Page 25 of Creatures that Breathe

Our mouths are inches apart. I can’t help but smile. “You might be too perfect for this, you know. This plan might be too good.” I laugh a little, near giddy. “Should we discuss your favor now?”

“What is—”

Suddenly he crumbles forward, lurching into me. I barely catch him, swaying under his solid weight, shoes sliding over ice.

“Stop,” he hisses at me, half limp, forehead digging into my shoulder.

“Stop what?”

“Stop ... this,” he rasps.

Stop holding him? Yeah right. I’ll be crushed. “Did you stab yourself?” I ask. “Never sway with knives. It’s an accident waiting to happen.” I struggle to push him upright, let go—

He spins us, the tip of his boot knocking my ankles together, throwing me into a wet stone wall. His knee catches my thigh, and we both swear. Broad hands grasp my shoulders.

Cross is panting, muttering something quiet and low, but I can’t focus on anything but the dagger tip he has aimed at my throat.

Bumbling, little bird! Yaya’s voice invades me. If you fly too close to the sun, you will burn.

“Not now,” Cross mutters, voice strained. “Stop!”

“I ... I didn’t say anything.”

“Stop,” he rasps again, voice like jagged glass, elbows slumping to the wall, body buckling against mine.

Before I’m flattened, he throws us around the corner, his shoulder slamming down viciously. His mouth presses against my hair and a rusty curse rips from his throat, followed by, “Stop, please.”

I actually look over my shoulder this time. Like there might be a guy in tights playing the lyre. Nope. “I couldn’t be saying less!”

“Don’t talk,” he snarls. “Fuck.”

My legs are giving out under him. These boots are not meant for ice, cobblestone, or the almost-dead weight of an immortal assassin.

As gently as I can, I guide him to sit, back pressed on the wall. Compressing my coat, I fold down onto the road at his bent knees. He’s vibrating, eyes squeezed closed.

“What’s happening?” I ask quietly.

He opens his eyes, flashing twin dying black stars. “I can’t ... control it.”

Control what? I reach out tentatively, my fingers brushing against his sleeve to comfort him. But instead of leaning into my touch, he grabs me, grip firm, unyielding, eyes locking onto mine with a fierce intensity.

Raw power slithers beneath his control, shimmying through cracks to lick sparks at my skin. It’s ancient and primal. Insidious.

“Are you dying?” I ask, feeling like I’m eight again, alone and helpless. “I really need you to live, alright?”

The spymaster remains silent, convulsing and jolting as if invisible claws are raking across his body. The wound around his eye has barely sutured together, so unlike an immortal’s expected healing.

Panic makes me desperate. And dumb.

I shake him. Hard. “You can’t survive this long and die here with me, got that? You defeated the Keres. You fought in the Apollo Wars, Lycaons tell scary campfire stories about you. You do not die in a dirty, wet alley. Get. It. Together.”

His shaky hand grasps my shoulder, firm and urgent. “I need you ...” he rasps, voice strained with pain. My heart twists. “To not touch me right now.”

He shoves me and I fall backward onto the street.

“Shit! Shit. I’m—” He groans, doubling over and clutching his head as if trying to contain an explosion. His body bends as he fights whatever storm consumes him from the inside out.

It’s hours before he inhales deep enough to call it a breath instead of a gasp.

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