“I hope moss grows on your antlers!”
Fi swung again. He vanished again.
Another prick of static, taunting on her tongue. Antal appeared behind her.
“Pay attention,” he chided. “Tasteit.”
“What in the endless black Void doesthatmean?”
This continued. Fi’s pride waffled with each fruitless swing, each zap of static in her mouth. She tried to gauge trajectory.Tried to guess where he’d reappear. In her frustration, her sword crackled. She reined the energy like a bucking horse, until a fresh prickle hit her mouth, concentrated at the tip of her tongue.
Antal appeared in front of her.
Fi froze. Blinked. When she didn’t swing, his head tilted.
“Do that again,” she ordered.
He vanished. Fi waited, chewing her cheek. She might have imagined it, but…
There came the static, sharp on her tongue, slightly stronger on her right side.
Antal appeared to her right.
Fi gasped. Taste it. She had totastethe energy?
When he disappeared again, she was ready. Alert to every scrape of tongue against her teeth. The prickle came near her throat, a little left. Fi spun, pointing at Antal as he appeared.
He grinned.
So did Fi.
It crept up on her. She’d thought his scowls were vicious, but his grin was a sharper thing entirely, bright fangs and brighter eyes, slicing past her bristled exterior. She sparred back with a smirk. Maybe she shouldn’t trust him. Maybe, the moment she lowered her guard in earnest, he’d go for her jugular.
But fuck, it felt good to hold her own against one of these nightmares she’d spent her life running from.
“You learn quickly, Fionamara.”
“Is that your best, daeyari? Better guard your antlers, or I’ll add another to—”
His tail cut a wide, swift arc. Not a common motion in Fi’s growing catalogue, but she did recognize it. A week ago. In her cottage. Right before he—
Antal pounced. In the shock of his weight hitting her, Fi’ssword extinguished in a snap of cold. She hit the ground with Antal on top of her. For the second time in too few days, fangs came for her throat.
His mouth snapped shut above her, teeth striking empty air with a dramatizedclack.
A daeyari middle finger. Antal’s insufferable smirk said as much. “Look,I could eat you if I wanted to,” danced goading in his gaze.
Fi went rigid. She wished she could blame the teeth. In some part, it was indignation that he’d gotten the best of her again. But indignation, she knew how to fight.
Antal had pinned her arms above her head. Firm thighs caged her hips, his weight holding her down as Fi lay breathless beneath him. All ofher, exposed, splayed to stillness by ozone and his fang-laced smirk.
She shuddered. Why in the merciless Void did Fishudder?
Antal’s smirk vanished. He released her, sitting swiftly upright.
“Apologies. I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t apologize to me!” She pushed onto her elbows, trapped beneath him, upsettingly warm as he sat on her hips. “Verne won’t hold back her teeth. Why should you?”
