Chapter 32 Antony
Chapter Thirty-Two
Antony
Iexpect Thyra’s cheeks to pale. She must realize the vulnerability she’s admitted.
Disclosing that she can’t move during her Oracle visions is bad enough. Telling me she’s completely unaware of what her body’s doing during a blade vision is potentially catastrophic.
For her, that is.
She peers up at me, searching my eyes, no doubt for any hint of my true intentions.
I’m on the cusp of asking her how long the blade visions last, but I have some idea already. Not more than a few seconds in the forge. Longer on the roof.
Slowly, she draws herself to her full height, but instead of trembling in the face of the harm I could do her, her head rises at a defiant angle.
“Point me in the direction of the bathing room.” And then she adds, “Protector.”
I can’t help my guffaw at her bravado, gratified by the glare she aims at me. “Inside.”
Without a backward glance, she strides in the cabin’s direction once more.
I scoop up my armor and follow her at a leisurely pace, watching her ascend the front steps, after which her boots beat across the porch, before she shoves the door open.
I’m curious to see if she’ll defy my rules and let the door close behind her, blocking her from my sight, but she pauses there with the cabin’s internal darkness nearly swallowing her.
To me, her figure is as clear as if starlight were pouring directly onto her.
I rarely light lamps when I’m on my own. I don’t need them.
When I was younger, I tried to hide my ability to see in the dark, uncertain if it would be distrusted. But it seems my people are willing to believe that all manner of powers are bestowed on me simply because I’m king. Thyra will probably believe the same.
I pick up my pace, reaching her within seconds, grazing past her as I enter the room. After depositing my armor onto the floor near the wall, I quickly reach for the mechanism inside the door that will open the roof.
As the panels separate overhead, revealing a thick, glass ceiling that protects against the weather, starlight floods into the cabin.
I wonder what Thyra will think of the big bed covered in a single blanket, the fur rug on the floor, the single plush chair, or the fact that there’s nothing much else in here. No cooking facilities. No surfaces dedicated to eating. No heat source, like a fireplace.
I built this cabin for myself, and I don’t need any of those things.
Thyra’s head is tilted back, the starlight reflecting in her blue eyes, her posture so still that, for a moment, I wonder if she’s about to have another vision…
Then she glances around the room, seeming to quickly get her bearings before she heads to the door on the far left, which leads to a larger-than-normal bathing room lined from floor to ceiling with smooth porcelain.
It contains a toilet, a bath, and washing facilities that produce only freezing cold water.
Because I’m cruel like that. Even to myself.
She pauses in the doorway to the bathing room. “I’m closing the door now.”
I give her a single nod. I’m not concerned. There aren’t any windows inside the bathing room. No way to slip out of it.
As the door closes, I consider that she must be starving.
I grimace at the fact that I don’t have any food for her.
Just as I puzzle over a solution for this, I catch the distant swoosh of beating wings, the thumps to the air that speak of an approaching eagle, and I open the front door in time for my bird to alight on the grass in front of the cabin.
He holds a broken branch in his beak, which he drops near the bottom step.
The branch is smothered in thistleberries, a fist-sized fruit that’s remarkably filling. Cassia takes a thistleberry with her whenever she travels because they’re so sustaining.
My eagle must have flown all the way back to the nearest orchard to get them. There are enough thistleberries on this section of the branch that Thyra could gorge herself for days.
I arch my eyebrows at my eagle.
He gives me a cold stare before rising silently into the air and flying off into the night again.
Carrying the branch up to the porch, I pluck a single, large fruit from the branch, choosing the berry with the brightest emerald skin because it will be the sweetest, returning to find Thyra standing in the far doorway.
The water droplets around her hairline indicate she washed her face, although she wasn’t in there long enough to have bathed. I imagine she tried the water, got a sense of its temperature, and decided against it.
I hold out the fruit, nestled in the palm of my bare hand. “For you.”
She doesn’t hesitate, powering toward me, snatching up the offering, and biting into it.
A groan leaves her mouth. She takes another bite. And then another, each one with a louder moan.
It’s a good thing she backs away from me, seeming completely engrossed in the berry as she finds her way to the chair.
I plant my feet and stay where I am because, by fuck, the need to claim her mouth and taste her moans is beating through my blood.
“What is this?” she asks, her speech smothered against the fruit as she takes another bite.
“Thistleberry,” I grind out. “Have you never eaten one?”
