“I mean it, Antlers. I don’t care.” Fi made the words forcibly flat.
Because she did care. More than was good for her.
Growing up, Fi had loathed her full name and its lengthy syllables, had lobbied and threatened against it, until close acquaintances knew her by nickname alone. Older now, that spite had diminished. Fionamara was a name spoken with authority, the respect of satisfied clients or the curses of thwarted foes.
Yet the wayhesaid it. Something else entirely. The syllables tumbled off Antal’s tongue like a warm Spring breeze. Like a whisper through midnight shadows. Fi wanted him to say it, just so she could dissect the cadence.
She couldn’t tellhimthat.
Antal rose. Fi watched him cross the room on those easystrides, returning his mug to her kitchen. She recognized the movements of a night coming to its close, a visitor making his play to depart.
She couldn’t tell him about her name. Instead, she said something more dangerous.
“Do you… have a place to sleep?” Fi asked.
Two weeks of him flitting through her life, yet she’d hardly spared a thought for where he disappeared to. Not to his home, so long as Verne banished him from Thomaskweld.
Antal’s movements slowed, that guarded posture she’d come to recognize.
“The cold is no trouble to daeyari,” he said.
“Sure. But you’d prefer somewhere warm?” He’d survived the river outside, but still relished sinking into her tub.
“What would you propose?”
What, indeed. Fi steadied herself, careful not to betray too much inflection. A simple offer of cooperation.
“You can stay here,” she said. “If you’d like.”
Antal kept his guard up, studying her crossed arms and defiant chin. “I’ve already accepted your price for my help. You don’t need to offer anything further.”
“It’s not about…” Fi wrinkled her nose. She’d berated Boden for this moments ago, only to find herself slipping the same way. Different. This wasdifferent. “It’s not a matter of payment. We’re partners now, right? You deserve to be comfortable.”
And she didn’t want to be alone tonight.
Antal stayed rigid. It was artful, the way he stood like carved ice, the crafted menace of his narrowed eyes. This was his response to kindness?
Was he so unaccustomed to it?
“I don’t wish to inconvenience you,” he said.
“It’s no inconvenience. Honestly? You’re not as terrible as Ithought a daeyari would be. So far. And cottage life can get lonely. Having company has been… nice.”
Fi stopped herself right there. Not another word, or she’d combust.
She sweltered all the same, when Antal smiled.
Not a smirk. Not any of the goading grins she’d parried during their sparring earlier. It came on slow. As if Antal, too, were testing the feel on his lips.
He smiled like a slip of moonbeam through trees. Like that first sight of stars after stepping back from the Void. A subtle shift, yet one curve of his mouth changed every line of his face, softening chiseled edges into velvet, a carnivore into…
A man. Different flesh. Different blood. Heart stilling, all the same.
“Just don’t be a dick about it,” Fi deflected, too close to breathless. “And you can stay.”
The beast regarded her with those too-keen eyes. Then, a bow of his head.
“Your hospitality is much appreciated, Fionamara.”
