The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,77

were warm and urgent, and every part of her seemed to cheer as he kissed her back, her body filled with a hunger her mind was screaming warnings against.

He broke away. “We can’t,” he gasped, his warm breath tickling her ear, sending a thrill down her spine. “This—this is completely inappropriate . . .”

He was right, of course. Not about being inappropriate—Nahri had never much cared about that. But it was stupid. This was how lovesick idiots ruined their lives, and Nahri had delivered enough bastards and nursed enough broken wives through the last stages of syphilis to know. But she’d just spent a month with this arrogant, infuriating man, every night and day at his side, a month of his smoldering eyes and his scalding hands that lingered both a little too long and yet never long enough.

She rolled on top of him, and the look of stunned disbelief on his face was worth it alone. “Shut up, Dara.” And then she kissed him again.

There was no sound of protest now. There was a gasp—half exasperation, half desire—then he pulled her down against him, and Nahri’s thoughts stopped being coherent.

She was fumbling with the maddeningly complicated knot on his belt, his hands slipping under her tunic, when the cave shook with the loudest boom of thunder Nahri had yet heard.

She stilled. She didn’t want to—Dara’s mouth had just found a delightful spot at the base of her throat and the press of his hips against hers was doing things to her blood she’d never thought possible. But then a flash of lightning—brighter than the rest—lit up the cave. Another breeze swept in, extinguishing the small fire and sending Dara’s bow and quiver clattering to the floor.

At the sound of his precious weapon hitting the ground, he looked up, and then froze, noticing the expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I . . . I don’t know.” The thunder continued to rumble, but beneath it was something else, almost like a whisper on the wind, an urging in a language she didn’t understand. The breeze came again, rustling and tugging at her hair, smelling of those same spices. Peppercorn and cardamom. Clove and mace.

Tea. Khayzur’s tea.

Nahri immediately drew back, filled with a foreboding she didn’t understand. “I think . . . I think there’s something out there.”

He frowned. “I didn’t hear anything.” But he sat up anyway, untangling his limbs from hers to retrieve his bow and quiver.

She shivered, cold without the warm press of his body. Grabbing his robe, she slipped it over her head. “It wasn’t a sound,” she insisted, knowing she probably sounded crazy. “It was something else.”

Another bolt of lightning cracked across the sky, its flash outlining the daeva against the dark. His brow furrowed. “No, they would not dare . . . ,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Not this close to the border.”

Still, he handed her his dagger and then notched one of his silver arrows. He crept toward the cave’s entrance. “Stay back,” he warned.

Nahri ignored him, shoving the dagger in her belt and joining him at the cave’s mouth. Rain lashed their faces, but it wasn’t as dark as it had been earlier; the light from the moon was reflected in the swollen clouds.

Dara raised his bow and gave her a pointed look as the fletched end of the arrow caught her stomach. “At least a little back.”

He stepped out, and she stayed at his side, not liking the way he flinched when the rain hit his face. “Are you sure you should be going out in this weather—”

A bolt of lightning struck just ahead, and Nahri jumped, shielding her eyes. The rain stopped, the effect so immediate it was as if someone turned off a spigot.

The wind whipped through her damp hair. She blinked, trying to clear the spots from her vision. The darkness was lifting. The lightning had struck a tree right near them, setting the dead branches aflame.

“Come on. Let’s go back inside,” Nahri urged. But Dara didn’t move, his gaze locked on the tree. “What is it?” she asked, trying to push past his arm.

He didn’t answer—he didn’t have to. Flames raced down the tree, the heat so intense it instantly dried her wet skin. Acrid smoke poured off the wood, seeping past the roots and pooling into hazy black tendrils that slithered and twirled, solidifying as they slowly rose from the ground.

Nahri backed up and reached for Dara’s arm. “Is . . . is it another daeva?” she