The Talon & the Blade

by Jasmine Silvera

  “I feel like I’m watching a sporting match,” she said, gnawing on a slice of bacon. “I feel bad for the rolls. They don’t stand a chance.”

  His brow rose. “Breakfast is important. One should eat heartily.” He topped off her coffee. “Who knows how the day will turn out.”

  She hadn’t realized the depth of her own hunger until she scanned her empty plate. She looked at his basket of soft-boiled eggs smothered in a kitchen towel to keep them warm. “May I?”

  He slid the bowl toward her, reached for another roll, and went to work loading it up. That one looked as if it’d been trapped in a battle between seeds and spices. The spicy scent of pale yellow spread disappeared under layers of ham and cheese and tomato.

  She must have been staring at his latest creation too hard because he offered it up. “Would you like one?”

  Pride took a distant second to a healthy appetite. “Please. But without the pickle.”

  He had the grace not to look pleased with himself as he assembled a second roll.

  When he’d cleared meat and cheese, he attacked jam over butter on sweeter breads. With the urgency gone, he unfolded the paper and sat back in his chair.

  Restless, Ana considered getting up. They’d killed the creature. Raymond was busy tracking Barnabas and would let her know when he needed her. And what did she want?

  She spied Gregor, attention fixed on the business section as he methodically chewed bread buckling under a tractor-trailer-load of Nutella. He popped the last piece between his teeth and, without looking up, slid the plate containing the second slice her direction.

  “Try it.” He didn’t even look over the edge of the page.

  Feeling a bit like a feral animal, she snuck the bread off the plate and took a bite. A joyous moan escaped her before she could check herself.

  His brows rose, blue eyes flickering up to meet hers. “Exactly.”

  She grimaced and sat back in her chair, picking up her section of the paper. She hadn’t realized she’d kicked her foot up onto his thigh until his hand closed over her arch. Just cradling. She held her breath, torn by the urge to stay and the desire to flee. They’d completed the job. This was as much a victory meal as a last one. Raymond would release him, Azrael would call him back to Prague, and it would be done.

  The sun chose that moment to break through and cast the dining room and kitchen in broad strokes of warm gold contrasting against the billowing waves of gray clouds. She closed her eyes, rested in her chair, and exhaled. Long, dexterous fingers began to knead her arch.

  She turned her attention back to the paper and finished her bread.

  Ana laughed at something on the page, and her toes curled a little against his fingers. They were small and round like little pearls and painted like a punk rock unicorn threw up a glitter bomb. He pushed his thumb under the ball of her foot with a little more pressure.

  It took all his composure not to crow victory when her other foot joined the first. There was no doubt he’d won this little battle of wills. She probably didn’t realize she was smiling, engrossed in whatever article had caught her attention. The robe parted above her knees, and through the glass tabletop he caught a glimpse of pale, freckled thighs.

  His thumb stroked down toward her heel, keeping the pressure firm and steady. She wasn’t ticklish, but she had squirmed a bit at first, like someone not used to being touched. She fought, she fucked, but when had she last been stroked, petted, held? He knew the feeling. When she’d first reached for his wrist on the boat the night before, he’d tensed for a fight. The moment her fingers had left him, he’d longed for more.

  Contact.

  Now he had it, and he would be damned if he moved his leg or drew her attention to the fact that he’d been working his way toward her ankle and the long line of her calves. The stock section gave him the chance to appear fixed on the same page for much longer than was necessary. He should check in with Azrael, attend to his weapons, and arrange his flight home.

  As she read, a little furrow grew between her brows and the corner of her mouth twisted. Her eyes moved fast over the words. He didn’t withdraw his gaze before she looked up and caught him staring. Her nostrils flared and a little smile creased her lips. She lifted her heels and slid her feet to the floor.

  It couldn’t last. He’d known it from the beginning, and yet part of him still mourned.

  “Well, this has been…” She surveyed the wreckage of the table.

