by Bec McMaster
He glanced up at her, his lips still caressing her knuckles, and their eyes met.
It was as if he stole the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. The world around them vanished. There was only Marduk with that knowing smile as he straightened, and the soft brush of his lips doing dangerous things to her skin.
Another lance of fury went through her, almost twisting her inside out. The dreki hissed, wanting to stab at him with its claws, wanting to hurl itself at him, to pin him down, to kiss that arrogant mouth, to kill him.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed as she tore her hand from his, her skin prickling as if she’d dipped it in pure lava. Curling her fist to her heart, she fought to see through the fury. Goddess, what was happening to her?
“Solveig?” Her father called.
Solveig had never wanted to kill someone so much in her entire life.
“I am fine,” she snarled, turning on her heel and stalking toward the throne room doors. “I have done my bit for this farce. I need air.”
And a chance to breathe.
Because she’d promised Aslaug she wouldn’t kill him, and Solveig always kept her promises.
“Well, that went as well as expected,” Niels murmured the second Marduk was shown to his rooms.
Marduk barely noticed the doors shutting. Everything within the throne room had turned to a muted murmur of apologies and hushed voices the second the princess stormed from the chambers.
He slung the velvet cloak from his shoulders. Niels had chosen it for him, intending to present him as some pretty princeling from a foreign court for some reason. It wasn’t until he’d walked inside the throne room and come face-to-face with the three daughters of King Harald the Shrewd that he’d begun to realize exactly why he was dressed like a peacock.
This entire affair was a trap, and he’d walked into it blithely, with his eyes closed.
“You’re needed for the signing of a treaty,” he said, pitching his voice high enough to mimic his mother’s. “Just smile and shake hands, Marduk. Sign with a flourish. Charm our new allies.” He shot Niels a sharp look as he dropped the falsetto. “It’s strange, Niels, but I could have sworn there was a gleam in Harald’s eye when he introduced his daughters. All three of them. He practically gift wrapped them too. What’s going on?”
The dreki ambassador picked up his cloak and began to fold it. “The Zini clan is forging an alliance with the Sadu.”
“How?” His voice became steel. “Precisely how are we forging an alliance?”
Niels arched a cool brow. “Your mother assured us you would be key to securing this treaty—”
“I knew it.” He curled his right hand into a fist. “No. I will not mate with a female I’ve only just met! I never agreed to this. My mother presumes too much.”
The seneschal gave a little smile.
Marduk chased after it. “What? What was all that about? Did you not hear me? I said I won’t do it.”
“You didn’t ask which one it was.”
He’d been expecting protestations of “but the treaty” or “serve your clan.” He’d been prepared for such arguments too.
Except this one caught him at an odd angle.
It was bait.
Bait dressed in a fine gown, with a head full of braids and a smile of white, perfect teeth. Or more to the point…. Bait dressed in slick leather with a cloak of raven feathers, and a golden circlet resting on its brow.
And he couldn’t resist taking it. “Which one?”
Niels tucked the folded cloak within his traveling chest. “I believe… you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. It’s to be your choice, though your mother has a preference.”
“You crafty old bastard.” The seneschal had served at his father’s side for years. He knew Marduk’s nature almost as well as the prince himself. “Fine. I will work it out. But the answer’s still no.”
“We shall see,” Niels mused as Marduk paced to the windows.
He twitched the curtains aside, and there she was, staring down from distant battlements with her raven-black hair streaming behind her, and her plain, ringless hands resting on the stone as she glared into the winds.
What a curious creature.
Not even half as pretty as her sisters, nor as sweet, but she’d still somehow managed to drive the breath from Marduk’s lungs the second he’d kissed her hand. For a moment he’d heard the wind howling through foreign chasms, begging him to join it. The dreki within him had wanted to spread its wings and chase after her, knowing that she was the wind and it danced to her tune.
Such an unusual feeling.
Because the second he’d frozen there, looking up at her with his lips still pressed to her skin, she’d torn her hand from his, her expression glacial.
“Not that one,” Niels murmured, tugging the curtain closed. “That one is bidding to become Harald’s war marshal. Powerful. Fierce. Uncontrollable. Your mother wishes you to make an alliance. Not war.”
The blonde then.
Or the redhead.
Marduk rubbed at his knuckles, glancing back toward the window. “Why would you say mating such a female would be war?”
“Because, my prince, they call her the Storm with Teeth, and I daresay from her warm welcome this afternoon, she is hardly inclined to submit to your proposal. Choose one of the others. They’re pretty girls. Biddable. Kind.”
Biddable. Kind. He couldn’t think of two more unappealing words. So that was to be the play. Here, Marduk…. Here are two beautiful princesses. It will be your choice.
As if it was any sort of choice at all.
“I will… meet with them,” he replied, though he had no intention of taking either of them as his mate. “Harald cannot demand anything more than that, can he?”
How badly could this go?
1
Now, Iceland
Two golden dreki princes alighted on the ledge of Hekla's volcano, oblivious to the assassin that waited below. A golden shimmer surrounded both gilded dreki and then magic blurred, leaving them standing there in their mortal forms.
