Page 5 of A Frozen Pyre
The siren stopped in her tracks. “Where the hell are we?”
They peered through the break in the trees, over the dripping, dew-soaked ferns, and beyond the craggily broken rocks to a distant blue-black city.
They made it to Gwydir by nightfall, sweaty, cold, and filthy.
Between Midnah and Gwydir, she was making a habit of unceremonious arrival, but so far, it had gotten her whereshe needed to go. They were escorted to rooms and closely guarded until news came from the king. Dwyn remained uncharacteristically quiet, citing sickness after the drugging, which Ophir understood. They bathed separately, they ate, and they crawled into bed.
The gemstone castle was a far cry from their shack in the woods, but she was more terrified now than she’d been when wandering through the wilderness.
Castle Gwydir, Raascot
Ophir was restless.
“It’s bedtime, Princess,” Tyr said quietly. She’d believed him when he’d said he’d be there, but it was still a relief to hear his voice. “Who knew she was such a good sleeper? Isn’t there an adage about villains sleeping well at night?”
“I know you hate her…”
He waited, then stifled a laugh. “Here I was thinking you were about to argue her case.”
“I can’t make you two like each other. But she saved my life. We’re…important…to each other. If you care about me, you owe her, and I think you know it.”
It was his turn to be silent.
She ran her hand up Tyr’s unseen arm, rolling around to face the space where he should be. He pressed her body in closer, keeping his arm to her back as he tucked her face against his chest.
“Are you anxious to see your fiancé?” he asked.
She nodded. She was.
He brought his hand to the back of her hair and began stroking it comfortingly. She nestled into him and was surprised to feel her breath catch. It was so intimate. Something about the safety choked her with the urge to sob against his neck. He held her so tightly, she almost felt as if she weren’t alone. It was nearly as if she wasn’t in Castle Gwydir, sharing a roof with the man her late sister had been set to marry. She almostfelt as if she hadn’t been poisoned, as if her parents hadn’t attempted to send her to Raascot to take Caris’s place, as if her world hadn’t fallen in around her, disintegrating like paper under water.
But the nightmares were real.
She shifted against him and slipped her leg over his, hooking him even closer. She closed her eyes against the unseen wall of strength and the warm, masculine scent of campfire smoke. She lifted her mouth, searching for his. Her lips parted slightly, eyes closing against the darkened shadows of the night as his kiss found her. She melted into him, relaxing her body as he held her.
“I’ll do anything I can,” he promised. “And even some things that I can’t.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she understood the intention. He’d be there. He’d be with her when she woke up to meet Ceneth. He’d be there in her meetings, in her uncertain moments, over the next few hours, days, weeks. She wasn’t exactly sure how he managed to stay unnoticed, but Tyr had more than enough experience navigating the spaces between things to remain unseen. If he’d maneuvered through Sulgrave and Aubade without detection and spied within Tarkhany’s palace, then Gwydir was sure to be no different.
Ophir slid her hand over chest, down his stomach, traveling lower to the space where their hips met. She fought a triumphant smile at his quiet, controlled exhalation the moment her fingers grazed the leather south of his belt. Her fingertips continued to move against him, but he snatched her wrist lightly in one hand. She frowned through the darkness at where she knew his face would be, hoping he could read her expression through the midnight gloom.
“You don’t want to?” she asked.
She savored the vibration of his low growl. “You have no idea how badly.”
“Good,” she said, pressing her hips into his. “Me, too.”
“Listen—”
“I want this,” she said. She didn’t care that they were only a few rooms away from the man she was to marry or that Dwyn slept beside her. Dwyn had proven on more than one occasion that she could sleep through an invading army. The only thing that had ever successfully roused the siren from her slumber was the flame of Ophir’s long-forgotten night terrors. Tyr had once said he’d love nothing more than to slip inside her while her favorite witch slept inches away.
He released his hold on her wrist and brought his hand to her face, cradling it gently as his thumb and forefinger moved against her cheek, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I want to do right by you.”
“And you have,” she said. “So do it again.”
He pressed a kiss to her hair.
Her frown was deep. “Don’t make a girl feel rejected. I won’t be able to fall back to sleep.”
