Page 47 of A Chill in the Flame
Her guard jogged after her, releasing a gruff string of protests as she went directly to Dwyn’s room, but she waved him away as if he were little more than a troublesome insect.
Ophir didn’t bother knocking before twisting the knob and letting herself into Dwyn’s room.
She would not be alone tonight.
Twenty-one
Amber hearth light coated the room like molasses, banishingshadows as it illuminated the room’s occupant. Black button eyes looked at Ophir from a surprised face. Dwyn cocked her head to the side, curtain of hair falling over her shoulder. Her inky locks were the only thing obscuring her nakedness, as Dwyn reclined in her typical state of undress while paging through a leather-bound book from underneath the covers. A proper lady may have yanked the sheets up to cover her stomach and chest, but the princess had never known Dwyn to be proper.
Ophir shut the door quickly to ensure Tyr wouldn’t be slipping in behind her. A discomfort pulsed through her the moment the latch clicked. She hoped her urgency to block out the phantom and the guard wouldn’t come across as presumptuous. She leaned against the door as her face twisted in apology.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“No, no.” Dwyn gestured tentatively for Ophir to join her on the bed. “Goddess, Firi, you look terrible. What happened?”
Rather than accept the bid to crawl onto the comfortable mattress, she found solace in the straight, sturdy wood. It wasunlike her to be nervous, but then again, she hadn’t been herself in a long, long time. The temptation to let her eyes wander south, from the sculpt of Dwyn’s neck and collarbones to her soft arms, the pillows of her breasts, the curve of her waist, or the gentle tummy that should have been beneath the blankets was strong, but she was careful to keep her eyes trained on Dwyn’s face.
“Cat got your tongue?” Dwyn asked.
Ophir opened her mouth, then closed it again. Demonic serpent had her tongue, more like.
She was sure Harland was already repositioning himself outside of the room, cursing the princess for her obstinance. Truth be told, Ophir didn’t care if Dwyn was the goddess-damned devil herself. Maybe she had let a demon into the castle—so what? The siren was kind, and she’d saved her life in more ways than one. If Tyr was telling the truth, and Dwyn was after some grand power by setting someone else up to take the fall while she survived, then she’d had the chance to do it to Ophir a thousand times over. Yet Dwyn had rescued her from the depths of the black seas, the fires of night terrors, and the powerlessness that had consumed her following her sister’s death. Dwyn had shown her how strong she could be. If she had one ally in the castle, it was Dwyn.
If the siren truly was an evil bitch, perhaps they could be evil together. After all, Ophir had a long list of names and a bloodthirst that could not be quenched until every last one of them lay six feet under.
Perhaps it was her newfound respect for Dwyn’s power that gave her pause. She’d experienced a number of contradictory emotions surrounding Dwyn, but never before had she been nervous. She attempted to swallow, but it was as if cotton filled her throat. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I came to ask…”
Dwyn might have been an owl for how deeply she tilted her head as she waited in curious silence.
Goddess, why did she feel like a schoolboy who’d neverspoken to a woman? Unique vulnerability prickled her spine as she struggled to ask for permission. Her lips twisted to the side as she fought to speak her mind. “Can I sleep in here tonight? …With you?” When Dwyn’s brows lifted, Ophir added, “My nightmares aren’t so bad when I’m next to you.”
The tension softened, though Dwyn’s eyes remained wide. She lifted the sheets to extend the invitation. Her voice was a soft lullaby as she answered. “Of course, you can.”
Ophir’s heart squeezed as she stared at the open space on the silken sheets. Her eyes flitted to the hand that lifted the duvet, then dragged her gaze slowly over her arm, her body, her face.
“Oh,” Dwyn said softly.
Ophir’s pulse skipped painfully as she shrugged out of her robe. It puddled at her feet to reveal that, aside from the bandages, she was similarly nude. She fought to swallow once more against nerves. She slipped beneath the sheets, holding her breath as she folded herself against Dwyn’s soft curves. She draped her arm over the fae, forearm settling against her sternum, luxuriating in the warmth between her soft breasts. The exhilarating, wintery rush of mint splashed over her as she inhaled Dwyn’s scent.
The urge to cry surprised her as a knot formed in her throat. She hadn’t realized just how touch starved she’d been until someone was in her arms. Yet, the answering emotion wasn’t sorrow. She’d survived the worst thing that could have befallen her. Her night terrors were steadily lessening. She was healing. And for the first time in a long time, she tasted the distant memory of what it had been like to feel powerful.
“Are you tired?” came Dwyn’s whisper.
Yes. No. She didn’t know.
She’d come to Dwyn’s room with a need to escape Harland’s oppressive shadow. She’d needed freedom from Tyr’s strange imposition. She’d wanted to be free and had only seen one path forward in taking control. Whether it had been sleep, or friendship, or something else entirely, Ophirdidn’t care.
She inhaled deeply and smelled something beneath the mint. There was the warmth of body heat, yes. There was the honey and almond soaps and fresh silk sheets and small, homey smoke from the fireplace. But there was something more. Something deeper.
A curl in her stomach blossomed. Blood pumped through the bloom within. A distant, unanticipated throb began to speak to a deeply buried part of her.
They’d been naked together before.
Dwyn had held her in the sea, had gripped at her skin on the beach, and had intertwined with her in the sudsy waters of the bath. The siren had made no efforts to portray modesty under any circumstance. If anything, the Sulgrave fae had done everything to make nudity sexless as she’d desensitized the princess to its presence. She’d stepped out of her clothes and crawled under the covers on more than one occasion, pressing her body into the princess night after night before they’d been separated. She’d draped an arm around Ophir and her flames, holding her slim body, breathing in the gold-brown tufts of her hair, musing as to how the princess always smelled of sunlight.
Tonight was different.
Dwyn’s body stilled in her arms as if she’d stopped breathing altogether. Ophir’s heart quickened.
