that. I never dreamed how quickly a kiss could get out of hand. It’s
terrifying. Dangerous. Who knows how far things would have gone if I
hadn’t accidentally bumped into a pelican beak and come to my senses?
My chest flutters, but thankfully my throat strangles my nervous
giggle before it can escape.
and wish that Gem were the blind one. I would very much like for him
and awkward that I consider running off again simply to escape it. “I didn’t
know.”
Didn’t know? I curl my fingers beneath my chin. “What?”
“I didn’t know that you … that …” He sighs, but keeps going despite
his obvious discomfort. “In my tribe, by the time a girl is seventeen …”
I realize what he’s trying to say, and my face burns even hotter. Was
it that obvious? That everything between a man and a woman is new to
me?
.
My stomach drops. I want to bury my head in my lap and never tilt it
up again, but instead I force myself to lift my chin. “I’m not a girl. I am a
the nerve to chuckle afterward. I consider getting angry—mad seems like a
good alternative to mortified—but when he continues, his voice is kind,
sincere. “And you don’t have to be embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong
with being … new. I just … If I’d known … It can go more slowly. It can be
nice that way, too.” His fingers brush the back of my hand. His touch is
light, undemanding, obviously meant to be comforting, but I pull away all
the same.
I’m not ready to touch him again. Not now, maybe not ever.
By the moons, what was I thinking?
I fist my fingers in my hair and give my head a shake before digging
the heel of my palm into my forehead. No matter how good it felt to be
close to Gem, no matter how much I want to kiss him again. I can’t— We
can’t— This is—
“Impossible,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“Not impossible.” Gem scoots closer, until his hip touches mine.
“Yes,” I insist, but I don’t move away. “Impossible.”
“Maybe. But it felt right. You felt right,” he whispers, sending warmth
rushing in my chest and a hint of that tingling I felt in his arms zipping
through the rest of me. Even if every other being on the planet would think
we’re mad, it’s good to know that Gem felt it, too. That I wasn’t … that I
we want is more impossible than Gem knows.
“I’m sorry,” I say, despair settling in my heart. “I would change the
world if I could.”
“Then change it,” he says, a hint of yesterday’s gruffness in his tone,
though the arm he puts around my shoulders is gentle. “You’re a queen.
You’re young and strong and clever. And kind, when you want to be. That
city is yours to command.”
I shake my head. “No, not yet. And even when—”
“Yes.
“You don’t understand,” I say. “Even if the garden—”
“Forget the garden. You don’t need the garden.” He turns me to him
before pushing my hair from my face with a tenderness that makes me
ache. “You can make the wrong things right without the garden. You can
give the outcasts a place in your city. You can send food to my people. You
don’t have to wait. Children are starving now. My … my child is starving.”
My lips part. I never even considered. He’s only nineteen.
“I don’t know his name. He didn’t … He wasn’t named before I left,”
Gem says, grief clear in his voice. “But I think of him every day. His mother
chose another mate, and I’ll never be a father to him in the way that man
will, but I want to know him. I want him to live to see the first anniversary
of his birth, but many don’t.”
“Please,” I beg, the thought of those hungry children, of
suffer, I truly don’t, but I … I don’t …” I try to drop my head to my chest, but
Gem catches my chin in his hand.
“Then don’t back down.” His finger traces slowly back and forth
across my cheek. “Help my people. Help yourself.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” he whispers, leaning so close I can feel his breath on my
face. My lips tingle and my heart beats faster, and all I want to do is taste
him again—to lean in and lose myself in the dizzy rush of his mouth on
mine—but I can’t.
I push his hand away gently but firmly. “I
allow it. I’m tainted.”
He makes a disgusted sound, but I push on before he can make
another grand speech about what his chief would do in my place.
“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but that matters to my
people,” I continue. “They are repulsed by Monstrous traits, and it isn’t just
the outer ugliness of the tainted that they despise. We’re raised to believe
the Monstrous are worse than animals, that they are savages who kill for
pleasure, and that their ugliness is a sign of the corruption of their souls.”
He sighs, his frustration clear in the sound. “But you
soon as I realize how my words sounded, I hurry to explain. “I mean, I know
my people. It isn’t just my size or my rough skin or my wild hair. I’ve never
done as I was told. I lie and take chances I shouldn’t and think only of
myself and—”
“And you think …” His breath rushes out. “You think that means your
soul is
?” he asks, disgust and shock warring in his tone. “Like
mine?”
I shake my head, sending my hair flying into my face. “No! No, of
course not. I don’t think your soul is corrupt. You’re not listening.”
“
you sound.”
“I am not
the world. The world is complicated,” I say, feeling more confused with
every passing second. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know what to say. “I
just … I know some of what I’ve been taught is wrong, but you can’t deny
that we are different. You said so yourself.”
