Page 80 of Voidwalker (Beasts of the Void #1)

Say it like you mean it

Without them, the room was too quiet.

The firepit hissed with energy, red veins dim like embers through the logs. Here came an ending to so many things. Unknown beginnings.

If Boden were here, he’d tell Fi beginnings were what made everything worth it, even if hers looked different without him.

Without Astrid. But this wasn’t her first attempt at starting fresh.

Last time was a flight of fear, hiding and scavenging and hoping her past wouldn’t catch up to her.

This time, her past lay bloody on the floor.

Once the Beast’s footsteps receded, Antal paced Verne’s body, inspecting every angle with a grim set to his jaw.

“She’s dead.” A trite observation, but Fi needed to say it out loud. “She’ll come back?”

Antal grumbled, “Only pieces of a daeyari ever come back, whatever survives the Void. It will take time. She might be different, might not even return here. That’s always the gamble.”

The weight in his words, Fi couldn’t fully comprehend. To her, Verne was a vanquished foe. Antal studied the corpse like a calculation, a piece moved on the board a century from now. A lifetime for Fi. An eventuality for him. For the first time since they’d met, she felt small again.

Verne was dead. Antal’s territory, his to reclaim. Suddenly, a more cavernous question opened before Fi, too daunting to glance at before now, a tightening of that old fight or flight instinct in her chest: where did she go from here?

“What will happen to Verne’s territory?” Fi asked.

“A new daeyari will need to be nominated. Approved by the Daey Celva and all neighbors.” He rubbed his temple. “There will be many politics to play in the coming weeks.”

“But you’ll return to Thomaskweld?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll do better this time? That was the deal, daeyari.”

Antal’s head tilted as he caught the edge to her tone. Lidded eyes swept over Fi’s crossed arms, her bristled stance, appraising her with a hunter’s wariness. His tail flicked.

“Are you not coming with me?” he said lowly.

“Am I?”

She’d never asked.

They’d entered this ring as a pair of panthers with hackles raised, teeth bared.

How swiftly fangs turned to fondness. Antal had stood at Fi’s side while she’d conquered her demons.

He’d bowed to her forgiving Astrid. Had helped Fi forgive herself.

He’d opened himself raw, gifting her more power than she’d ever thought to wield, enticing her to tumble into his arms.

But she’d never asked what came after. They’d been forced partners for this dance, had learned the steps and each other’s tells. Now the song ended. They could part ways, leave these past weeks as a fond melody.

Or a new song could start.

Antal circled Fi on phantom footfalls. She recognized those cautious steps they’d spun at the beginning, now a honed routine. They better knew the length of each other’s teeth. They knew the soft and vulnerable places. But this didn’t taste of their game of bluffs.

This was a negotiation.

“I won’t force you to come,” Antal said. “But I extend an invitation. Come back with me to Thomaskweld.”

“To what end?”

“To help me make this transition. There’s much work to be done.” His tail brushed her leg. “And I’m overdue for an Arbiter.”

Fi’s inhale hissed against her teeth. Her back went steel straight.

“No,” she said.

Antal scowled. “No?”

He paused too close, ozone rich in her nose and tail hooked behind her knee, proximity wielded as a weapon. Fi ceded no ground.

“I won’t be your Arbiter. I’m no servant of a daeyari, no tool to be wielded.”

Antal’s fiercest weapons weren’t his claws. Not his teeth. It was that spark in his eyes when Fi breathed fire at him. That devious twist of lips from scowl to smirk. He closed the distance between them, his next barter the brush of a knuckle along her jaw. His words, a purr.

“Will you return with me as Fionamara, then?”

A better offer. Fi was still dealing with an immortal, one who knew how to flutter her pulse. She weighed her terms.

“To what end?” she asked again.

He tipped her chin, finger nestling in the hollow beneath. “To help recover my territory. Help me make the decisions we agreed to.” He leaned closer, breath warm on her cheek. “To share my bed, if you will it.”

His mouth dangled close, a lure, inviting Fi to take what she wanted. She leaned into him. That firm chest. Those lean muscles fit to pin her down and make her shout ridiculous things into the night. She clutched the remnants of his shirt, pulling him close enough for lips to brush.

But when Antal tilted to claim her, she hovered out of reach.

“My bed is more comfortable,” she challenged.

He huffed his fluster, hot against her mouth. His veiled eyes were a study in indifference, but Fi wound tight enough against him, she felt the tension in his posture.

