Page 31 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

A pause. Fi didn’t notice she was holding her breath until her chest began to ache.

“Would you have left me?” Antal asked, too quiet.

Yes. No. Fi didn’t know anymore. She scrubbed a stubborn crust of blood on his jaw. “It’s the least I could do. After all the trouble I’ve caused.”

Antal’s claws loosened on her arm, gripping with softer finger pads. “This isn’t your fault, Fionamara.”

“But you said—”

“I shouldn’t have blamed you. Verne would have acted, with you as accessory or not.”

Fi hated the rawness scraping his throat. She hated how it made her shiver. “You said this is your fault?”

“You heard Verne. She saw an opportunity. Saw me as weak . All because…”

“Because daeyari are supposed to be vile? Mysterious? Not give a shit about the humans they rule?”

“Yes.”

For a heartbeat, neither of them was fighting.

A denial would have been easier. Fighting him was easier than whatever this was, his words too soft around the rasp of breath, neck barely strong enough to hold his head up.

“So what’s wrong with you ?” Fi said.

“Too many things, Fionamara.” His words came weak. Weary. “I tried. As Veshri watches from the Void, I tried . I don’t want things to be this way. If I had any other option… but I’m sorry. That you had to be part of this.” His lidded gaze slid down her face.

And stalled on her mouth.

He frowned.

When he reached for her, Fi flinched.

Another instinct. She saw claws, and red eyes, and all of her stiffened like a dumb hare before she realized what he’d intended—Antal, reaching for the bloody cut Tyvo’s claw left across her lips. To heal? To comfort?

She’d never know. He pulled back in an instant.

Antal straightened in the tub. Fi watched his expression snap back into that granite facade, that shield of teeth and tightened jaw.

A mask—but once she’d seen the cracks, she couldn’t unsee them, that uneven tempo of his breath and the too-tight clamp of claws against the cedar.

A slip of vulnerability he shouldn’t have shown.

Fi said nothing of it. She didn’t know where to begin thinking of it, this daeyari half dead in her tub, his words hollowed with guilt an immortal shouldn’t possess.

She returned to the simpler task of cleaning blood from Antal’s shoulders. He pulled more energy into his neck, repairing flesh, giving her room to work while he gritted his teeth. Easier, this way. So much easier than that fleeting moment his thumb had brushed her wrist.

“You spoke the truth,” he said. “You are more useful, with an energy sword.”

Fi let her cloth stray over still-raw skin. Antal hissed.

“You were unconscious for most of it,” she countered.

“I saw enough. Few humans can hold their ground against a daeyari, much less one as old as Tyvo.”

“Will his antler grow back?”

“Antlers regenerate slower than flesh. It will take time to recover, and never as it was before. He’ll be very angry.”

“Good. Fuck him.”

Fi startled when Antal laughed.

Had she heard him laugh before? Scoffs perhaps, humorless and biting things, the sounds of the two of them waging battle without blood. This was new. Despite the rasp in his throat, Antal’s laugh came deep, trembling the water of the tub.

“What?” Fi bristled.

“A week ago, you cowered at my feet. Now, you boast for cutting a daeyari’s antler off? You couldn’t have done Tyvo worse insult. Antlers are a source of great pride.”

“Are they?” Fi eyed his, blank at the tips and that odd patch in the second band, otherwise carved with flowers, auroras, some sigils she didn’t recognize. Too delicate, for a carnivore. “Then you’d better not get on my bad side.”

Perhaps a bolder dare than Fi ought to risk. Even injured, she guessed Antal would be a treacherous enemy. But not invincible. That bolstered her confidence.

Antal’s look pierced her to the marrow, a silent promise of teeth in her neck, should she make good on her threat. Yet in the subtle tilt of his brow, she thought she glimpsed a concession of respect. Not used to humans standing their ground?

“Your clothes are a mess,” Fi said. “I’ll find you something to wear.”

She did not, unsurprisingly, have any daeyari-appropriate attire on hand. From her armoire, she retrieved a plush bathrobe, a fleece blanket. She left them beside the tub and gave Antal space, listening for the sound of sloshing water in case she had to rescue him again.

When he emerged, Fi stifled a laugh. She’d never seen a more ridiculous combination: the lethal lines of a daeyari ensconced in a pink robe, a blanket draped over his shoulders like a child caught out after bedtime. Antal’s nose wrinkled. He smelled of rose oil and mothballs.

Fi had a taunt ready… until Antal collapsed on her sofa. He coiled beneath the blanket like a wounded animal, some pitiful thing trying to make himself small.

On second thought, Fi was too exhausted to needle him. Too exhausted to dwell on how their fuck-up with Tyvo put them back at square one, still no plan for unseating Verne.

Modesty be damned. She drained the tub and poured a fresh bath. Though she pulled the screen up for privacy and surveyed the sofa at every opportunity, she never spotted prying eyes. At last, wrapped in her flannel and tired to the bone, she turned off the lights and dragged herself to bed.

No point worrying over a daeyari lurking across the room, Fi tried to assure herself. Even if she sent him away, he could sneak back once she’d fallen asleep.

In the dark, she spotted a glow of red, a single eye following her. Once she fell still in her bed, it closed, Antal curling deeper into his cocoon.

A tense silence. An unsteady peace.

Yet as Fi drifted toward sleep, it wasn’t a fear of claws that made her clutch her blankets.

Antal’s eyes haunted her, that look of a frightened beast. That rasp in his voice when he spoke of things he wished he’d done differently. Daeyari weren’t supposed to act like this.

Then again, two centuries was a long time to live. Long enough to gather regrets.

And Fi knew too well, how it felt to regret.