  He rose before she could finish, emptying the last of the coffee into her mug. He cleared his throat. “I’ll see to the kitchen.”

  She sat back in her chair, reaching for the comics. “If it pleases you.” She eased back into her seat with a frown and kicked her heels up onto his empty seat.

  Wait.

  He’d miscalculated again. Maybe she was just adjusting her position, getting more comfortable. Maybe she hadn’t been pulling away. Now his fantasy of clearing the table and laying her out like dessert went down the drain with the soapy water. He’d finished loading the dishwasher and set to work on the pans and knives when her hands settled on his shoulder blades. He almost cut his index finger off.

  “Sorry.” Her little chuckle hummed through his rib cage as her arms slid around his waist. “I thought you heard me coming.”

  He should have. That didn’t bode well. She could have stuck a knife in his back. He hated not being able to see her face. He craned his gaze over his shoulder, but with her cheek tucked against his spine, all he could make out was the top of her head.

  “They say when a wild animal trusts you, it gives you its back.” Her breath brushed the thin skin covering his vertebrae. “You haven’t turned your back to me since you got off the plane.” Palms splayed on his ribs, fingertips sliding down. “I thought we were making progress.”

  Progress? She skittered away from his touch and bounced from flirting to keeping him at arm’s length. He’d been polite, deferential… cold. Oh.

  He was up to his forearms in soapy water when the towel puddled at his feet. His brain stuttered. “What are you—”

  “While I enjoyed breakfast, you forgot dessert.” A moment later, her hands made it clear what she was after.

  The breath left him in a sharp exhale. “Dessert is not typically served with breakfast.”

  “Don’t be such a stick in the mud.” She slid her fingers around the partial erection he’d been nursing since the sight of those cheeky red panties. “So rigid. Live a little. ‘Who knows how the day may turn out.’”

  He scanned for the dishcloth to dry his hands. Spotted it on the other side of the stove. Wished for longer arms.

  “Relax, Sticks,” she crooned. “Unless you want me to stop.”

  Stop? He’d just caught up with what had started.

  Ana slipped between him and the sink, something wicked and calculating in her gaze. When she slid down against the counter, he realized what she intended a moment before her mouth settled on him.

  Her name escaped his lips on a low breath, more plea than protest.

  When her hands joined her mouth, her grip strong but attentive, his protest died a strangled death in his throat. He braced his hands against the backsplash to resist the temptation to grasp her by the head, but he couldn’t stop his hips from twitching of their own accord. It only served to encourage her. Her low hum in response sent him to the edge.

  “Dear gods,” he groaned. “I want—”

  She cupped him in her hand, all long strokes and wet tongue.

  Desperate, he scrabbled at the fetters of his control, but every thin strand blew away from him, leaving him at her mercy. He teetered there, unable to resist jerking his hips toward her. Knowing she wouldn’t kiss him made this more arousing than it already was.

  The hoarse exclamation came out like a plea. “Fuck me.”

  “Later.” She laughed and then enveloped him in heat.

  Point, Ana.

  If there was anything sexier than Gregor Schwarz trying not to lose h
imself in her mouth, she didn’t know it.

  He muttered a combination of swearing and inarticulate vocalizations. Hungry for his release, she braced her hands on his hips, angling her head to take him deeper.

  Tension wracked his body. He drove his free hand into the wall until a tile cracked. She revised her previous preference for less buttoned-up men—driving a man so self-possessed to such senselessness intoxicated her with power. She could bring him to pieces without a single blade.

  A groan rumbled through him all the way to his core as his body gave up the fight and shattered under her touch.

  In the aftermath, he leaned over the sink, hands braced on the countertop. His eyes clenched shut, and his chest heaved in ragged breaths.

  She rocked back, unable to keep the victorious grin off her face. When he opened one eye, the corner of his mouth quivered once before his face went hard as marble. He found the dishrag and dried his hands with a measured inhale.

