Page 43 of A Chill in the Flame
“He didn’t get her heart.”
Tyr turned to her with fully widened eyes. Ophir’s hands flew to cover herself as he gaped at her. His lips parted. “What? What do you know?”
“Excuse me.” She clutched herself for comfort.
“Why would you say that?” Tyr demanded, moving toward the bath’s edge. His coffee-colored eyes fixed on hers.
“The coroner.” Ophir blinked back, horrified. “Her liver was missing—oh my goddess. Fuck off. I didnotinvite you in here. You are owednothing. Get out.”
His shoulders heaved, nostrils flaring as he pulled in air, but he forced himself to relax. The thoughts behind his eyes seemed to be clicking like the mechanics of a pocket watch.He closed his eyes slowly as he turned, obeying her wishes for privacy. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could have left you alone.”
“Then why didn’t you let me die? Wouldn’t that have solved your problems?”
Tyr gestured uncomfortably. “Can you get dressed so we can speak properly?”
“You’re in my room. In my chambers.”
“Fine,” he squared, staring at her fully. “Then we’ll talk with you naked. Trust me, I am more than fine with the arrangement.”
It took Ophir a moment to relax after he’d spun on her. She swallowed at his request and focused on cleaning herself of the sand and evidence of the sea. She ran her hair under the water as she scrubbed a mint bar along her scalp, freeing the bits of broken shell and pieces of sand that had clung to her hair. She paused as she turned the bar of soap over in her hand, sniffing it again, wondering where it had come from. The scent was so overpowering, so familiar. It didn’t smell like anything she remembered purchasing or being gifted. She frowned at the curious soap before running it over her body once more. Now was not the time to worry about peculiar soaps. She gave one final pass of her back and chest under the running water before deciding she was finished. It would have to suffice for as long as she remained unwilling to submerge the gaping wound on her leg once more.
“Close your eyes.”
He exhaled, nostrils flaring. “They’re closed.”
She eyed him suspiciously for a second before lifting herself above the lip of the bath. Ophir reached for a robe that had been hung on a hook beside the bath and tied it tightly around herself. Its cloth absorbed the water droplets that clung to her body and collected the clean pools that continued to drip from her hair.
“Okay,” she said carefully.
He swept his arm toward her room as if it were his tooffer. “After you.”
Ophir abandoned her tub, escaping from the lip of the basin. She crossed the room and sat on her bed but indicated that Tyr should sit on the chair as far from her as possible. He obliged but didn’t hurry to talk. The strange man seemed to be enjoying the sight of the princess in her robe a bit too much, even if she was looking rather battered. Finally, he said, “You staying alive might be my best chance at drawing Berinth out to finish what he’s started.”
Ophir may as well have turned to stone. She soaked in the features she knew were not from the southern kingdoms, breath and heart hushed by her horror. He didn’t look like anyone she’d met before. Her previous encounters with this stranger had been shrouded in the secrecy of his mask. “Splendid. I’m bait for a sadistic, blood-magic princess murderer. And that explains why you know how to get into my bedroom because…?”
“I’m pretty good at sneaking around. It’s my gift. I’ve needed to keep an eye on the place. If I know all the entrances and exits, I can intercept more effectively. Which brings me to my next point. How well do you truly know Dwyn?”
She stiffened, though something about the gild of his skin and distinct angle of his face suggested that he hailed from the same remote mountain kingdom as the siren. Tyr was not the first man to question the siren’s presence in her life. “What? How do you know Dwyn?”
His face tightened in a controlled expression as he leveled his gaze. “I followed her here from Sulgrave,” he said.
She didn’t mean to sneer with quite so much vitriol as she asked, “Unrequited love?”
His chuckle was black and humorless. “That bitch is the reason I know the things I do about blood magic, Princess. You should be a little more careful about who you let into your bed.”
His words alone would have sent her into a state of disagreeable shock. The handle to her bedroom door beganto turn and her eyes widened, realizing her chair was still against it to prevent unwanted entry. She turned to Tyr to command him to hide, but he was gone.
The door sounded in quick succession.
She shot a look to where Tyr had been only a second before, then back to the door.
“Tyr?”
“Answer the door.”
Ophir swallowed audibly. She gathered her senses with several swift blinks, wondering how much saltwater she’d swallowed, and limped over to the door. She moved the chair just as Harland was winding up to break down the entrance.
“Why did you block the door?” The whites of his eyes were as prominent as the rims of teacups. It was clear he’d been on the verge of panic. Ophir gave her guard no shortage of reasons to worry. She was the reason he didn’t sleep at night, and she knew it.