Perfect.
Just perfect, Solveig thought, as she nocked her arrow to her bow.
A dreki was difficult to kill, but in mortal form they were far more vulnerable. A single arrow might slay one, if it struck its target accurately.
And when it came to revenge, she was nothing if not accurate.
The king of Iceland's Zini clan, Rurik, hauled on a pair of trousers he took from his travel bag, throwing his golden head back as he straightened.
But it was to the other prince her attention turned.
Marduk.
The lying, honorless dreki prince who'd accepted her father's offer of an alliance—with her hand as the prize to seal the treaty—and then fled the night of their mating.
Solveig looked along the line of her arrow.
Its point locked upon her feckless mate's heart as she drew the bow.
And...
She suffered a moment of doubt.
"I will return with Marduk's heart—or not at all," she'd pledged in her father's hall, and the great goddess Tiamat had heard her oath.
If she didn't bring his heart—preferably in a box—back to her father's court within the year, then she could never return.
Marduk turned, his dangerous amber eyes drifting in her direction as if he sensed danger.
The hard line of his jaw tightened, but it was the quirk of his brow that caught her attention. That hateful, smug, mocking smile that curled over his full mouth.
The mouth that had once kissed her until she was crying out with pleasure.
Those hands that had pinned her to the floor.
All of them belonged to the prince who'd spurned her and made her the laughingstock of her father's court.
Not just once, but twice now.
Suddenly all her doubts evaporated.
Burning with rage, Solveig loosed the arrow.
It arched toward him,
glinting in the sunlight. Cascades of dwarven magic streamed from it, magic that could pierce any dreki psychic shield.
And Marduk caught it, his fist closing around the arrow shaft at the last second before his furious gaze jerked in her direction.
Ragnarök's fires.
Solveig reached for a second arrow, but it was too late, for the king turned too.
And while she was formidable enough to take on her scoundrel mate, she was no match for two powerful dreki warriors.
Instead, she fled.
There would be another day.
And another arrow with his name on it.
She was going to kill that lying, sweet-tongued bastard. And she was going to enjoy it.
The arrow came out of nowhere.
Marduk snatched it out of the air, alerted by its hiss. The point almost grazed his chest. The dreki inside him roared in fury, but then the scent of his assailant caught his attention.
"Assassin!" Rurik snarled, shoving past him, but Marduk caught his older brother's forearm.
He lifted the arrow to his nose and inhaled.
She smelled like summer storms and turbulent, rushing rivers. He’d never forget that scent. He’d recognize it anywhere. And as he lowered the arrow and raked his gaze over the shale-covered hillside, he couldn’t stop the dreki inside him from flaring its wings in excitement.
Solveig.
Princess. Warrior. Mate.
Would-be assassin.
Life had just become interesting again.
“What are you doing?” Rurik demanded.
"Relax. I know exactly who it is." He tossed the arrow in the air and caught it. The question was: What was he going to do about it?
Catch her, rasped his dreki.
If he closed his eyes, he could almost picture what it wanted him to do to her.
He could drop from the skies like a furious bolt of lightning and pin her to the ground. A second to shift back into mortal shape and then she’d be under him, wriggling and furious. A knife in her hand, no doubt, but he’d taken her weapons off her before.
You could kiss her again.
Aye. And she’d rip his throat out if he tried.
The day of their official mating had caught them both by surprise. The second the doors to her chamber closed behind him, she’d turned on him with fury for choosing her as his mate. He’d argued back—she was the one who’d dragged him back to her court in chains, forcing him to fulfill his past obligations—and one thing had led to another.
He’d kissed her.
She’d kissed him back.
And if Haakon, Tormund, and Bryn hadn’t burst into the chambers to rescue him, he’d have probably done a hell of a lot more to her.
He could still taste the furious caress of her mouth, and even though it had been months since he’d escaped her court—and their mating—she haunted him each and every night.
“Who is it?” Rurik demanded.
“Princess Solveig of the Sadu clan.”
“That's Solveig?"
“The one and only. Thank the goddess.”
Rurik frowned. “But why…? A direct attack like this means war. Surely Harald would not forsake our alliance? He’s never broken his word before. We need to capture her and discover what she’s doing in my territory—"
"No, no." Panic burst through him. He may not have fully explained the details to his brother. “I shall hunt her down and deal with it.”
That hint of scent wafted from the arrow again.
It stole through him like the kiss of the stormy wind off the Arctic. No delicate floral scent here. No pretty perfumes or scented oils.
But female in all the ways that mattered.
A scent both fierce and toe-curling, smoky in its allure.
A scent he'd breathed in once and could never escape. It had drifted within his lungs like a slow-acting poison, twining around his soul over the past three months. It stole into his dreams at night and left him hard and aching. It woke him sweating and spent, her name on his lips.
Solveig.
"No," Marduk repeated softly, as he watched the dark shape slip down the mountain like a wraith. "This has nothing to do with you—or her father."
