Chapter Fifteen Stellen
Chapter Fifteen
Stellen
Thyra’s cry sends a shock through my body.
As I pull her into the hot water, submerging her to her neck, she moans against my neck, her chilled torso clashing with mine, and her voice…
Her voice.
Layers of pitch carry cadences of aching, grief, determination, and a startling need. More than physical. As if she wants something from me that I can’t give her.
Empathy, maybe. Compassion. Understanding.
Her next exhalation streams warm air across my chin as she tilts her head slowly back, arching against me, her breasts pressing to my torso, and her pelvis jammed against my stomach, just high enough above my cock that she won’t feel how hard I am.
I clamp down on my body’s response to her. The sound of her heartbeat. The curve of her lips. The arch of her back. The glide of the water around us.
I fight the need I won’t make known to her.
Her eyes are closed.
She inhales.
A long, soft sound that quietly shatters my sense of where I am and what I’m doing, her next exhalation a torment curling through my chest, squeezing my damaged heart.
For an extended moment, as she stays right where she is, her sun-touched cheeks and lips are mine to study.
I want to pull every piece of information I can from them, the way her skin flushes, pales, and flushes again, the way the small tensions play around her mouth.
I take in everything about her.
The puncture wounds on her neck are red but healing. Two other scars mar her skin. One across her right rib, an unmistakable iron burn, and the second across her upper right shoulder that can only have been made by Ember fire. I will ask her about them in time but not now.
Her hands, where they find the tears in my tunic and press to my bare skin, are rough and callused. It was clear to me the moment I first saw her that she worked hard among the fishing communities along the coast.
She hid as a lowborn.
But to survive in my kingdom, she will have to behave as a highborn. She will have to draw herself above all others, distant and untouchable.
As the silence between us extends, filled only with her quiet breathing and the gentle bubble of water, I clamp down on my power, fighting the instinctive, self-preserving push of ice that rises the longer I remain immersed in warmth.
This heat is in direct opposition to my existence, an enemy of my body.
I am of ice.
I am all that is frozen.
This water is living warmth.
It has no power over me, can give me no heat, but I could destroy it easily, freezing it over, along with Thyra.
As if she becomes aware of my internal struggle, she opens her eyes.
Pale blue. Faded.
I expect the tension around her lips to return when she looks at me.
Astoundingly, it doesn’t.
Without a word, she pulls herself closer to my chest, fitting her head to my neck, her hair tickling my chin.
The fact that she can maneuver herself without any help from me is a welcome sign.
Her heartbeats are stronger, and her color remains, filling her lips as well as her fingertips where they peek above the water’s surface.
“You made me warm,” she says.
A near-impossible achievement for a cold creature like me.
She falls quiet again, and I allow the silence to settle.
For long moments, I indulge in the pretense that I can keep her this way. Warm. Safe.
Finally, she stretches against me, and I allow her the freedom she needs to test her body’s movement.
She flexes each arm, stretches her neck, and wriggles her legs. Fucking maddening as she rocks against me.
Time to let her go before I whisk her out of the water, press her to the rocks, and give her the crash her body will soon crave.
I was reckless in keeping her alive the way I did.
All songs have consequences.
She will need release, one way or another.
Before I can give in to my impulses, she murmurs against my neck. “I’d like to test my legs now.”
To fully immerse her, I had to kneel in the water. She only has to slide her legs away from my hips and place her feet on the smooth surface below, and she’ll be able to stand on her own.
“You don’t need to ask permission,” I whisper, fighting to remain monotone.
She pulls back a little, eyebrows arched. “Your grip on me demands that I do.”
I forget my strength.
With more reluctance than I anticipated, I open my arms.
Her thigh muscles clench as she pulls herself away from me, the strands of her faded, black hair first swirling in the water and then clinging to her shoulders as she sets her feet down, clearly visible through the liquid, and rises slowly upward.
Water rushes down her chest but only so far as her midriff, since the pond reaches that height on her.
Droplets fall as she inhales again, sparkling across the Lethian silver covering her breasts.
I remain kneeling opposite her, unmoving, while a slow, hesitant smile grows on her lips.
She looks as if she’s about to speak, but then she shivers.
With a shudder and a quick exclamation of “Cold,” she immerses herself again. “Brrr.”
I bite back my chuckle. Then rise up into a standing position, completely oblivious to the cold. Actually, it’s a relief after the heat.
I’m fully aware that I’m looming over her. “You can’t stay in here forever.”
She gives me a defiant glare.
And pushes toward the waterfall, a clear message that she will only swim away from me if I dare try to snatch her from the warmth.
She’s a strong swimmer, making it to the rock wall in a single sweep. She lived next to the ocean. I suspect she really could evade me if she wants to.
She plants her left palm against the rock, fingertips once again peeking above the surface, water from the fall spraying around her hand.
