She walks upstairs first, into the dark. He follows, her shadow. There is something dreadful in their footsteps. When they reach the bedroom, Snow shifts around her in the darkness and a moment later is the striking of a match. He has put candles in this room too, crowding the nightstands, and Katniss stands in quiet, pleasant confusion as he lights them one by one. It makes the room smaller and more golden, more private. It's some place plucked out of a world at war and filled with wonder, just for them.

Snow faces her with a smile of shining teeth. 'Do you know what you would like to do?'

She can only shake her head. 'What do you want?'

'I want what you want,' he says pleasantly. His lined face is a deep chiaroscuro in the candlelight. 'No more and no less.' His head tilts and he is assessing her, sniffing her out, reading her innermost thoughts. 'You said you wanted to kiss me. Do you still want to?'

'Yes,' she whispers.

'I'm sorry I prevented you before. I was… surprised. I needed some time to think. To reassess. I had thought you only saw me in a paternal role. And it's alright if you do.' His voice is light and frothy. 'I can be a father to you, and you can still kiss me, if you like.'

Her own smile falters. 'But that would be weird.'

'Then something else. Do you want me as a lover?'

She can see the roiling and rewriting of his brain behind the mad blue of his eyes. He will accept a role as enemy, father, lover as easily as flicking a switch. Make of her a daughter or kiss her. Give her a rose or drop a bomb. As long as it's about her it doesn't matter.

She does not like that.

'I think so. I might.' She gives a long, stressed sigh and runs a hand through her thick hair. 'I don't know, Snow. This is weird, this is all so weird. It's hard to figure out what I want and you don't make it easier by being so… accommodating. It makes it harder.'

'Why?' he asks mildly.

'Because I am trying to figure out what our relationship even is and you're like… a mirror. You just reflect what I want back. That makes it worse, not better. I don't know what you really are, what you really want.'

Snow considers this, calculating a million possibilities the way he must have calculated which towns to destroy. 'Shall I kiss you?'

She should say no. Instead she says: 'Okay.'

He looks delighted. He advances, steps soft against the carpet, his face a sea of shadows. He draws so close to her. Katniss' heart thumps with what she knows is more fight or flight than romantic excitement. Snow moves so slowly, so carefully, trying not to frighten her away. He raises a hand to her face and lays it against her chin, cool and safe, absorbing something from her. Then his head inclines to hers, his blood-breath richer than ever, the teeth so white and the red within so dark. His lips find her forehead. They press the most careful, dry, delicate kiss to her skin. She can tell he is being very cautious to ensure that no saliva gets on her.

Her first kiss was with a beautiful boy she cared about and it was broadcast to the country. This kiss is the most private anyone has ever accepted. She releases a long, musical sigh. She will never know an intimacy like this with anyone; no one will ever know her better. Snow has made sure of that.

'Did you like that?' That voice seems to come from behind her own eyes, out of her very core.

'Yes,' she admits. 'It was nice.'

His eyes widen with quiet ecstasy. He moves his head again, that hand still on her face, and this time his kiss presses against her cheek. His beard, rough-soft against her; his breath smooth and rich and bloody over her face. Katniss closes her eyes and tries to keep her thoughts under control.

'It's difficult,' she says. She wets her lips. 'Sometimes you frighten me.'

Snow tilts his head at her. 'You frighten me, Miss Everdeen.' Then he takes her small fingers in his hand, holding her like she could shatter. He places her hand upon his chest and she feels his heartbeat beneath the flat of her palm. It beats hard and fast, like it did the first time they started sleeping in each other's arms.

'Why do I frighten you?' she whispers.

'The intensity of my feelings for you is… immense,' says Snow. 'I have always been very in control of my emotions. But you…' An eerie smile. 'You awaken things in me that I buried long ago.' He massages her hand in his own, hard fingers on her smooth skin, and she feels spirals of comfort and confusion unwind inside her. 'Would you like to lie down with me?'

Katniss feels her own heart beat louder and harder, filling her ears with that blood. In that moment, she thinks about Finnick. Dozens of strangers fucking that boy, and Snow never cared. Torn to pieces by monsters, and Snow didn't care.

'I'm not ready,' she says rapidly. 'I'm not ready to do anything with you.'

'I am not suggesting anything sexual,' says Snow, his voice very low and careful. 'Only that we lie down. You are always more comfortable in my arms.'