  Watching him reassemble his control was a thing of wonder, but like the sword at his back, she couldn’t not see a hazy afterimage below what lay over the surface.

  She gasped when he dragged her up and set her on the counter next to the sink. He undid her robe and pushed his way between her thighs. His gaze swept her full of warning and possession. He gripped her hips. Dragged her to the edge of the counter. She drew him, threading her fingers through waves of damp hair. His teeth found her neck and sank in until she shuddered. Her body throbbed in anticipation of what would come next—the sudden fullness, the motion, the climb, the inevitable release.

  “That was incredible.” His breath on her neck sparked goose bumps over her arms and an electric tingle between her thighs. “But you still seem to think you’re in control.”

  She shivered when he cupped her breast, plucking at a nipple. She forced the words out. “Aren’t I?”

  One hand traveled the center line of her body, fingers sliding between her legs. He smiled at the slippery wetness he found, dipping two fingers deep inside her before removing them. She gasped, biting her lips to avoid begging him for more.

  His head cocked, thoughtful as he inhaled the scent of her. “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?”

  He flattened the length of his body against her and she shivered. Hot breath rushed her ear. “Now let me finish without further disruption. And don’t move until I tell you to.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I won’t give you what you want.” He returned to the dishes with methodical focus and a smile on his face.

  She gaped. Was he going to just leave her like this while he—naked and sated—did the damn dishes? She pressed her thighs together, trying to stifle the heat as the sight of his bare back curving into the slope of a tight little ass and muscular thighs delivered a rather vivid fantasy of how it would look driving between her thighs.

  The sword flickered against her gaze. She’d half expected to feel it when she first approached him, but there’d been nothing more than the tingling connection of his skin against her own.

  He looked up from a frying pan as if she’d telegraphed the thought. Without pausing, he leaned over and took her nipple in his mouth. She moaned as the jolt rocketed down to her core.

  “Don’t touch yourself.” He resumed scrubbing. She wanted to throw something—preferably bladed—at him. Now it was all she could think about. What kind of fool…

  The same kind of fool that sat on the counter obediently because he was right. She wanted him—long arms and muscular grace and the piercing softness that seemed to enter his gaze when it settled on her. I see you, Ana Gozen.

  She reached to turn off the water, ready to fuck away the unexpected tenderness. He knocked her hand aside, a threat and a promise, and went right back to work. She wanted to scream with frustration, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d undone her, without a word or a weapon.

  She watched him chase the droplets of water from the last dish with the same intensity of focus as the first. He settled the plate in the rack beside the others. She didn’t need this kind of game—whatever game he was playing.

  In one swift motion he swept her off the counter and pinned her back to the wall. He went to his knees, dragging her thighs over his shoulders.

  When his mouth covered her, she lost the ability to finish a thought. The ache moved lower, spreading through her hips and thighs all the way to her curling toes. Her fingers found his hair, and when she tugged the thick, wavy strands, he grunted and drove his tongue against her. She barely heard the “more” muttered against her swollen flesh, but she complied until the deep, steady throb became waves of release leaving her boneless and trembling.

  He rose, letting her slide down his body until he could hook her thighs around his waist. His lips hovered over hers, but before she could evade him, they settled at her ear. “Your bed or mine?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Her bedroom proved as unexpected as the rest of her—a rich splash of color and texture at the heart of her modern sanctuary. The scarlet walls made a warm contrast against the view of blue-tinged gray water and green shore dominating the floor-to-ceiling window. On the far wall, soft overhead lighting fell on the matched pair of swords mounted over the simple altar. The only other thing on the altar, an antique shakudō bracelet worth a small fortune, looked just large enough to fit the wrist of a child.

  His toes dragged through the deep sheepskin rugs in cream and beige, over the charcoal cement floors on the way to the wrought iron bed. Threads of gold streaked through the darker shades covering the pillows.

