The Girl Who Fell From The Sky - Rebecca Royce Page 0,21

for him.

I walked over to him, meaning to place my hand on his back, but he pulled me onto his lap instead. His arms came around me, and he held on as though he might never let go. “If the Reamers have my brother, it’s very bad news.”

I stayed very still, letting him hold on. I knew this feeling, when you had to be this close to someone else, not separate, because if you did, then everything was simply too real.

“You are so different, Bianca, than anyone here. Your skin is unmarred.” Well…he hadn’t seen my chest and all my scars, but I wasn’t going to bring that up right this second. Although the doctors swore they weren’t as obvious as I thought they were. “You read. You write. You use language I’ve never heard. You’re beautiful. Smart.”

I shook my head. “Stop. I’m…fine.”

He leaned back on the chair. “Stay with me tonight. With Mattis heading to battle, I don’t want you in that bar alone.”

The deep flutter I’d felt a minute ago spread, and my hands flexed of their own accord, as if they were about to grab him or stroke him or something, all beyond my will. I scrunched them to fists.

He probably hadn’t meant that the way it sounded—the way it felt—but I still didn’t want to move from his lap. Maybe for a long time. “You shouldn’t be alone either.”

A strand of his silken black hair had fallen over his face, and my horrible, willful hand reached up to brush it back. He caught my wrist and brought it to his mouth. For a wild and delicious moment, I thought he meant to kiss it. To kiss me. To make stay with me mean all the things I secretly desired it to be.

Instead he threaded his fingers with mine and exhaled a long, shuddery breath. “My brother’s number is on your skin right now, but it won’t always be so. Someday, you will bear my number, and then…things will change.”

His gaze met mine, and every sordid, gorgeous, secret thought I’d had about him was reflected there, like a promise.

“I can read to you,” I said in a voice that was far from steady.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair. “That’s a very wise idea.”

It felt like surgical separation to remove myself from his embrace, but I did it. I was aware of each touch in the process, my bottom to his thighs, my hand sliding from his, my hair brushing his chest when I leaned forward. Those phantom touches were like tiny brands themselves.

I stood and looked at the pile of books, trying to get control of myself. All ancients and holies. My heart thump-thumped in a deep, steady rhythm. At least it was perfectly acclimated to this planet, this man.

I started with the titles. “Winter Plants,” I said. “Native Materials in Construction, Mineral Survey…and some numbers after that. I don’t know what they mean. A date, maybe?”

“They are numbers like on our maps,” he said.

I could feel his gaze on my back.

“Procedure and Processes for Judges and Wardens. Oh, here’s a good one. Medicinal Properties of Native Flora.”

“All of it is informational, not poetry,” said Astor. “That’s probably good.”

I turned and flashed him a grin. “You say that like you’d hoped for poetry.”

“I only feared what hearing poetry from your lips would feel like,” he replied with an intensity that wiped the grin off my face instantly. “Medicinal Properties. Let’s give that one a go.”

I wasn’t done with this topic. “How do you know poetry? If no one reads, I mean. I used to teach poetry.”

Until I’d gotten into trouble for veering off the list of approved poetry. Brent had ‘suggested’ at that point that I was done with my job. I was willful.

Maybe it was something internally wrong with me that went along with my heart.

Chapter Six

I supposed my internal wrongness, whether it be my heart or my propensity for trouble, didn’t matter now.

“We have poets.” Astor smiled at me as he answered my earlier question. “They go around reciting poetry all the time while they do their other jobs, and once a year, Torrin lets them perform. They just have to remember it. And some other time, a much different time, I would like to hear some of the poetry you know.”

He was such a conundrum. Nox had felt he was different enough I might stare at him. I still didn’t understand why. He understood technology, although he had