by Stacey Jay
I gasp and my eyes fly open, and for a bare moment I think I see something in the air above my head—a hint of color, a flicker of light, something strange and unexpected that makes me hesitate to push Gem’s hand away. By the time the flicker vanishes and the familiar darkness settles in, I am still … hesitating …
Hesitating …
A quiet, shame-filled voice inside demands I put a stop to that. Immediately. But oh, it feels so good. So unbelievably good. I had no idea that the ache inside could tighten into such a fierce, sweet knot … or that Gem would know exactly how to untangle it.
Untangle me.
“Isra,” he whispers, making me shiver. I never thought … I never imagined that he would feel it, too, this pull, this longing to touch and be touched and oh …
I draw his mouth back to mine and kiss him until my lips feel bruised and my breath comes faster. Faster and faster, until my head spins and something overwhelming and frightening and beautiful rises inside me. My fingers dig into the back of Gem’s neck and my legs tremble and I shift in his arms, bringing my hip into contact with something I hadn’t considered.
Something that—despite what the bawdy ballads claim—feels nothing at all like a pelican beak.
I bleat like a sheep and roll off Gem’s lap so fast, I nearly tumble into the fire. I try to stand, but my legs are trembling and my knees are liquid and I end up flopping onto my bottom and kicking a foot into the flames, and suddenly Gem is cursing his ancestors—or my ancestors, I can’t really tell—and snatching my boot from the fire and slapping at it, and the acrid smell of burned animal skin sours the air, and the warm, beautiful feeling vanishes in a puff of smoke.
I suck in a deep breath, and for the first time since Gem pulled me back from the cold, my head clears. This is not a dream or a delusion. This is real.
I really kissed the Monstrous boy I’ve been holding prisoner. I really drove my fingers through his hair and tasted his taste and let him touch me for so long my cheeks heat just thinking about it. It’s madness, but in the moment the madness made perfect sense. I had no idea it would be like that. I never dreamed how quickly a kiss could get out of hand. It’s terrifying. Dangerous. Who knows how far things would have gone if I hadn’t accidentally bumped into a pelican beak and come to my senses?
My chest flutters, but thankfully my throat strangles my nervous giggle before it can escape. Pelican beak. What a terrible piece of poetry. That was nothing at all like a pelican beak, or anything like what I imagined that would feel like, and … and …
I can’t think about it for another second or my cheeks are going to catch fire.
“Are you all right?” Gem asks in a careful way that only makes me more embarrassed.
“Fine.” I pull my knees to my chest and cover my face with my hands and wish that Gem were the blind one. I would very much like for him not to see me confused and vulnerable and lost in my own skin. I don’t know this skin. It’s different from the one I’ve worn for seventeen years.
“Isra … I …” He clears his throat, and pauses for a moment so long and awkward that I consider running off again simply to escape it. “I didn’t know.”
Didn’t know? I curl my fingers beneath my chin. “What?”
“I didn’t know that you … that …” He sighs, but keeps going despite his obvious discomfort. “In my tribe, by the time a girl is seventeen …”
I realize what he’s trying to say, and my face burns even hotter. Was it that obvious? That everything between a man and a woman is new to me?
No, Isra. I’m sure most girls bleat like sheep and set their boots on fire when they first encounter a pelican beak.
My stomach drops. I want to bury my head in my lap and never tilt it up again, but instead I force myself to lift my chin. “I’m not a girl. I am a queen, and—”
“Yes, I remember. You don’t have to put your nose in the air.” He has the nerve to chuckle afterward. I consider getting angry—mad seems like a good alternative to mortified—but when he continues, his voice is kind, sincere. “And you don’t have to be embarrassed. There’s nothing wrong with being … new. I just … If I’d known … It can go more slowly. It can be nice that way, too.” His fingers brush the back of my hand. His touch is light, undemanding, obviously meant to be comforting, but I pull away all the same.
