Of Beauty and Beast

long on a boy’s mouth, and it knows better than to hesitate. So I don’t. I pull her hand away, and risk a kiss.

Our lips brush, soft on softer, timid and testing, the barest friction of skin against skin, but that’s all it takes to know that it’s right. Isra sighs and twines her arm around my neck. My blood rushes and my body comes alive and everything in me lights up like a sunrise. Like a night sky spitting stars.

Like her eyes when she smiles.

She kisses me again. And then again, harder and longer, and I forget every reason this shouldn’t happen. I pull her closer and warm her mouth with mine, moaning when her tongue slips between my lips and I taste cactus and salt, but also a hint of sweet and a dark, velvety spice that isn’t Smooth Skin or Desert Woman, that is only Isra.

And for a moment she is my Isra, and nothing is impossible.

12 ISRA

THIS is a kiss. This. This, this, this …

His smoke and wood smell filling my head, his Gem taste bittersweet and perfect on my tongue, his arms around me and my hands everywhere I’ve been dying to touch, and the memory of the killing cold banished by the way he makes me burn.

I don’t care what he is, who I am, what’s wrong or right. There is no shame or fear, only the driving need to get closer, kiss deeper, consume and be consumed, to lose myself so completely that I will never be found.

I want to stay this way forever, with his chest pressed tightly to mine, and his lips moving at my throat. With my fingers in his soft hair, his breath warm on my skin, his hand—so hot I can feel it through my clothes—sliding between us, down my ribs, over my stomach, down until—

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—”