Chapter 21 Thyra
Chapter Twenty-One
Thyra
Why can’t Victor see the blade’s image?
It’s right there on my arm.
I’d understand if he assumed it wasn’t the actual blade, since it appears as artwork, but it’s clearly in view, an upside-down dagger, the golden hilt resting along my palm, the cross-guard a bracelet around my wrist.
Every part of it was fully visible when I showed Victor the scar on my upper arm.
“Why…?” I whisper to Antony.
Antony’s green eyes meet mine as he rises from his seat, towering over me. The press of his lips grows firmer, and his hold around my wrist tightens.
He gives me a sharp shake of his head that says he won’t answer me.
Wisdom tells me we can’t have this conversation here, not within earshot of his brother.
“Stay where you are,” Antony orders me before he releases my hand. “I’m taking off my armor now.”
My heart thumps unexpectedly at his declaration. He may as well be taking off his clothing. I can’t possibly know the extent to which he’s naked beneath the steel plates.
What’s more, if he takes off his helmet, I’ll see his full face for the first time.
His voice grows impossibly harsh, a tone of intense fury entering it.
“Do not touch me when my armor is off. Stay exactly where you are and don’t come closer.
” His gaze becomes icy cold, beyond savage, and I shiver at the intense threat in his command.
“Touching me without my armor will be dangerous for you. Do you understand?”
I force myself to speak, barely above a whisper. “I understand.”
He glares at me, as if he anticipates that I’ll defy him, but he proceeds anyway.
Several soft clicks sound, and he slides the two main panels of his chest armor away from his torso, revealing his bare chest. Or rather, his nearly bare chest.
A wide leather strap runs over his left shoulder at an angle that allows the strap to fully cover the location of his heart.
It attaches to narrower strips of leather, tightly circling his ribs and waist. The harness looks like an extra layer of protection for his heart. Maybe in case the steel is damaged.
All of the straps sit tightly against his broad chest, hugging his muscles, leaving the remainder of his skin slick with sweat.
He places both torso pieces on the workbench before he slides off the armor covering his right shoulder, arm, and hand, while leaving his left shoulder and arm covered.
I’m only a single pace away from him, acutely aware of his deeply inhaled breath and long exhalation, conscious of the forbidding hardness in his eyes as he finally reaches for his helmet.
Finally, I will see his face.
Slowly, he slides the broken steel up and over his head.
His hair is glistening black, but the strands are jaggedly cut, hardly the manicured look I was expecting.
Neither is the shadow of growth across his strong jaw.
But it’s the intense heat in his green eyes that snatches the breath from my chest. A wildness that feels extremely dangerous.
Now that he’s uncloaked, his shifting mood hits me hard.
Every breath he takes seethes between his teeth, and his shoulders hunch, the tilt of his head becoming savage as his brutal eyes rake me from my head to my toes in a searing assessment.
He warned me to stay exactly where I am, threatened me not to touch him, and I don’t move a muscle.
Not even when a ruthless smile grows on his lips, challenging me to cross the distance between us.
I’m not sure why I thought…maybe… he would seem less threatening without his armor. More vulnerable somehow. Less frightening.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Now he is beautiful and so… Fucking. Terrifying.
Overwhelming fear rages through me with the realization that his armor cages him, subduing him somehow, and now that it’s mostly off, there’s a part of him that’s been released from that cage.
A part of him that, frighteningly, calls to me.
The curve of his lips promises terrible pain, but my fear is fading, reducing with every heated rake of his gaze over my curves, causing an alarming recklessness to build within my heart and mind.
What if I defied him and took a single step toward him?
Just as that dangerous thought slips through my consciousness, the golden ink on my arm glints brightly.
“No!” Molten gold rushes up my arm from the blade, and I barely have time to snatch a breath before my free will is stolen from me—
The workroom vanishes as the blade’s energy consumes my mind.
I’m covered in iron dust again, but this time I’m wearing nothing more than a white ribbon wrapped across my breasts and down around my upper thighs.
Every other part of my body is naked and exposed while the ribbon slides against my skin, humming as it binds my chest and upper legs.
But now, startlingly…
A chain of fire threads through the haze on my right, a cord of heat reaching for my waist, coiling around me as if it would wrench me away from the iron—
Antony’s shout jolts me back to myself. “Stop!”
My scream spirals from my mouth as the vision vanishes, and the room crashes back into view around me.
But… Oh, no…
I’ve stepped right up to him, my heaving chest dangerously close to his.
I must have raised my inked hand to his face during the vision because he’s gripping my wrist, holding my palm away from his cheek.
My fingers are splayed, every bone in my wrist shifting painfully beneath his hold, threatening to crack under the pressure.
He’s holding me with his left hand—his armored hand—and he’s strong enough, let alone with that steel glove, to break my bones like brittle twigs.
“Stop, Thyra.” His voice is low and dangerous, his gaze consuming mine, his actions defying his speech as he lowers his head to mine, bringing my palm so near to his jaw that the heel of my hand brushes his bristles.
He bares his teeth at me, his pupils dilating, his beautiful lips only inches away from mine.
My breathing is beyond ragged, and a whisper passes through my lips. “Please.”
I don’t know what I’m asking. To be released. Or perhaps…to be constrained.
He leans closer, his lips parted, but oh, how his breathing seethes, and the brutal promise in his eyes grows, warning me that I’m tempting danger.
Warning me that he could end me in an instant.