I’m not ready to touch him again. Not now, maybe not ever.
By the moons, what was I thinking?
I fist my fingers in my hair and give my head a shake before digging the heel of my palm into my forehead. No matter how good it felt to be close to Gem, no matter how much I want to kiss him again. I can’t— We can’t— This is—
“Impossible,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“Not impossible.” Gem scoots closer, until his hip touches mine.
“Yes,” I insist, but I don’t move away. “Impossible.”
“Maybe. But it felt right. You felt right,” he whispers, sending warmth rushing in my chest and a hint of that tingling I felt in his arms zipping through the rest of me. Even if every other being on the planet would think we’re mad, it’s good to know that Gem felt it, too. That I wasn’t … that I am not alone.
I sigh. “There are so many things I wish.” I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder, overwhelmed by everything I want to be different. My life, my purpose, my death. But none of that will ever change, and what we want is more impossible than Gem knows.
“I’m sorry,” I say, despair settling in my heart. “I would change the world if I could.”
“Then change it,” he says, a hint of yesterday’s gruffness in his tone, though the arm he puts around my shoulders is gentle. “You’re a queen. You’re young and strong and clever. And kind, when you want to be. That city is yours to command.”
I shake my head. “No, not yet. And even when—”
“Yes. Yet. You can change your world. You have that power.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “Even if the garden—”
“Forget the garden. You don’t need the garden.” He turns me to him before pushing my hair from my face with a tenderness that makes me ache. “You can make the wrong things right without the garden. You can give the outcasts a place in your city. You can send food to my people. You don’t have to wait. Children are starving now. My … my child is starving.”
My lips part. I never even considered. He’s only nineteen.
“I don’t know his name. He didn’t … He wasn’t named before I left,” Gem says, grief clear in his voice. “But I think of him every day. His mother chose another mate, and I’ll never be a father to him in the way that man will, but I want to know him. I want him to live to see the first anniversary of his birth, but many don’t.”
“Please,” I beg, the thought of those hungry children, of Gem’s hungry child, hitting me harder than it has before. He has a child, and I’m still not much more than a child myself. I’m crazy to think we’ll ever understand each other. “I’m sorry. I don’t want your people or your baby to suffer, I truly don’t, but I … I don’t …” I try to drop my head to my chest, but Gem catches my chin in his hand.
“Then don’t back down.” His finger traces slowly back and forth across my cheek. “Help my people. Help yourself.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” he whispers, leaning so close I can feel his breath on my face. My lips tingle and my heart beats faster, and all I want to do is taste him again—to lean in and lose myself in the dizzy rush of his mouth on mine—but I can’t.
I push his hand away gently but firmly. “I can’t. The people wouldn’t allow it. I’m tainted.”
He makes a disgusted sound, but I push on before he can make another grand speech about what his chief would do in my place.
“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but that matters to my people,” I continue. “They are repulsed by Monstrous traits, and it isn’t just the outer ugliness of the tainted that they despise. We’re raised to believe
the Monstrous are worse than animals, that they are savages who kill for pleasure, and that their ugliness is a sign of the corruption of their souls.”
He sighs, his frustration clear in the sound. “But you know that isn’t true.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything for sure,” I confess before I think better of it, the pressure of his expectations making me anxious. As soon as I realize how my words sounded, I hurry to explain. “I mean, I know you aren’t anything like what I imagined a Monstrous would be like, but one of your people slaughtered my father. And I—I’m not like the rest of my people. It isn’t just my size or my rough skin or my wild hair. I’ve never done as I was told. I lie and take chances I shouldn’t and think only of myself and—”
“And you think …” His breath rushes out. “You think that means your soul is corrupt?” he asks, disgust and shock warring in his tone. “Like mine?”
I shake my head, sending my hair flying into my face. “No! No, of course not. I don’t think your soul is corrupt. You’re not listening.”
“You’re not listening,” he snaps. “If you were, you’d hear how rattled you sound.”