She ought to run away… She ought to kill him…

But instead she sits down on the bed and she begins to remove her boots. Then her socks, then her pants, just like she was getting ready for bed. Underneath she is amused to see she is wearing Snow's boxers today. They're hers, now. And so is the rest of him — if she wants it.

She lies down; he lies beside her. Those familiar, older arms open to her and she lies atop his chest, her whole body against his, freeing the deep sigh that has been crawling around inside her. She lays her head on his shoulder. There is breath over her hair and a hand stroking the heavy flood of it.

Her forehead fits easily beneath his chin and she feels the hang of his neck against her. This is easier. She can even smile at the scratching tickle of his beard over her face. Every shift of her face freshens the sensation, rubbing her cheek against his neck and chin and beard, and then her lips, too. She can pick out every individual bristle this way, and it amuses her to feel the texture of him so intensely against her mouth. Her lips move with hazy curiosity, feeling his neck against them, feeling the hot skin there, and then she lets her lips linger in what she knows cannot be anything but a kiss. Her lips make quiet little wet sounds as she draws them back.

She waits for what seems a long time, confused with what she has just done, feeling a low wave of unusual pleasure inside her. And then she feels Snow's head shift and his lips brush her own forehead, her hairline, her temple.

Beneath her palm, she can feel his heart beating like an alarm bell.

'Are you alright?' she says.

His nod is slow. 'I am unaccustomed to this,' he murmurs, his voice a heavy buzz against her skin.

She kisses his neck again, quiet and small on the boundary between bristle and skin, and she lingers like a butterfly before pulling away again. He does not kiss her back. His chest vibrates with the force of his heartbeat.

'Is this too much?'

'Let me just hold you,' he says.

She pulls her mouth from his skin and rests her head again beneath his, one hand rubbing those loud heartbeats back into his chest, trying to soothe him, confused and concerned.

'This is strange,' she says. 'Kissing you is strange.'

'Strange in a bad way?'

She shakes her head. His chest is firm beneath her head and his arms fold around her for perfect safekeeping. 'I think it's good. I like it.' She listens to his heart beat hard against her ear and she feels the full, firm male body beneath her, and she realizes that some part of her abdomen is probably pressed against his cock. Unbidden, something sparks in her belly. Her body is curious about his. She cannot help it.

'We could keep our relationship exactly as it is,' murmurs Snow, 'only incorporate some kissing, if that's what you want.'

This part is difficult for her. She breathes deep the scent of his neck, rich like the earth, soft and strangely textured against her. So different to Peeta's skin and her own.

'I want more,' she breathes. 'Not yet, I'm not ready. But I feel very…' She has no words to translate the sharp, private needles of her sexual attraction. 'I feel attracted to you.' She forces herself to say it. 'Sexually, I mean.'

The body beneath her tenses. She would not notice if she were not lying atop it.

'I see,' says Snow, his voice vibrating through his throat and chest against her. 'I knew you were interested in my body, but I thought that was just… curiosity.'

'I like your body,' she whispers. 'I've never felt this before. Attraction. I don't know why you bring it out of me.'

'I understand why you would be drawn to me,' he says slowly. 'You always have been. Since we first fought. And I have a particular charisma you would find alluring. But I did not ever consider you would have any interest in my body.'

'Well, I do.' Her fingertips shuffle forwards and find his face and they dig into his beard. 'I think about it. About you. About…' Nothing separates his skin from hers but their clothes. 'About this.' About how delicious and warm and special it is to feel his body against hers, to lie in his arms… To truly desire another human body. 'But,' she says, her stomach colder than the warmth between her thighs. 'You don't feel that way. You were very clear about not being sexually attracted to me.'

She feels Snow breathe in slowly beneath her. He massages the back of her head, slow motions, soothing and good. 'It is complicated. You are correct that I do not experience sexual attraction to you, but that is because I have been very careful not to.'

'What do you mean?'

His hand brushes hair from her face and he sinks his fingers into the depths of her roots, and there he massages her scalp and skull like he could reach into her brain.

'Sex is uninhibiting. As you have no doubt noticed, I am a very inhibited man. I do not like to lose control. I haven't been sexually intimate with someone for many years. Decades, in fact.'

'Oh.' Does this surprise her? 'And you're worried about losing control with me?'

'Yes.' He pauses for a long time. 'I do not want to hurt you.'

She frowns. 'How would you hurt me?'

