Page 10 of Sunsplitter

He dragged his canines over her jaw. The tightening fingers in his hair goaded him to bite harder, but Antal was careful never to harm. A narrow line. He nipped her chin, skin soft beneath his fangs.

A question.

Her pulse quickened. The scent of her deepened, heat simmering beneath flushed skin. Fionamara unfastened his shirt buttons with ruthless efficiency. She couldn’t smell what he could, his energy prickling everywhere her knuckles brushed his chest, pulsing hotter than the Void-ether blood in his veins.

“If that role doesn’t suit you,” she said, “we could try another?” She pulled his shirt off, laying his chest bare to the carve of her fingers. “My fierce and handsome Lord Daeyari. How may I please you tonight?”

Fuck. Either one would do.

She bit his jaw, hard. Antal had taught her that daeyari gesture for consent, employed with a relishing hitch to her breath. And his. Yet he was truly undone when she licked her lips, testing the lipstick he’d smeared with his mouth.

She’d be more of a mess once he was finished with her.

Fionamara yelped as he gripped her ankles. Laughed, as he dragged her across the floor.

“What’s this?” she demanded. Always taunting.

Antal thrilled at the bite of it, an anchor amidst a year of doubt. The struggle of reclaiming his territory from Verne. The labor of rebuilding it into something worthy. Months of repairing energy conduits damaged during the coup, and restructuring his government, and coaxing his mortal citizens not to shrink in his presence.

The weight of this latest news that could bring all their progress crumbling down.

Buther. Always her. Smirking, as if even the depthless Void couldn’t daunt her.

“I’m playing the beast,” he said. “Isn’t this how the story would go?”

He pulled her onto the bed, collecting his prize in a nest of hare and aurorabeast fur. Her lashes batted, deceptively innocent.

“Do I make a good damsel?” she asked.

Antal scoffed. “You cuss too much to be a damsel.”

“Fucking right I do.”

He removed her coat—black with crimson cuffs, exquisite colors on her. Beneath it, her sweater was buttery cloth, pulled over her head to bare pale skin, flowers tattooed down her right arm and the tantalizing slope of her hip. Her breasts puddled soft atop her chest.

She tried to kick him again.

Antal caught her leg then flipped her over, peeling off skin-tight pants as she snickered. Her lower back dipped a delicious arc, sloping up to the dimple above her ass. No tail. Such odd creatures.

Antal pulled her up, naked and wriggling, her back pressed to his chest. His hand wrapped her throat, claws pinning tender flesh.

She laughed again. The sound stoked fire beneath his skin, stoked something else lower in his trousers.

“So gentle, Lord Daeyari. Am I meant to be frightened?”

She loved to complain. Not long after their return to Thomaskweld a year ago, she’d heckled him about the challenges of claws in sensitive places.Do daeyari ever file their claws down? How do they manage without functional fingers?As if a daeyari would ever dull their claws, as disgraceful as filing off an antler.

As if fingers were the only tools for the task.

Now, Antal swept the blunt tip of his tail across her collarbone. A brush over peaked breasts. He dragged the full length down her hips, coiling tight around a soft thigh, tugging her legs open. The hitch in Fionamara’s breath nearly undid him on the spot. Her fingers dug into his arms until he felt a dull ache.

Desperate. Just the way he liked her.

His tail slid between her legs, parting her slick center—as precise as any fingers. And much thicker.

When Antal pushed his tail into her, she cried out, all of her taut against him.

Her fingers clawed higher, grasping at his shoulders, his neck. Her energy crackled, wild as a snarling predator, body arching to open herself to him. He pushed his tail deeper, filling her as much as she could take. Fionamara clenched hot around him, a ruinous whimper as he twisted the length inside her.