“I am not rattled. I’m trying to explain why I can’t rush in and change the world. The world is complicated,” I say, feeling more confused with every passing second. I’m not ready for this. I don’t know what to say. “I just … I know some of what I’ve been taught is wrong, but you can’t deny that we are different. You said so yourself.”
“Not as different as either side would like to think,” he says, before adding in a harsh voice, “Women are women, I can promise you that much. The same tricks work the same way. You even make the same sounds when you—”
“Stop,” I choke out, struggling to swallow past the sick feeling rising inside me. For the first time since we touched, I feel ashamed. How could he? How could he be so understanding one minute and cheapen every unguarded thing that happened between us the next? “You’re cruel,” I say, hating the catch in my voice.
“What did you expect from a corrupt soul?”
“Fine,” I snap. “Never mind. I should never have—”
“What if you weren’t tainted, Isra?”
I blink, startled by the change of direction. “What?”
“What if you’re wrong? What if you’ve been wrong your entire life?” he asks. “What if there’s nothing Monstrous about you?”
“I thought you hated that word,” I whisper.
“I hate a lot of things.”
“I know you think …” I pause, not wanting to inspire any further spite, but feeling I owe him honesty in a way I didn’t before. Spiteful or not, he saved my life. And kissed me and held me and admitted it felt right, and that has changed things between us. I can’t pretend it hasn’t. “I know you find your people beautiful,” I say, “and I envy you that, I really do. But my people … they don’t see beauty in mutation. It scares them. They were horrified when they saw me for the first time at my coronation.”
Gem snorts as if I’ve said the most ridiculous thing in the world, and anger flares inside me again. He wasn’t there. I was, and I heard the people pull in a collective breath; I felt their surprise when they looked upon their tainted queen for the first time.
“Believe what you want,” I snap, “but I know—”
“You know nothing. You’re not tainted. You’re nothing like a Monstrous girl. Any one of them could break you in half, and not one has skin that peels everywhere but their face,” he says, making me wince and my fingers curl self-consciously, drawing up inside the long sleeves of my sweater. “Whatever’s wrong with you, it’s not caused by resembling my people. As far as I’ve seen, you look almost exactly like the other Smooth—”
“I do not look like them,” I snap. “And no matter what you think, I know if I weren’t queen, my life would be very different than it is now. I might not be tainted enough to be cast out, but I am, without a doubt, ugly in a way that puts the state of my soul and mind in question. That’s why I can’t start issuing bizarre orders. I have to win my people’s trust. I believe the garden will—”
“Stop,” he says. “I can’t listen to it again. I can’t.”
“I won’t talk at all, then!” I turn back to the fire and lean away from him, wishing with every bone in my body it were safe to go for a walk. The last thing I want to do is stay within spitting distance of this stubborn, infuriating creature.
“There’s one thing I want to know first.” The gravel crunches, and I sense that Gem’s moving closer, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of scooting away. “If I’m hideous, inside and out—”
“I never said—” His arms close around me, and my words end in a sharp intake of breath as he hauls me onto his lap. “Put me down!” I push at his chest, but he ignores me and pulls me close, whispering his next words against my skin.
“If I’m so ugly in every way,” he continues, the feel of his mouth moving against my cheek making my blood rush in spite of myself, “then why do you want me, Isra?”
“I—I need your help. And your father promised you would—”
“Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean.” His hands skim over my body, one teasing the skin at the back of my neck, the other tracing the column of my spine from top to bottom before smoothing around to my hip and squeezing tight, fingers digging in until my belly flutters.
I shiver, and I know he knows the reason why. My lips part and my breath rushes out, but I don’t scramble away. I close my eyes and count slowly to ten and try to remember how hurt I was when he compared me to all the other knots he has untangled.