He moves her hand to his mouth and kisses it with feathery delicacy. 'You are a beautiful young woman, Miss Everdeen. You brought great joy to my life. But I have worked very hard to ensure my feelings for you have not been lascivious. Even when we were at war, when I was hurting you every day, I cannot tell you how much it would have broken my heart to see you think of me as a lech.' He presses another kiss against her fingernails. 'If you ask me to translate my feelings for you into a sexual mode, then I do not think that will be a cat easily put back in the bag, if you understand. If I let myself feel that way about you, I would be giving free rein to certain parts of me that I think ought to remain locked away.'

'So… you really don't want to have sex with me?'

He inhales. 'I think it would be… safer for you if we restricted that aspect of our relationship. I can offer only a limited physical involvement with sexual activity. But there are things we can do.' His smile changes shade. 'I would enjoy helping you feel good.' His lips press against her forehead and she tingles. 'But not until you're ready. And if you're never ready, then that's alright too.'

Her fingers find one of his buttons and they rub a circle around it. 'You wouldn't mind, if we never did it?'

'Of course not.'

'Most men care a lot about that. Sex.'

'I am not most men.' Another, deeper kiss touches her forehead. 'I only want you to be happy.' His kiss finds her brow, then her temple. 'I will be what you want. What you need.'

'Okay,' she says. It is hard to object to anything he says when it is all so kind and selfless. It is all about her. She listens to his big, calming heartbeat. 'This is so strange,' she says against his shirt. 'Us, being together. It makes everything so complicated. I don't know what other people would think.

'Miss Everdeen, we cannot ever tell anyone about this,' he says sharply. 'They would think you were unwell. That I was hurting you.'

'Yeah,' she says slowly, frowning. 'You're right. We probably can't ever tell anyone.'

'Fortunately, there is no one to tell out here.'

'But when we get to the base…' she begins, then cuts herself off. When they get to the base, they're going to torture him.

'They wouldn't understand,' he says, one hand again and again running over her hair. 'We will have to lie. Lie to everyone we meet… To your friends… No one can ever know.'

'I know.' How exhausting all that lying sounds. 'We won't tell anyone. It can just be our secret.' She almost likes the idea of it being a secret. Her relationship with Peeta was forced upon the most public stage imaginable. What a pleasant change to have a romance that no one knows about but her.

'Our secret,' echoes Snow. His chest is perfect against her: solid, warm, the heartbeat calm again. 'It can just be the two of us, if you like. Just the two of us, forever.'

Perhaps that would be nice. Does the war matter? Does the rebellion matter? She sought out Snow because she had no future, and now she has something. Now she has him, her predator and her secret. Why bother with anything else?

She raises her head to him and she smiles. 'I want to kiss you again,' she admits.

He nods, a little cautious, mostly accepting. 'Just not my mouth.'

She smiles and tilts her head to kiss the soft white of his beard, then his cheek, his temple, his neck, and it makes her feel light-headed and greedy. An unfamiliar greed, hot in her chest and lower, too. She buries her face into his neck and kisses and kisses, and she feels his firm, heavy hands stroke her hair, stroke her back. There is a strip of bare skin between her t-shirt and boxers and every time his fingers brush against it she feels something tingle inside her. One of her legs lies between his, the other on the outside. Snow starts to kiss her forehead, then along her temple, and all the while she kisses his neck. Her body shifts, her hips against his, and she feels Snow's hands grip her waist more tightly.

When she finally pulls away from his neck, her skin is hot and red. A big feeling like sunrise stretches from her chest downwards, deeper, ending between her legs. Her eyes meet his and his are deep and dark like the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

'I love you,' he breathes. 'Do you like it when I tell you that?'

She swallows. 'Yes. I think so.'

'Then I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.'

Snow places both his hands on her face, holding her firmly, and he empties his gaze into her. His fingers grip her like vines. Fear ghosts through her and she sees him recognize it.

Snow releases his grasp and he smiles, affable and soft, like she has nothing to be afraid of.

'I think we should sleep,' she says.

'Whatever you want, Miss Everdeen,' he smiles. 'And leaving for the base?'

She settles herself on him, his chest beneath her head, his heartbeat thrumming into her ear.

'Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after.'

Snow's hand is in her hair, stroking her, soothing her. 'I will do whatever you say, Miss Everdeen.'

And she believes him. He'll do anything she tells him too — but what else will he do besides? Oh, but she does not need to worry about that now. She drifts to sleep upon him, perfectly calm, perfectly safe. He is her secret and she is his. Nothing bad will happen.