  He knocked aside pillows and the comforter, making a nest for her on the bed. She wouldn’t kiss him. He would solve that mystery another time. For now he would cover the rest of her and show her lips what they were missing.

  Cheeks, chin, the curl of her ear, the round, firm spot behind each.

  The freckles led over her shoulders. He followed them with long, wet kisses to her breasts, the ridges of her rib cage, the spot in her belly that hollowed when his tongue slid against it. By the time he followed the line of the scar to the small of her back, the mounds of her ass, the thin skin behind her knees, the breath left her in long, low moans. Kneading muscle below scars brought the long lines of her thighs to his mouth, sucking pressure flushing the skin with blood.

  “Ana,” he murmured registering the way she pressed back against him as each kiss found a home. “My Ana. My Ana.”

  The last of the hard breaths wrung from her chest gave way to the telltale hitching of sobs. He slowed and let the long strokes of his palms on skin soothe when words wouldn’t do. He waited for her to push him away, to assume the safety distance provided. He followed the line of her calves to her heels, curling a finger under each of the small round toes.

  “Strong Ana,” he said in that same reflective tone. “Precious Ana. Fierce Ana. Beautiful Ana. My Ana.”

  On the way up, he took the measure of her body with his hands. He could circle her foot with a palm, close his fingers around her calf. Bracketing her thighs, his forearms ran the length from knee to hip. Her ass fit in his palms. He bridged the small of her back in one hand. Both didn’t quite span her back from shoulder to shoulder until he fanned out his fingers. The length between his index finger and thumb cradled the back of her neck. Up close, the difference in their size struck him for the first time. Even knowing how inadequate her healing ability was, the word fragile never crossed his mind.

  She buried her fingers in his hair again, gripping hard enough to hurt. “I want…”

  He rose over her, the curve of her hips bringing them in intimate contact. In the dim light filtered between the curtains, her skin flushed dewy soft beneath him.

  His thumbs swept the skin below her jaw, the pulse pounding back against the contact. “Tell me what you want.”

  “Gregor, please.”

  “Tell. Me.” He nipped her earlobe after each word.

  “This,” she gasped, rolling her hips to
rub herself against him.

  He dipped against her, withdrew. “Just this?”

  A low moan escaped her. “You. I want you.”

  Swollen and tender flesh yielded to his intrusion, leaving them both gasping. Her fingers dragged long furrows in his shoulder, hips curling in an unmistakable invitation. He guided her leg over his thigh, rocking until he was buried inside her. Thought slid away, leaving instinct and pressure and the drive to release. He buckled in the end when the sound of her surrender robbed him of the scraps of control.

  Afterward, her head fit comfortably on his chest. Her fingers tapped the echo of his heartbeat on the skin of his belly. No longer an edged creature, sharp and biting, desire gave way to exhaustion. She slept for a while as he stroked the line of her spine, from the downy soft hair at the base of her neck to the sweeping curve above the cleft of her ass. He didn’t notice he’d dozed until she woke him with the brush of her mouth on his scar. They tangled in the sheets and pillows, no longer as urgent but still insatiable.

  Who started talking first? Unbidden the stories came between them: old war stories of tight scrapes with the necromancers with whom they’d bargained their souls, comedic misunderstandings as they learned about the new world they’d entered, the deaths they’d witnessed, both noble and ordinary.

  “You don’t feel pain,” she said, tracing the lines on his shoulder. She’d drawn blood during the last round. He’d sucked it off her fingertips as she came.

  “I do,” he said, settling back in the pillows.

  Her spine curved against his chest. He rested a palm over her navel and let his thumb slip back and forth over the soft skin. Her gaze found him over her shoulder, skeptical.

  “I thought it was your gift?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said. “But maybe not the one he intended.”

  When Azrael offered him a place in his Aegis, Gregor considered what he would ask of his new master. Time as the rare mortal in a necromancer’s retinue had taught him that while guns were effective, they were prone to fail around supernatural creatures. Bladed weapons could always be trusted.