Chapter Eleven Stellen
Chapter Eleven
Stellen
Mindless need forces my actions.
Thyra’s body is pressed hard against mine. She’s desperate for warmth, just as she logically should be, but it was her command that has jolted me into action.
A command that struck at my Lethian power as surely as if she plucked at my soul.
Already, I’ve given her parts of myself I’ve suppressed for years—parts I’m certain she doesn’t recognize for what they are or how deeply they’re connected to the fabric of my being.
My Lethian Voice.
Using it has dredged up memories I buried long ago, awakening melodies I thought I’d forgotten.
Her legs are wrapped around my hips, her hands jammed against my chest and side, her pelvis pressed hard to my cock and it takes all my force of will to remind myself she’s only pressed up against me like this because she must have thought my body heat would help her.
But I don’t fight my growing physical need because her mouth demands that I give her warmth, and I will.
Oh, I will.
I will use my desire to sing to her in a way I never thought I would ever sing to a woman.
Not the cruel song that forced her soul back into her dying body. That song pinned her mind to her body more cruelly than driving a nail into her heart and watching her bleed out.
No. The melody that now rises to my lips will make her long for life. It will give her a seductive heat that will keep her alive. Even if…
This song comes with consequences. As all songs do.
Softly, I drop my lips to the corner of her mouth and inhale her quick gasp before I move to her cold cheek, brushing a path to her ear and away from her mouth.
I need to hear her breathing, not smother it, because the pull and flow of air from her chest will signal her emotions and reactions and tell me how hard or soft my approach needs to be.
Within my mind, I catch hold of the torrent of sensations she’s triggering in my body, the intoxicating perfection of how easily she slid her legs around me, and how hard she presses her pelvis to mine.
My lips brush her ear, the softest touch as I allow the sensations I’m experiencing to form sound, gliding across my tongue and to her ear.
A soft note.
She gasps, her mouth moving against my cheek, the air pulling into her chest, the first sound of pleasure she’s made in my presence.
I don’t let it fall into silence, catching hold of the sensation of her breasts arching into my chest, running the sound of pleasure across my tongue, and humming another note.
She whimpers. Needy and heated. An even more rapid response than I was expecting. Her clawed hand moves against my heart, her fingers stretching, palm pressing. The blood she drew freezes over within seconds, but I pay it no attention.
“Thyra,” I whisper her name, a single word carrying another hum of sensation.
She rocks against me, and I allow my mind to fill with the rhythm of how she might move if she were to ride me, fully naked, her hips gripped in my hands and her body driving down onto my cock as hard as she likes.
Her moan cuts through my senses, and I fight to control my own need—a need that could drive me to take her in the snow.
I can’t. Won’t.
Fucking her will kill her.
Her breathing may be filled with aching, but the weakness of her heartbeats and the rasp in her breathing tell me her body is holding on to life by the thinnest of threads.
Even so, my Voice has done what I needed it to do. For now.
I’ve caught her focus and filled her mind with her need for pleasure, drawing her attention away from the pain she would otherwise feel.
I’ve flooded her body with desire, not agony.
Now I need to get her to safety before it’s all for nothing.
As swiftly as I can, I rise to my feet, holding her close, pushing against the wind and snow to reach Nara’s side.
Nara has waited patiently, her wolfish ears immune to my Voice.
But I overestimated how long my singing would hold Thyra in its thrall. I’ve barely nudged Nara’s side and already Thyra has stiffened.
Quickly, I hum again into her ear, quieting my mind and focusing on answering her need so I can keep her mind in a place where the ache within her pleasure points is all she can think about.
I’m acutely aware that if I can’t keep her focus, and if she starts to fade again, I’ll be forced to draw once more on the malicious song that caged her soul in her body.
Is it crueler to keep her alive that way than to let her die?
I banish the question.
I’m determined to keep her mind off the realities of the ice whipping around us and, more than anything, ensure I don’t give her any inkling of the peril I will now have to carry her into.
There’s only one place in my kingdom where the kind of warmth exists that can save her, but its darkness also holds death.
My torn tunic flaps in the wind, as does my robe, ice gathering between the folds of the pale-gray material as I leap onto Nara’s back, taking Thyra with me, landing lightly so I don’t jolt Thyra in my arms.
Her legs remain wrapped around me, her chest pressed to mine.
Leaning as low as I can over Nara’s neck, I utter a quick but quiet command. “Nara, take us to the Alak-Teah.”
Nara immediately digs her paws into the snow.
I was prepared for her rebellion, my hold on Thyra remaining unaffected.
I know what I’m asking Nara to do, but I don’t have time to assuage her fears. Already, Thyra is beginning to shiver again, and it will be mere heartbeats before she forgets the pleasure I’ve given her and focuses again on the agony of her dying limbs.
My voice sharpens, and I inject a hint of my Lethian power into my words, the energy coming readily to my tongue now. “Nara. Go.”
The wolf’s ears flick back, and she jolts forward, propelled by my Voice.
She quickly breaks into a run, her head lowered as she races through the stormy night, heading northwest, a path that will steer us clear of the nearest tower.
No healer can help Thyra now. She was already beyond any healer’s help before I carried her across the border.
I hum once more into Thyra’s ear, but this time, the wind whips away the sound. Her hand threatens to claw at my heart again, her legs trembling around my body. Her whimper tugs at my hearing. Not a good whimper.
I detect every cadence of emotion in her soft cry, interpreting the smallest notes in her voice. She’s confused and desperate, but worse, her mind is wandering.
She’s approaching delirium.
If I could panic, it would be now.
Calmly, I return my mouth to her ear, determined to focus.
This storm will not silence me.
Soft as the opening of a flower—a sight I’ve only seen across the border of my kingdom—I hum another note, this one more soothing than those before.
I sense its power, the way it curls across the shortest gap between her ear and my mouth and will hook around her mind.
Her tension eases, and the threatening shivers abate.
Off to our right, the silhouette of a Frost Tower becomes visible.
Beyond it, farther east, is a village. One of many.
While my palace sits near the center of my kingdom, villages have sprung up over time in a manner dictated purely by survival.
Homes are clustered around the underground hot springs that run far below the surface, situated where those springs flow closer to the surface, and the steam can be harnessed for heating.
Our destination is far enough away that the distance is a threat to Thyra’s survival. Certainly, if I hadn’t forced her back to her body, she wouldn’t have made it even if I’d gone straight there.
Now, the Alak-Teah is her only hope.
Over and over, I hum into Thyra’s ear, keeping her balanced on the precipice of a crash. Pleasure unfulfilled while her body remains alluringly close to release.
All while I fight to stay sane, pulling from my desires without quenching any of them, a challenge that drives me to the brink of disaster, over and over again.
The wind and snow intensify the farther north we travel, but Nara pushes on. Any other wolf would collapse from the effort, but not Nara. She was born in the wild and survived against all odds.
Still, she can’t run forever.
Neither will Thyra hold on forever, her breathing thready, her moans far weaker than before.
Somehow, she manages to whisper against my cheek, the first words she’s spoken since she demanded that I make her warm. “What are you doing to me?”
“Keeping you warm.”
It’s a half-truth.
I’m keeping her alive while I carry her into danger.