It could be a secret, her mind whispered, the thought coming from nowhere, but a moment later Kelsea realized that the voice was correct. It could be a secret. No one had to know, not even Mace. Kelsea’s private life, her private choices, were her own business, and now she found herself whispering, repeating the thought out loud. “It could be a secret, Pen.”
Pen drew back, looking down at her for a long moment, and Kelsea saw, relieved, that he knew exactly what she was offering, that she didn’t have to explain.
“You don’t love me, Lady.”
Kelsea shook her head.
“Then why would you want this?”
That was a good question, but part of Kelsea was annoyed, anyway, that Pen had asked it. I’m nineteen! she wanted to snap. Nineteen and still a virgin! Isn’t that enough? She didn’t love Pen and he didn’t love her, but she liked the way he looked without a shirt, and it seemed desperately important to prove that she wasn’t a child. She shouldn’t need a reason for wanting the same things as everyone else.
But she couldn’t say these things to Pen. They would only hurt him.
“I don’t know. I just do.”
Pen closed his eyes, his mouth twisting, and Kelsea recoiled, suddenly remembering the balance of power between them; did he think she was ordering him to sleep with her? Pen had principles, and as he had pointed out, he was a Queen’s Guard. Maybe it wasn’t enough that no one else would know; Pen would know, that was the problem.
“It’s entirely your choice, Pen,” she told him, placing a hand against his neck. “I’m not the Queen right now. I’m just—”
Pen kissed her.
It wasn’t anything like her books. Kelsea barely had time to decide what she was feeling; she was too busy trying not to be inept, trying to figure out where her tongue was supposed to go. A lot of work, she thought, slightly disappointed, but then Pen’s hand crept up to her breast and that was better, closer to the way she thought it was supposed to be. Kelsea wondered if she should take off her own dress or let Pen do it, and then realized that he was already far ahead of her, half of her buttons undone. The room was cold, but she was sweating, and when Pen’s mouth found her nipple, she jumped, stifling a moan. He pulled the rest of her dress off, then froze.
Kelsea looked down and saw what Pen saw: her arms and legs, crisscrossed with wounds in various stages of healing. They didn’t look as bad as they would have in the daylight, but even Kelsea, who was used to her own injuries, knew that her limbs were a ghastly sight.
“What have you done to yourself?”
Kelsea grabbed her dress, tugging the sleeves back on. She had botched this, just as she always seemed to ruin things when she tried so hard to behave like an adult.
Pen stopped her, taking her wrist in a light grip, his face unreadable. “You can’t talk about it?”
Kelsea shook her head, staring truculently at the ground. Pen ran a light thumb over the scar on her thigh, and Kelsea realized suddenly that she was sitting there nearly naked, a man looking over her body, and she wasn’t even blushing. Perhaps she was growing up a bit, after all.
“I see,” Pen said. “It’s not my business.”
Kelsea looked up, surprised.
“You live in a world none of us can see, Lady. I accept that. And your choices are your own.”
Kelsea gazed at him for a moment longer. Then she took his hand from her thigh and placed it, gently, between her legs. Pen kissed her, and she suddenly found her hands all over him, as though she couldn’t pull him close enough.
“This may hurt,” he whispered. “It does, your first time.”
Kelsea stared up at him, this man who had done nothing for months but guard her from danger, and realized that the vast majority of her books had been misleading. They painted love as an all-or-nothing proposition. What she felt for Pen wasn’t close to what she felt for the Fetch … but it was love, somehow, all the same, and she placed a hand against his cheek.
“You won’t hurt me, Pen. I’m tough.”
Pen grinned, his old grin, the one Kelsea hadn’t seen in weeks. When he pushed inside her, it did hurt, a stinging burn that made her want to close her legs, but Kelsea would not have let Pen know it for the world, and she pushed up against him, trying to match his movement. The pain deepened, but there was no going back now; Kelsea felt as though she had crossed a chasm, some bridge that lay broken behind her. The Mort were there, waiting … Kelsea shook her head, trying to shove the thought away. The invasion shouldn’t intrude here, not now. She tried to focus on Pen, her body, but found that she could not rid herself of the image: ahead, waiting, like an awful tide, the Mort.
C
HAPTER
9
T
HE
D
ARK
T
HING
Oh, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side.
—Measure for Measure, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(pre-Crossing Angl.)
AUGUST DAWNED BRIGHT and burning. The city stank with the heat; whenever Kelsea went out on her balcony, she could smell sewage and the less pungent but still unpleasant smell of animal flesh left to rot in the sun. Without grazing fields, many of the animals that the evacuees had brought with them were beginning to die of starvation. After a quick consultation with Mace¸ Kelsea had ordered that all farm animals in and around the city, save for milking cows and goats, be immediately slaughtered and their meat cured for siege. This decree had earned her no points with the cattle farmers of the Almont, but their anger seemed preferable to the disease that would surely spread if animals died and rotted on the banks of the Caddell, contaminating the city’s water supply.
Javel, Dyer, and Galen left for Demesne on the second of August. They departed in the dark of night, quickly and quietly, so quietly that even Kelsea did not know until they were already gone. She was furious, but Mace merely pointed out to her, in his usual laconic manner, that she had put him in charge of the operation, and there was nothing Kelsea could say to that.
On the fourth of August Kelsea found Andalie alone in her chamber and closed the door, leaving Pen outside. She had spent days quietly working up the courage for this, but before Andalie’s questioning gaze, she nearly lost her nerve. She and Pen had slept together three more times, and while it had certainly gotten better, each time an unpleasant truth had been weighing more and more heavily on Kelsea’s mind.
“Andalie, can I ask you a favor?”
“Yes, Lady.”
“When you go to the market, do you … do you ever hear of black-market items being available down there?”
Andalie’s gaze sharpened. “What is it you’re seeking, Lady?”
“I want …” Kelsea peeked toward the door, making sure that Pen hadn’t somehow slunk back into the room. “I want contraception. I’ve heard it’s out there.”
If Andalie was surprised, she didn’t show it. “It is out there, Lady. The question is how to distinguish the true from the false. And the true is always very expensive.”
“I’ve got the money. Can you do it? I don’t want anyone to know.”
“I can do it, Lady. But I wonder if you’ve considered the consequences.”
Kelsea frowned. “You have moral objections?”