Page 58 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Antal’s gait was glass, gliding over the frozen shale of the Shard, beneath gossamer leaves.

Yet there was always a command to him, steady as the Void.

What an odd shift, from once fearing the thought of this daeyari knowing where she lived, to him now leading her back home.

Back to her bed. That would make a smoldering end to a story. Or a tragic one.

“Do you know any daeyari folktales?” Fi asked.

He cocked his head. “The kind my people tell? Or yours?”

“The kind my father told a misbehaving little girl to stop her wandering into the forest.”

A grin. “Did it work?”

“Not very well.” Fi had always been a difficult creature to wrangle. “There was one about a woman, collecting flowers in the woods. She wandered too far. Became lost. In the cold, she stumbled upon a house of stone and tree roots, home to a creature with antlers.”

Antal listened with a tight line to his brow. Were daeyari the villains in their own folktales? Or was it a human convention, born out of millennia as prey?

“The daeyari offered gifts,” Fi continued.

“She asked for better clothes, and he spun her a dress of moonbeams. She asked for warmth, and he summoned music for her to dance. She asked for food, and he laid out a feast. But he didn’t touch any himself.

After eating her fill, the woman asked the beast how she could show her thanks.

He said he’d have her. Then he feasted.”

At the tale’s conclusion, Antal huffed. “Blunt. Is this common in your stories?”

“It’s a story with a moral: always ask the terms of a deal beforehand. Most stories end with the daeyari eating the foolish human.”

“That seems uncharitable.”

Perhaps it was. Or perhaps there was reason to keep one’s heart guarded. Fi, arm locked with a predator, kept her tone mild.

“What do you suppose the daeyari sees in the lost mortal wandering his forest? A curiosity? A plaything?”

Antal’s arm tightened, a low chuckle in his chest. “To call you curious would be an understatement, Fionamara.”

“And what spares her from his teeth?”

They stepped through a second Curtain, back onto the Winter Plane. Familiar shiverpines screened the night, a whisper of wind through needles, a glimpse of Fi’s cottage ahead.

Antal slipped her out of his elbow. “You asked me a question last night. Do you remember?”

He tugged her along, grip light on her fingers. Fi followed the tether.

“I asked several things,” she said. “Not all of which you gave me.”

“You wanted to know how many mortals I’ve bedded. The answer is: very few. Some daeyari enjoy playing with panicked prey, but I’ve never found that to my taste. I only dance with those who can hold their ground.”

In a step, they were doing just that—dancing. His leading hand found hers, his arm around her waist to guide her home. Fi fell into his tempo but kept her own strides, bold as she’d always been. Bold as he wanted her to be.

“I ran away from you,” she pointed out. “When we first met. I fled like a startled hare.”

He flashed a sharp grin. “Not your smartest move. But understandable. You found your feet quickly.” He slowed, dipping to brush his mouth across her jaw. “Perhaps I do find you a curiosity. Is that such a bad thing?”

“That depends on how the story ends.”

“How would you like it to? A dress made of moonbeams? A spin beneath the Void?” He sent her out, a slow twirl across the clearing.

Then back into his arms. “Yet how odd, you assume all your folktales of devoured mortals end in death? There are other ways to enjoy flesh, Fionamara. Types of devouring that don’t work well as cautionary tales for misbehaving girls. ”

There could be truth to that. Certainly, Fi wasn’t the first human to risk this plunge. Once again, she asked herself whether it was lust, or foolishness.

Or simply that she trusted him.

They reached her porch. Fi pulled away, backing up the steps to her door.

“Now you have me at a disadvantage,” she said. “I’ve only had one immortal.”

Antal followed, claws soft on the boards, eyes glowing. “How was it?”

“Satisfactory.”

He pressed a hand to his chest, a theatrical reel at her blow. “You call my kind beasts. Yet you never miss the chance for a bite.”

He made the taunts too tempting. Too addicting.

Yet tonight felt different, something settled between them, not the spur of the moment spark that had drawn them together before. Fi’s back bumped her door. As her fingers closed on the handle, she stood up straight, needing every shred of pride to deliver what he deserved.

Honesty.

“You’re intoxicating,” she whispered. “You make me feel desperate, but not like that fleeing hare. Like I’m scenting fresh air. Like I have claws. Like I could topple head-first into the Void just to bask in the abyss. Every second is vicious, and soft, and I never want to be anything else.”

