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Odin brought them to a room on the bottom level, quiet and so far removed from the rest of the gala that there was no chance of a partygoer running into them.
Hunter recognized it as soon as they entered, even though, like the music room, everything had been covered in sheets. The door shut behind them, and he heard the sound of the lock twisting a second before Odin backed him up against the wall.
“Hold on to me,” Odin told him, resting his arms on either side of Hunter’s head as he pinned him between the wall and his solid form. Heat pulsed from him, and a calming sensation exuded off of him, worming its way past Hunter’s defenses.
He settled his hands on Odin’s hips, breathing a sigh of relief as that warmth licked through him, picking up where it’d left off back in the music room.
“Does it still hurt?” Odin asked.
“Only a little.” Most of the sting was bearable, nothing compared to the previous aches. Then, it’d felt like his bones were about to snap and turn to dust inside of him, like his muscles were about to shatter.
“I have to get all of him out of you,” he said, dropping his forehead against Hunter’s. He inhaled shakily, then cupped the side of his face and ran his fingers up into his hair. “You were right. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
Hunter’s earlier suspicions that Odin had orchestrated all of this on purpose had gone out the window the second he’d come to his rescue, but those doubts trickled back in all the same.
Odin must have felt his unease because he shifted closer, careful not to crush him as he settled more closely against him. He planted a kiss between Hunter’s brow, just barely a touch, then repeated the motion on the rise of his cheek and lower to the corner of his mouth.
Hunter shoved his hands between them but only managed to push him back half an inch. “What are you doing?”
“Honestly?” He shook his head, still refusing to move away. “I don’t know, but this feels right, doesn’t it? It feels like this is what I’m supposed to do.”
Was it because he was a Whisper?
Hunter had never heard of Whispers affecting Shouts in any other way than with their blood, but then again, the last known Whisper had died off fifty years ago, long before his time.
That theory didn’t make sense, though. Isa hadn’t had trouble killing him, after all, and he was a Shout, same as Odin.
What was this then, and why did he like it so much? He was barely resisting the urge to rub himself against the other man, to accept the comfort he was obviously trying to give.
A comfort Hunter wouldn’t have even needed if only he’d listened to him from the beginning.
“Get off.” Whatever this was, it didn’t matter. What mattered was he’d almost lost his life and it was entirely Odin’s fault. “I said, get off.”
Odin shook his head. “Not done.”
“I don’t care.”
“If I don’t melt all the ice, you’ll get sick,” he told him.
“I don’t want your power crawling around inside me either,” Hunter snapped. He tried to shove him away a second time, with more force, and it worked a little.
But Odin recaptured those couple of inches with ease, stubbornly refusing to give Hunter the space he so desperately needed. Instead, he wrapped his hand around Hunter’s throat.
Hunter went still, fear racing through him.
“Breathe, Huntsman,” Odin coaxed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He was healing the marks Isa had left on his neck when he’d choked him. Hunter felt it a second later, and before he could help it, a moan slipped out. He stiffened again, this time for another reason, but it was too late.
Odin grinned and brushed the side of his face against his. “What’s this? Coming apart for me already?”
“You wish.” It was the power, that heat so soon after almost becoming a popsicle. That was all. It had nothing to do with the fact that they were currently standing in the middle of the small study where Odin used to do his homework.
Where Hunter was allowed to sit on the other side of the room, pretending to be doing the same.
It was practically unheard of as a soldier in the Brumal, yet Odin had allowed him to remain close, claiming that he’d needed Hunter’s help studying.
It’d been a kindness, Hunter acknowledged that.