They do not leave for the base tomorrow, nor the day after that, nor the day after that.

Staying is so easy and the days are like dreams. Their mornings are lit by stirring Spring. She wakes to his smile and then his kisses, little and explorative, tiny gifts they give each other: her on his face and neck, he on her forehead and temples. Sometimes she kisses him until her warm delight grows such a private, sexual edge that she feels embarrassed and has to stop. She thinks Snow knows how she feels; he knows everything about her, after all. Then they rise and begin their day. She hunts, he forages and tends the little house. She feels lighter than she has in years.

They no longer restrict their time in one another's arms to the night hours. She sits tight beside him when he reads, and there he allows her to kiss his neck. Although both exercise a certain cautiousness towards each other's bodies, the nature of it is quite different. She is curious, exploratory, learning about his body as much as she is learning about her own. He is trepidatious, like there's something dangerous in her he could unlock if his lips lingered too long against her skin. She does not enquire after his wariness.

When it is finally time for Snow to remove his stitches, she watches with admiration. He explains to her the simple process of removing them, should she have to do it herself one day. The wounds have healed beautifully and Katniss feels a shameful sense of prideful ownership at the sight of the scars. He got those for her, this man who tried to kill her for so long. There must be something so powerful in her to have had this effect upon him.

When he tries to replace his shirt, she stops him. Sitting beside him on the bed he allows her to press cautious kisses on his collarbone. It is a new plain for her to explore. She kisses lower, onto his soft chest, feeling the hair against her lips and delighting in it. She tries to kiss elsewhere but he guides her away when she edges too close to his nipples or beneath his navel, gently setting the rules of what she is allowed to do to him. He never asks to kiss her own body like this and she does not offer. Not yet.

The kissing is exciting. She accustoms herself to feeling a certain way around him, a privately hot and tingling way, and she marvels that this is what sexual attraction feels like. How strange that she should feel it for Snow of all people, and not any of the beautiful young boys she has known. Why Snow? Because she wasn't forced into a performative romance with him, like Peeta, or grabbed and kissed by him like Gale? Because he gives her space and patience? Perhaps it is his violence that excited her so keenly for years, and now he doesn't want to hurt her anymore her fear has transmuted into something else. Or is it because his own adoration of her has such a strong gravitational pull that she has been sucked into it. Perhaps it is all of these things.

Daily they bathe together in the Spring and it helps accustom the both of them to one another's naked bodies. She stares at him openly and he does not mind; indeed, he seems to encourage it, lying on the grassy green bank and letting her lie beside her and study him. He does not look at her in the same way. Sometimes she worries it is because of her scars. As they lie together in the thick green bank one afternoon, this thought drifts into her and her face is darkened by a frown.

'Are you alright?' Snow asks, his pale skin so white in the sun.

She looks down at herself. She never examines her body, and certainly not in the harsh light of day. She is disgusting. Like she's full of parasites. Trauma and her damage, crumpling her skin, turning smooth flesh into a warren of scars.

'I'm fine,' she lies. Her arms cross over her stomach, hiding herself. She looks for the towel.

'Miss Everdeen,' he smiles, and then he places a gentle hand on her wrist. 'You do not need to be upset about your scars. They're like mine. I was burned here.' He indicates a web of white flesh on his lower chest. 'A building set on fire by a rebel bomb. Over fifty years ago, now.'

'You could have had your doctors heal them,' she counters. 'Coin wouldn't let them keep trying to heal me after I shot her.'

He quirks his head. 'Heal? They are already healed. That is what scar tissue is, Miss Everdeen. Just another form of healing. I could have had them removed, yes. But why would I do that?' The sunlight burnishes the stray silver strands of his hair. 'I have done terrible things, yes. And terrible things have been done to me. But I do not want any part of me erased. We are both damaged people. That is simply our nature. You do not need to be ashamed.'

She smiles despite herself. She takes in his chest: the scars, the scant pale grey hair of his pectorals, the soft flesh there, the darker hairs that twist from around his nipples, the pattern of dark age spots that freckle his shoulders, the crumpled skin, the soft hang of his abdomen, the steady rise and fall of his skin with his breathing, the fainter quiver of his heartbeat.

Without asking, without thinking about it, she reaches out a hand to the burn scar. It is like hers, but so much older. He does not shy from her touch. It feels like her own skin, but smoother, and occasional hairs break through the thick tissue in ways they do not on her own, fresher scars. It is nice to touch in a way she would never think of her own scars.

