“Why what?”
“Why did you tell it that I’m yours?”
“To protect you,” she said. “Because it wanted to—never mind. You know why, Zahir. Surely you must.”
“Tell me,” he said softly.
She could have refused. But she had already opened the door on her hunger, on the thing that twisted like a viper in her chest. She had already bound herself to him with a terrible tangle of ash and blood and roots that bound flesh and soul tight.
She could throw herself to the wolves of her fear one last time.
“Because,” she said, “I have always made myself into what was required of me. I have always belonged to someone else. My father, my mother, my husband. And I think I want something—someone—that is mine.” It felt like a terrible confession, like a thing she had ripped out of herself, a thing she’d revealed in her usual impetuous way, always seeking harm. She was not meant to want such things. Her wants were meant to be small, they were meant to adhere to specific parameters. “I look at you, Zahir, I speak to you and I know you and Ihunger.”
“Arwa,” he said.
He had not moved away from her. That was good at least.
“Arwa,” he said again. “I belong to no one.”
“I know.” Rush of shame in her belly. Heart flayed open. “I know, I—”
“No,” he said. Strange, almost hurt, twist to his mouth. “I don’t think you do. Why do you want me?”
“Zahir—”
“Humor me.”
Exhalation. Ah, how her face burned.
“Because of your curiosity. You do not know when to stop asking questions, except—you do. You know pain, and fear, and what it is to be used. You know some things shouldn’t be known. You are a pedant, exacting, and you’re an idealist, you…” She swallowed. “Because your face is my lamp,” she said finally;ah, fool, fool, to talk like a silly child in love. “Because this world is so dark, Zahir, and yet you—shine.” She shook her head. “You could hurt me in so many ways with what I’ve told you.”
“You think I will?”
She gave him an incredulous look. “It’s as if you haven’t listened to me at all. Have you?”
“I have. Arwa.” The way he said her name—ah. “Show me,” he said.
“Show you what?”
“If I were yours, what would you do? If I said,You have me.What would you do?”
“Your damnable curiosity,” Arwa muttered.
“It is not just—curiosity,” he said.
She looked at him. There was a challenge in his gaze and—something else. Something wanting.
Something vulnerable.
“Say it, then,” she said. Voice lower than she’d thought herself capable of. “Go on.”
He swallowed.
“You have me, Arwa,” he said. “And now?”
For a moment, she did nothing. Only looked at him, his face, the turn of his shoulders, the ink dark of his hair. Then she reached up a hand, and settled her fingers, as she’d so longed to, against the nape of his neck. His skin was warm, his hair soft.
She drew his head down to meet hers. Pressed their foreheads together, so their breath mingled and their eyes closed, and there was nothing between them but the way she clasped his throat still, holding him fast.
