The question slipped out before Liora had fully decided to ask it. She was still standing on the balcony, still processing the reality of that metal barrier sliding into place and the proof that her entire life had been a carefully constructed lie.
Baylin turned to look at her, his green eyes unreadable in the fading light. “If you want me to.”
“I do.” The words came easily. Naturally. As if there was no other possible answer. “I don’t want to be alone tonight. Not after... this.”
She gestured vaguely towards the blocked stairs, towards the jungle she couldn’t reach, towards everything that had shifted and cracked in the last few hours.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll stay.”
Relief washed through her, warm and unexpected in its intensity. She hadn’t realized how much she’d dreaded the alternative until he agreed. The thought of him descending intothe jungle, leaving her alone with ARIS and its measured lies, had made something in her chest feel hollow.
“Good.” She managed a small smile. “Come on. I’ll show you where to sleep.”
Her bedroom was on the level below the greenhouse where her plants slumbered in the darkness. She had always liked this room—the way moonlight filtered through the curved windows, the sound of wind against stone, the sense of being suspended between earth and sky. It too had a balcony, but this one looked out over the ocean.
Now, watching him duck through the doorway and take in her personal space, she felt suddenly aware of how strange this all was. How extraordinary. Another person standing in her room. Looking at her things. Breathing her air.
“This is where you sleep?” he asked.
“Yes. The bed is large—my nursemaid said it was meant for my parents, originally. Before they...” She trailed off, uncertain how to finish that sentence.Before they died? Before they abandoned me here? Before Ari became my only family?“Anyway, there’s plenty of room.”
Something flickered across his face. “Liora?—”
“Unless you prefer the floor? Some of the characters in my books sleep on the floor. There was a warrior in one story who said beds made him soft.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Is that a Vultor custom?”
“No. We have beds.” He shifted his weight, and for the first time since she’d met him, he looked genuinely uncertain. “But I shouldn’t share yours.”
“Why not?”
The question seemed to catch him off guard. He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “It isn’t... appropriate.”
“Appropriate according to whom?”
“According to—” He made a frustrated gesture. “According to custom. To the way things are done.”
“But I’ve never done things according to custom.” She moved towards the bed, beginning to unfasten the clips that held her hair in its braid. “You’re the first person I’ve ever invited to stay with me. There’s no precedent for what’s appropriate.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
She paused, her fingers tangled in blonde strands. “I don’t understand.”
He exhaled slowly, his shoulders tight with tension. In the moonlight streaming through the windows the scars on his arms stood out like silver threads, evidence of a life she could only imagine.
“When males and females share a bed,” he said carefully, “there are... expectations. Implications. Things that might happen.”
“Things like kissing?”
His jaw tightened. “Among other things.”
Other things. The phrase hung in the air between them, heavy with a meaning she didn’t fully grasp. But she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to.
“I liked kissing you,” she said. “Earlier, I mean. Before you called it a mistake.”
“Liora—”
“Was it really a mistake? You said so, but you didn’t explain why. I’ve been thinking about it, and I can’t figure out what was wrong about it. It felt good, and I felt you respond. So why was it wrong?”
He was very still. The kind of stillness she’d seen in predators just before they struck.
