She shakes her head in confusion. “But the Wildling flower doesn’t kill ... itheals.”
“We extract the same nectar. In Nightshade hands, under our own extraction process, it turns into a drug that produces euphoria. I suspect under a Wildling’s touch, it turns into a healing elixir instead.”
She stares down at the single flower I offered her. Her fingers smooth across its petals. They’re soft as velvet. I’ve never even thought about their beauty, until it was something I wanted to show her.
They are like us, I want to tell her. Dark and light. Life and death. Somehow, they come together and make something extraordinary.
Perhaps we could do the same.
I can feel her hope, can see her thinking.
But she’s not thinking of us, like I am. She’s thinking of her people, the way I should be.
“We can make a deal,” she says. “We don’t have much of this flower. If you can give Wildlings some of yours, we can providehealing elixirs. In exchange, we need hearts. From ... people you are already going to kill. And other stuff I can’t think of right now that we need.”
I almost smile, watching her. I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she knows that if she asked, I would give her almost anything. “It’s a deal, Hearteater.”
And for a moment, I pretend that this could work. That I could find another way to end the dreks. That she couldlive, with me, and we could bring both our realms together.
I hold out my hand, and she takes it.
We shake.
I portal her back to her room, and neither of us pulls from our grasp.
She swallows, and I watch her throat. I remember biting it. Licking it. Tasting her. My gaze slips lower.
When I was wounded, I told her more than I’ve ever told anyone.
And she didn’t use it against me. She didn’t laugh or think of me as weak.
She’s here, looking at me, like she could possibly see past all the blood on my hands. As if she could possibly want me.
Our gazes lock, and I understand that something has changed, even from a few days ago, when we stood in this very spot. When she told me, very clearly, that she didn’t want to kiss me.
Right now, she’s staring at me. She’s ... grasping my fingers, and pulling me toward her, until her spine hits the wall, and I’m towering over her once more.
Her gaze never leaves mine. She lifts her chin, toward me, and I know what this is. An invitation.
I lean down, slowly, tentatively. I’ve killed thousands. I’ve made countless battlefields run red with blood. I’ve made grown men weep and piss themselves.
I’m not afraid of anything.
Yet right now, inches from her lips, my breathing is labored. My arms are trembling.
I told her she would be the one to beg for me to touch her, but I’m the first to do it.
“Please,” I say, the word sounding as pained as I feel. “Please, tell me you want this.”Please tell me I’m not the only one here, suffering. Please tell me a beauty like you could possibly want a villain like me. “I know if I touch you again it will kill me ... but I think I might die if I don’t.”
I wait to be rejected. I wait for her to push me away.
But she doesn’t.
She nods.
And I can taste how much she wants me.
I shouldn’t do this. I should know better. But I can’t change my feelings, just as I can’t change the fact that this won’t end well.
