“Better?” she whispered, her voice halting.
Ali closed the space between them and kissed her.
His lips had no sooner grazed hers—and oh, her mouth was so soft, warm and welcoming and glorious—than his wits returned, and panic crashed over him.
He jerked back. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I don’t know what—”
“Don’t stop.” Nahri slid a hand behind his neck and dragged him back.
Ali’s apology died on his tongue, and then from his mind altogether as Nahri kissed him deep and slow and with agonizing deliberation. She parted her lips, pulling him closer, and Ali groaned against her mouth, unable to check himself. The noise should have stopped him, shamed him. Reminded him that this was forbidden.
But Ali’s entire world had just been smashed, he was going to die before the next sunset, and God forgive him, he wanted this.
Stop, a voice in his head commanded as Nahri slid into his lap. Stop, as Ali finally grew brave enough to touch the black curls that tumbled around her face, to wrap his fingers around one and kiss its softness. This was wrong, it was so wrong.
Then they were falling onto his bed, overtaken by grief and madness. Nahri straddled his waist, and Ali traced her cheeks, her jaw, pulling her mouth back to his. Her hair was like a dark, fuzzy curtain around them, the press of her soft body and the taste of salt on her lips … he had no idea he could feel like this, no idea anything could feel this good.
She pulled the blanket away from him completely, and Ali caught his breath at the shock of cool air on his bare skin.
Nahri instantly broke away, meeting his gaze. She was breathing fast, uncertainty and desire warring in her dark eyes. “Do you want me to stop?”
There was only one answer he could give. She was Muntadhir’s wife. My brother’s wife.
Ali stared back at her. “No.”
The look on her face—Ali shook. Nahri pinned him to the bed, her fingers sliding through his own, and then she continued, following the pattern of his scars and exploring the rise of his chest. Her touch was feather-light, and yet it burned him, setting his body ablaze with each caress, each press of her mouth to his bare shoulder, his collar, his stomach. Ali wasn’t as bold, not daring to touch her anywhere beneath her dress. But Nahri sighed as he held her close, kissing her wrists, her ear, the hollow of her throat. He had no idea what he was doing, but the sound of her pleasure drove him on.
Once. God, please let me have this just once. Ali had obeyed the rules his entire life, surely, he could have this moment, one moment with the woman he loved before he destroyed everything between them.
Then you’ll destroy her. Because even dizzy with desire, Ali knew all too well what was to come.
“Nahri.” He gasped her name as she tightened her legs around his waist, the rock of her hips sending him into a frenzy. Ali was not going to be able to stop himself if they went much further. “Wait. I can’t … I can’t do this to you.”
She stroked his beard, kissing the underside of his jaw. “You can. Really, I promise.”
“I can’t.”
Nahri must have heard the change in his voice. She drew back, guarded. “Why?”
Because we’re not married. Because you’re my brother’s wife. Reasons that were so much simpler than the one tearing through his heart. Reasons that yesterday would have been enough to make what they were doing unthinkable and now seemed almost petty in comparison.
“Because I need you to cut the seal out of my heart.”
Nahri recoiled, staring at him with wild eyes. “What?”
Clever Nahri, always two steps ahead of him: how did she not see what seemed so horribly obvious? “I can’t go to Tiamat with Suleiman’s seal in my heart,” Ali explained, feeling sick. “We can’t let the marid have it. You heard what Sobek said. That’s been their goal all along—to seize the seal and steal our magic. To see Daevabad itself sink beneath the lake. You need to take the seal from me. Tonight.”
Nahri was already shaking her head. “I can’t. I won’t. It will kill you.”
“Then you can dump my body on a boat and float it out into her ocean. They’re the ones who like to bend the rules,” he said, unable to check the bitterness in his voice. “Let them have a taste of their own medicine.”
Nahri was staring at him with a look of utter hurt, the black hair he’d mussed hanging in waves around her shoulders. “How can you ask me that? Now?” she added, angry heat building in her voice as she gestured to their still very inappropriate positions. She shoved away from him, shooting up from the bed and leaving cold the space her body had occupied. “Creator, it’s like you’re in a competition with yourself over picking the worst time to say something.”
Ali pushed up, reaching for her hands. Any reserve of self-denial he’d built up had been ripped away with their first kiss; he didn’t want to ever stop touching her.
“Because I don’t know what else to do! I don’t want to die, Nahri, I don’t,” he confessed in a rush, cradling her hands in his. “I want to live and go back to Daevabad. But I’ll be damned if some marid uses me to take the rest of you down. At least with you”—Ali swallowed, his mouth going dry—“there’s a chance I might survive. I saw the way you operated on that boy.”
“He wasn’t you!” Nahri yanked her hands from his. “I’m not a surgeon, Ali, I’m a Nahid. I cut into people only when I have magic to heal them!”
Forgive me, please forgive me. “Then I’m going to ask Jamshid.” Nahri spun on him and Ali pressed on. “I’ll tell him everything about the seal. You know he’ll do
