Thea looked at him blankly. “Oh. Yes. But—never mind, I’m used to it.”

His arm brushed hers in the cramped doorway. They both jerked back. She bent down to fi x the broken strap of her sandal. Her tunic molded flat against her spare body; he could see the supple brown curve of her waist, her back . . . He turned away.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see her hands swiftly tearing a strip from the bottom of her tunic and doubling it around her bleeding wrist. She tied it off neatly with the cord that fastened her braided hair, and the long plait unraveled down her back. She shook her head forward, and the dark sheet of hair hung past her waist, a wall hiding her face. Through the wall he could see flashes of her profile, her straight nose, her mouth.

He reached out.

In his head he heard a voice, too low and pleading to be the demon: Don’t hurt her.

He stirred the ends of her hair with his fingers. The dark strands were silk against his palm and smelled like the coming rain. He gathered up a handful of her hair and carried it to his mouth.

She turned, eyes flickering toward him with a wary despairing hunger, and a sickening surge of memory flooded his mind: all the times in the arena when he had locked body against straining body, and the end had been a hot spurt of blood and a fading life. The Amazon died again in his eyes, turning into Thea, and he nearly told her to go away then and go away fast before he killed her, too . . . But then she leaned forward to lay her cheek against his throat and kiss the pulse behind his ear, and the arena disappeared, taking the blood with it. His hand tangled fiercely with hers; he felt her bones creak in his grip, and had to remind himself to be gentle. He had never been gentle with anyone in his life. He traced her lips with his thumb and then his mouth, felt her lips part beneath his own, and a stab of joy rocked him to the soles of his feet.

They slid against the wall to the ground, his cloak pillowing the stones under her head, and her hands slipped through his hair as he folded his body awkwardly into hers. He kissed the hollow of her collarbone, his hands following her back’s pliant arc around to the soft curve of her breast, and something caught at his throat, something so alien it took him a moment to recognize it as happiness . . . Her skin was warm and sweet, and he never wanted to touch a sword hilt again.

THE rain came down at last, drenched the streets, moved on. “Well, the idea—get out, you riffraff, off my doorstep!” An outraged voice trumpeted behind them as the vestibule door opened suddenly and torchlight flooded the doorway. Hastily they pulled their clothes about them and escaped in opposite directions, pursued by curses.