Page 73 of Immortal Longings
“So easily?” he asks. He twists her wrist; against Calla’s will, the pain triggers a nerve that forces her to release. The dagger clatters to the floor. Just as she raises her other fist to get a hit in, Anton ducks, and the hit is deflected. The metal zip of his jacket scratches Calla’s arm as her fist rushes past, but before she can gear up again, Anton twists his hold on her other wrist until her arm is arched behind her own back. In a blink, he’s slammed her up against the wall, pressed against her to keep her still. The plaster trembles. There’s a nail jutting out from it, probably where the picture frame had been hanging, and as Calla’s head spins, she wonders if she hit her head too hard before and that’s why she can’t get a single thought in order.
“Calla,” he tries, his breath warm against her neck. “Stop this.”
“Why?” she hisses. “It’s only postponing the inevitable.” She kicks out from behind, her boot making enough contact with his leg to buckle him away. The moment there is the slightest give, she whirls around with a backhanded hit, striking his jaw. Before he can recover, she kicks at him again and follows him down—makingsurehe goes down—braced atop him when he lands flat on his back. The floor beneath them is cold. The linoleum tiles of his living room are cluttered with papers and boxes, all of which have skittered in every direction during the fight. As the two of them grow still, the disturbed objects settle to a stop too.
Anton Makusa is vulnerable. Throat exposed, heart facing out.
Now he is hers to take.
Calla heaves for breath. One of her hands is braced on his chest, the other reacquainting with the blade that has landed on the floor. As soon as she has secured the handle, she raises the dagger high, imagining how its arc will come down. She can feel his heart thudding beneath her touch: fear and something else.
“Calla,” Anton says again, desperation creeping into his voice, and Calla wants to tear him apart. Because she has him completely under her mercy, pinned like prey, but all he can do is look up at her like that.
“Don’t even try it,” Calla spits.
“What?” Anton asks. His eyes trace along her face. His pupils have blown so large that Calla can’t see the usual purple that rings his black irises. In an effort to keep him down, she presses upon his hips harshly, and then she canfeelhim, can gauge exactly why his pulse throbs at his throat. “What am I trying?”
Hesitation creeps in, her breath caught in her throat, her pulse hammering an equally overwhelming war song. Then, she swipes everything away with a vicious thought. If she gets rid of him, then she can get rid of her own troubling desire too.
Her hand comes down fast, the blade slicing through the air. The dagger plunges in an inch, threatening toward his heart, before Anton catches her arm, stopping the blade from doing any real damage. With a muttered curse, Anton tears her hand away. She barely has time to wince with pain; he sits up with startling speed, knocking his head against hers and tugging the dagger out from his chest in the same motion. Her world spins, her skull rattling from the hit. That pause is enough for Anton to turn the tables, her blade now in his hand and his knee pinning her down. He’s heaving for breath when he braces his arm beside her. She’s struggling to fill her lungs when he presses the dagger to her throat.
“Is this really what you want, Calla?” he whispers. There’s a hot, steady trickle of blood coming from the wound on his chest. It lands, drop by drop, onto Calla while he hovers over her, marking her skin and staining a pattern onto her clothes. He’s not looking in her eyes anymore. As the window shakes and the whole building shudders from the increasing roar of wind, he’s looking at her mouth. “Do youwantto fight me?”
She doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. But when has that ever mattered?
Anton leans closer, the blade digging in. He’s drawing this out, letting the threat whisper against her neck, letting fate decide when her skin will split open. Is he waiting for a plea? For her to beg for her life? She won’t. If she dies here, she dies proud.
Yet he’s still not making the kill. The room flashes with another strike of lightning. Perhaps the blood loss has stalled his attack. He looks drunk. His hand, solid before, suddenly turns unsteady.
Calla shifts toward the blade, just to test how firm his grip is. It stays pressed to her neck, butAntonflinches.
It’s not the blood loss swaying his hand. It’s her.
“Yes,” she breathes. “I want you dead.”
And she moves again—not to the side, not away from the dagger. She lifts her chin, bringing her head nearer, and kisses him.
The walls around them are roaring with sound, with the staccato of rain. At first, Anton tastes of blood. Then his lips part, and the hint of something sweet hits Calla’s tongue, passing between them in that second that he relaxes. The blade slips away from her throat.
As soon as the blade is gone, Calla pushes him hard. They part abruptly, the dagger clattering to the floor. Anton darts back with a sudden inhale; Calla is fast to rise. In her jacket pocket, she still has a set of chains.
She’s got it around his neck in a flash. The metal crisscrosses in front of him, both her hands gripping each end of the chain, ready to pull. All it will take is one fast motion. Then Anton is no longer her problem, eliminated from the games. There’s nowhere to jump from here. No one around for him to occupy.
Calla steadies her hands. Anton watches her. He merely watches, even while his life is under threat, even when he has the opportunity to find some way out.
“Go on,” he says evenly. “Kill me. Be the murderous princess they say you are.”
“Do you think you’re insulting me?” Calla tightens the chain. Though his throat must be closing, breathing made intolerable, Anton makes no move to claw at the chain. “You sent people to murder me. At least I have the guts to come after youmyself.”
“If you don’t believe me, then I have nothing to say.” His hand shoots up and grips her wrist. She doesn’t know if it is his hands that are covered in blood, smearing the red between them, or if her arms were already this bloody to begin with. “But youdo, Calla. I can tell that you believe me. Why are you doing this?”
Because this is how it must end. Again and again, she tells herself there will be only one victor in the games. It would be foolish to think otherwise.
Her grip loosens the barest fraction.
She is a fool.
“Did you kiss me just to distract me?” he goes on. “Or because you wanted to?”