“You’ve only been in my bed once,” he said. “I can’t help but feel you weren’t properly acquainted.”

“You’ve only been in my bed once,” she countered.

“Perhaps we can alternate. A compromise.”

A daeyari willing to compromise? There was a fine start. But not enough.

Because Fi wanted this. She wanted more than the cottage in the woods where she’d hidden for seven years. She wanted to fix her world rather than flee from it. She wanted Antal’s scorching stares and the way he made her feel like she could hold her head as tall as an immortal.

She wanted him .

This type of want, though, was a desperate thing, too dangerous to leave any detail assumed. Antal’s circling words and formal terms weren’t enough.

Fi’s fingers clawed his collar. “Say it. No flowery language, daeyari. Say it .”

She measured the shortness of his breath. His arm tightening at her waist. “Say what?”

“Say what you mean. Why should I go back with you?”

His frown was a delicious thing, frustration and worry chiseled into the hard lines of his brow. Then came the crack. Realization softened him to the lover who’d held her through the dawn, the confidant who’d brushed tears from her cheeks.

He pressed his forehead to hers. “Because I want you to come back with me.”

Exactly what she needed to hear.

“More,” Fi ordered.

“I want you, Fionamara. I want you to be at my side.”

Fi fell into him until no space remained. She twined her fingers behind his neck, ozone mixed with a tang of blood. She didn’t care. She only cared about his arms around her, his heat warming her tired bones, the promise in his words. And yet she’d never undignify herself by sealing a deal so easy.

“I have conditions.”

“I dare say, I’m coming to see how you smugglers operate.” Antal’s tone was forcibly dry. Beneath it, a glint of amusement. “Let’s hear them.”

“I’ll be a thorn in your side,” Fi vowed.

“You think I can’t bear thorns, Fionamara? I haven’t plucked you out yet.”

“I’ll rip you to pieces.”

“Use your tongue half as often as your teeth, and I’ll relish every moment.”

Fi bared those teeth at his smugness, at how fiercely it made her want to kiss him. “Other daeyari will come. They’ll see you as weak, like Verne did.”

“Let them come. And we’ll prove them wrong.” Antal nipped the corner of her mouth, entreating. “Please, Fionamara. Come back with me.”

Bewitching creature. Fi could devour him, every taunt and promise, every time he stoked her heart with that soft grin.

“I’m human.”

She whispered her final caveat, almost too daunting to confess. Could he truly ask her to stand beside him? Not a tool by another name?

Antal cupped her chin, a rapturous look as he met her gaze. “And I shudder at any fool who’d dare doubt such a ferocious beast as you.”

That simple. As if he truly saw her as nothing less for what she was.

Fi dove into the kiss, no hesitation at the plunge, no fear at its depth nor how fiercely Antal’s mouth moved to consume her. He cupped the back of her neck, a rumbling sigh as she caught his lip in her teeth.

She emerged for the space of a breath.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to go back with you.”

Antal pulled her in this time, claws buried in the Void and rainbow curls of her hair, lips bruising.

Every stroke of his mouth was a word of relief.

The slick of his tongue, an acceptance. The claws bracing her ribs, a fire as desperate as the one he stoked in her.

Fi pressed herself into him, hooked fingers between trousers and the hot skin of his waist, but she couldn’t drag herself close enough. An imminent problem.

One that would have to wait.

Outside, footsteps climbed the stairs. Kashvi shouted, voice rough with fatigue.

Fi, breathless for a different reason, cursed and thanked the woman’s doggedness on the same exhale. She pulled away from Antal, not fast enough to avoid a nip to her chin. She bit him back, drawing a growl.

“Stop that,” he warned. “Or I’ll have to steal you away before you can brag to your allies of victory.”

“Our allies,” she reminded him.

“No, Fionamara. This was your doing. I was merely claws at your side.”

Kashvi, Yvette, and Mal burst into the hall with crossbows drawn. Then, wide eyes. The moment was surreal—as if before now, these frenzied few minutes might have been a dream.

Kashvi’s stunned silence, the slow creep of her grin both confirmed this was real.

Verne, dead on the floor. Fi and Antal, standing victorious.

He nodded, urging her to do the honors. She grabbed Verne’s head by the antlers and held it up for all to witness.

“It’s done,” Fi announced with a wicked grin. “And we’re just getting started.”