a terrible tactical error. A coldness filtered into her veins at the thought that this thing might actually be more one-sided than she’d thought. She’d foolishly exposed herself, stripped herself bare and now…
Alison’s eyes softened and lit up with delight. Every emotion in her heart chased across her face. Relief surged through Natalya as Alison smiled and slithered her way up Natalya’s body.
“Hey,” she whispered. “I thought maybe you did. Hoped you did the way I do. But it’s everything hearing it from someone who always says she doesn’t do love.”
Natalya’s eyes fluttered closed and her lips twitched. “Well, I don’t do love. As a rule. But apparently the rules don’t apply to you. God knows, no rule in existence has ever worked in the past.”
She felt the weight of Alison, solid and steady, slide across her torso. An arm slipped around her ribs, claiming her. Natalya cracked an eyelid and saw within Alison’s blinding smile that addictive essence that she knew she could never give up, no matter what.
Natalya had been right, the night under that soft rain, when she’d gone back for this unexpected woman. Her little mouse. She’d sensed then what she understood now as the truth.
Love is not nothing.
If you enjoyed this short story, check out Requiem for Immortals by Lee Winter, the novel in which Natalya and Alison met and fell in love.
Water into Wine
by Roslyn Sinclair
Summary:
Set two years after the end of The Lily and the Crown. (Definitely read that first.) Mír’s a little restless.
I have never claimed to be a saint.
To be frank, I never claimed to be much of a good person at all, as I told you right from the start. But you, my sweet Ariana, have never quite believed me.
Oh, you’ve had your eyes opened. In the two years since I stole you away from your father’s space station in the dead of night, you’ve seen what I am capable of. Great things, I hope, as well as vile. And you have adjusted. You have accustomed yourself to your new circumstances, to the reality that you share a bed with a murderer, a thousand times over, while the only thing you’ve ever killed is a bug. And I daresay you’ve tortured yourself more over that than I have over all the rest.
But whatever the rest, you believe in one thing: my love for you. You would insist on calling it that, although love isn’t a word I use, because I’m still not sure what it means, and I don’t want to look like an idiot if I misuse it.
For you, on the other hand, love is an easy word. It effortlessly rolls off your lips each morning and night. And you believe in it. It is a reality for you.
However wicked I am, however many throats I’ve cut, however many stations I overpower (always in the name of a higher cause, you are quick to point out), you take solace in the way I return to you at night and hold you close. You are pleased I can say, without fear of mistake, that I love the scent of your hair and the press of your body. You are happy because, out of everyone in the system, I have chosen you and allowed you to choose, or perhaps demand, me in return. Yes. You believe that this is love and that it will last forever, and you’ll be eternally content at my side.
And whatever it is we have—do you believe it began with love, as well? Perhaps you do, no matter what I’ve told you. Then again, I’ve never told you the truth.
I never will, either. I’m not a fool. You wouldn’t take it well if I told you that in the beginning you were only a game. When I realized you were attracted to me, I wasted no time in attempting to debauch you as thoroughly as possible. (Two years and I have not yet succeeded.) Can you blame me? I was bored to death, tired of gardening—great cosmos, the endless gardening—broken only by looking at the stars. Restless doesn’t even begin to describe it. And you really were tempting, so unconscious of your loveliness, of how striking you could be if you just took a little time and care with your appearance and bearing.
Then, of course, there was your father to consider.
Your father, whose Imperial forces had slaughtered my troops without mercy; who sat sick and trusting at that humiliating banquet, exposing his naked throat to the open