But it’s so hard. Because he’s right. I do want him. I wanted him before, and I want him even more now. I want to banish the ugliness between us with my lips on his. I want to kiss him until his blood runs fast and he whispers my name in his thick, needy voice instead of his tight, angry one.
Words only bring pain; we should use hands instead. I lift my hand to his face, smoothing my thumb across the hint of whiskers on his cheek.
“Answer me,” he whispers, fingers slipping into my hair.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.” His jaw muscle leaps beneath my fingers. “Why? Because I’m here, and we’re alone? You’d have done the same with any boy?”
“No, it’s not …” I lick my lips, torn between the painful truth and a painful lie. I decide on the truth. At least there’s nobility in that. “I’ve never felt like this,” I confess. “I’ve never kissed anyone the way I kissed you. No one has ever … touched me like that.”
“Why not?” he asks, his voice only the tiniest bit kinder. “I can’t believe there aren’t Smooth Skin boys who would tolerate your ugliness in order to have the queen in their bed. Your king will have power. That’s the Smooth Skin way, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I say, blushing in spite of myself at his casual mention of my bed. “And there has been some … interest. Bo kissed me once, more than once, I guess.” I twine my arms around Gem’s neck, unable to resist the temptation of his skin. “But he didn’t make me feel anything like this.” I try to move my lips to Gem’s, but he turns away, and my mouth bounces off his jaw.
“Why is that? Why do you believe you desire me more than you desire one of your own kind?”
I swallow. “I …” I’m suddenly sure what he’s after, and just as sure I don’t want to give him his answer. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me,” he demands. “I want to hear you say it.”
I shake my head.
“Is it because you’re tainted?” he asks, his tone so sharp, I wince. “Because you’re ugly on the outside and wicked on the inside? That’s why you’re drawn to a monster?”
I don’t say a word. I don’t have to.
He makes a disgusted sound. “I feel sorry for you, Isra. I really do.”
I draw my arms back to my chest and slide from his lap, feeling dirty and small and more wrong than ever before.
&nb
sp; “You make yourself miserable,” Gem says, “and refuse to let anyone keep you from it. I’m a fool, but you are … I don’t have a Smooth Skin word for what you are.”
I cross my arms and fight the urge to cry. “What about you, Gem? Why do you want me? I thought Smooth Skins sickened you.”
He’s quiet for so long that I don’t think he’s going to answer, but finally—“I told you, I’m a fool.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He grunts and falls silent again. After listening to the wood pop in the fire and the wind howl beyond our shelter for what seems like hours, I decide to consider his unwillingness to answer a small victory. Ignoring the tears still pressing against the backs of my eyes and the filthy feeling I know no bath could wash away, I lie down and close my eyes. My body needs the rest, even if sleep seems impossible.
Seems impossible, but obviously it isn’t. I’m halfway there by the time Gem lies down behind me and tucks one heavy arm around my waist, fitting his front to my back with such gentleness that I don’t startle from my near sleep as much as drift to the surface of myself like a bubble.
“When I thought you were dying …” His arm tightens, pulling me closer. “I would have done anything to keep you with me,” he whispers into my hair. “Anything.”
I put my hand over his and leave it there in silent acceptance of his not quite apology. No matter how much his words hurt tonight, I don’t want to fight. I need him too much. And he needs me. There will be no garden for my people, or food for his, if we’re at each other’s throats.
And what he just said leaves little doubt that he cares for me. No matter how misguided he thinks I am, he cares. He really does.
The thought is thrilling.
And petrifying.
I will be married very soon, and Bo will come to my bed, and he will give me royal babies and they will become kings or, if they’re unlucky, queens, and I won’t live to see them fully grown. That is my future. It is inescapable.
It makes me want to push Gem away and curl up in a tight, lonely ball.
It makes me want to turn in his arms and shed my two pairs of overalls and peel off my long underwear and reveal everything to him, do everything a man and a woman can do—no matter how the thought terrifies me—because I’m more terrified I’ll never have this chance again.
