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 rapidresponse 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 hermind 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.
