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His little rebellion simply earned him a click of the tongue.
“That’s hardly a way to thank me for saving your life, now is it?” Odin shook his head, but the mockery was clear even though his words were spoken lightly. “You were very close to death by the time I arrived. Another beating and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Interesting, don’t you think? How knocking at death’s door is now an experience we share.”
Hunter flinched before he could help it and the other man’s blood-red lips twisted into another grin.
He would have been better off dead, no doubt. When he’d heard a Dominus was after him, he’d thought for certain it was going to be Frost—was still a little shocked by the fact it wasn’t.
Odin slipped his palm beneath Hunter’s head, lifting him easily into a sitting position so that he could slip onto the bed behind him. Once he’d settled Hunter’s body back across his chest, he reached for a small bowl on the end table that Hunter hadn’t noticed was there.
This position, so intimate, made his stomach tighten into knots and his throat close up. This was closer than the two of them had ever been in reality, but as a foolish youth, Hunter had dreamed things like this. Had dreamed about being close enough to touch the Snow Prince and to be touched by him. If he were being honest with himself, his dreams had taken him further even.
But that was then, and this was now, and he was under no illusions this time where Odin was concerned. Love quickly turned to hatred after that day in the woods.
That hatred was what Hunter held onto now.
Odin didn’t seem to be having the same inner turmoil over their nearness. He shifted around Hunter, getting more comfortable, sprawling his legs out on either side of him, arms banding around to help keep him upright as he brought the bowl closer to his mouth and pressed the ceramic rim to Hunter’s bottom lip. “Drink.”
Hunter refused.
“I’m losing patience with you, Huntsman,” Odin warned, voice finally dripping some of that fire that had always been so prevalent in his tone before. He pressed the side of his face against Hunter’s, cheek to cheek. “It isn’t poison. If I simply wanted you dead, I would have left you there with those men.”
He hadn’t even considered that it might be poison. He probably should have.
“Drink,” the bowl was pressed a little more firmly, just shy of causing pain as the inside of Hunter’s lip dug into his teeth, “That’s an order.”
An ember of anger ignited, rising through the fear, twisting it to indignation and Hunter opened his mouth to argue that he was no longer part of the Brumal and therefore not under Odin’s control.
He ended up gagging on bitter liquid instead. The medicine coated his tongue and sloshed down his throat, and he was forced to swallow it down or choke as the entire contents of the bowl was emptied. By the time it was pulled away, he was left gasping for breath, hands gripping the black denim material over Odin’s thighs.
When had he moved his arms? How?
“There,” Odin said, placing the bowl back onto the end table before bringing his hand back to brush a stray drop of liquid from the swell of Hunter’s bottom lip, “that wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
It was possible he was about to throw up. But not from whatever concoction he’d just been force-fed. Not only was this more attention than Odin had ever paid him before, they also hadn’t parted on good terms. Having grown up around mafia men all his life, Hunter knew better than to trust this false sense of care. The kind, dotting caretaker? It was an act. All of it.
If he put those childish fantasies and wishes aside from when he’d been a boy, Hunter could see it clearly for what it was. Odin wasn’t holding him comfortingly, he was trapping him. Their current positioning was a threat, masked under the act of helping him take medicine. Odin wanted him to feel it, wanted him to know.
Things had changed.
The last time they’d seen one another, Hunter had been the bigger of the two.
That was no longer the case. Not by a long shot.
“Snow,” his name drifted from his mouth, spoken low, almost pleading, and Hunter hated himself for it but didn’t bother trying to take it back.
Around him, Odin stilled, going cold, and it was only then that Hunter realized that he’d been pushing heat into him wherever they touched. Odin Snow was a Shout. He could control heat, had mastered his abilities at a young age, in fact, and become a formidable opponent to the other Brumal heads.
That’s why Hunter had been sent, why Frost hadn’t gone himself to do the terrible deed, unlike rumors believed.
Hunter didn’t have any power, and despite their size difference at the time, Odin had never seen him as a threat.
It’d cost him.
It’d cost them both, really.
“Snow, I—” A knock on the door across the room cut him off.
“Come in,” Odin called, loosening his hold around Hunter some.