Fi wished she could bottle Antal’s reaction, measure out every minutia of stunned silence as he hung at the edge of her porch. She tipped the door open.

“Fair beast,” she said, “would you care to come in from the cold?”

Antal swept her inside like a gale. Darkness wrapped them, the only light a trickle of moonbeams and aurora through the windows. The ember glow of his eyes. Claws brushed her hair as he pulled her into him, an eager rise to her breath, a desperate hitch to his.

“You’re fire in my hands.” He kissed her.

“Unyielding.” Another, teeth hungry on her lips, ozone sparking her tongue.

“I can’t seem to get my fill of crashing against you, just to see how you’ll surprise me next.

Yet that’s not when you’re most dangerous.

When you soften for me, when you trust me here against you. I don’t feel like I have claws.”

Fi swallowed fire in her throat. “Claws aren’t such a bad thing. The way you use them.”

Void save her, maybe she was the witless maiden from a story, lured to the predator’s teeth not by moonspun dresses but velvet words.

But this felt different. In Antal’s arms, they were two hunters tossed into a cage, pacing the grounds, each testing the sharpness of the other’s fangs. Until they finally came together.

Antal pulled her hips to his, tail wrapping her calf in a possessive arc. “You have hunger in your eyes, mortal. What would you ask of me?”

Fi wanted to melt for him. The fight was a sliver more thrilling.

“A dangerous proposal,” she returned. “When I’ve just shared a cautionary tale about asking favors from daeyari?”

“Perhaps we can negotiate.”

“Is this a matter of negotiation?” She ran her hands up his chest, fingers carving canyons into soft fabric and hard muscle. “Or passion?”

“One can be a play on the other.” His breath brushed her ear, a nip of fangs against her chin. “I think you’ll find my request… attractive.”

“That being?”

“Stubborn woman. I want to know how loud I can make you scream.”

Oh. Was that all?

Each time he stole her breath was a defeat. Fi would take the loss a thousand times if it meant this fire through her veins, this snare of his mouth as he drew her into a fiercer kiss.

“You want to hear me scream?” she warred. “You’ll have to earn it.”

He hummed a sound of delight. Of anticipation. “You enjoy giving orders. Tell me what to do to you.”

Fi needed no pause to think. She’d weighed this moment a dozen times.

“Bite me.”

He hesitated. Delicious. Fi devoured the sweep of his eyes, Antal trying to read what she wanted. She’d never loved victory and defeat so much in equal measure.

“How?” he asked.

“Like you did before.”

He dipped his head, a questioning brush of teeth along her neck.

“Yes,” Fi rasped, heart hammering her throat. Pulse quick beneath his lips.

At the first press of fangs, she gasped. He moved too soft, caressing nips along her neck. Playing gentle? Fi was no fragile thing. She clawed fingers into his shirt, pulling herself into the heat of his mouth.

“You can do better than that,” she said. She begged .

At her urging, he fiercened: fingers dragging knots in her hair, a clamp of teeth on her neck. With it, a spike of adrenaline that threatened to buckle her legs. The ache was everything she’d wanted, that pleased growl in Antal’s throat, the growing hardness where his hips pressed hers.

He pushed her onto the bed. Antal’s claws ran the curves of Fi’s ribs, a knee slipped between her legs. She pressed against him with a moan.

“Oysen yzri,” she pleaded, the strange syllables delicious on her tongue. “Fuck me.”

A delighted grin curled Antal’s lips.

“Yzi ex oysi yzu,” he purred against her. “Va yzu na sansu.”

Void. Let him talk like this more often. Even without translation, the words tumbled like music through Fi’s chest.

Deft claws removed her sweater. Next, the lacy bra she’d tempted him with earlier. Fi shuddered as warm palms brushed down her waist. In the dim light, she could barely make out the silhouette above her, yet of course he could see every detail.

His rough tongue traced the line of her collarbone. Down her chest. Around the curve of a breast. Too soft.

“Harder,” Fi urged.

The clamp of teeth to such a tender place made her writhe. One brush into pain, a jolt that sent her arcing against him. She cried out and dug fingers through his hair, bracing against the base of his antlers. A lighter moan, as he swept his tongue over her tender nipple.

Again, Antal paused. He weighed her beneath him with devouring eyes, arms caging her head, tail swaying like a cat eager to pounce.

“Fionamara. Should I fuck you like a human? Or like a daeyari?”

