Page 122 of Voidwalker
“A menace,” Antal all but growled. His smirk snared Fi like thorns to soft flesh, pulling her into the waiting crook of his arm. “Impressive, that we never crossed paths sooner.”
“I made sure we didn’t, daeyari.”
A new song started, quick with a clarinet above the bass. They resumed their stance, hands clasped, Fi’s arm on his shoulder and his around her back. He smelled like fresh snow and a snap of eternity.
This dance had no memorized routine, only a common language of rhythm, the rest left to improvisation. Antal pushed them into motion on gliding steps, his hand holding Fi’s only tight enough to tell his intention. As she relaxed, he pressed his arm at her back, pulling them into a turn. Close enough to share a breath. Then he sent her out again, connected only by fingertips, a twirl that lifted her dress and spun her hair into a flurry of curls.
Though he led, Fi pushed her own reply. When he pulled, she lingered in the motion, flaring her skirt to the rise of a horn in the music. He grinned. His response came seamlessly, shifting to match her, following the rhythm of the new instrument she’d called them to.
And then, they were speaking without words. A push and pull of melody, Antal asking and Fi answering. She spun at arm’s length and swung tight at his side, hips brushing, grins like warring blades.
The song ended too soon.
With silence came stillness, the easing of breaths and softening of stances. This was the time to say “thank you for the dance” then politely step away.
Neither of them did.
The next song came on like thunder through Fi’s ribs, a burst of horn and drums, twice the tempo of the previous number. Antal flashed a fanged smile.
Fi smirked back.
He pulled her into the song like plunging into a current. He walked on water, his turns tighter, feet impossibly light despite the breath-stilling pace. Fi swirled through steps she’d never seen before—words she’d never spoken before—yet he led with such surety. She followed, trusting his direction, the pulse of music replacing the heartbeat in her chest.
This type of dance didn’t have to be so tight. Fi had kept plenty of partners at arm’s length, yet she leaned into Antal like the pull of a star, keeping close to keep their movements quick. Keeping close because she wanted to. The smell of him was like tumbling through a thunderstorm. When she glimpsed his eyes, they gleamed with the heat of an inferno and the depthless black of the Void.
Again, the song ended.
They spun to a standstill, breathless, sweat sheening Fi’s skin. Antal’s arm wrapped her waist, the rise and fall of his chest such a tangible thing, not the wraith she’d once taken daeyari for.
“You dance better than I expected,” she panted. Always asurprise, this creature. Always finding new ways to take her breath away, no matter how fiercely she fought to keep her barbs up.
“And you dance as well as I expected,” he murmured. “Like fire beneath your feet.”
The next song began. They didn’t join it, motionless together as the music spun a slow soliloquy of clarinet, a heartbeat drum.
Pull away.
Fi ought to pull away, but she didn’t.
Who was this creature, who’d filled her with terror when they met? Who’d just danced her into a stupor? Once, their game had been a contest of who’d back down first. Now, they both refused to balk. His proximity was a weapon, stirring the same thrill in her heart as when she’d first stood her ground against him. The same smolder in her belly as when he’d held her against the wall with his teeth. The same shudder as when he’d pressed his forehead soft to hers.
She thought about kissing him. Would his mouth taste like blood and old flesh? How would his teeth scrape against her lips?
Antal studied her breathless perplexion with the ghost of a smirk, that quiet acuity that came with agelessness. As if he could read every thought in the flicker of her lashes. Or maybe, just in the quickening of her pulse.
“What’s wrong, Fionamara?” Her name rumbled off his tongue, velvet and slow. “You look like you want something.”
She wantedhim. Wanted to know what he felt like. What he tasted like. She’d wanted him for weeks, and no matter how she fought it, the ache had only fiercened. Enough to make her stupid. Enough to make her reckless.
Enough to shiver through every inch of cruelly thin dress pressed to his side.
“What do I look like when I want something?” she sparred, feigning indifference.
“You’re a frustrating creature. Sometimes, you look like you want to rip my throat out.”
She hummed, not in disagreement.
“And sometimes,” he said, lower. “You look like you want… something else. I worry I’m not able to tell the difference.”
