A few notes -

• this series takes place over a couple weeks at most & is pretty fast paced - there’s barely any time to reflect on all this
• both characters grew up isolated with no friends (one had a few internet friends), being abused and made to dissect or torture people, and this is pretty much their first relationship (in the general sense) with anyone their age where they’re not hiding things about themselves
• kovit is a type of creature who feeds off torturing people. so just in general he has done a lot of torturing and killing and enjoyed it. Nita is also firmly well past ‘morally grey’ lmao
• I think the series does a good job of not implying that disinterest in sex/romance has anything to do with these things, it only really says that they’ve never had much of a chance to think about it before

in book 2

I had no idea you had it in you, Kovit. You’ve never showed any interest in the fairer sex—or any sex, really

for context-

And she kissed him. His lips were soft beneath hers. His body tensed for a moment, when she first pressed against him, but then it released, and his mouth parted slightly. His arms wrapped around her back in a hug, and her thumbs stroked the tears from his cheeks. Swallowing, she pulled away. Her mouth felt cold without his against it. His eyes were dark and huge. She turned her head away, clearing her throat. His hand brushed her side and came up to her chin, tilting her face to his. His eyes flicked back and forth, as though searching for an answer in her eyes or her blush or her tingling mouth. Then he pressed his forehead against hers and breathed her name. “Nita.” Her whole body was hot, and the areas pressed against him burned. Her breathing was sharp, and her throat was so choked with butterflies she couldn’t make a sound. He shivered softly as pain from the next room slid through his body. Then, still trembling from Gold’s pain, he leaned forward and kissed Nita. Something inside her relaxed at that, at the knowledge that this weird, amorphous thing in her wasn’t one-sided, that he wanted her the way she wanted him. And even though she was sure everyone in the world would think they were so wrong, right there, at that moment, with his mouth against hers and her body humming with electricity, everything felt just right

Then he kissed her. Nita bolted upright with a shriek, and her phone fell off her bed and clattered to the ground. Her face was sticky with sweat and her heart beat a staccato rhythm in her chest. Her body felt flushed with heat, almost feverish, and her skin was clammy. She swallowed, her throat dry, and put her hands to her lips where the dream Kovit had kissed her. Her mouth tingled at the touch. What. The. Fuck. Eventually, Nita lay back down, but it took a long time for her to fall asleep again.

notably, after this nothing about the way that she thinks about or interacts with him changes, it doesn’t really feel romantic at all

Also this is unrelated I just wanted to make note that it has some stuff with unicorn/virginity myths

Someone onscreen was now talking about unicorns. They looked like human men, and could steal a soul with a simple kiss, or in some cases, even a touch. They could only steal unstable souls, though, souls that weren’t comfortable in their bodies. Most children and teens, and many younger adults, had unstable souls, which was where the virgin association started. But the truth was, lots of people who weren’t virgins or who were older also had unstable souls. Instability of the soul had less to do with age or virginity and more to do with mental stability and being settled in one’s body. The horse concept, explained the man on the television, was because in the past, unicorns would lure people away to eat their souls. However, if the soul was too established in the body, they needed to destabilize it before they could eat. So they would “mount” the youth and pierce them with their “horn.” Raping the victim usually caused sufficient trauma to destabilize the soul so that the unicorn could eat it

book 3:

She thought he was going to kiss her. Her heart pounded, and her mind whirled. They’d kissed earlier today, a broken moment of pain and fear, emotions running high. She didn’t know what it meant, or how things went from here, or even where she wanted them to go.