Fi’s lust-dizzied thoughts weren’t coherent enough to dissect what that meant right away. She dug back to a conversation they’d had weeks ago, a tense walk through the woods when they’d barely known one another.

Daeyari don’t fall easily onto our backs , Antal had told her. We fight, to see who will end up on top . Fi’s breath was a shiver of anticipation.

“You’ll win,” she complained.

“Most likely,” Antal returned with a grin.

Let him have her. This daeyari was as dangerous as all the stories said, just in no way Fi was prepared for. In no way she wanted to avoid. An abyss to tumble into.

She wouldn’t go down easily.

Fi gripped both his antlers and heaved. It took all her strength to roll him, a flail of tail and lean muscle, claws seeking purchase against the furs of her bed.

Even once she sat atop him, thighs straddling his waist, aware of every tense muscle and harder anatomy between her legs, Antal looked up at her with an insulting smirk.

“A spirited start,” he praised. “Though lacking finesse.”

“Are you offering to teach me?”

A mistake.

He gripped her bare waist and twisted. Fi braced a knee, fighting to hold her high ground, but he pinned her on her back. Her legs kicked futilely against the furs, Antal’s mouth a blaze as he dragged commanding nips down her neck.

She realized too late, this wasn’t a contest of strength. And Antal fought dirty.

As Fi wriggled free of his grasp, he ran his hands down the length of her, fingers prickling with energy, not missing an inch of tender stomach or hip.

As she tore off his shirt, he pressed her down into the bed, the bare skin of his chest hot and flush against hers.

She nearly managed to top him again—only for the beast to rear beneath her, a nip to her breast that sent her sinking back to the sheets with a moan.

His hands like vices. His mouth like a weapon.

The hazard wasn’t fighting him. It was fighting herself from giving in.

Fi loved it. She loved the rasp of Antal’s breath, the fervor of their tangled limbs.

His fangs clamped the soft curve of her waist. Hard . Fi shrieked at the pain.

Antal jerked back immediately. He looked her over with wide, worried eyes, breaths heavy.

After her surprise abated, Fi laughed at this creature, so soft beneath his facade of claws.

She seized the distraction, launching herself into a snarling tackle.

He fought, but she held him down, thighs pinning his hips, hands tight on his antlers.

“Don’t worry about me,” she goaded. “I’ll take whatever you can throw at me, daeyari.”

She’d thought his eyes were molten before.

Fi cried out as he pitched her, a traitorous gasp as he pulled down her pants—as he ran his tongue between her legs, that slow and covetous motion that had nearly ruined her earlier.

Nearly ruined her now. As he sucked every slick and needy piece of her, a desperate sound escaped her lips, aching to concede.

She rallied for one last push. Fi twisted her hip free of his wicked mouth, seeking to snare a leg around him.

He pounced too quickly, pinning her arms above her head. Antal hovered over her, both their breaths greedy, a finality to their game.

A burning question in his eyes.

“ Yes ,” Fi gasped.

She nearly perished in the seconds he took to remove his trousers. When his hard cock brushed her thigh, Fi tipped impatient hips up to take him, to sate the anguish aching between her legs.

His thrust sent her falling.

Fi arced off the bed, desperate to feel all of him as he sank into her. They came together as wrought iron. Muscles tensed and her fingers carving the unyielding slopes of his shoulders.

As he moved, she softened. She melted into the clasp of his arms, breath falling to shallower pants with each thrust. This seemed to be what he wanted, a growl rumbling his chest as he buried fingers into her hair, wound a hand beneath her back to angle her against him.

This wasn’t like last time. That desperate, quick thing that had flared between them.

Not that Fi wasn’t desperate now. But she wanted to feel him, to revel in each stroke he carved inside her, even as she longed for the finish. She surrendered with legs wrapped around his waist, climbing to a peak that had her clawing his back.

He bit down on her throat, pinning her to the bed as he pushed her over the edge.

Fi did scream. Their pact satisfied.

Again , when he refused to yield, working her to a second climax that left her throat raw, every muscle hot and spent and shattering as he held her.

Yet even as the waves of her pleasure ebbed, even as Antal finished inside her with a shuddering thrust of his own, claws snared into her sheets and a fractured exhale shaped like her name, he didn’t pull away like before.

Neither did Fi. Swathed in sweat and moonbeams, their breaths a warring tempo in the aftermath, she held him to her in the warmth of her bed.

Unwilling to let go.