Page 12 of Sunsplitter

This woman was all barbs. Tongue like a whip and eyes hard as onyx. Never a slip in her armor when she didn’t will it, and Antal devoured the unrelenting force of her.

And yet, he was even more ravenous for her softness, thelanguid brush of fingers down his arm. Her contented hum, a velvet blade to his heart, a delight to drown beneath warm skin and ember-rich hair.

He’d worried. Of course, Antal had worried in those first few months that she’d change her mind. That with Verne’s death, their common enemy vanquished, Fionamara would come to her senses and see him as a beast once more.

Yet here she was. Still his. Still smirking.

“Pour me a bath,” she said.

“Always demands,” he complained. Rougher than intended.

She ran a finger down his chest. “Sazny?”

He’d do anything when she looked at him like that, content and trusting, eyes a brown so deep it was nearly black. With a parting nip to her jaw, he rose.

Antal padded to the cedar tub across the room, pressed a palm to the metal panel, a spark of red energy powering the water heater. How different things had been when he’d first come here, licking his wounds in this tub, Fionamara glaring from her kitchen. Unseating Verne and reclaiming his territory had only been their first hurdle.

He’d kept his promises. Repairs to all of Verne’s sabotaged energy conduits, not just replacements but upgrades, more efficient systems that daeyari usually hoarded from mortals. An expanded council to advise the governor in Thomaskweld.

Even more difficult, finding a candidate to replace Verne in the vacant territory to the east. Several prospects had been sent to him, and every other neighboring territory—standard procedure by the Daey Celva, the governing body of all daeyari. But any new appointment was a centuries-long commitment, crucial not to start with bad blood. Every neighboring territory lord had a vote, a single veto enough to eliminate a candidate. Antal was fighting fang and claw to avoid another tyrant next door.

He’d known it was only a matter of time before someone on the Twilit Plane took notice.

Only, he’d hoped to have more than a year. A year wasnothing. The blink of an eye. He’d only gotten started, yet all this could fracture before the foundation even set.

Antal climbed into the tub and sank into scalding water. One more distraction from every weight on his shoulders. Everything he stood to lose again.

Footsteps crossed the floorboards. Fionamara circled like a prowling wolf, appraising his arms draped on the tub. He drank in every line of her body as she lifted her leg over the rim. As she settled next to him with a relishing exhale, he retrieved a bottle from the shelf.

Her shampoo smelled of pomegranates. Antal worked his hands into her hair, massaging soap through black and rainbow strands. The scrape of claws along her scalp stirred another moan.

“How was your trip to Calvariz?” he asked. In daeyari.

Humans had no tails to tell intention. They showed it on their faces. Fionamara’s face was a banquet of tilted brows and scrunched nose and those delicious twists to her lips.

She always scowled when he made her speak daeyari. Petulant as a schoolgirl.

“It went well,” she returned, also in daeyari, her pronunciation stiff. “We came to an…” She squinted.

“An agreement?” he offered, supplying the word she was half-mouthing.

She huffed. “Yes. Anagreement.” Despite her complaints, she was mastering the language with startling swiftness.

Antal hadn’t realized how much he’d missed sharing his native tongue with someone.

“I expected you back sooner,” he teased.

“The trip takes an hour by Shard.”

“You could have Voidwalked.”

“And leave Aisinay behind? Don’t be cruel, Antlers.”

“You’ll only improve with practice, Fionamara.”

She grumbled and slipped deeper into the water. Antal had tried coaxing her to develop her new talent—a skill mortals shouldn’t even be capable of—but Fionamara had only managed to travel through the Void under life-or-death circumstance. He didn’t fault her hesitance to attempt the feat again, given the risk of a slow death in the liminal space between realities.

Still, an hour of travel? Life without teleportation was alarmingly inconvenient.