“That was quick.” I pinch the strap of my bag with one hand, then run my palm across the kitchen counter, which is only a foot wide. “It’s nice.”
Azmar smirks. “It looks like every other room on the Centra floors, but I suppose it is.”
I meet his eyes, tasting a grin on my lips. “Did you design them?”
“Hardly.” He throws a bolt on the door and strides into the room, stretching one arm overhead. Two pencils poke out from his hair—I wonder if he forgot about them. “These were constructed long before I was born.”
I press my hand into the smooth stone wall, a new heaviness dragging on me. “Is Unach still angry with you?”
“Unach is always angry.” He sits on the edge of the cushion, elbows on his knees. “She’ll forgive me eventually.”
“Kesta may take your spot.”
He appears completely disinterested by the information. “Grodd won’t find you here.”
My cheeks warm. “He may have given up the chase. I haven’t seen him, even in the market.”
Azmar shakes his head. “I don’t know him well, but I don’t trust him.”
Unease bubbles in me, less about Grodd than about the fact that there is one bed in this room. I’ve never shared a bed with a man, not even Andru. As I cross over to Azmar, thoughts of that bed—of what we could do in that bed—flit through my mind, bringing heat to my skin. But I remind myself that trollis only mate with bloodstones. Between Unach’s and Perg’s talk of it, that rule appears strict.
Azmar stands when I near and clasps my shoulders in his emerald hands. I look up at him and place my open hands on his chest.
“I was worried you regretted me.” It comes to mind, after I’ve spoken, that the name of the trollis god was embedded in my words.
“Not you, Lark.”
I love the way he says my name. I’m so used to the trollis accent now; even some of the humans in the enclave have assimilated it. But I always notice it when Azmar says my name. The roundness of the vowel, the distinction of the K.
I lean into him, my bones humming with the beat of his heart. “Does that mean I don’t have to sleep on the floor?”
He responds by closing the space between our mouths. I clasp his jaw and invite him deeper, rolling his bottom lip between mine. A soft growl reverberates in his neck. I laugh softly, unrestrained glee building in my muscles, my blood. I shift one hand and run the pad of my thumb up one of his tusks. I’ve always wanted to touch them. Strange that I’d once thought them so inhuman. Now they are simply Azmar.
He pulls back. “Am I so humorous?”
I grin. “You can be.” I reach forward to pluck one of the pencils from his bound hair before waving it between our faces.
“Hmm.” He takes the pencil, throws it on the floor, and scoops me into his arms. I muffle a shriek of surprise and grasp his shoulders, unable to get a good hold before he plops me onto the bed. It’s a standard size for a trollis, but I won’t take up much space comparatively.
He hovers over me, a mischievousness in his eyes that I’ve seen only in rare glimpses before. But we’re alone, with no passersby or sisters to walk in on us. Here, now, neither of us needs to be guarded.
My chest fills to bursting.
Azmar smooths hair from my forehead. “You do not need to sleep on the floor.” He grabs my bag, pulls its strap over my head, and drops it beside the chimney. Then he settles onto his side, facing me, his head propped up on the heel of his hand.
“Oh good.” I curl into him. “Because it is very cold, and you are very warm.”
His free hand glides up my back, over my shoulder, and down my arm, the touch modest and unexpecting. “You’re so small,” he murmurs.
I roll my eyes. “I am very tall for a human, you know. Taller even than most men.”
“Hmm.” He tucks my head under his. I press my forehead into the base of his neck, placing a kiss on the spot where his collar dips. He breathes into my hair and wraps a thick arm around me. Its weight is assuring and delightful. I’m sure sleep will never come, but it does, and remarkably quickly.
Because for the first time in my life, the fear dissipates entirely. I am completely and utterly safe.
Chapter 20
I’m slow to wake in the morning, my head flitting between half dreams, my limbs clinging to drowsiness. Fur tickles my skin, and I blink awake to an unfamiliar ceiling lit with a ray of sunlight from a narrow window. But Azmar is not beside me. I drown alone in a bed made for a trollis.