She drops her hand. 'It's not so bad,' she says, swallowing, aware now that her body has stirred at the touch of his skin. Then she lies down beside him and offers a kiss to his shoulder, which he returns with one on her own shoulder. She is starting to want more. But no matter how much she kisses him, how warm she gets inside, how sharp her feelings, she never feels the same response in him. Even when she can feel her body ripen and yearn for his touch somewhere more intimate, he remains cool and passive. She knows little about male sexual responses, but she notes that his cock never stirs when they kiss. Sexually, he is insensible to her.

When they are in bed together, she lies in his arms and kisses him again and again until she glows inside. It is so pleasant, this kittenish feeling of sexual desire pawing blindly inside her. She studies the feelings almost the way she studies the inside of an animal she's dressing. You can see an animal prepare itself to fight or to flee, and she can feel her body prepare itself for sex. She's seen that, too: animals in heat, odd-smelling swelling and viscosity in their genitals. Her adult, animal body is ready for sex in a way it never has been before. And yet though her partner kisses her and whispers his love over and over again into her ears, he does not match her desire.

'I feel strange sometimes,' she murmurs against his shirt. She lies atop him, her legs comfortably between his, her head resting on his chest, her body burning. 'It's not right that I feel… attracted to you, but you don't feel that for me.'

His voice is a low and delicate rumble against her temple. 'I enjoy you feeling this way. I cannot reciprocate, but it brings me distinct, physical joy to know you feel the way you do.' His lips press a careful, dry kiss against her forehead. 'If you want to engage in any sexual activity, I would delight in helping you feel good, feel release.'

The words dance over her insides. Yes, she would like that. 'I've never done anything like that before.'

'What have you actually done with the Mellark boy?'

It has been a long time since he last mentioned Peeta. She really does not like talking about him with Snow, but at least there's a good reason to this time. 'We tried to have sex. But it hurt too much, so we stopped. We didn't get very far.'

'That's all? You haven't done anything else with him?'

'No. We kissed sometimes, though not much. Not the way you and I do. When we tried to have sex that was really all there was to it.'

There is an old, unpleasant amusement in his voice. 'So when you attempted to have intercourse, he just tried to penetrate you without you even desiring him?'

She frowns. 'It wasn't like how you make it sound. I wanted to be with him like that, emotionally and in my head. My body just didn't feel the same way. It's not his fault.'

'I understand,' he murmurs, conciliatory. Snow's hand strokes her hair over and over, holding her firm against him, soothing her, snaring her. 'Does this mean he never made you come?'

Katniss brow contracts in a tight, uncomfortable frown. It is the most sexual thing Snow has ever said. 'No.'

'And nor did Hawthorne? Nor anyone else?'

'No,' she says shortly. 'I've only been with Peeta.'

She feels Snow take a deep, delighted breath. 'Excellent.' His fingers rub her hair between them. 'I want to be the first man who makes you feel that.'

She shivers.

'I want to show you everything,' he whispers against her. 'I want to teach what you what it's like. I want to know every inch of you. I love you, Miss Everdeen.'

She feels covered in roses, overwhelmed by thick white petals, choking on the sweet scent of them. She feels safe and loved and completely trapped. Her body pulses. She shifts her hips.

'Snow…'

'You're mine,' he croons. 'You're my beloved.'

She shivers again and she feels a tight soreness between her legs, and she shift her hips once more. The full, hot weight of his body is between her legs, right there, pushed against her.

'I'm…' Slide her hips a little, feel that pressure of his older male body against her, between her. She swallows and breathes.

'Keep going,' he whispers into her ear and kisses the tip. 'If you want to, keep going.'

Another small shift of her hips, another hot friction of his body against hers. Then again, then again, and then it is happening. She rubs herself against him as he kisses her hair and forehead and even her eyelashes, and he touches her back and she keeps pushing forwards. Rhythmic jumps of her hips against him, trying small circles too, rubbing her cotton-covered swollen vulva against him. Through his pajamas she can feel the imprint of his own cock against her, soft but real, and she thinks about how much she likes to look at it when he bathes. Her body gets tighter and hotter.

'Remember that I love you,' he says as she rubs against him, pushing herself towards hot inevitability. 'I always wished we had more time. Now we have all the time in the world. You are safe and I love you. I will never allow anyone to take you away from me.'

