Page 17 of Tyr

“You’re kidding. After everything you’ve been through, you are joking?”

She shrugged and then winced.“He tried to break my body, but the fact that he couldn’t break my mind frustrated him the most. To me, it was everything, though. My bones will heal. My cuts will fade. But my mind is my real weapon. It’s what I hold dearest. It’s the one thing I can never let anyone break. Because the day they do, I’m dead.”

Tyr had no words.

She sipped the broth.“So, how did you lose the hand?”

Tyr licked his lips. “I betrayed a friend, so he bit it off.”

“That’s terrible. You must hate him.”

“Not at all. What I did was horrible. What he did was purely instinctual. I don’t blame him any more than you can blame a Yegret for trying to protect my space.”

She licked her lips and took another sip, but the mug was empty.“You’ll have to tell me the whole story sometime.”

He nodded. “As soon as you tell me who did this to you and why.”

She gave him a soft smile as her eyes closed.“Deal.”

Tyr stood and set the mug on the nightstand before helping her slide down and covering her with the comforter.

He propped her broken arm up on a pillow. “If you need me, call, and I’ll come right away.”

“Where will you be?”

“Not far. Get some sleep. You are safe here. Do you want me to close the windows and lock down the shutters?”

“No.”Her eyes flashed with fear and Tyr filed the information away to ask her about later.“I… I appreciate being able to see outside.”

“The windows are unbreakable, and there is security around the property, the house, and the windows. If anything bigger than a fly tries to get in, I’ll be alerted.”

Tyr picked up the mug and walked to the door.

“Tyr?”

He turned.

“Thank you,”she said sleepily.

Tyr inclined his head and then walked out. He watched the door slide closed and caught a glimpse of her curled up in his bed.

Again, the strange sensation stirred in his gut, and a thought flashed through his mind that troubled him.

He liked her being in his bed.

CHAPTER 6

Tyr checkedon Celeste throughout the night, but she didn’t move. By two a.m. she’d become cocooned in some kind of light he assumed had to do with her angel healing. So, he shut down the security shutters and covered Yegret’s enclosure. In the dim glow surrounding Celeste the bruising on her face had started to heal, and the swelling in her eye lessened by about half what it had been. Whatever she did, it worked.

He watched her for several minutes, allowing the strange emotions to overtake him again, trying to pinpoint it, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t sympathy. It was something… foreign. He gave up and left the room, confused and strangely dissatisfied.

Celeste awoketo the pitch-black room, and for a moment, panic seized her. Her heartbeat thundered, thinking she was back in Anton’s closet. Her lips parted to scream when she touched the soft bed underneath her and realized she wasn’t there. Tyr. Shewas at Tyr’s. A soft cry escaped her as she caught her breath. She was fine. She was safe.

She tried to sit up, but her body grew stiff and sore. Not as sore as it had been, but not healed, either.

She tried to open her mouth, but that was an instant no-go. She touched her face, and her swollen eye had caked with sleepy dirt, making her lashes cling together, but the swelling was considerably less. Little by little, she took stock of her body in the dark. Her ribs ached, but didn’t scream. Her arm was still not healed. The burns on her other arm had become no more than faded circles. Thankfully, her lips healed as if nothing had happened.

Celeste nodded, satisfied with the progress. She let down her barrier and reached out for Tyr. She found him outside her door. She located Vid and Herm as well, but they were further away. Downstairs in the basement room? From their happy natures, she assumed they had to be playing a game or watching a movie or something else fun.

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