Of course, she hasn’t. They’re only grown in the Iron Kingdom. Assuming it’s true that she never left the western coast before today.
“I have never eaten anything like this.”
Within moments, she makes it to the thistleberry’s core, and I’m about to stop her before she bites into the seeds. They’re extremely sour, and the core is full of them. Most fae discard that part of the fruit.
I expect her to spit it out, but she chomps down on the final portion, swallows, and leans back in the chair with a final groan, a blissful smile on her face.
It only lasts a second before she sits up, looks around, and asks, “Are there more?”
“Give it a moment,” I say. “One is enough.”
She scowls at me, but her expression quickly clears, and she presses her hands to her stomach. “You’re right. I’m full. That’s remarkable.”
“Bed.” I point. A command.
She stiffens, all bliss vanishing.
“For sleeping,” I clarify.
The sooner, the better.
I need to get out into the forest and work off this burning agitation building within my body.
She rubs her arms. “I’m filthy, but the water’s too cold to wash properly.”
“I don’t care if the blanket gets dirty.”
“That isn’t—” She presses her lips together.
I can’t stop the heated thoughts pouring through my mind or the temptation to rile her. “If you want to bathe, but you need to stay warm, I can bathe you. My body will keep you—”
“No.” She steps toward the left side of the bed. Pauses. Then, more quietly. “No.”
It’s just as well. I’m not certain I could have gone through with it right now. Not without risking everything.
I’m surprised when she settles herself on top of the blanket, boots and all, instead of slipping beneath it.
But then she reaches for the nearest edge and pulls it over herself, tucking it in against her torso and beneath her upper arm.
I guess she means to cocoon herself, a possibility that’s confirmed when she stretches for the other side of the blanket, tugging on the material to pull it toward herself.
“Stop.” I step toward her, and she freezes.
There’s one more thing I need to do before she pulls the covers over herself.
Reaching the side of the bed, I stare down at her, taking in her bedraggled form. It seems that washing her face did nothing to erase the tear tracks marking her cheeks.
My jaw clenches. “Give me your right hand.”
She lies on her left side, so it’s her upper hand. It won’t cause her too much discomfort.
Her brow puckers, but she complies, at which I move quickly.
I need to get out of the cabin.
I need to hunt. Now.
Unlatching the chain from around my armored arm, I swiftly anchor it around her upraised wrist, but instead of leaving it attached to me, I latch the other end to one of the steel poles forming the head of the bed.
Now she can’t slip out of the cabin while I’m gone.
Her brow furrows as she follows the chain from her wrist to the pole it’s attached to. “What if I need to use the bathing room again?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back before that’s a possibility.”
She blinks rapidly at me. She looks more startled than she did when I put the chain on her. “Where are you going?”
I don’t answer her. Any truthful answer would give her nightmares.
“Get some sleep, Thyra.”
“But—”
I’m already at the door, pulling it wide, slipping outside. I tell myself it’s my monstrous nature. My poisoned heart.
My need to leave has nothing to do with the warm feeling that invaded my chest when she smiled up at me. Or the heat that pulsed in my blood when she groaned at the sweetness of the berry. Or even the thought of her chained to my bed.
I’m barely down the steps, aware of the door closing behind me, shutting off my view of her, and I’m already peeling off my armor, piece by piece, discarding the layers that cage my true darkness.
This fucking steel. It reduces my strength. Weighs me down. Makes my movements slower. Constrains me. Keeps me in check.
I’ve told no one my secret, not even Victor.
Not even when I asked him to make me the best armor he possibly could.
I imagine he senses the darkness within me. All fae are instinctively wary of me, but he’s never said anything, and I don’t want him to know the truth.
I can’t let anyone find out.
As my pace increases, every plate of steel falls to the ground until I’m free of the metal, left wearing only a thin pair of long pants along with the leather harness that wraps around my chest and covers my heart.
I beat back the temptation to remove the harness, too. I can’t risk it tonight, not when I need to maintain some shred of control over my impulses.
I will lie to Thyra about many things. But I didn’t lie when I told her I was a monster.
My senses expand, my heart pounds, and I have only one remaining rational thought before my brutal impulses take over: Far better that I spill the blood of every creature in this forest than that I lose control and break Thyra before I should.
So I run, my arms and legs pumping, my speed increasing.
Every beast in this forest is now my prey.