Page 65 of Voidwalker
Fi’s blood, almost. Nyskya’s blood, if she couldn’t fix this.
His teeth clenched, a flash of canines and sharp premolars. “This was the system given to me. Daeyari society has lasted this long thanks to tactful division of resources.”
“Resources? Is that all we are to you?”
“No.You aren’t.”
He stopped in front of her. Fi’s breath billowed steam. In this wretched cold, even Antal’s exhale blushed into fog. Static pricked her tongue, energy simmering beneath his skin, too close.
Always too close.
“Would you rather I treat you like a beast, Fionamara?” Hiswords skated a growl, low enough to rumble her arteries. “I could flay your skin instead of trading words. Enjoy the crack of your marrow. Would that be moreamenableto your conception of me?”
Fi didn’t want to be this close to him, that swell of ozone in her nose. The heat of his Void-rimmed eyes. She held her ground.
“How am I supposed to know your plans, daeyari? Maybe you want to keep me around, a convenient meal for later.”
Antal scoffed. “I could find less nagging dinner options.”
“You’d be so lucky.”
Fi couldn’t say where the courage came to shove him. Like two drunks arguing in a tavern alley. She’d survived brawls with only the occasional concussion or fractured finger.
This time she never made contact.
Too fast, Antal caught her wrists.
He pinned her arms between them, pulling her chest flush to his.
Fi’s fluster snapped to a cold sweat. Antal held her against him, faces level and far too close, not an inch to breathe without sharing the ice-and-ozone air. Fangs, one lunge away from her throat. That was how all her father’s stories ended.
What was she thinking, yelling at a daeyari? Once again, Fi braced for teeth.
Once again, his claws gripped alarmingly soft, even as he restrained her.
“Why are you here?” Antal asked. And that cut deeper than fangs.
“Your attendants dragged me into this.”
Fi tried to pull away, but he locked her arms against his chest, alarmingly strong despite his lean frame. A shock of heat in the cold, too close to escape the flint of his glare. There camethat flutter in her stomach, that rabbit’s urge to run even when she knew it was the stupidest option.
“I gave you an out,” Antal said. “If you find me so unpalatable.”
“How unpalatable I find you has nothing to do with it.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because this is my fault!”
Bravado wasn’t Fi’s only weapon. Those little surprises, the things the daeyari didn’t expect her to say seemed equally effective at breaking his guard. His grip slackened. Not enough for Fi to escape when she yanked against his claws. She pressed her assault.
“Is that what you want me to say, daeyari?” she spat into the scant space between them. “It’s. My. Fucking. Fault.Igot a stupid, mushy heart for Astrid.Itransported that bomb.Iwas as useless as you against Verne. I can’t have that weight on my shoulders. I can’t…” Fi swallowed all she couldn’t say out loud, memories of cold shrines and her father’s haunted eyes she couldn’t speak in front ofhim. “I won’t let Verne tear my life apart a second time.”
Fi braced for his taunt. The clash of her words against his teeth.
Antal’s silence left her reeling. His grip loosened to a whisper of claws, crimson eyes piercing too deep. Why was he looking at her like that? Why didn’t hesaysomething?
“Why areyouhere?” she snarled.
