Page 54 of A Chill in the Flame
“Him?” Tyr’s word was a single, bewildered cough. It was mingled with humor, as though he hadn’t quite learned to master his emotions.
Ophir hadn’t missed how Tyr hadn’t looked at her since her so-called abomination had curled up to her near the fireplace like any natural-born hound. Instead, he’d made several grumbling comments about how the last remaining princess of Farehold cuddled the monster she’d conjured from the pits of her nightmares. It may have resembled a canine, he’d said to the room, though its froglike skin refracted shades of black and gray. She didn’t care how he looked. Her creature seemed perfectly content to lean into the strokes of its mother’s touch as she ran her fingers along its head, just like all dogs enjoyed the pats of their masters.
Ophir smirked at Tyr’s tone. His rough agitation over her beasts had been a reliable source of banter. It was soothing, in a way. She could count on his pushback as confidently as one knew the sun rose and set each day. She looked at him with challenge in her eyes, and he winked.
Ophir’s cheeks heated as she turned away.
He’d gotten very, very good at making her blush.
Tyr was devilishly good-looking, tenacious to a fault, and knew precisely how to get under her skin. The only thing worse than his ability to get a rise out of her was the level of enjoyment she got out of it. She returned her gaze to her perfect pet.
“Sedit is a good boy, aren’t you, Sedit?” Ophir slicked her hand along the smooth skin of her canine-adjacent creation. Its black eyes were the large, black beads of nightmares, dotted with three smaller eyes beneath each of its individual orbs. He was as much spider as he was dog, or cat, or demon. “Though I do wish he smelled better. We’ll work on that, won’t we?” She smiled at her animal.
“I just don’t like it around Knight.”
“His name is Sedit, and he’s a good boy, not an ‘it.’”
Dwyn looked up from where she’d been cutting her nails with a sharpened knife. “And how are we spelling your new baby’s name? S-E-D-E-T-T-E?”
“I-T,” Ophir corrected.
“That should be Said-it,” Tyr mumbled.
Dwyn’s sigh was for show. “Are you implying she spelled her own creation’s name wrong?”
“There are numerous things wrong with it.” Tyr grimaced. “Like if Sait-it gets hungry.”
Dwyn rolled her eyes. “His name is pronounced Sed-ETTE, and he is a more welcome member of this party than you are. Besides, how long have you had that horse? You’ve only been in Farehold for a few months. You’re acting like it’s your damn child.”
“Youwouldhate animals, psychopath,” Tyr scowled.
“Please, give us a reason to kick you out,” Dwyn said. “Take your stupid horse with you. We’ll get new ones at the next farm we find. Off you go.”
Sedit snuggled in closer, warming Ophir’s heart. She didn’t look away from her sweet angel as she chided the pair. “Don’t be territorial, Dwyn. You and I both know that Tyr’s abilities are indispensable.”
Tyr walked over to where the women rested. He leanedon the back of the couch and placed his hands against the sofa’s back, spreading his arms behind the princess. Heat spread through her body at his nearness as he said, “Then, you don’t want me to leave, princess?”
She choked down the spike of nerves that lodged in her throat the moment he brushed his lips against her ear. “Maybe I do,” she said somewhat unconvincingly. “Leave us be.”
He chuckled, lowering his mouth even closer to her ear. “You know, you have a tell. I know when you’re lying.” Tyr stood from where he’d bent over the couch and watched as pink flushed her entire body. He returned to where he’d lounged against the wall, leaving Ophir to wonder if he took pleasure in the way she squirmed.
As the weeks bled on, Dwyn and Tyr did very little to conceal their competition for Ophir’s affections. Ophir enjoyed the attention and leaned into the opportunity for flirtation but found very little time to think of anything other than her plans for revenge.
Tyr made no attempt to conceal his dominant brand of affection, though Ophir knew he did it just as much to antagonize Dwyn as he did as any real attempt to seduce her. She didn’t mind any of it—the graze of his rough hands on her hips as he moved behind her, the smell of campfire smoke and leather when he was near her, the unflinching way in which he’d hold her gaze, heavy with intent. Ophir had always enjoyed the release of sex and the clarity that came from a good tumble, but unless Dwyn and Tyr wanted to put aside their differences long enough to join her in the bedroom, she was quite certain she wouldn’t be able to truly indulge while she traveled with the pair.
Tyr’s primary failure to flirt came with his feelings on Ophir’s hellish beasts. He struggled to conceal his displeasure as everything she created seemed birthed directly from the nightmares that so often stirred her from sleep. They learned the hard way that if she wasn’t being tightly held each night,they’d be awoken past the midnight hour with a burst of flame.
He’d stated that he didn’t see why those night terrors needed to spill out into the physical world. The hound at her feet had peeled back its dark lips at him as if it understood his disapproval, baring its rows of needle-like teeth. Maybe this was part of what made Tyr feel the recurrent need to pull the princess close to him. Perhaps she needed to feel safe so badly that her powers were creating an army of monstrosities just to surround her. Each new layer she revealed about the depths of her pain resulted in a domino cascade of reactions from her companions. Tyr wanted to hold her—he’d said as much. To help. To strip away whatever trauma revealed itself as many-fanged feline-dogs with too many eyes and froglike skin. No one should have to suffer what she had endured.
Maybe someday she’d make something less twisted.
Dwyn, on the other hand, encouraged every feat of manifestation. She’d celebrated each snake, creature, and abomination that Ophir had brought forth from her nightmares into reality, her enthusiasm growing with each innovation and new, more horrible addition to the world of nightmares. The latest creation had proven to be something that Ophir could create time and time again until she had enough to fill the royal kennels, should she want. If they weren’t careful, they’d become overrun with amphibious dogs before they knew what to do with their pack of hellhounds.
“I think we should keep your hound and get rid of the dog,” Dwyn said definitively. She made it very clear which beast was the hound and which monster was the dog as she glared at Tyr.
Perhaps Dwyn’s hatred of the man was part of what made his attention so delicious, though she’d never say as much to Dwyn. Instead, Ophir did her best to look bored, glancing idly from where she was stroking her pet near the fire. Venom dripped from Sedit’s jowls, which made her smile. She liked the consistent, needle-like cluster of terrifying teethin the mouths of all of her beasts and was unwilling to hear an unkind word about her children.
“Your…dog…is lovely,” Tyr said apologetically.