She has never had an orgasm with another person before. She has had very few by herself. It is a hot waterfall, a shaft of golden sunlight, a cat's tongue, a drawing knife, a spurt of blood. She gasps again and again and she trembles and Snow holds her pressed so deep into his chest she thinks she could melt into him, become one with that white rose that used to adorn his lapel, the beautiful coil of petals that hides what he really is…

She trembles so badly as she lies on top of him and she feels a bit sick from the force of it all, from the strength of her orgasm and from the intense knot of desire and affection and fear and, yes, shame that is untangling inside her. She really just did that. She let President Snow feel her come.

He kisses her forehead. 'I love you very much, Miss Everdeen.'

'I know,' she whispers. 'I'm happy, I think. I'm happy to be with you.'

His arms wrap around her and press her deep into his chest. 'Oh, Miss Everdeen… my dear… all mine…'

She feels distant from him for the following few days. She sleeps beside him still, but she does not want to give herself over to their hot, weird kisses. He senses this, as he always reads her feelings, and gives her space. He cooks her meals, he forages, he tidies their new home and finds books and clothes and little trinkets that might please her: a harmonica, a book with glossy pictures of lighthouses, a length of velvet ribbon, a butterfly knife, a pearlescent-backed hairbrush.

She worries about herself. She has not been cared for since childhood and suddenly there is this man in her life who wants nothing more than to tend her and make her happy. And why? Because he once ruled an entire country and then he became fascinated with some odd, clumsy, violent girl, and then he lost his country and the girl remains. Now he has nothing to do but pour his obsession and meticulous care into her. Anything she wants — food, comfort, conversation, touch, sex — he is delighted to provide.

He has not changed. He is still President Snow, the man who insinuated himself into her home and left her a rose, just to frighten her. Or perhaps, just to say hello. He is no less evil. He has only chosen not to commit any more atrocities simply because it upsets her. He has ethics, yes, but there is not a shred of morality to him. He'd kill children. He has killed children.

And yet he makes it all so easy and comfortable for her. He has become a lovely, warm tarpit for her to sink into. The truly frightening thing is how little she minds letting herself slip under the surface.

The sex complicates things. She respects his body and his boundaries, his aversion to her touch. But it creates a power imbalance she does not enjoy. She has shown him her most intimate, uninhibited self, given something to him that she has given to no one else, and she has not been recompensed. Snow's strange vacillation between the paternal and the romantic annoys her. It makes her like a child, her needs cared for while he remains separate and superior.

And she knows he is not without sexual feeling for her. He hides it so carefully, tidies it away into his most remote reaches, but she knows it is in there. It feels like a lie for him to keep it from her. His feelings are not pure and paternal: there is some beast inside him, and some days she thinks it would be better to let it out than pretend it isn't there.

Katniss decides she would like to experiment.

They get ready for bed, Snow in his pajamas reading some boring book by candlelight, and Katniss brushes out her long hair with her new brush and she considers her reflection in the vanity. She has never cared about her appearance; she only ever glanced briefly in the mirror at home before going out to make sure she didn't have food on her face. Then they transformed her for the Games and made her into some beautiful, polished stranger, and she mostly hated it, but a tiny part of her perhaps liked being seen as desirable.

Now she is scarred beneath her clothes, but older, too. Developed. Questioning her own reflection, Katniss unbuttons the stolen shirt she's wearing and shrugs it off. Then she unclasps her bra. Snow does not look up from his book. The flickering light sends low shadows across her breasts, which she thinks are probably one of the nicer parts of her. Few scars, brown nipples, small and not perfectly symmetrical but pretty, she thinks. They yanked out the hairs around her nipples for the Games, but those have long grown back. Then she removes her pants and socks. Beneath her breasts she is less pleased with her body, where her stomach is rumpled with scars, and then the marks seep below to her thighs. There is even a thick patch of scar tissue over her crotch where the hair won't grow anymore. During her weeks of pain in the aftermath of Prim's death, she doesn't think the skin grafts were applied to her genitalia. Her stomach and back and thighs, yes, but she thinks those parts between her legs were spared the fire. She does not very well remember, however; she has no idea if she is whole there. All she remembers from that period was grief and the abscess where Prim used to be.

Finally, Katniss shimmies out of her underwear and stands naked in the dark, flamelit room. She walks softly to Snow's bedside and stands there, waiting, and he looks up and politely closes his book. With equal politeness he looks over her body, not leering, only showing her that he cherishes her willingness to be vulnerable with him like this.

