Cora started crying because she didn’t want this, and it was wrong, and she didn’t know anything about him. Cassian might have been Mali’s hero, but he could never be hers. How unfair, then, that suddenly she felt closer to him than anyone.
He touched a hand to her cheek. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
He knew, just as she knew, that what was happening between them was wrong. That he couldn’t fall in love with a human and she couldn’t fall in love with her captor, but here they were.
“Please,” he whispered. “Whatever you ask, it’s yours. Just tell me that you feel—”
“Stop.” Her hand went to his lips, silencing him. “Don’t say that.”
His muscles were tensing and untensing as he gave up the last remnants of his fight to cloak his emotions. He rubbed a hand over the bump in his nose, turned his head to the side and cursed. He was acting just like . . . a person. And that scared her most of all.
“Cloak your emotions again,” she ordered.
“I don’t want to. You asked what I was like in my private life. Let me show you.” He leaned in, touching his forehead to hers, his lips a breath away. “You captivated me. I knew you were different. Strong. So full of potential. You baffled the researchers. You baffled me too. I did everything I could to understand you, and you were still a mystery.”
His chin started to tilt toward hers. His lips parted. “I want to know what it feels like,” he whispered.
My god. He was going to kiss her, and it was so wrong, and so was how badly she wanted him to.
She turned her head at the last second. “Don’t. If you cared for me, you’d help me escape.”
He balled his fists and straightened, trying to gain control over his emotions. He was a jealous person, she hadn’t forgotten. And Mali had said they were unpredictable when their emotions were uncloaked. As much as Cora wanted to think of him as human right now, she had to remind herself that he wasn’t.
He took a step away from her, pacing in the surf. “Is that what you want? To be away from me?”
“We weren’t meant to live behind bars.”
“What you are asking me goes against logic. You want to leave this place—leave me—when I’ve so recently discovered that you remaining close is the only thing I truly want.”
She urged her foot to take a step closer. Her hand drifted to her collar, to the charm necklace that tied her to a different world. She didn’t stop until she felt the heat from his body.
“I know,” she said. “I’m still asking.”
“Here I can at least see you, and touch you, and keep you safe from those who might do you harm. Why would I help you when I would lose even that?”
“Because I’d never be happy here. And caring about someone means you would sacrifice your own happiness for theirs.”
“That is a human way of looking at things. Not Kindred.”
“Well, you said you wanted to understand humanity.” He was silent, though he paced through the surf with his storm-cloud eyes still on her, and she added, “I’m not asking you to break the rules. I don’t want you to be punished. Just look the other way.”
He regarded her steadily, trying perhaps to see around his own mental blocks and read her thoughts. He put one hand around the back of her neck and moved closer.
His lips touched hers.
The flood of electricity broke through the dam of her lips and flowed into her chest, her arms, her head. She steadied herself against him. He hadn’t kissed before. It was stiff and hungry, but he had seen her and Lucky kissing, and Nok and Rolf. He knew what it looked like. He threaded his fingers though her hair like Lucky had. Cora let everything go, then. She didn’t care if other Kindred were watching.
She kissed him back, showing him how a kiss was meant to be, though she hardly knew either. He learned fast. His people might not kiss, but she could tell by his heart thumping under her hand that he enjoyed it, that he responded to it the same way humans did. Quick breath. Radiating warmth. Hands running over every inch of her back, arms, waist, like he had imagined this all in his head a thousand times. Everywhere he touched her rippled in goose bumps. He wasn’t careful and gentle with her, not like Lucky had been. He knew she wouldn’t break.
He was so warm, so full of energy and life that Cora never wanted to never let go. But she had to.
She pulled away from the kiss. He kept his arms around her as she closed her eyes, grounding herself in the coppery smell of his uniform. Something had happened here. They had crossed a line there was no going back from. It was a mistake—but some mistakes were worth making.
“Go at night,” he said. “The ocean isn’t as deep as it appears; there’s a pressure lens separating it from an equipment chamber beneath. You have to swim down far enough to reach it. The pressure will increase to the point where continuing feels impossible, but it’s not. You’ll break through the pressure lens. After that, you’re on your own.”
“Won’t the Warden and his researchers be watching?”
His eyes had returned to black, but his emotions were not totally gone. He pressed his lips to her forehead very softly, and then whispered a few words in her ear before letting her go.
“Leave them to me.”
He dematerialized, leaving her alone in the crashing waves.
51
Cora
CORA SPENT THE AFTERNOON hidden within the boughs of the cherry tree, until it was time to rendezvous with Mali. The jukebox music came, signaling dinner, and she heard the others’ voices chatting as they ate, then the crack of mallet against wooden ball as they played croquet beneath the stars.
Cora flinched at each crack, remembering Rolf slamming it into the pumpkin. She drew her knees closer. She hoped desperately that Mali had talked to Lucky, and that he’d been able to convince the others. Otherwise, it might be her head under that mallet.
Once the cage was quiet, and the house lights turned off one by one, Cora crawled from her hiding place and ran toward the side of the movie theater. She paced nervously, jumping at every shadow. She watched the house lights carefully, praying the others were all heavy sleepers. At last the sound of footsteps came, and Cora sighed with relief.
“Mali—”
But she froze. In the starlight, a tattooed face stared back at her.
“Going to leave us, sweetheart?” Leon grabbed her before she could run. “I don’t think so.”
Her heart shot to her throat.