Page 32 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Bite me

Fi dreamt of a seaside on the Summer Plane. A coconut cocktail chilled her hand, hair tussled by salt as she swayed in a hammock shaded by big, frilly palm trees. The pleasant mood lingered as she woke, a tranquil start to the day.

Reality hit her as a sting of claw marks healing in her stomach.

Oh, and she’d invited a daeyari to a sleepover.

Sunny reveries crumbled to curses, but Fi stifled them with more resignation than fear.

If Antal planned to eat her, wouldn’t he have done so by now?

She’d wake not to a nest of furs, but her fingers turned to daeyari appetizers?

Fi pushed herself upright in bed, rabbit fur draping her like a cloak, braced to confront the bullshit of a new day.

Her sofa was empty.

Concerning, considering she’d left a carnivorous immortal there the night before.

Fi scanned the room. Twilight drifted through the curtains, casting counters and furniture in dull shadow.

She touched an energy current to the panel beside her bed, bringing on the overhead lights—aside from one obnoxious pane in the corner that flickered whenever the aurora got too strong.

Still no sign of her visitor. No discarded blanket on the floor, no “goodbye, see you never” note on the kitchen counter.

Increasingly concerning. Fi tipped bare feet onto the cold floor.

At last, she looked up.

Fi bit back a yelp, though the hand that snapped to her heart looked no less undignified. There in the shadow of her rafters, Antal perched on a beam, still bundled in a bathrobe and blanket, squinting at the panel lights like some feral raccoon who’d accidentally stumbled inside.

“What in the merciless Void are you doing up there?” Fi demanded.

Antal’s eyes narrowed further. “I feel more… comfortable here.”

“Comfortable from what ? You’re an apex predator!”

The daeyari didn’t indulge her a reply. At least he no longer looked on the verge of collapse, his eyes back to a red smolder amidst the burrow of his blanket.

This was the creature from her father’s folktales?

Who’d reincarnate as a feral monstrosity?

Fi spotted none of Verne’s Beast hiding in the terry cloth.

“Glad you’re feeling better,” she said. “Do you have clothes , somewhere?”

“Of course.”

She held his glare until he sighed. Vanished. Parting static lingered on her tongue.

He’d be back. Fi felt it in the pit of her grumbling stomach.

She donned a coat of dark wool and silver ermine fur from her dwindling supply—one coat lost beneath building rubble, one shredded by a daeyari, Void knew what awful fate awaited this one—then headed out to check her hare traps.

When her boots creaked the porch, Aisinay trotted from the trees like a scaled phantom, finned tail swaying in greeting. Fi patted her neck.

“Morning, Aisinay. Do I have some shit to catch you up on.”

The Void horse snorted, a billow of mist on cold morning air.

“Thanks for nothing, by the way. Letting that daeyari walk right up here. Just because you’re both from the Void, doesn’t mean you have to be pals .”

After an indignant nudge from Aisinay’s muzzle, Fi climbed onto her bare back.

They traversed a couple of Curtains, emerging in a stretch of forest across the mountains from Nyskya.

Beyond the canopy, dawn rose in shades of violet.

The sun would barely crest the trees this time of year, days growing shorter, until night settled in for several long months.

Kashvi’s tavern would be busy, packed with warm drinks and traders bartering for furs.

That was, if they still had power by then. And if Verne didn’t raze the village to ash for her amusement. Fi carried a pit in her stomach as she moved through the trap line, empathy for every rabbit caught in a noose.

She returned home with two fresh hares for breakfast—and a prickle down her neck, the moment she stepped inside.

Antal perched in the rafters again, dressed in a midnight shirt and trousers, tail dangling. Fi made eye contact and a single command.

“ Down .” She pointed to the floor. “I will not have a man-eating creature lurking above my head in my own home.”

Last night, she’d let her barbs drop. They both had. Fi wasn’t sure how long that stalemate could last, whether a new morning heralded a return to arms, or a continuation of this strange new peace.

A growl rumbled Antal’s chest. He dropped from the rafters, landing with the ease of a cat.

Feeling much better, then. The useless daeyari had neglected to fasten four Void-damned shirt buttons this time, leaving ample view of pale chest and sharp collarbones, his neck intact.

He settled on her sofa, cross-legged, tail curled around him.

Fi inspected her home. The borrowed robe and blanket sat folded by the tub. Her growing lights had kicked on, glowing over pots of basil and sage and turmeric hoarded from warmer Planes. The fussy light panel in the corner… had stopped flickering?

