“Don’t be modest,” purred a new voice beside her. “Your reputation precedes you.”
Fi spun fast enough to pop a few vertebrae. Her boots thunked off the table, fingers clawing instinctively for the sword hilt beneath her coat—only to freeze, at the appearance of a phantom in the dim lounge light.
The newcomer circled their table. She had even paler skin than Fi. Her Void-black hair was shaved on one side, cut straight to her jaw on the other.
Atop her head: two short antlers, black with dual points.
For a moment, Fi’s entire stupid heart forgot how to beat.
A vavriter.
What in the merciless Void was a vavriter doing here?
They must have been brave, the early mortals who fucked daeyari, inviting predators into their beds. Perhaps there was allure in the danger. The restraint. Since becoming immortal, daeyari could no longer make children with humans, but in the lost ages when the beasts had been similar flesh and blood, their pairings produced vavriter. Millenia later, the hybrids’ descendants still walked the Planes, now a species of their own.
In appearance, they were ghostly reflections of their daeyari sires. Shorter antlers. No tail nor claws, no black sclera, but this woman’s ruby irises latched onto Fi with skin-peeling sharpness. A wildcat eyeing prey.
Fi tensed. Breathless. Uncertain who would strike first. Vavriter were as rare on the Season-Locked Planes as sun in Winter, far too close to an immortal carnivore for most humans’ comfort, andthis onewas…
“Oh, pardon me,” Milana greeted. “I didn’t realize you’d be joining us?”
“How could I miss meeting our esteemed partner?” The vavriter flashed Fi a bright grin—fangless, but still unsettling. “Astrid. Pleased to meet you.”
Fi’s shock snapped to confusion. She watched the woman recline in a chair beside Milana, arms languid upon the rests, her maroon blouse cut in a deep V that revealed an edge of pale breast. Confident. Taunting.
Astrid spoke to her fellow conspirators, but her ruby eyes never left Fi. “Rough around the edges, this one. But I assure you, she’s up to the task.”
Milana hummed. “She seems reluctant.”
Fi had yet to remember how to breathe. She was supposed to know the rules of these games, false bravado from always having a card up her sleeve—but the vavriter’s grin struck her like a knife to the ribs. A wildcat, wandered in through the lobby.
“Then offer better terms.”
Astrid set a metal box on the table, slender fingers skating the edge. “Consider this a show of good faith.”
Fi didn’t need to open the box to know what it contained. She cracked the lid open just to stop the room from spinning.
Inside, ten more daeyari energy chips glinted in velvet.
“She’s not agreed to help yet!” Erik protested.
“She will,” Astrid said with perfect confidence.
This was wrong. Something waswrongwith this trio trying to sneak into the capitol—two wary-tongued humans, avavriterwho shouldn’t be here. Fi should argue, should push for a higher price. She was talented at arguing.
Just not now, with this chill through her chest. She couldn’t escape the snare of Astrid’s red eyes, her pantherine posture, an adrenaline-sharp memory of dark trees and…
Fi swallowed. Her throat, sandpaper. “Will you be helping us, vavriter?”
“I’m afraid I’m needed elsewhere. Though I trust in your abilities.”
Fi clenched the box until her knuckles whitened. Ten more energy chips wassignificant.
More urgently, she needed to end this conversation. Get back on solid footing.
“Just in and out?” she asked.
“Under an hour,” Milana assured.
