Seeing her shaking against the door had almost made him want to turn her around and see the emotion in her eyes, see something there other than disdain and aloofness, the untouchable air she wrapped around her like a cloak, threatening to freeze anyone who got too close.
He'd tried not to. He had really, really fucking tried. But there she had been, shaking against the door, whimpering in a way he'd never expected her to, shedding outer skin to show him the stunning insides,
It had gone to his blood like shot of psychedelic, rushing to his head, his heart.
It was intoxicating.
She was intoxicating.
And all he'd wanted to do had been to capture it, capture her terror, her transformation, her transcendence.
He was an unknown, his motives unclear, his reactions uncertain. For all she knew, he could be directly involved in some of the deaths or know something about them; he could be killing people on the side for a special shade of crimson paint; or he could be involved in none of it. And for some reason, her twisted brain found the mystery of him even more attractive, like the opposite of a moth drawn to a flame, drawn to his darkness she could feel calling to hers.
"Regardless of what you do on the outside add love, law, or medication the inherent traits someone is born with don't go away. Take away the external factors and people revert back to who they are born as."
She saw his eyes flare up as she spoke in her icy tone, daring him to refute her.
"But it can be contained, can it not?"
The riveting eyes, the rumbling voice, the rugged face, the entire combination was making her heart pound for some reason as he continued staring at her with a glance she recognized, having seen it on herself a few times. It was the look of mentally splitting something open, looking at the insides, and unearthing everything to be unearthed about it. He looked at her like that.
It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.
The weight of another gaze made her shift her focus to the man who had occupied her thoughts so annoyingly since she'd bumped into him that night at the beach. The one who drew over dead bodies and threatened people with pencils and held her up in the woods. It sounded ridiculous even in her own head, would have been ridiculous, had it been anyone else but him. He had an air around him, something chaotic, unpredictable, that made her feel off-center.
Caz. The Psycho Painter.
because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself
Hope' is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops at all-
-Emily Dickinson
"Are you scared?"
The words moved over the top of her head.
No, she wasn't scared. She was angry.
"Do you accost girls like this often?" she asked nonchalantly.
He chuckled. "Only the ones that poorly stalk me after mildly threatening me the night before."
Salem rolled her eyes and squirmed, trying to get out of his hold. "Can you let me go?"
His arm stayed solid. "Can I? Yes. Will I? Depends. Why were you following me?"
His words, in that voice that she was realizing had some kind of influence on her, gave her pause. Why did she follow him? It was absurd and she didn't do absurd things.
"I got curious."
Damn curiosity.
Anything that diverted their attention from their own hollow lives and offered distraction was welcomed.
It was certainly a body. She just had to verify if it was animal or human.
Her heart began to pound with each step, the lump taking the shape of a human body, and something giddy filled her veins. She knew it was not the natural reaction to witnessing something like this. She had been told that more than enough times through the two decades she'd been on this earth. It still tore at her sometimes, what she felt and what she was supposed to feel, the dichotomy sending her own moral compass spinning. But the closer she got to the corpse, the more the compass stilled, and for the moment, alone in the night and away from social expectations of who she should be and should have been, she let herself feel exactly what she felt.
Excitement.
I felt a strange delight in causing my decay.
Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.
In all chaos there's a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.
"If you do not, however, follow my exact instructions at all times, I cannot ensure your safety. Heed your own whims and I will not be responsible for what happens to you, and I will not care."
Slowly. Alizeh looked up to face the stranger. "Did you really feel it necessary to add that last part?"
"Which part?"
"And I will not care," she said, echoing his emotionless tone. "Do you enjoy being needlessly petty?"
"Yes," he said. "I do."
"The Tulanian king will be attending the ball tonight, as you no doubt have heard."
"Yes," he bit out.
King Zaal nodded. "Their young king, Cyrus, is not to be trifled with. He murdered his own father, as you well know, for his seat at the throne, and his attendance at the ball tonight, while not an outright portent of wat, is no doubt an unfriendliness we should approach with caution. "
(HE IS FINALLY INTRODUCED!! 🖤✨)
"I realize we are strangers," Deen said, gently clearing his throat, and as a result you might think me odd for saying so-but I've felt, from the
beginning, a quiet kinship with you, miss." "Kinship?" she said, stunned. "With me?"
"Indeed." He laughed, briefly, but his eyes were dark with some abstruse emotion. "I, too, feel forced to hide who I am from the world. It a difficult thing, is it not? To worry always how you will be perceived for who you are; to wonder always whether you will be accepted if you are truly yourself?"
Alizeh felt a sudden heat behind her eyes, an unexpected prick of emotion. "Yes," she said softly.
I don't know how to stay tender with this much blood in my mouth.
No, they would certainly not see each other again.
Alizeh felt a pang at that conclusiveness, a sharp pain she could not decipher, it was either longing or grief, or perhaps the two feelings were Identical, split ends of the same sword.
"I grow tired," he said. trying to breathe, "of being in my right mind. I much prefer this kind of madness."
"My name," she said, "is Alizeh. I am Alizeh of Saam, the daughter of Siavosh and Kiana. Though you may know me better as the lost queen of Arya"
He stiffened at that, went silent.
Finally he moved, one hand capturing her face, his thumb grazing her cheek in a fleeting moment, there and gone again. His voice was a whisper when he said, "Do you wish to know my name, too, Your Majesty?"
"Kamran," she said softly. "I already know who you are."
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