Page 163 of Voidwalker
“I had conditions,” she returned, barely more composed.
“Please.” Antal pulled her against him and nipped her jaw—delicious, now that she knew what it meant. “Please, Fionamara. Let me taste you again.”
“You’ve started tasting me twice now, daeyari, and never finished the task.”
She returned a bite to his chin, hard enough to draw a hiss through his teeth, to tell him exactly what she wanted.
His mouth was on her neck. Her chest. Down the plane of her stomach then a drag of fangs across her thigh.
“Fast?” he asked with bewitching severity. “Or slow?”
“Slow,” she ordered on a shivering breath. “Make me beg for it.”
And he did.
35
Just ignore the bite marks
It took too long for Fi to drag herself out of bed.
Longer still, the arduous process of dressing for the day ahead, slowed by subtle looks of appreciation as Antal tugged a pair of dark pants snug at his waist, his less subtle nips to her neck whenever she strayed too close. Watching him dress was torture, alleviated only by the view of taut back muscles as he slipped on a shirt, the delicious tension in his forearms as he rolled his sleeves to the elbow.
An otherworldly beauty, as alluring as whispering her fingers across the edge of a blade.
Antal smirked when he caught her staring. Insufferable bastard.
At last, Fi pulled on her coat and boots, bracing for the cold and a long day away from the bed she very much didn’t want to leave. Before she opened the door, Antal snared an arm around her waist, nose nestled to her cheek.
“A shame we have business to attend,” he said. “I’d enjoy you all day.”
Fi didn’t need that temptation.
“Are you sure you aren’t just hungry?” she said.
He hummed. “Perhaps… some of that. Don’t worry, Fionamara. I can enjoy my tastes of you without biting any harder.”
Fi wasn’t worried for herself, surprisingly. She worried for him. Whatever hunger she’d helped satisfy last night—and this morning—was the easier of the two. Days ticked by since his last meal.
“We’ll find something,” she said. “Before facing Verne. Need you in fighting shape.”
Another logistic weighing on her mind. This morning, though? None of that felt as daunting. Training recruits, feeding a daeyari, planning to topple Verne—Fi stepped out of her cottage, took a breath of lung-chilling air, and felt she could accomplish anything.
Antal’s steady presence at her side certainly helped.
They traveled into Nyskya, back to the training grounds. The recruits wouldn’t appear for another hour, but Kashvi and Boden arrived early, sorting weapons and setting up targets. Kashvi, murderous scowl notwithstanding, agreed to let Antal teach her to use daeyari energy capsules when Shaping her crossbow bolts, testing small doses to determine what she could safely handle with her silver sickness.
Fi wandered to the far side of the archery range for some practice of her own. Yvette’s crossbows were swiftly made but elegant, metal mechanisms that weighed heavy in Fi’s hands. Several yards ahead, a copper disk hung from a tree.
She Shaped a silver energy bolt onto the track. Squared her stance. Aimed. Breathed.
Her victorious whoop echoed alongside the clang of the target, spinning from a direct hit.
“What’s got you in such a good mood?”
Boden stood at her side, a crossbow looking as natural in his hands as a hare wielding a broadsword.
“Do I need a reason?” Fi returned, fully aware that the reason involved the surprising length of a daeyari’s tongue—and fullycommitted tonottelling Boden about it. Yet. Maybe after things got quieter.
