Page 8 of Creatures that Breathe

He’s not going to harm me.

He’s not even close to me. Neither towering nor looming. And air, more air than I’ve had in years, is bubbling in my blood, giving me heady, rapturous thoughts. New shimmering ideas that have little to do with survival.

I didn’t know mortals could be handsome. Symmetrical. Regal.

The spymaster is imposing and reserved, and the husky tenor of his voice is like soft sand dusting my skin. Had I ever had the option, if there was ever no risk, and I got to choose a male on my own terms, I might ask him what he was doing for the next century.

I clip the thought there, before it takes root. “You’re more likely to hurt me than I am you.”

His face is stone, but his gaze peels up from my toes, to my tangled necklaces to the teal split ends curled messily at my temples. “If you’re as kind as you claim, share what you know as a gesture of peace.”

“I’d love to.”

The knot in his throat pulses beneath the circle of ink on his skin. It’s gruesome. The stabbing lines, the drenched coat of black.

I mean to check on Lev’s, to see if his is as punishing, wondering why I didn’t fixate the same, but he’s gone.

Hazily, I think he left when I mentioned their tails. Which means we’re alone.

A second bulb fizzles in the strand above our heads, trapping us in shadow.

“Ah. I see. You’d love to. But you won’t.” Humor edges his reply as if disappointment is what he’s prepared for, what he is comfortable with.

“I will,” I correct. “For a price. I’ll blab all about the vicious males chasing you, but first, I require a favor.”

He purses his lips, the only color on him anywhere, tugged and ripped to the surface. “No.”

No? “You have to.”

“Do I? Who’s going to force me? You?” His you floats in a silky laugh that scatters a tingling sensation across my ribs.

“No, I … “ I swallow. Gather myself. “They’re going to kill you. Highly trained soldiers. Dozens. You need my help.”

The right side of his mouth lifts slightly. “Dozens,” he echoes, and I curse myself for letting it slip. “Do you think that will be enough to quell the blood-thirst of Mikhailov? Or will he return here hungry for more when he’s finished and start in on you?”

“He won’t find them.”

The spymaster cants his head to deepen his study of me. “Either a dozen soldiers are chasing us, and he’ll rip out their hearts or you’re lying, and I’ll take yours.”

I smile at him, feeling oddly in control despite the uptick in threats. “He won’t find them because they don’t want him. They’re following you.”

He double blinks. “Impossible.”

“Evidently not, since I did it.” Is this what it feels like to be smug? I grin.

A muscle jumps in the spymaster’s jaw. “You.” He doesn’t mask the threat in his expression as he leans closer to me. “You split us up.”

“Did I?”

A cold, humorless laugh. “It’s a shame your boss will never know how well you executed his orders.”

Now that’s just rude. “One, I don’t obey commands, especially not from males. Two, you separated yourselves because you didn’t think I posed any sort of threat. And three, I come up with terrific plans all the time and they’re all winners.”

“You said you wished me no harm,” he reminds me, stepping closer. “Now you claim you’re a threat. Which is it?” He steps closer still. My heart thumps as heat leaks from him into me, sticky and wonderful. “I know which I believe. There’s nobody following us, is there?”

I ignore the press of his boot between my feet, the clean smell of his skin, and jut my chin upward to meet his gaze, refusing to appear intimidated. “Just because I won’t hurt you doesn’t mean I’m not a threat.”

We fall into silence like that. His body hovers over mine and I picture an image of us in one of Darwin’s species analysis books. Title: Predator and Prey. Caption: Cornering and trapping is second nature for the strong, a natural demonstration of ability. Footnote: Such effective cornering may spark prey to lie through their teeth.

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