'Do you find me attractive?' she asks.

Snow lays the book carefully on the nightstand. 'I find you very beautiful, Miss Everdeen. There is no sight I would rather look on than you.'

'But you don't want to fuck me.' Her voice is short.

'I can't let myself want that,' he says, delicate and soft.

Katniss nods as though she is trying to work something out. Then she eases onto the bed, laying her naked body on top of his clothed one, and he smiles at her with tender bliss. She presses her breasts against his chest, her thighs between his legs, the soft burst of her pubic hair against his groin. Her fingers trace the line of his beard, the curve of his mouth. She can feel his whole, full body pressed against her own, and desire stirs in her. She cannot see any of that desire reflected in him.

But it's in there. She knows it is.

Her lips part and close, part again, and she can hear her saliva. She ensures every breath and every sound of her mouth vibrate over his face.

'Do you remember,' she murmurs, so faint that only he could hear it, 'the day of your execution? Bound to that pillar?'

He smiles and draws back a lock of hair from her face. 'Mm.'

Her eyes sketch over his face. 'Do you remember watching me? My long walk up to you… the blue sky… the crowds watching… Do you remember when I drew my bow?'

The shadow of some kind of reaction passes over his forehead. 'I do.'

'Do you remember when I nocked my arrow? When I looked at you? When you looked at me?' She presses her body into his, letting him feel every inch of her naked skin. 'I knew I had to kill Coin, but… I wanted to kill you. I wanted to shoot you.'

'Miss Everdeen—'

'I wanted to know what it was like,' she says, ignoring him, ignoring the trepidation in his face. 'I feared and hated you for so long. I wanted to let all of that out of me. I've never wanted to kill anyone or anything so much before. I wanted to watch you bleed.'

Then she sees it. That same bright, insane light in his eyes, just as had been there on that day. The gleam of self-annhilatory desire. She does not know what is wrong with him or why this works, but it does. She wets her lips and feels, for the first time, something stir in his body. Against the velvet pad of her pubis she feels a faint shift of softness into something else, an involuntary hardness, the shape of a weak, quiet, unwilling erection. Excitement scurries through her.

'I would have killed you if I could,' she whispers. 'I wanted to fill you with steel. Make holes in your face and chest. Open you up like a ripe, burst orange and watch your juices flow.'

She swallows. He is hard now, unquestionably so, full and erect and pressing against her. His blue eyes are deepwater-black in the dark light. There is hunger in there, an oceanic ravening. Something inside him frightens her.

'Did you like that?' she continues. 'Did you like it when I wanted to kill you? Did it excite you?'

'Yes,' he breathes. 'You cannot imagine…'

'Show me.' Her breath glides over him. 'Show me that you want me. Show me why you gave me all those roses.'

Those are the final words she can get out before he kisses her. His mouth crushes hers with sudden violence, his tongue immediately inside her, without politeness or patience. Vertigo overwhelms her: he flips her over, onto her back, and then he is on top of her, forcing her into the mattress, his mouth pouring something into hers.

The taste of him…

Nausea floods her like gravedirt. She knows that taste. Twelve years old, unable to hunt, bringing home a chicken plundered from a trashcan that was green and furry. Scrape off the mold and put it in your mouth. Rot-taste. But wet, too. Trapped by a rainstorm in the woods at thirteen, unable to start a fire, sinking her teeth into a raw squirrel. Uncooked blood. Decay and raw iron. That's what his kiss tastes like.

But still, she tries to kiss back. There are disgusting things about both of their bodies. This is okay, she can deal with it. She can swallow the sour and fetid taste of his desire for her. He still loves her, after all. But it is difficult. Her mouth is full of rotting meat. Snow's kisses are hard and ringed with teeth, and the expression in his eyes is wild and staring. Where is that gentle man that stroked her hair?

'Snow—' she tries, but teeth and lips bite off her words. There is blood inside her mouth and she goes limp as she feels ferrous line her throat like honey. His incisors catch her and she flinches, and his tongue licks her from the inside out. Her heart starts to thump inside her. A hand goes to her throat. He grips her and she waits with dread for the choke to come.

I'm an idiot, is the only thought she can form, and then her eyes are wide and panicked staring up at him, thinking of Peeta, thinking of when Peeta tried to strangle her to death. Is this going to be how she dies? Did he always plan it this way? Did he just want to conquer her first, then rape her corpse?

