Page 88 of Vilest Things
“I’m glad you’ve realized.” Calla’s breath catches when his finger moves toher lower lip. She recovers, says, “You know what you’re getting into. You know who I am.”
“I know.”
Her tongue takes him easily when he slides his finger into her mouth. A shiver seizes his spine, and though the room is getting colder, colder, he has never been warmer in any body. Every inch of his skin is ablaze.
He’s tired of fighting her. No matter the warning signs that scream he is to be electrocuted if he grabs the live wire, he’s willing to embrace his hubris in the belief that he will be different, that intent alone is enough to alter his course from every other mortal that has dared ask for too much. Anton breathes out, setting his forehead into the crook of Calla’s neck, and he’s safe in that moment, spitting at the feet of the gods. He pushes Calla onto her back and presses her arms over her head, and when she lets him, when she’s compliant and amenable, he signs away any chance of emerging from this unmarked.
“Don’t forget,” Calla says, so softly that Anton strains to hear her. “We leave before dawn.”
He almost laughs. “Are you trying to say you need rest?”
Calla frowns. Her hips shift, and Anton barely stops himself from wheezing aloud. One of her hands slinks free, traces down his stomach, along his waistband.
“Calla.”
“Yes?” Her tone lilts. It’s not a true call for response, not any request for further clarification. There’s one demand:Say it back.
“Yes. You—”
Whatever he intended his next words to be, they are lost to an inhale when she tugs on his zipper.
“No lock on the door,” she whispers into his ear. “If you’re going to kill me, make it quiet and hide the body before the tavern calls the soldiers.”
“I’ll make it plenty quiet.” His cock is so hard that it borders on the point ofpain. Calla is doing it on purpose, her hand drawing out each second lowering the zip. He only bears it halfway before he releases her other arm to do it himself. “But I don’t promise quick.”
“A shame.” She turns her gaze to the door, appearing to ignore him while he tugs her pants down and leaves them around her knees. “We’re going to get caught, and I’ve hardly known you like this—”
He slides in. Their gasps merge, Calla’s eyes snapping back to him, the guise of coyness flaring into hunger.
“Don’t worry.” She smells like flawless metal. Feels like a weapon made of flesh and blood under his hands, something that will call him to battle over and over until it has his life in sacrifice. “You’ll know me plenty well by the end of this.”
His mouth lands on everything it can, her mouth, her neck, her chest. There’s something about the act that relieves him of these last few days in stillness, these last few days spent waiting for something to strike during their silent journey. She strengthens him as a preliminary battle drill would, marking out the offensive capabilities between them. He can feel Calla winding up when her legs fight to straighten beneath him, and Anton smooths his hands along her hair, holds her in place when she moans into his mouth and seizes up for a long while.
“There we are,” he whispers.
She exhales. Arches against him, her fingers gripping into his arms on either side.
“Though you may think otherwise,” she mumbles, “you are my anchor in this world. I’m sorry I tossed you adrift. I thought I was burying us instead.”
The words do something odd to him. Anton breathes in, his face nudged against hers, and when he finishes, he can feel the whole world pulsating as a possibility between them, the kingdom and the wide seas beyond.
“You have me now,” he says plainly.
CHAPTER 31
An hour before sunrise, when they are set to leave, Actia Province is still cold as shit.
“This is unnatural,” Calla says between her chattering teeth. Her fingers are stiff without gloves. The moment her boots touch the ground, she shoves her hands into her pockets.
Anton lands with a grunt. Rather than risk being spotted, they’re leaving their room through the second-floor window, and he’s made the climb out from the tavern with slightly less grace.
“I don’t suppose we have time to steal coats before we go.”
Calla doubts the villagers in Actia will own coats that are sufficient, anyhow—and if they did, she’s certainly not going to take them. It’s not quite the same as swiping a roasted taro.
“We’ll warm up en route,” she says. The sky hovers before them in that black-muddled gray, both affronted by and resistant to the day that is to come. As far as Calla is aware, there has been no talk of an overnight massacre. No attacks have come of the sudden cold, not like in Rincun.
“What are you thinking about?”
