Chapter Twelve Thyra
Chapter Twelve
Thyra
Treacherous heat radiates through my body, pooling between my legs, making me want more.
My need intensifies with every softly hummed note the Frost King sings into my ear, his voice as sweet as syrup, as warm as the ocean on a hot day, and as yearning as a breeze slipping between palm fronds.
He pulls my focus from the terrifying snowstorm trying to beat us down and obliterate us.
Only a small part of me remains aware of the jeopardy I’m in.
I can’t see a thing through the snow flurries, can’t tell what direction we’re traveling. At one point, I make out the silhouette of what could be a tower in the distance, but it’s impossible to tell.
The Frost King keeps me curled against him, my legs around his hips and my face against the crook of his neck while he leans low to his wolf’s back, his hand wrapped around my head.
His lips at my ear.
Weaving a lifetime of needy heartbeats that make me forget I can’t feel my toes, my feet, my hands…
Maybe I can sense the movement of the king’s muscles beneath my palms, where I continue to press my hands to his bare skin, one at his side, one at his heart.
Maybe.
Or maybe I’m delirious with cold, and none of this is happening…
Even as my thoughts drift, he sings to me.
Every note pulls my mind back to my body, fitting my broken pieces together as if the gaps don’t matter.
At some point, I find the strength to ask him what he’s doing to me, but his answer is muted.
Warm, he tells me. Or…that’s what I hear. The proof of it slides through my chest, swirling in my stomach, stroking downward like a perfectly weighted finger between my legs.
A breathtaking build of constant pleasure.
Finally, after what could be as long as an hour, the wind’s howl changes.
Instead of a roar, the breeze groans around us, an unnerving sound, an abrupt enough change to draw my focus for a few heartbeats, but because of the way the king is holding me, I can’t see what we’re heading toward.
“Nara.” The Frost King’s mouth rises from my ear, his command to his wolf far softer than the harsh order he gave her before she first started racing through the snow. “Be calm. You don’t have to go in.”
The wolf immediately pulls to a halt that the Frost King seems to anticipate because he simply uses the momentum to slide smoothly from her back.
Landing lightly with me in his arms, he hurries forward without breaking stride.
Five quick paces later, the wind drops completely, the air jarringly quiet and still.
My ears buzz at the sudden silence.
I grew up with the constant rush of waves onto sand. Each coastal town I lived in was situated right beside the ocean and once again, I’m thrown by how silent the world can be.
More so because the king has stopped singing and…damn…I miss his voice.
Not only for the pleasure it invoked, but because, within the notes, I could almost catch glimpses of him. A story he might be trying to tell me…
He doesn’t falter, pushing forward through what must be deep snow because each footfall descends farther down than the one before until the white powder is so high that I can see it reaching his knees.
Without a sound, he continues to move forward, and his next step takes us into sudden shadow, another startling change.
It was already nighttime; the air was dark, but until now, whirling snow had turned the world bright white, every reflection of starlight glaring and intensified.
Now, darkness seems to swallow us.
As if the Frost King reads my thoughts, he lowers his face to mine, pressing his cheek to my cheek.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispers. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
My right hand remains pressed to his heart, and now that he’s adjusted his position, I can see that my fingernails have continued to draw blood.
Every droplet has frozen over.
Snowflakes gather between him and me, each one sparkling and…
My mind drifts.
His lips glide to my ear, and this time, the note he sings floats through my hearing. Softly strumming. Softer than the whisper of a white rose petal falling in a blade vision.
The harmony pulls my focus from the ring of steel and the whoosh-whoosh of air as he draws one of his swords and slices the weapon back and forth.
Whatever he’s cutting, I can’t see it.
Again comes the soft ring of steel as he returns his blade to its scabbard and hurries forward, this time turning side-on.
Finally, I can discern what we’re headed toward—or, rather, now moving through.
The breath stops in my chest.
A line of amethyst trees, unnatural and unsettling in their color, rises up on either side of us, but instead of leaves, their intertwining branches are covered in white spiderwebs.
Intricate threads create a thick lattice between tree trunks and branches, forming an opaque wall that stretches as far as I can see, obscuring whatever lies behind it.
Except where the king has cut them.
The loose ends of the web trail in the breeze, the nearest strands unraveling, each thread slipping away from the others so that the curtain opens further.
Through the widening gap, I make out a thick forest, and while he remains turned to the side, I glimpse a narrow path curving into the distance ahead of us.
The Frost King hurries through the opening, hunching his shoulders, making himself small and, as far as I can tell, avoiding touching any part of the web.
Mere paces in the other direction, outside the forest, the storm continues to rage, a freezing blizzard in which the white wolf strides back and forth, edging toward us and then back again, thrashing her head as she moves.
She’s clearly agitated, but she doesn’t come after us.
What could possibly make her feel safer in that frozen landscape than the unnervingly quiet forest we’re stepping into?
Three steps past the webbed barrier, darkness drops across us again, as deep as the perpetual night in the bloodlands.
Now that I’m facing backward again, I have a full view of the web rapidly healing itself, the loose ends catching against each other.
A shiver radiates down my spine. The Frost King’s arms tighten at my back, but he doesn’t sing to me this time.
His footfalls and breathing become so quiet that my head spins. It’s as if I were being carried by a ghost.
Outside, the wolf howls into the storm, a sudden, piercing sound abruptly cut off when the web closes behind us.
Sealing us inside the eerie dark.