Page 75 of Immortal Longings
Calla stirs awake later that night, a corner of the bedsheet tangled around her naked waist. They had moved to the bed at some point, which was just as well when they went at it again, because she could have tolerated only so much of the cold floor.
The storm has stopped. It’s quiet outside the apartment, a momentary lull after the rain cleared the streets and chased people into their homes. Paired with the hour, the food carts have been pushed in and shop gates have been pulled down for the owners to rest, casting San-Er in a hush. Calla lifts her head, staring at the light beams streaming through the blinds: red from the nearby nightclub that keeps its sign bright even after its dance floor has dimmed, blue from Big Well Street’s emergency siren that is perpetually activated, spinning on silent alarm. When she props herself onto her elbow, her vision sharpens, focusing on an object by the closet. She hadn’t noticed it before when they kicked into the bedroom in a tangle. Now, she recognizes her sword—the sword she had dropped back at the Hollow Temple. It rests upon the wall, casual in its stance, the sheath polished and gleaming under weak neon.
“Oh,” Calla whispers into the night. She turns, facing Anton. He has his back to her, his breath rising and falling with the heaviness of deep sleep.
He had gone back for the sword. That’s why he’s in the body of a Crescent Society member. Not because he was plotting against her, but because he wanted to find her weapon.
Calla settles onto the pillow again slowly, her hair splaying on the soft fabric. The red light has changed to a bright gold. The nightclub responsible for this light show must be running its electric bills high. When Anton shifts in hissleep, Calla draws a finger along his bare spine and marvels at how he doesn’t startle, like he has let his guard down, even knowing that she could take a sword to his chest.
She could kill him right here if she wanted. The apartment hosts only the two of them. The rest of San-Er sleeps within its own walls. He would have nowhere to jump.
But she won’t. She trusts her life in his hands, and for that she wants to deserve his trust too, offer him safety in her embrace.
Suddenly, Anton turns, nudging his shoulder closer toward her. Calla snatches her hand back with a start, but he’s not stirring against her touch. He has not awakened at all: he only adjusts until he is facing her, eyes still closed. Before Calla can react, Anton draws her near, seeking her body amid the sheets. He reaches for her, an arm curling around her waist, solid and steady.
Even asleep, he reaches for her.
Gently, Calla puts her arms around him too, returning the gesture. There’s a surge of emotion in her chest—a foreign feeling, twisting at her insides like a rapid-setting infection. She brushes at his hair, and when his arm tightens at her waist, a tear slides down her cheek, landing silently onto the pillow. It would be easier if he had betrayed her. That’s familiar territory, something she knows how to navigate.
Calla can handle pain. She can handle blood. But this—this is somehow all and none of that at once, a wrenching in her very soul.
This is tenderness. And she is more afraid of it than anything else in their forsaken kingdom.
CHAPTER24
The first hints of morning seep into the room with sluggishness, streaming effortfully through the blinds. Anton rubs at his eyes, turning over in his bed. When he reaches his arm out, it comes down on nothing, and he blinks awake, finding only sheets where Calla had been.
He jolts up. It wasn’t a dream, was it? She really was here.
His hand goes to his heart, and he exhales, finding a puckering, clotted wound. Never did he think he would be so relieved to confirm an injury on himself. The last of his confusion eddies away from his sleep-addled mind, and he runs his gaze along the wall. Her sword is gone too: the one he was caught retrieving yesterday, though fortunately, he had invaded the body of the Crescent who saw him before anyone else took notice.
Anton squints at his wristband. He presses his identity number in, running the timer back on the next twenty-four hours. He wonders when it’s going to ping today. He wonders if he ought to scramble up before it happens while he’s in his apartment, then wonders if that’s why Calla wandered off.
Why didn’t she wake him?
The clock on the mantel turns to half past five in the morning. It’s early. Most of the establishments downstairs have not opened yet, hovering in that the brief quiet segment after night has fully shuttered but day has not quite arrived. Anton finds a clean shirt from his wardrobe. He shrugs into pants fit for combat and the same shoes that came with this body. When he walks into the living room, his clothes from the previous night are still discarded on the floor, but Calla’s are gone.
He opens the front door. A rush of cold morning air swirls through as he stands on the threshold, thinking.
It’s strange that he has not been in Calla Tuoleimi’s acquaintance for very long, and yet he knows exactly where to go to find her. He doesn’t take the stairs down onto the streets. He walks up instead, then pushes through the door to the rooftop. And indeed, there she sits at the very edge with her back to him, one leg swinging along the side of the building and the other propped up beside her. There’s a cigarette dangling from her fingers, the heel of her hand resting on her knee. Even like that, slouching in the most casual fashion, she looks every inch a princess.
“Those are bad for you, you know.”
Calla turns slowly, her expression level while she takes him in. The morning light is brighter here than it is from the streets, but the clouds are as gray and heavy as the plastic bags that litter the gutters. Another storm floats on the horizon.
“Are they?” Calla asks. “I hadn’t heard.”
Her sword has been reacquainted with her hip, hanging where it belongs. When she moves her leg to make room for him, Anton joins her without further prompting.
“Terrible.” He watches her take a deep drag. “Rots the qi and ruins your health. Practically guarantees an early death—”
Calla removes the cigarette from her lips and, with the puff of smoke still in her lungs, leans forward and kisses him. Despite his words, he lets her release right into him, taking the toxin down his throat like it is the sweetest liquor he has ever tasted.
As soon as the smoke settles, Calla pulls away slowly, her lashes heavy and dark, fanning down with her indolent gaze. Her fingers remain around his jaw, and Anton watches her as she turns his face this way and that, surveying him under the groggy daylight.
“Are you afraid this body has somehow changed since last night?”
Calla frowns, unamused by his question. “It is not beyond imagination. Perhaps Anton Makusa has fled and this is someone else.”
