Page 33 of A Frozen Pyre (Villains #2)

Twenty

Seeing Tyr’s face after all this time was like welcoming him back from the dead.

“Goddess be damned, thank you, thank you ,” Ophir prayed and cursed as she hurried.

The flood of emotion that washed over her felt as if the Raasay River had burst through its lazy banks surrounding Castle Gwydir and cooled the tension in the corridor.

She rounded the corner to see Tyr emerging from the room he’d been assigned.

Still half a hall away, she beamed at Tyr, walk becoming a run as she closed the distance between them.

Her gratitude swelled as he opened his arms, enveloping her in his fully corporeal form.

Not only could she smell the campfire smoke, cedar, and leather, not only could she feel the skin, the arms, the cloth, but she could see the chest that she buried her face into, the hands that tucked themselves against her lower back, the mouth that buried itself in her hair.

“You were a ghost,” Ophir hiccupped into his shoulder, doing her best not to cry. “I can’t believe I have you back.”

“I never left your side,” Tyr said quietly.

“It’s not the same.” She tucked herself in more tightly, forcing her body against his as if wanting to crawl into his skin.

No grip was tight enough; no grasp was secure enough.

She wanted to vanish, her skin, her clothes, her hair, her breath becoming one with him.

It had only taken a minute in his presence for her want him to consume her.

“Come, let’s go,” he said into her hair. “Back to your room?”

She smiled. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to look at you while—”

The corner of his mouth tugged up in a crooked grin, but there was an emptiness behind his eyes. He loosened his hold as he said, “Ophir, I want to be around you for more than that.”

She pulled away. “I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve called me Ophir.”

His attempt at a smile was little more than a flickering candle in the wind as he repeated, “Come on, Princess. Let’s go back to your room.”

“And get you out of those clothes? After all, you must have traveled across the continent to get here. Let’s get you into the bath.” She waited for him to take the bait and laugh at their ruse.

He offered a half-hearted smirk in return. “Believe me when I tell you there’s nothing I’d like more, Princess.”

“Tell me what you would do to me,” she said, stepping closer to him. He looked over his shoulder, but she looked only into his eyes. “Tell me,” she repeated.

Tyr had begun to lead her down the hall but pushed out a breath of air as he stopped to examine her. “You want to hear what I want to do to you?” he asked.

“Deeply.”

He held her unwavering gaze. After a pulse, he said, “Don’t look behind you; just picture the hard wall of stone. Keep looking at me.”

She blinked once as she refused to break his stare.

“Four steps backward. Your back would hit the wall so hard you’d see stars. First, you’d arch your head against the wall. You’d give me full access to your throat, your mouth, your breasts. Picture how your eyes would close, your lips would part.”

“Tyr…”

“Hush, Princess.” He ran his fingers through her hair.

She felt a rush of wetness between her legs as he looked down at her.

Her chest heated, cheeks flushing as he said, “It would take me three seconds to get the flimsy cotton of that dress up over your hips. I’d help you up just enough for you to wrap your legs around my waist. Are you wearing anything under it? ”

“I—”

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, voice barely more than a low growl. “Don’t think I can’t smell how wet you are.”

She swallowed.

“You’d breathe out as I breathe in. You’d open up for every inch of me. Can you feel it?”

Ophir’s feet remained planted in the middle of the hall, utterly frozen.

She didn’t want to imagine it. She wanted him to be forcing her against the blue-black corridor.

She wanted his fingers gripping her hips, his mouth claiming her.

She didn’t understand the game, but fuck, if it wasn’t tearing her to shreds.

Her vivid imagination carried her forward as he spoke.

“Nod, if you can.”

She struggled to breathe but managed the motion.

“That fur of yours would fall to the floor.”

Ophir looked in both directions down the corridor.

“Don’t look there. Look at me,” he said assuredly. “I’ll let you know when you can look away.”

Heat consumed her. She’d spent her life commanding flame, yet it licked at all of the intimate cracks and parts of her, causing her toes to curl, her breath to catch, her breasts to peak against the delicate material of the dress.

She resisted the flinching urge to check over her shoulder once more, eyes only on Tyr.

“You let your body go limp while I hold you, Princess,” he murmured. “Trust me to catch you. You know I have you. You know you won’t fall as long as you’re with me.”

She understood he meant more than tumbling to the ground.

