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 unexpectedlyat 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.
