Page 9 of Sunsplitter

In the corner… the heater was already on?

A prickle ran down her neck. Fi tensed.

She knew that gut twinge of being watched. Instinct pushed her to the balls of her feet, a grab for her sword. Her only warning was a creak from her rafters.

A tackle sent her to the floor. She hit hard on her elbows, snarling to free herself of the arm snaring her waist. When she twisted for a kick, a tail lashed around her ankle. Claws gripped her shoulders, pinning her to the boards.

Above her, fangs flashed. Crimson eyes glowed in frames of black sclera, the lethal gaze of an immortal daeyari, the nightmare every human had been raised to fear.

“Did you try tokickme?” the beast demanded indignantly.

Antal’s thighs straddled her hips. His tail brushed floorboards, five feet of surprisingly strong rope restraining her calf, as if he suspected she might try kicking him again.

Reasonable. She certainly would.

Fi tried to wriggle free, to no avail. These were fearsome creatures indeed, as cruel and cunning as all the stories claimed. Pinned beneath a terrifying predator, no rescue in sight, she pressed the back of a hand to her forehead and swooned.

“Oh, woe is me!” she proclaimed. Loudly. “A fearsome daeyari, ambushing me in my home. Surely, I’m doomed to be eaten.”

Antal leaned back. Blinked. Void alive, she loved that dumb fluster on his face.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She squinted one eye open. “I’m role-playing, you wet mop!”

“Role-playing?”

Fi swooned again, tossing her head to the side in a splay of hair. “I’m the helpless damsel. You’re the beast. Surely, there must be a folktale like that?”

“Oh? And how would that one go?”

When he grinned, her breath came too short. His mouth cut a wicked curve, sharp with predator’s teeth. Dim light glinted on dark antlers, the blue-black tousle of hair between, the sides shaved close. Shadows starkened the clavicle left carelessly bare by his unbuttoned collar, traced every hard line of his forearms as he held her down.

He leaned closer, pressing his weight against her thighs. Fi devoured the tease of ozone on her tongue.

“Well,” she breathed. “I’d think it would start with—”

But before she could finish, he was kissing her.

Fionamara tasted like spiced flame.

Antal dragged a hand through her hair and pulled her into him, savoring every note of her lips: the tang of lipstick, the sweetness of her mouth. Sweeter, for the moan in her throat.

Then subtler, that snap of cold where the Void had marked her. A spark of the eternal on her skin.

Her fingers hooked his jaw, possessive, even without claws. She purred against his mouth, “I don’t recall any daeyari folktales going this way.”

“How unimaginative.”

She nipped his lip with flat teeth. At his growl, she laughed.

“And you’re more imaginative?” she taunted.

A hundred. A thousand. He could think of endless ways he wanted to touch her.

Especially now, with an unspoken weight crushing his chest. Antal had received the news while she was away. A single letter, enough to shake his immortal core. He’d have to tell her about it. Devise some way this latest hurdle wouldn’t be their ruin.

Later. Now, Antal ached for Fionamara’s touch, the balm of her heat against him, even as a temporary escape.