I imagine she’ll use the rock as leverage to move quickly again if I even twitch toward her.
With a shrug, I turn my back on her, avoiding the cocoon at the edge of the pond as I hoist myself out of the water.
My clothing is waterlogged, clinging to my tall frame, and my hair drips down my back.
I give a shiver of my own, but not from discomfort.
My power streams across my body from my head to my toes, a controlled flow freezing every droplet of liquid on my skin and on my clothing, covering myself in a frosty sheen of ice. Gentle enough that it doesn’t destroy my clothing.
Giving a sharp shake, I shatter the ice, shedding powdery snow around me.
It nearly works.
I have to stamp my feet to get the damn ice out of my pants, but it’s no worse than shaking off the snow from a blizzard. My boots and swords remain inside the cocoon, since there’s no need to retrieve them yet.
I’m suddenly aware of the Oracle’s silence behind me.
I focus on the cadence of her calm breathing. The low beat of her heart. Sounds I could drown in.
My shoulders gradually slump as I remain, half-turned away from her, discerning her emotions through her breathing and heartbeats rather than her facial expressions and body language.
There is a peace between us, but soon enough, I’ll have to break it.
Now that she’s stronger, the uncertainty of her new situation must quickly become a concern to her.
I told her we are equals. She is not subservient to me, and she doesn’t have to ask my permission to speak or act.
But I’ve also warned her of the harsh future she faces.
She has glimpsed my nature. She asked for mercy for the Iron King, and I denied it. She has experienced the pain of my frost power, even if what might now be at the forefront of her consciousness is the seduction of my Lethian song.
Once we leave the Alak-Teah, she will discover that I am simply a reflection of my world.
Frozen, cold, and cruel.
Outside of this forest, everything she says and does will be observed, judged, and used against her.
Her vulnerabilities will become mortal liabilities.
That is the way of Frost.
Quietly, flatly, I ask, “What should I know about you, Thyra?”
Her heartbeats become more rapid, but it’s a slow increase, signaling that an insidious fear rises within her mind.
When she speaks, her voice is strained. “You warned me that asking for help will inevitably lead to pain.”
I consider what she could mean. “Am I to assume that what you need to tell me involves asking for my help?”
“It could.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Then you face a dilemma, Thyra. The first of many. You must make a choice.”
The press of her lips, followed by the slide of her hand away from the waterfall, indicates how perplexed she is. Or perhaps she’s conflicted. Or saddened. Or…
But suddenly, I’m unable to read her. Her heartbeats become regular, unemotional, and her breathing is controlled.
She remains mostly submerged in the water, the liquid lapping at her shoulders, its clarity allowing me to see that she’s now kneeling within it.
Disconcertingly, she’s as blank as a field of fresh snow.
I consider her warily as her focus falls to the water, her left hand sliding beneath the surface while her right hand follows the gentle path of a silver flower floating in front of her.
“Before I decide,” she says, “I want to ask you a question.”
I consider her carefully as she scoops her palm beneath the silver bloom, at which the threads unwind and slide around her wrist, traveling a path up her arm to her shoulder before reattaching to the top of the band around her chest.
“You don’t need my permission to ask,” I reply quietly, repeating my earlier statement.
Her eyes rise to mine. “What do you want from me?”
A question that shoots ice through my body. And sudden need.
I could tell her that I want what the other two kings surely want—or in Antony’s case, wanted: to control Thyra.
For generations, the three kingdoms have been locked in war.
The very first female Oracle, who came to be known as the False Queen, started the war when she cursed the Dragonstone Blade.
While myths and stories muddy the truth around how the curse can be broken, only one thing is an accepted fact: the curse can only be broken by another female Oracle.
Thyra is the first female Oracle born since the False Queen.
Only by controlling Thyra will I control my fate.
I could tell her all of that. It would be true. She would believe it. And that would be the end of it.
But what I truly want from her is far more personal.
Yes, to save my kingdom would be a noble goal. From what I’ve heard of Maxim and even of Antony, their dedication to their people far exceeds mine. And, certainly, controlling the fate of the three kingdoms would be an intoxicating power—a supremacy I’m certain others would seek.
But for me? Fuck. It’s difficult to care for a people who would rather see me dead and my Lethian blood annihilated. Even less appealing is the weight of responsibility for the lives of countless thousands of fae across the three kingdoms.
I want something far more valuable.
And Thyra has given me a taste of it.
I step toward the water’s edge, fighting the desire to descend into the pond again, close the gap between her and me, and discover the full extent of the pleasure I can sing to her.
I force myself to stop. Wait.
She must come to me. Willingly. Undeniably.
Not because of my power. Not because of the situation she finds herself in.
She must come to me because she wants to.
Standing on the precipice of the pool’s edge, I cast her a challenge: “What do I want from you? Come out of the water, and I’ll show you.”