Page 118 of Sunsplitter

Fi took as much as he’d give.

Void, she still loved this fickle creature. She still wanted to be here with him. That was the reason she was so angry.

Now, with her body bared raw, her heart had no bristles to hide behind. A deeper dread surfaced, the bone-aching fear she’d not yet put to words, buried beneath her previous shouts.

“You said you wanted me,” Fi gasped between groans. “You said—” A pause to brace her trembling knees. “You said you’dmarryme.” Her heart raced at the tension building between her legs, twisted at the thought of Antal dressed in his daeyari finery, the reverence in his eyes as they spoke their vows— “But how could I ever marry someone who doesn’t trust me?”

Antal jerked to a halt.

Still holding her down. Still buried inside her. Fi fought a swift moment of panic as… no, certainly she hadn’t cockblocked herself a second time in one day.

Then, a hard thrust left her shrieking.

Antal returned to work with dizzying earnestness. “And howcould I marry someone who keeps putting her life in pointless danger?”

“You think helping you is pointless? I’m trying to be the partner you deserve.”

Her words fractured. Her heart, spilled out on their bed.

There was so much of him. Not enough.

“More,” Fi demanded.

“Greedy woman.” He didn’t sound like he minded.

His tail unwound from her wrists. Fi clawed her hands into the sheets, shuddering as the slick coil moved between her legs. The wide, blunt tip teased her other entrance, a question.

Her plea of “yes” fell out in a whimper, hips tilted to take all of him.

She cried out as he sank a second length into her.

The world was fog. Fi, incoherent. Just fullness and heat and her limbs like putty.

“I want… to be here… with you,” she panted.

Antal’s thrusts pushed hard. His tail twisted soft. Fi wascombusting.

“You have to trust me, Antal. You have to…”

She argued until she couldn’t speak. Until there were no more words to say, and her need for him took over. Fi called out his name. Begged for the release they both craved.

When she came, it was oblivion. All the world melting away. Only the feeling of him inside her, moving to her every command. Faster. Harder. Still not enough.

“More,” she pleaded, even as her first wave was still ebbing.

He gave her more, until Fi was spent and wretched, fingers aching against the bedsheets. And for all his faults, all his shitty decisions, she still trusted her heart with him here. She still preened a final time when he finished inside her, claws digging into her waist, his snarl claiming victory and defeat.

They fell to the sheets together.

Tangled together.

Still better together.

Fi couldn’t say how long they lay there. Long enough for her breaths to turn less haggard. Long enough for the world to creep back in slow clarity. She’d been so furious. So simmering.

Now, her muscles were spent. Soft aches bloomed at her scalp, at her hip where Antal had gripped her, in deeper places where she may have pushed too hard. Sweat cooled on bare skin, and she felt… cold. All the fight spent. A different feeling remained, something cracked and exposed.

Antal was the first to move.