The Jasad Heir (The Scorched Throne #1)

by Sara Hashem

“I wanted more time for you,” Niphran said. Regal and melancholy, the heart of Jasad made flesh. “More peace. More love. A chance to thrive in the world before it collapsed around you.

Oh, if my mother and father could see us now. The daughter in love with the shy, bookish Omal Heir, and the granddaughter in love with the Nizahl Commander. Which do you think is worse?”

Arin’s fingers convulsed around the fig. “Stop.” Did he think I could control this burgeoning panic? Stem the epiphany that I wanted more of Arin, more of his life, his time, his rare smiles? I wanted to be known by him. To lay my shame and regret in his confidence and trust he would hold them firm.

“I am only a man.” Later, I wouldn’t recall who reached first. Those details faded to make space for the rest.

Arin tasted like nothing I could name. I had made a vow against intoxication, but I would recant immediately for the chance to savor the decadence of him. I barely registered my back hitting the wardrobe. My legs wrapped around his waist, and I tore one of Rory’s gloves in my hurry to take them off. I traced Arin’s scar, the shadows under his eyes, yanked at his collar. Ravenous to touch him, to spell my name in his skin, leave him as thoroughly and irrevocably marked as he would leave me. Arin kissed me with the same singular attention and skill he displayed in every facet of his life. He took me apart with each drag of his lips against mine. His clever hands found their way beneath my skirt, the leather press of his fingertips against my thighs hard enough to bruise.

The way he looks you at sometimes. Like you are a cliff with a fatal fall, and each day you move him closer to its edge.

But I wanted to hope what we’d lost could still be saved. That despite what we’d become, we could learn to be soft again.

“Arin.” I laid my cheek on his hair. “Am I hurting you?” He dropped a feather-light kiss to my chin. “Constantly.” But it was wistful, content.

I stroked the length of his face. The rhapsodies of poets and the lovelorn melodies. I understood them now. I lacked the talent for composition, so I traced the veins at the underside of his wrist, pressed kisses along the hard line of his jaw, memorized the shape of his smile. Maybe it would translate.

But it wasn’t Hanim’s voice speaking anymore. It was mine. My own voice whispering in my head, haunting me more effectively than Hanim’s memory ever could. And for the first time, I answered. I snatched the voice and shoved it somewhere leagues deeper than the hole I’d used for Hanim’s mortal body.

Love was Arin cradling my face in a burning room and telling me to run.

The Nizahl Heir traced Essiya’s cuffs, and he started to plan.