“Not as different as either side would like to think,” he says, before
adding in a harsh voice, “Women are women, I can promise you that much.
The same tricks work the same way. You even make the same sounds when
you—”
“Stop,” I choke out, struggling to swallow past the sick feeling rising
inside me. For the first time since we touched, I feel ashamed. How could
he? How could he be so understanding one minute and cheapen every
unguarded thing that happened between us the next? “You’re cruel,” I say,
hating the catch in my voice.
“What did you expect from a
?”
“Fine,” I snap. “Never mind. I should never have—”
“What if you weren’t
“I hate a lot of things.”
“I know you think …” I pause, not wanting to inspire any further spite,
but feeling I owe him honesty in a way I didn’t before. Spiteful or not, he
saved my life. And kissed me and held me and admitted it felt right, and
that has changed things between us. I can’t pretend it hasn’t. “I know you
find your people beautiful,” I say, “and I envy you that, I really do. But my
people … they don’t see beauty in mutation. It scares them. They were
horrified when they saw me for the first time at my coronation.”
Gem snorts as if I’ve said the most ridiculous thing in the world, and
anger flares inside me again. He wasn’t there. I was, and I heard the people
pull in a collective breath; I felt their surprise when they looked upon their
tainted queen for the first time.
“Believe what you want,” I snap, “but I know—”
“You know nothing. You’re not
my fingers curl self-consciously, drawing up inside the long sleeves of my
sweater. “Whatever’s wrong with you, it’s not caused by resembling my
people. As far as I’ve seen, you look almost exactly like the other
Smooth—”
“I do not look like them,” I snap. “And no matter what you think, I
can’t start issuing bizarre orders. I have to win my people’s trust. I believe
the garden will—”
“Stop,” he says. “I can’t listen to it again. I can’t.”
“I won’t talk at all, then!” I turn back to the fire and lean away from
him, wishing with every bone in my body it were safe to go for a walk. The
last thing I want to do is stay within spitting distance of this stubborn,
infuriating creature.
“There’s one thing I want to know first.” The gravel crunches, and I
sense that Gem’s moving closer, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of
scooting away. “If I’m hideous, inside and out—”
“I never said—” His arms close around me, and my words end in a
sharp intake of breath as he hauls me onto his lap. “Put me down!” I push
at his chest, but he ignores me and pulls me close, whispering his next
words against my skin.
“If I’m so ugly in every way,” he continues, the feel of his mouth
moving against my cheek making my blood rush in spite of myself, “then
why do you want me, Isra?”
“I—I need your help. And your father promised you would—”
“Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean.” His hands skim over my
body, one teasing the skin at the back of my neck, the other tracing the
column of my spine from top to bottom before smoothing around to my hip
and squeezing tight, fingers digging in until my belly flutters.
I shiver, and I know he knows the reason why. My lips part and my
breath rushes out, but I don’t scramble away. I close my eyes and count
slowly to ten and try to remember how hurt I was when he compared me
to all the other knots he has untangled.
But it’s so hard. Because he’s right. I
and he whispers my name in his thick, needy voice instead of his tight,
angry one.
Words only bring pain; we should use hands instead. I lift my hand to
his face, smoothing my thumb across the hint of whiskers on his cheek.
“Answer me,” he whispers, fingers slipping into my hair.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.” His jaw muscle leaps beneath my fingers.
“
painful lie. I decide on the truth. At least there’s nobility in that. “I’ve never
felt like this,” I confess. “I’ve never kissed anyone the way I kissed you. No
one has ever … touched me like that.”
“Why not?” he asks, his voice only the tiniest bit kinder. “I can’t
believe there aren’t Smooth Skin boys who would tolerate your
Smooth Skin way, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I say, blushing in spite of myself at his casual mention of my
bed. “And there has been some … interest. Bo kissed me once, more than
once, I guess.” I twine my arms around Gem’s neck, unable to resist the
temptation of his skin. “But he didn’t make me feel anything like this.” I try
to move my lips to Gem’s, but he turns away, and my mouth bounces off
his jaw.
“Why is that? Why do
“Because you’re ugly on the outside and wicked on the inside? That’s why
you’re drawn to a monster?”
I don’t say a word. I don’t have to.
He makes a disgusted sound. “I feel sorry for you, Isra. I really do.”
I draw my arms back to my chest and slide from his lap, feeling dirty
and small and more wrong than ever before.
“You make yourself miserable,” Gem says, “and refuse to let anyone
keep you from it. I’m a fool, but you are … I don’t have a Smooth Skin word
for what
fire and the wind howl beyond our shelter for what seems like hours, I
decide to consider his unwillingness to answer a small victory. Ignoring the
tears still pressing against the backs of my eyes and the filthy feeling I know
no bath could wash away, I lie down and close my eyes. My body needs the
rest, even if sleep seems impossible.
time Gem lies down behind me and tucks one heavy arm around my waist,