“Rysethk,” I say, and his whole body trembles. “I lo—”
His hand moves with lightning speed to my mouth, covering it. He leans toward me and places his forehead against mine, his eyes closed. “Do not say it. Do not say it. It cannot be.”
Then he tears himself away from me and turns away, adjusting his robe. He straightens up to his full height, and without looking behind him, he commands, “Put your robe on.”
“I don’t—”
“Do it!” he thunders.
I’m paralyzed. I don’t want to put on my robe, and yet I do, I know I must. Now that he’s away from me, I can think again. I don’t understand everything about these crazy Kerz rituals but I know we have gone too far, and thiscannotbe. I know he’s right, I know we’ve screwed up, and it’s all very, very dangerous.
But I just can’t bring myself to put my robe on.
He waits, panting slightly. When I don’t move, he turns halfway and looks down at me, his eyes fearsome and reptilian, the pupils enlarged. “Do as I command, Anya Mann, or you will pay.”
Shaking, I untangle the robe and bring it around my shoulders. I remember the cut that I felt, just as I pull the material over my left arm. The satiny, transparent white of the fine material will stain, and panic lurches in my stomach.
“I can’t,” I hear myself saying, and he turns around, furious, growling. His mouth is open to say something, and he’s terrifying. “I think you cut me,” I say quickly, turning my right shoulder in his direction, pulling on my arm to twist it around where he can see. “With your claw, it’s just—”
He has traversed the space between us in a heartbeat and his hand is on my shoulder again. I melt into his touch, forgetting everything again, only feeling and thinking of him. His face is now concerned, and he pulls on my shoulder to turn me and look over it at the small cut.
His eyes flick back to mine. “I hurt you,” he says solemnly.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I tell him, “but it will…” I hold up the rest of the robe I have bunched in my left hand.
He says nothing, only looks horrified.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I repeat. “It didn’t… hurt. I won’t tell anyone…”
His arm is close to mine, thekrythpulsing, and my lips seem to be pulled to it by a magnetic force. I can smell his scent, all over me, within me, on his skin, and on mine. It’s musky, intoxicating. I start to feel dizzy again.
He turns my body and holds me firmly as he lowers his lips to the scrape. I feel his tongue—scratchy now, not like I remember it, almost like a cat’s—as he licks the wound. He presses his lips to it afterward, and a warmth travels through my skin, like an anesthetic. He stays there for a moment, both of us frozen in this bizarre embrace.
“I love you,” I whisper. The words leave my mouth without me having thought about them, but they are true. I’m suddenly dizzy, as if I’ve gotten high. “I won’t tell anyone.”
His body jerks at my words, and his fingers grip me tightly. Then he withdraws, and pushes me to a sitting position, looking into my eyes.
“Never say this again,” he says quietly. Then he grabs the back of my head, pulling my face close to his. “Do you understand me? Never, ever say this again.”
His voice is tender, his eyes violently imploring.
I nod, and bring my hands to his wrists.
He stares at me for a moment, and then pulls away with a quick movement, stepping backward. “Dress.”
I pull the robe around me and slide off the table to wrap it up with the tie at the waist. I can feel that whatever he has done to my scratch has stopped the small amount of blood from welling up again. It’s like I haven’t been injured at all.
We stare at each other for a moment. I can see that he’s thinking, behind his yellow eyes. They narrow, and then he composes himself.
“Follow me,” he says, and he turns to open the door.
* * *
When we exit, we turn right, not left, heading into the dark tunnels of what I think of as the old building. The air becomes thicker the further we travel, and the lights take on a sodium-orange glow in the humidity. I count the doors, my stomach lurching, his seed trickling down my legs, sticking to my skin. He is ahead of me, not speaking, and I can get no read on his emotions.
He makes a few turns and we travel down some steps, and my mind is so much on him that I lose track of which way we have turned. Escape is no longer at the forefront of my mind, but I know that it still should be.
We reach a door that he unlocks, and a gust of cool air comes through it when he opens it. The smell is different: fresh, intense, heavy with the scent of fertile soil and plants.
