These Infinite Threads (This Woven Kingdom, #2)

by Tahereh Mafi

Unexpectedly, Cyrus smiled. For the first time since she’d met the reprobate, he truly smiled. He grinned like a boy, not a man, the infinitesimal flash of his white teeth rendering him almost childlike, softening him into something more mischievous than vengeful. The sight was distracting enough that she failed to notice her hands had fallen from his chest, that his hands had wasted no time landing at her waist. He gripped her firmly, stepping so close their bodies nearly aligned in all the wrong places; he was crowding her with his heat, with his height, with his unrelenting stare. She could hardly fuse together the wires in her brain; she was too tired, too unaccustomed to such closeness, too overwhelmed by the scent of him, the stubble along his jaw, the strength she felt in his hands, on her hips, his fingers sinking into her flesh. It was but a moment that she froze, confusion costing her the opportunity to regroup, and she knew two things then with absolute certainty: First, that she had failed. Second, that he had lied. How had the nosta failed to sense this? He was going to kill her. He was laughing when he lifted her off her feet, laughing when, without warning, he tossed her off the cliff. Alizeh screamed. “I choose dragons,” he called after her.