Snow's eyes, infinite fractures, inhuman, impossible, drink in her fear. And then, sharply, recognition refocuses. The hand leaves her throat. He blinks at her and a moment later he is pushing away from her, standing, backing away from the bed.

Katniss gasps with disgust and fear. Snow places a hand over his mouth like this will somehow keep the rotten taste of him inside.

'I am sorry,' he says. 'I am so sorry, Miss Everdeen. I shouldn't have…' He shakes his head, repulsed with himself, ashamed not just of what he's done but what he is. He breathes hard. His eyes are wide and staring, the pupils wide and black, horrified at the sight of something she cannot see. He stands in the dark, a weird pale phantom. Eventually, quietly, he speaks again: 'I am not like other men. I never have been. You might consider me unwell. Not just physically, of course, but… in other ways.'

Katniss has a flash of what the soul of this man must look like: the corpse of a feral dog, rotten, eyes congealed, holes inside it. In her mind's eye she sees the dog open a maggoty eye and peel back its putrid jaws and smile at her.

'Why is your mouth like that?' she asks, her voice dull and frightened.

'It is due to the nature of the poison I once used to kill people,' he says. 'I stopped using it once I went into exile and that cured some of the symptoms — I no longer vomit blood, thankfully — but not everything has been curable. The necrosis never fully abates.'

Her eyes drop to his mouth. When he speaks, she can sometimes see that it is dark and red inside. 'Does it hurt?'

'Yes.'

'A lot?'

He takes a considering breath. 'I am constantly in some degree of pain.'

'That must be difficult.'

A thin smile stretches his mouth. 'You would be surprised what you can get used to, Miss Everdeen.'

Could she get used to that mouth, too?

'I didn't like when you touched my throat,' she said. 'It felt like you were going to choke me.'

His eyebrows twitch in acknowledgement. 'I would not choke you. Mr Mellark might have done that to you, but I would not. You can trust me.'

Her jaw sets. 'It's your fault that he did that to me. You tortured and brainwashed him into it.'

Snow gives a tiny twitch of a smile. 'Trackerjacker venom is so much more effective when it magnifies what is already there. Mr Mellark already resented you, distrusted you… We had only to expand that, encourage him to give into it. I would never treat you that way.'

'You're lying,' she spits.

'I never lie to you, Miss Everdeen.'

'Then you're wrong. You misunderstand how the venom works or something. I don't care. Just don't pretend like you're some gentle and respectful man and that Peeta is a violent abuser. It's not like that and you know it's not. You're a worse man than him.'

She thinks this might sting him. But Snow's smile only grows.

'And yet, Miss Everdeen, I am the one whose touch you seek out. I am the one you want inside you.'

She recoils. Disgust fills her face. Snow's aspect changes in an instant.

'Miss Everdeen, I am sorry. That was uncouth. I only meant—'

'It must be difficult for you,' she says, lips sneering, breath hissing. 'You've worked so hard trying to get me to not be afraid of you. But you know what? The only reason you don't want to frighten me is because fear drives me away from you. You don't really care about my feelings: my comfort, my happiness. It's all just ways to keep me with you.'

Even in her angry disgust, she is surprised when Snow says, 'You're right. It is difficult for me to care in that truly selfless way. That is what you felt for your sister. That is perhaps what Mr Mellark feels for you. I can never offer you that. But please know that it does not diminish my love for you. Yes, I want to keep you with me, and yes, I manipulate your feelings in order to accomplish that. But I still love you.' His eyes widen, the pale blue icy nothingness inside him. 'You cannot imagine, my dear. I love you tremendously. Like God loves.' His voice drops to a low, mossy texture. 'With fire and infinity.'

Katniss frowns. 'What's God?'

He smiles kindly. 'It does not matter.' Slowly, he returns to the bed and sits beside her, still giving her space, still trying to make himself appealing to her. 'All I can give you is my love.' There is some measure of helplessness in him. 'I know I love horribly. I love with dread and pain. Think of my love like a cat dropping a still-breathing, mutilated animal at your feet. I do not know what to do with my love for you. But here it is. I cannot take it back.'

'I don't want a love like that,' she whispers.

'And yet you have it anyway,' he smiles. 'It is yours to do with as you wish.' That smile widens until she can see blood on his teeth. 'So, Miss Everdeen. What do you want to do with it? What do you want to do with me?'