“Tyr, let’s go,” she urged.

“I’m not done.”

“Then fuck me,” she begged.

He swept her backward in a single motion until she was pressed against the stones.

She melted like butter over fresh bread, soaking into him.

Her mouth absorbed each movement, the arch and caress of his tongue, the press of his lips, the grip of his hand as it cupped the side of her face, then half of her throat.

She thought only of him. Of his mouth. Of his flavor.

Of the fullness of him. Of how her heart expanded and squeezed at every touch.

“Princess?”

She looked up at him, eyes wide, desperate.

“You believe me when I tell you that I want you more than anything in this world.”

It wasn’t a question.

She nodded, shifting her head so her toffee-colored hair tumbled off her shoulder, baring her throat to his mouth.

He dragged kisses down her neck, soaking whatever remained of the space between her legs.

A distracting droplet of water dripped from her inner thigh.

His thumb brushed over the soft curve of her breast. Given the abandoned fur, there was little more than a thread of hopes and prayers between his finger and the sensitive peak.

“And,” he said, eyes glazed, “you believe that what I feel for you is so much deeper than sex?”

She looked up at him, hazy with hunger.

“What if I only want sex from you?” she asked.

His lips quirked up in a half smile. “I wouldn’t blame you,” he said. “I’m fantastic in bed.”

She meant to grab his balls with anger, but his face flinched in a way that told her the graze of her touch had an entirely different effect.

“Tomorrow is the meeting,” he said. “It’s the last day of the summit.”

“I don’t want to talk about the meeting right now.”

“I know,” he agreed, “but there are things you don’t know.

Things you deserve to know before you go into that room.

Given the secrecy, my gifts for espionage, and Dwyn’s overall ability to be a demonic terror, I have no idea who knows what.

But I know one thing for certain: You’re at a disadvantage.

Can we go to your room and talk about it? ”

“What disadvantage?” she asked, brows furrowing.

“Let’s go to your room,” he tried again. She could see his frustration, but she couldn’t let this be another thing shoved to the wayside to protect whatever delicate royal sensibilities people projected onto her.

“What disadvantage?” she pressed.

His nostrils flared as he forced himself into a state of calm. “There’s one I only learned about yesterday. The others…”

“What disadvantages!” she demanded, pluralizing the word as she pushed out from underneath him. The heat of anger replaced the desire that had consumed her mere moments before.

Tyr’s face fell into a concentrated frown, from the knit of his brows to the sadness in his eyes. His hand remained propped against the wall even though the princess had escaped from beneath him. His gaze traced her as she put just enough distance between them to size him up.

“Tyr,” she emphasized.

“That woman at your meeting,” he said. “The woman called Cybele?”

“What about her?”

Tyr closed his eyes. He rested his head against the cool stones, taking a moment to himself before he spoke again. “We can’t sleep together again. And you have her to thank.”

Ophir pushed away fully. She took several steps backward. “What are you saying?”

It took Tyr a while to turn his body. He moved with uncomfortable slowness, each movement pained. His eyes remained closed as his head smacked the midnight stones behind him.

“Tell me!”

When he was able to meet her anxious stare, it was with a well of bottomless sadness. “The woman your father brought with him to the summit? What do you know of her gift?”

Ophir’s jaw cut sharply to the side in a single confused gesture.

“Cybele’s gift is fertility, Ophir.”

Her lips parted.

“Princess—”

“No,” she said, taking a step back.

“I didn’t do this, Firi. I didn’t—”

“My father?” she asked, voice a ghost of horror.

She was scarcely able to squeeze the words past her roiling disgust. Her lips curled up in anguish as she looked at him.

“He doesn’t just want me to marry Ceneth, he wants to use magic to trick me into bearing heirs?

Is that it? He thinks he can… My father thinks it’s appropriate… my father ?!”

Ophir scratched at her arms as if trying to scrape a thick film of algae from the surface of a pond. Angry red lines followed the marks of her nails.

“There’s more,” Tyr said.

Ophir ceased her frantic scratching, mouth ajar, eyes wide, frozen in the midst of panic as she looked up at him.

“Yesterday, I took a chance and followed Dwyn. It turned out she was meeting Suley. I know she can hear thoughts, but… She wasn’t Dwyn’s friend. There’s more to Cybele’s power than fertility.”