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“The sky, too, is soft,” she said. “Yet all who fall into its arms will perish.”
It was as if she’d been returned home.
The more he lived—the more he endured—the more convinced Kamran became that he knew nothing at all.
Without lifting his head, Hazan said, “With all due offense, sire, please fuck off.”
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he said, his smile vanishing. “Even when you lie to me.”
MELT THE ICE IN SALT BRAID THE THRONES AT SEA IN THIS WOVEN KINGDOM CLAY AND FIRE SHALL BE
“I hate you,” he whispered. Alizeh blinked, her heart pounding too hard in her chest. “I know.” He leaned in then, his throat working, his gaze fixed entirely on her mouth. “I hate everything about you. Your eyes. Your lips. Your smile.” His words grazed her skin when he said, softly, “I find your presence insufferable.”
“I need you,” he said roughly. “Don’t run away from me.”
“My kingdom,” he said softly. “For your hand.”
“I would’ve married her,” Kamran cried.
Alizeh decided she liked bread very much.
Me too girl, me too. I LOVE bread sm
Cyrus wept.
She could’ve prevented this. If only she’d been more guarded, if only she hadn’t cared. If only Cyrus hadn’t turned out to be so very, very human. Slowly, Alizeh fell to her knees. She took Cyrus’s limp hand in hers, and, like a fool, she cried for him.
“Sloppy with her work?” Deen cut her off, his eyes wide with shock. “The girl who came into my shop with hands so destroyed by hard labor she could hardly make a fist?” He shook his head, took a sharp step away from the woman. “You’re the housekeeper who beat her, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you’re responsible for that infected cut across her throat, too?”
She would never again deny that he was beautiful.
He drew the back of her hand gently against his lips, and then, so softly she might’ve imagined it, he kissed her.
“I didn’t know your name for so long, angel. I love the way it feels in my mouth.”
He didn’t respond; instead, he clapped a heavy hand against his cheek and frowned. “Did you wash my face, sweetheart?”
“You’re so soft,” he said, slurring the words. “So sweet.”
“Don’t be afraid of me, angel. I won’t hurt you. I’ll never hurt you.”
“Alizeh,” he said, sounding drugged. “Can I taste you?”
“Alizeh.” He blinked blearily, studying her with red, glassy eyes. There was a desperation in his voice when he said, “Why did you leave me?”
Even then, he was breathtaking.
“You,” he said ardently, “have always been too worthy.
“You used your own tears,” he said, all but broken, “to wash the blood from my face?”
“Why did you do it?” he said, his voice strained. “Why were you so kind to me? I’d heard someone crying, but I thought the sounds were part of a dream, or a hallucination. God, the way you touched me—” He cut himself off, his expression tortured. He shook his head, dragged a hand across his mouth. “Alizeh, my own mother has never touched me with such tenderness. I didn’t think there was any chance you could be real.”
Cyrus had looked at her many times since she’d met him, and always with varying levels of intensity, but never quite like this. Never like he wanted to fall to his knees before her.
She doubted she’d ever forget the desperate way he’d asked if he could taste her, the sound he’d made when he pressed his face to her breasts.
She knew, dimly, that this was a bad idea, that she was playing with fire, but Alizeh had survived an inferno once, and she thought she might survive such a blaze again.
“Alizeh,” he whispered. “Let me make you my queen.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, tortured. “I’ve been dreaming about you for months.”
It was a moment before Cyrus said, now staring at the wall, “Far from it. I always thought you were some kind of an angel.”
You are far more enchanting in real life. Far more exquisite.” His voice shook just a little when he said, softly, “It is excruciating to be in your presence.”
“You act as if I’m intentionally cruel. As if I’m indifferent to you.” “Aren’t you?” “No,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Of course not.” Cyrus stared at her from where he stood, his chest heaving with barely leashed intensity. He devastated her with that look, even as he seemed planted in the ground, immovable. “Then be with me,” he said softly. “Let me worship you.”
“You have no idea what I want. I have been in agony for eight months, Alizeh. Do you know how hard it’s been to pretend I don’t know you? To pretend I don’t want you? To act as if I haven’t known every inch of your body in my dreams? To learn that your heart has been entangled elsewhere? I look at you and I can’t breathe. In my mind, you are already mine.”
