and holding them with mine.
Her fingers found my scars, curving over each imprint of the scorpion that had been etched into me.
A reminder of him, of them, of their power over us.
For a jarring moment I realized when she saw them, she would be reminded of Reza.
My eyes flickered down to the corresponding scar she had on her hip from what he did to her.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, pressing my thumb to the mark on her. “I should have been there to stop him. You shouldn’t have his mark on you. I’m the one who should bear it.”
She shook her head and inexplicably smiled. “You don’t belong to him,” she said, her voice a low whisper, an oath, conjuring magic I didn’t know existed. “Or to them.” She placed her hand over my heart, away from the scars across my stomach.
“You belong to me.”
My breath caught in my throat, her words blurring my vision, settling into my skin likeshehad marked me, a stamp of her magic on my heart. And maybe she had.
We sighed into each other, melting together like there was no division between us. Our skin, pulse, tongues, mouths found their home.
“Do you want this?”
“More than anything.”
I surged forward, our hips meeting and snapping together, and we both gasped.
“Are you—?”
“Yes, yes.”
It was like that, murmured whispers, agreement, a tracing of each other’s bodies, making new marks that didn’t give ownership to anyone but each other, freely.
There was so much that was still uncertain, so much that I couldn’t forget about or push from my mind, so much pain and frustration and misery. But for one moment, it was all gone, and it was just me and her.
No, that wasn’t right.
She didn’t make me forget any of those things that drove me, but instead I felt as if I could finally conquer them.
And afterward she lay on my chest and I stroked her wild hair, a glimmer of hope growing in my chest that I hadn’t let flourish before.
And it was because of her I had any at all.
Chapter 46
Dear Amma,
I had a dream about you. You were holding something out to me, but I couldn’t understand what you were saying. And when I tried to get to you, the River grew wide, too wide to swim across, and all I could do was scream.
—Letter from Yaseema Nazir to Mahira Nazir, written in Mahira Nazir’s journal
Yaseema
For the second time after spending the night with Kiyan, I woke up alone. The bed beside me was warm and I knew it hadn’t been long since he’d left the tent. I blinked, taking in my surroundings, not having studied them much before. When I’d first walked into the tent, I’d assumed it was similar to the one I’d been recovering in across the camp, but I was wrong. Curling vines similar to the ones Kiyan conjured held up a sprawling canvas, this time with small purple flowers along them. In the center, a large desk—I felt my face heat at the memory of Kiyan and I kissing on that desk—but what I hadn’t noticed were all the scrolls, journals, notebooks, and leather-bound tomes littering the space.
