Page 24 of Creatures that Breathe

A dagger. Clutched in his—

No. Daggers. Two. One in each hand.

“Wishing you were somewhere else?” he asks at last. His expression promises bloody retribution and a tortuous death.

“Every minute of every day.” Especially now. “Doubly so when it’s hailing, and a male is bleeding out right in front of me.” I look at my boots. “That was a pretty intense fight.”

“Is that why you drew me here?” he asks coolly. “There are much more fulfilling ways I can provide you with a thrill.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think ...” That you wouldn’t fight, that you had honor, that you’d wait until retaliation was necessary to strike. “This night has been in motion for far longer than you would believe. I had to know if you were ready.”

“Yes. Your fantastic plan.” Bright scarlet red leaks from a cut under his eye, mixing with the rain sliding off on his nose. “If you want to kill me, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

He sounds tired.

“I don’t want anyone dead.” It’s the one truth I’m proud of and it makes me confident, propels me closer to him, into his warmth and shadows. “That’s why I’m here, don’t you get it? So no one has to die. I ...”

“You?” Cross drawls.

“Wait.” I separate my soaked bangs and drooping lashes with a swipe.

Frigid water licks into my mouth, tasting like snow and ash. The dreadful medley of bitter cold rain and soggy ice pelts my skin, stinging and draining into the gaps of my clothing. I’m shuddering, pressed together, tucked tight, a mess of wet and cold and tired.

And he’s ... not.

Long legs stretched in front of him, Cross leans against the wall as he rotates a knife in his grip with disturbing ease. Blood spills from a split bottom lip, a crimson streak under the dimly flickering streetlamps and surrounding fog.

He nearly killed a male, but all I can think as I watch him, black and blue fanning out across his cheek, mottling his eye, is how hot his skin must be for wispy tendrils of steam to rise from his shoulders.

“Should I keep waiting, or have you taken your fill?”

I refuse to check if he’s smiling. “Where’d you get the knives? You didn’t have those before.”

“Didn’t I?” He shrugs, ever casual. “You don’t think I’d allow a creature anywhere near me if I was unarmed? Especially one as ...” He clocks my wet trembling fingers, the water streaming off my nose. “... threatening as you?”

My kind are not fighters, but the sarcasm still shreds.

I jam my hands into my pockets. “You had daggers all this time? Even in the ring? Even when I told you to run, when he hit you first, when you fell, when—”

“Even then.”

The air stills in my lungs. My heart hammers. He’s had weapons all night and never once reached for them.

Sweet Hera, Queen of Gods.

Without real intention, I close the distance between us, moth to twinkling flame.

His entire body goes taut, the gray in his eyes steels, and his boots cinch with a militia-like tut.

The sharp inhale of his breath is unmistakable. Fear. Razor thin, not nearly as afraid as when I cornered him in the tent, but there.

I should probably stop cornering him, stop barging into a killer’s personal space, but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, like the feeling of a male capable of destroying you watching you with a glint of terror in his eyes.

I tilt my face up until raindrops pool in the seam of my mouth, a riot of sensations blitzing through me.

We are so so close, and he smells like blood and rain, and I’m not at all scared. It’s exhilarating. “Is this what you feel like all the time?”

He still hasn’t breathed. “Never.”

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