“It was obnoxious,” Antal muttered, noting her attention.

During Fi’s brief visit to his home, she’d seen those masterful conduits in his floor, the metal scraps on his shelves. Then there were Thomaskweld’s energy circuits, some of the most efficient on the Winter Plane. Not the best Shaper, but a knack for technology?

“You ought to fix my gramophone,” Fi said. “Hasn’t played right for a year.”

Maybe if she asked extra nice, he’d tell her how to install that blissful floor heating in her own cottage.

Antal huffed at her request. Yet as Fi set her hares down on the kitchen counter, her peripheral vision tracked a shadow.

He circled her gramophone beside the sofa, running a claw along the copper frame.

Seemed they both sought distractions this morning.

Easier to dwell on small tasks than their failure with Tyvo, their pathetic lack of a plan for confronting Verne.

Fi’s tongue worried her split lip, tracing tender flesh.

She grabbed a knife hilt from the kitchen block. Shaped a silver energy blade. She skinned the hare with practiced motions, preserving the pelt, separating lean muscle for breakfast. The prospect of skillet-crisped meat stirred her stomach into eager knots.

At the thought, Fi’s knuckles tightened on the knife. There was another problem added to an already abysmal list. Even if Antal didn’t need to eat as often as a human, over a week had passed since the last meal she knew of.

“Hey, Antlers.”

He stiffened. A palpable moment stretched before he faced her, the tilt of his head so dramatically slow, it verged on comedy.

“My name is Antal .”

“I like mine better.”

“That doesn’t—”

“Do you want breakfast?” Fi held up a hare, the plumper of the two. So kind of her.

Antal’s nose wrinkled. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m concerned about, actually.” She set the hare down then wiped her hands on a rag with authoritative swipes. “If you’re going to hang around here? I need to know you won’t pick off any villagers. Or, you know, me , while I’m sleeping.”

He huffed. “You think it would be while you’re sleeping?”

Look at him, being funny . Fi wasn’t amused. “How long can you last?”

He considered, a tight flick to his tail that left her uneasy. “I could go a month without food before… unpleasant consequences. Shorter, if I must make large energy expenditures.”

They both fell grim, reliving their bout with Tyvo, the heinous condition Antal had returned in. Even Fi felt that heightened pang of hunger this morning, her body seeking to replenish the energy she’d spent fighting a daeyari and healing her wounds.

“I can last a little longer,” Antal said. “Regardless. A meager rabbit won’t help.”

“If you say so, Antlers. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Setting aside the past several days of bad to worse to unfathomably atrocious, Fi enjoyed his gritted teeth at the name.

Maybe she was playing with fire. But Antal betrayed a crucial hand during yesterday’s escape, revealing he cared at least a little about keeping her alive.

She bored into weakness like a weevil took to rotten wood.

Anything to convince Fi she wasn’t doomed already. That inviting this daeyari into her home a second time hadn’t tightened a snare on her neck.

“Careful, mortal.” Antal spoke low, serrated. “I can imagine plenty of uses for your bones.”

“Oh, please. Bone threats? Give it a rest.”

“You think I’m bluffing ?”

He prowled closer. Fi had noted the daeyari’s silent footfalls enough times, she recognized the clack of claws against floorboards as an intimidation tactic.

Should she fall quiet at the threat? Slink away like a defenseless hare?

Antal was the strongest ally she had, her best chance of saving Nyskya. She couldn’t afford to lose his favor.

But he’d only ever suffered her when she stood her ground.

“You know, when I was growing up”—Fi pushed away from the counter, closing the distance between them—“we had a pet cat. Matted gray fur, one milky eye from a fight with a raccoon. Hideous bastard. The meanest temper you’ve ever seen.

Every month, we had to douse that little monster for fleas, and he’d spit and hiss and claw.

But the moment you pinned him down? He flopped over like a wet rag. All noise. No action.”

Antal’s eyes simmered crimson. Less than a stride between them now, ozone sharp in her nose, but Fi couldn’t back down. Those were the rules of this game.

“That’s you,” she said. “You’re the cat.”

“You press your luck, Fionamara. My claws do more damage than a house cat.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” Not since seeing him caked in blood in her tub. Not since he’d fought Tyvo for her. Why save her life, just to cut her open the next day?

“Then why is your heart beating so fast?”

That one, Fi wasn’t ready for. The thunder in her ears should have been her little secret. Could Antal hear it? Smell it? Didn’t matter. She’d made too much progress to slip back.