Page 116 of Sunsplitter

“Idon’t, Fionamara.” He mantled over her. “I don’t value you any less. That doesn’t change what you are.”

“You’re acting like I can’t do anything.”

“And you act like you can doanything. Like you have to be reckless to prove yourself. You’re supposed to know better now.”

The strike pierced her heart. “I’ve always been fine—”

Fi flinched when claws clamped her shoulder, framing a year-old scar: teeth marks, a dent of missing flesh. The reminder of when Verne had bitten her, when Fi had faced her alone.

“This is what happens when I leave you on your own!” Antal’sgrip tightened near to puncturing. When Fi hissed in protest, he splayed claws across her belly, tugging the fresh scars where his father had tried to disembowel her. “Now,this.”

He scraped claws down her hips, yanking her silviamesh lower. Fi surrendered a moan. She bit her lip as the needy sound slipped out of her, back arching into his touch, an ache pooling between her legs that threatened to undo her too soon. She hadn’twonyet.

Everywhere he touched her Void-sewn flesh, the skin buzzed. Like calling to like.

“Then stop leaving me!” she tried to shout, though it rasped to a pant. “When that derived daeyari attacked Nyskya, you brought me with you. When we faced Verne, you let me lead the charge. We were a team.”

“That’s not the same as fighting an aedari. Not the same as fighting myfather.”

Always his father. Always that excuse for every asshole decision, cowardice prioritizing Avroz ahead of her.

“I’ve saved your useless ass as many times as you’ve saved mine!” Fi said.

She grabbed her beast by both antlers, bracing to flip him.

Antal’s claws clamped her hair.

Fi cried out as the strands pulled too tight. He flipped her onto her belly, held her down with claws scraping her scalp. His tail snared one flailing wrist. Then the other, binding both hands against her back. She snarled, cheek pressed against the bed, squirming and kicking at his thighs. Nothing moved him.

Because he wasn’t playing. A panther, subduing a hare.

“You can’t even fightmeoff,” Antal said, too low. The predator she’d once fled from in the woods, who’d chased her down and pinned her to the ground.

A daeyari. And a weak little human. Fi writhed at the insult.

She wasn’t weak. She wasn’tanyhuman. This beast was hers, and she knew how well he could bluff.

“You think I can’t top you from down here?” Fi growled against bedsheets. “You’re sorely mistaken, Antlers.”

She had no fangs. Her fingers clawed useless against the bindings of his tail. So be it. She had other weapons.

Fi hiked up her ass and dragged it against his front. He was desperately hard against her, still confined in pants. She enjoyed a sliver of satisfaction at his hissed inhale. He pushed against her, claws tightening in her hair.

“We’re fighting,” he protested in a rasp.

“Fightharder,” Fi ordered.

Earlier that morning, he’d had her against a wall. Unfinished. An ache, yearning to be satisfied. Fi barred herself from fear, from weakness, from useless prey instincts. She focused on the pressure building in her core. The thrill of claws in her hair. The heady draught of how much he wanted her, a different kind of battle they’d honed.

Antal pulled the silviamesh down her thighs. Still restraining her, he reached around to drag his knuckles over her navel. Not a tease. An unflinching attack, straight down to the most sensitive part of her, thumb pressing hard against her clit. Fi moaned and bucked against his grip, delighted when he didn’t soften.

Fuck, she was so angry at him.Fuck, she wanted him so badly.

“This is how you want to fight?” Antal asked, a low taunt in her ear.

Not a want. She needed this, the shouting and the claws. All this pent-up fury finally breaking free.

“You promised me this morning.” Fi’s words slurred as he stroked her. A carve of knuckles through the slick heat betweenher legs, a palm dragged over her clit. She tilted her hips for more. “You promised… you’d finish me later… before youleft me.”