A shiver of delight speared through him. He'd felt trapped this past month, bound by his familial vows to help his brother reform the Zini court.
But watching Solveig flee from him sent a thrill of excitement through him.
"You're not going alone. She tried to kill us," Rurik said.
He tossed his brother the arrow. "I'm fairly certain you were safe."
"Marduk."
He paused on the edge of the ledge and looked back, a wolfish grin on his face. "Trust me, brother. It was definitely me she was aiming for."
He couldn't entirely blame her.
His older brother had always been ruthless and cunning, and Marduk could see hints of it stealing over Rurik’s face. "Any particular reason why?"
“I may have left the lady before the mating vows were completed. She took offense to it.”
“May have? Why am I only hearing of this now? Her father, King Harald, is our only ally. You were supposed to bind them to our cause. If she kills you—"
"She won't kill me." Though his balls might be at risk.
Rurik pointedly gestured to the arrow. "This stinks of dwarven magic. It was made to pierce any spellcraft either of us could create. It was aimed at your heart."
"If she truly wanted me dead, I would never have sensed her coming. Solveig is a shadow in the night when she wants to be. Relax, brother. I know what this means. This was a warning. She wants my attention. She wants me to know she’s coming for me."
“That doesn’t make me feel any easier about this situation!”
“She won’t kill me.” He was certain of that, if nothing else. “She wants me to suffer, and death is too kind.”
“Marduk,” Rurik growled.
"Besides...." He spread his arms, prepared to launch himself into the skies in order to chase her. "You were the one who insisted I mate with her. If you hurt her, then you'll destroy your newly minted alliance with King Harald, and I know how important such an alliance is."
“Not more important than my brother.”
Marduk hesitated. Once upon a time, they were words he’d hungered to hear.
But time had changed a great many things.
He was no longer the young dreki prince who’d been left alone in their mother’s court as a boy, desperate for answers. He’d survived her hellish reign, and he’d done it without Rurik. He’d escaped and managed to forge new armor for himself. A smile to deflect a threat, and charming words to wrap an enemy in confusion.
“Relax, brother,” he drawled, turning his gaze back to the fleeing princess. “I just want to talk to her.”
A conversation between them was long overdue.
Marduk forced the rush of the shift through his body, his arms lengthening into wings and his heart pounding with fierce glee.
Run, sweetheart. There's nothing I like better than a chase.
2
The floorboard creaked.
Just a faint shifting of timber beneath someone’s weight, but it definitely spoke of an intruder.
Solveig’s eyes shot open in the darkened room.
Who would dare enter her chambers?
The innkeeper and his wife had promised her sanctuary for the night, and she’d already proved to the drunks in the tavern that they’d be best not to trespass further. After an entire day spent laying false trails and avoiding a certain golden-haired prince, she needed rest.
Silence settled in her room behind her. Solveig eased out a breath, trying to sound as though she was still relaxed in slumber. Nothing moved. Not even a mouse. A hint of doubt crept through her.
Had she been dreaming?
Another faint creak.
Sleep sloughed off her as she realized there was definitely someone in her rooms. Why they hell hadn’t her wards awoken her? They should hav
e been screaming at her the second an intruder touched either the door or the window.
She slid her hand under her pillow, pretending she was merely stirring in her sleep as her hand closed around the hilt of the knife she kept under there.
The intruder froze.
Each tick of her heart left her breathless as she tried to listen. She didn’t dare shift again. No, she wanted him close enough to kill.
There.
The shifting of floorboards as someone eased their weight forward.
Her nostrils flared.
A dreki male. One primed for battle, judging by his racing heart. Hints of smoke and burned cinnamon….
She knew that scent.
Solveig burst upward just as a hand stole over her mouth.
"Did you miss me, sweetheart?" said a mocking voice in her ear as Marduk hauled her back into the cage of his arms.
If looks could slay, then Marduk would be twitching on the floor.
Solveig glared around the gag as she strained against the magical rope he’d used to tie her to the chair. Marduk hauled a second chair closer, slinging it backward and straddling it as he faced her. His back was a mess of claw marks, and she’d bitten his shoulder, but he’d finally managed to subdue her.
Barely.
If he hadn’t caught her by surprise, then he had little doubt he’d be the one with a knife to his throat right now. Instead, it had missed his thigh by half an inch. And now she was tied to a chair wearing little more than a shirt, though he’d caught a glimpse of white drawers beneath them.
He’d have expected an iron chastity belt.
But there was something utterly tempting about the crisp white linen. No ribbons. No bows. Not a single thing to draw his attention except for the concept of what removing them would feel like.
With his teeth….
And there you fucking go again, he growled to himself.
No. Hell no.
Many, many times no?
But it felt as though his cock was paying absolutely no attention to him.
They stared at each other, and despite the mixed emotions surging through him, he couldn’t deny that he felt more awake than he’d felt in months. He’d… missed this. Missed the heated flame in Solveig’s dark eyes and the scent of a storm brewing on the horizon that always clung to her.