Page 42 of A Chill in the Flame
She lifted a hand to gesture to the bathing room, and before she’d had a chance to fall asleep on the bed, he was hauling her into the empty bathtub with all of her clothes on. He tugged the dark, filthy shirt off the wound with less gentleness than she might have liked. The gash was so much more horrible-looking in the clean light of the castle. It was no surface scratch. It appeared she had slashed cleanly into muscle.
The stranger spoke with the emotionless assuredness of a physician. “I just need to wash it and then I’ll put half of the tonic on the wound itself and have you drink the rest. Are you with me? Princess?”
Ophir didn’t bother nodding. She figured he would probably do whatever he wanted regarding her injury no matter what she said. He hadn’t been particularly accommodating to her delicate sensibilities so far, and Ophir didn’t imagine he was about to start. He dumped her into the bathtub fully clothed and began to run the water. She let out a painful gasp as the water washed over her gash. He began rummaging through the things above her washing basin and grabbed a clear bottle of medicinal astringent.
“This is going to hurt. I’m just going to kill the worst of it before we knit the wound together. Are you ready?”
“No.” She gritted her teeth, wincing preemptively. He began to pour the clear, burning liquid over her cut and shegrunted with the low, sustained moan of excruciating misery. Her ears popped from the searing agony. Once it was done, he poured the healing tonic on the gash. He tried to hand the rest to Ophir to drink, but she seemed to be losing consciousness once more, as much from the pain as from the blood loss.
“Open your mouth, Princess.” The man grabbed her chin and tilted her head back. The pressure of his fingers against her jaw forced her mouth open as he began to bottle-feed her the remaining tonic. She choked at first, coughing and rejecting the liquid until she managed to swallow. Once the brown glass bottle was empty, the stranger seemed satisfied. He’d done what he needed to do.
She blinked rapidly at him after the tonic began to work its way through her belly. “Are you going to tell me who the fuck you are?”
He offered something of a crooked smile. “You’re not very ladylike. Did you know that?”
“It’s been implied.”
He was in heavy, sand-covered boots and sea-dampened black pants, but he remained shirtless. She didn’t want her eyes to linger too long on the divots of his muscles or the way his body rippled. He spoke with low, calm seriousness. “I’m Tyr, so that’s the name you can use when you overcome your attitude and are ready to thank me.”
She scowled at him from where she sat like a grimy, wet doll gripping the edges of the bathtub. She was sitting in roughly three inches of standing water and appeared to have brought half of the beach back home with her. She wanted to take a real bath. She was sure that once she rinsed her hair and scrubbed herself clean, she’d have more sand in the bathtub than she knew what to do with.
“What are you, my guardian angel? Aren’t angels supposed to be friendly?” She attempted to push herself up from where she sat in the bath.
“I wouldn’t move yet if I were you.”
“Turn around.” She ignored him and began to peel hershirt off. Saltwater itched as it began to dry, and she didn’t need another little misery added to her ever-growing list of pain and discomfort.
“Just so you know, I can see you in the mirror.”
She looked up and narrowed her eyes as she caught his reflection looking back at her. He arched a brow that was far too playful for the severity of the situation, and she made a shooing motion with her hand. Still grinning, he rotated his body so he was facing neither her nor the mirror. Ophir continued the process, attempting to slide her pants down but wincing and gasping as they stuck to her legs. He rolled his eyes at her impropriety but kept his bare back to her.
She ran the water but didn’t plug the tub, allowing the sand to run down and empty with the water that filled it. Ophir began to gingerly rinse various parts of her body. She grabbed a honey-and-almond-scented bar of soap and scrubbed it against her arms and legs, dipping one appendage beneath the water at a time.
“Get talking, Tyr.”
His posture shifted as he found a more comfortable position. “What would you like to know?”
She grumbled. “My throat hurts. I’m tired. I’ve had a rough night. Don’t be coy. Who are you, why are you here, why were you on the cliffs, what were you doing at Berinth’s party, and how the fuck do you know how to get into my bedroom? Honestly, whatdon’tyou have to answer for?”
She watched his muscled back shrug as she ran her hair under the water, allowing as much sand as possible to escape where it had clung to her damp, toffee tendrils. Now that she’d stopped the water’s drainage, she allowed the tub to fill around her.
“I’d love to be cagey, but seeing as how you seem to have successfully unlocked manifesting, I think maybe it’s time you and I get on the same page. Though you could try to curse a little less. Obscenities won’t help you.”
She raised her head from beneath the water, stilling as shewatched his neck and back while he spoke.
“What do you know about blood magic?” he asked, still facing the wallpaper.
She winced at an emotional pain more poignant than the gash in her leg. “Is that why you were at Berinth’s the night of Caris’s murder?”
He made a face as if contemplating whether to deny it. “You and your sister have attracted a few unsavory characters to Aubade—Berinth being one of them. Royal blood is a rather valuable commodity.”
Harland had danced around this thought precisely. The blood magic of a royal. Her throat knotted as she drowned in the flood of ten thousand thoughts as violent and relentless as those crashing against the cliffs of Castle Aubade.
“The things that could be achieved with Caris’s heart, particularly if she was a virgin…”
“Don’t talk about her like that.” Ophir choked out the command.
She could feel his apologetic frown even from the back of his head. He lowered his voice when he answered. “I’m truly sorry, Ophir. I’m not much of a guardian angel. I’m less interested in protecting you than I am in keeping their hands from what you can offer them.”
