The Cage(72)

“Take me away from here. Please.”

Through his clothes, his heartbeat was nearly as fast as her own, and she wondered why he cared so much about her panic attack to ask such odd questions. He hesitated only briefly before removing her from the viewing room, sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her when her limbs were too sluggish to move on her own. He spoke in a rush to the blue-eyed Kindred and took Cora through another doorway to a Parthenon-style room that was blessedly silent, empty save for a circular fountain in the center, surrounded by a ring of artificial stone benches.

A bathroom. No matter how intelligent they were, the Kindred still had to take a piss somewhere.

Cassian set her down on the soft cushions around the fountain. He removed his gloves and dipped his hands in the water, then touched them to her face, trying to cool her down, but his touch never cooled her. The water just made it spark more.

Her eyes were closed. She panted for air. Once her head cleared, she grabbed the strap across his chest and pulled him close. She slapped him, hard, across the face.

Her palm stung.

He didn’t flinch, of course—she could never hurt skin as hard as metal. But his throat constricted. He was very close to her, water dripping off his hands onto her dress.

“Why did you strike me?” he asked.

“Because you’re one of them. You’re a monster just like those women down there.”

“I am trying to protect you from that. It is the way the world is, and I want you to understand how dangerous it would be without my assistance.”

“Our enclosure is no different from this one! Run your mazes. Play your games. You’re sick, all of you.”

Cassian’s black eyes shifted between Cora and the door back to the menagerie. “I brought you here to show you how desirable your environment is.”

“Because there we’re only forced to kiss each other, you mean? Here we have to kiss you?”

His eyes darkened to a deeper shade of black. “A kiss is a very common trick. I do not understand why it bothers you to this degree.”

She let her head fall back on the cushions. “Because it’s more than a kiss. It’s Rule Three. Procreation. Taking love and making it a trick, or an obligation. You’ll never understand that.”

The fountain gurgled calmly into the silence.

“Help me understand,” he said, and he sounded sincere. Cora opened one eye, surprised by this. “We have nothing like it in our culture. I’m . . . sorry. I did not understand what it meant to you.”

His black eyes moved back and forth, back and forth, searching her own. He had said that he wanted to understand humanity, but it wasn’t so simple.

“It’s not a trick.” Her temper was cooling beside the bubbling fountain. “It’s not like clapping your hands or giving a bow.”

He paused. “What is it like?”

She wondered, fleetingly, what the Kindred did to show affection if they didn’t kiss. He sounded genuinely curious. Help me understand. His face was so close to hers that she would only have to tilt her chin to show him exactly what a kiss was like. That would teach him more about humans than months of studying them.

What would that electric spark feel like, between their lips?

A drip of water from the fountain landed on Cora’s cheek, and she jerked out of her thoughts, shocked by where her mind had gone. “It’s personal,” she snapped, and wiped the drip off her cheek. “It’s something special between two people who care about each other. It’s very emotional. Something you’d know nothing about.”

His hand had stopped flexing, but his eyes stayed on her lips.

“You do not know what I am like in private,” he answered. “When my emotions are uncloaked.”

“No. I don’t. I don’t want to, not if you’re anything like the rest of your kind.” When he didn’t respond, her blood burned hotter. “If you’re so fascinated, why don’t you give one of those kids on exhibit a token for a kiss? I’m sure they’d be delighted to show you.” Her words were poison. She wanted him to say yes. She wanted to know he was as bad as the rest of his kind.

“I’m not interested in learning about kisses from them,” he said simply.

His black eyes didn’t move away from her lips for a second.





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HarperCollins Publishers

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