Master of Storms: Dragon Shifter Romance (Legends of the Storm Book 5)

by Bec McMaster

  Even missed the battle between them, for his body could still feel the ghostly whisper of her skin against his as he pinned her to the bed. It was a battle of will to force his cock from engaging at the merest memory of it.

  Why her?

  Why was it always her?

  Why—out of all the women he’d kissed—was she the one who made him feel so alive?

  “Are you ready to talk?”

  Solveig arched a cutting brow.

  He tugged the gag out of her mouth—and nearly lost two fingers.

  “Ah, ah, ah, sweetheart.” He yanked his hand out of the way of her clashing teeth. “I just want to talk.”

  “Curious way to go about it…. Sneaking into my rooms and tying me up. One would think you had other plans.”

  For fuck’s sake. His cock roused. “If I had other plans, I might tie you up. But I wouldn’t use a rope. Or a chair. I’d use silk and I’d have you on the bed. Consider this a precaution. Not a courting ritual. You did try to kill me.”

  “I missed.”

  “Oh no, your aim was perfect.” He rubbed a hand over his heart. “You’re lucky I sensed it coming.”

  “How?” Her dark eyes fired to hot coals as she leaned forward. “I made no sound. I’d been watching you for days and you never saw me. The magic on that arrow should have made it undetectable to your senses.”

  A troubling thought. “Perhaps I should be more specific. I didn’t sense the arrow. But there was something in the air. My inner dreki rousing. Trouble, it was warning me.”

  Though it had not roused to battle, merely… intensity.

  He’d not considered the thought until now.

  Somehow his dreki had known she was there.

  Somehow it had sensed her, even though she’d been downwind and hidden on the shale-covered mountainside.

  “How did you get in here?” she demanded. “How did you get through my wards?”

  “I didn’t feel a single thing.”

  She nearly kicked him in the balls—an enviable achievement considering there were slats in the back of the chair.

  He skidded back, catching her bare foot against his thigh. The sensation of it derailed him. He’d been trying not to focus on what she was wearing—or more particularly, what she wasn’t wearing—but the idea of Solveig tucking her bare feet up under her blanket was strangely adorable.

  He’d only ever seen her in boots with heels a good three inches high.

  All the better to crush you beneath them, she’d once taunted.

  “My wards are impenetrable,” she said, and curse the gods but she was so glorious when her temper was roused. “I should have felt your presence the second you set foot inside this inn.”

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” He couldn’t resist stroking the arch of her foot. “Perhaps you forgot to set them.”

  “Get your hands off me.”

  “What’s wrong?” Another mocking caress, this time digging his thumbs in a little harder. “You liked it last time.”

  Murder.

  She was trying to visually murder him.

  “Why are you here? What do you want?” he demanded.

  Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Haven’t you realized yet, my love? I want your heart. In a box.”

  “Then we have a problem, for I find I’m quite partial to it where it is. Go back home. Forget this foolish vendetta. I’ll pretend you never existed, and you can excise me from your life however you wish.”

  “Vendetta? You think this a mere vendetta?”

  He danced his fingers underneath the pads of her toes. “What else would I think it? An infatuation?”

  Outrage exploded over her features, but to his delight, she also squirmed.

  Ticklish. She was fucking ticklish.

  And so he did it again, just to annoy her.

  “Infatuation?” She yanked at her foot. “Get your hands off me!”

  He let her go and held his hands up. “As my lady commands, though I will note that you put your foot in my lap.”

  She glared at him, and despite the fact she was tied to the chair, she somehow exuded menace. “I will kill you, Marduk. I will never stop coming for you. It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter how thick your dungeon walls may be, or how long you lock me away for, I will keep coming until I finally have what I want.”

  Marduk slowly crossed his arms over his chest. “Dungeon? What kind of male do you think I am?”

  Her arched eyebrow answered that question with exquisite explicitness.

  “I’m not going to lock you away,” he said slowly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to talk.”

  “So you’re going to simply set me free?” The devil had a smile like that.

  His eyes narrowed. “Maybe I’ll fly you home and dump you on your father’s doorstep, all tied up. I’ll even put a pretty bow in your hair.”

  It was as though he’d set a match to the tinder of her fury. “Don’t you dare.”

  “If I could trust you to behave, then I wouldn’t have to.” Pushing to his feet, he started pacing. No matter how much he wanted to stay and play with her, this was the worst time to deal with a scorned female. “You’ve become a problem. I was content to allow us to part on ill terms—”

  “A problem?”

  “Yes,” he growled. “A problem. I have important issues to deal with in regards to my court and my family. I can’t afford to be watching over my shoulder for you at every second.”

  “You should have thought about that before you crossed me.”

  “I never sought you out. I never intended for any of this to happen—"

  “You mated with me. You chose me, and then you fled the second you could get a chance, with your tail tucked between your—”

  “I didn’t have a choice! Your father insisted I choose between his daughters—”

  “I have two sisters!”

  “And you’d have preferred that I break Aslaug’s heart? She was half in love with me already. I couldn’t choose her. You were the one who warned me years ago not to break her heart. Siv could barely look me in the eye—"

  “So you chose to ruin my life instead?”

  Marduk drew back. She’d rarely raised her voice to him. No, Solveig was an icy chill creeping through a room; a stealthy frost that could freeze the life in your veins before you even knew it was happening.

  But this….

  His temper roused, and he leaned forward, grabbing the arms of the chair she was bound to. “You speak of me ruining your life? Then perhaps you should have some damned accountability for your own actions in what happened. I had no intention of returning to your court. I had no intention of ever seeing you again. Ten years ago, you told me to fly away, curl up in a cave, and die. And so I flew away without ever looking back. But you were the one who brought me back to your court—in chains, might I add—and you were the one who backed me into a position where I had to make a choice. And now, here you are again, forcing your way back into my life. So yes, I could have chosen Aslaug. Yes, I could have chosen Siv. But if you want the truth, Solveig, you were always going to be my choice. Because this isn’t finished between us. This is never going to be finished between us.”

  “I brought you back in chains because I meant to kill you,” she hissed, and he tasted the sweetness of her breath.

  Marduk’s chest heaved. They could go on like this all night if he allowed it, but he reined his dreki in tightly, swallowing hard. “Then why didn’t you?”

  “What?”

  “You had me on my knees in the middle of a cell. You had your knife at my throat. You were going to do it. You wanted to do it. You had every opportunity in the world to kill me, and yet you hesitated.”

  As she did now.

  Thought danced through her eyes, and then she shook her head. “I wanted to make you suffer first.”

  Really? He captured her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “You don’t truly want me dead, do you?”

  Solveig’
s eyes narrowed to thin slits, but he pressed his finger to her lips.

  And gods, it felt so good to get his hands on her.

  “If you wanted me dead—truly wanted me dead—then I would be buried in a grave on some mountainside somewhere. But you brought me back in chains. You wanted to gloat. You wanted…. Hell, I don’t what you wanted from me. Did you want to punish me? Did you want to humiliate me, as I once mistakenly humiliated you—?”

  “Mistakenly?”

  All the old words came into his head—the same arguments they’d been having for years. I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was saying. It was a stupid little poem that ran off my tongue after an entire day of drinking—

  But he stared at her, and he knew that none of the old arguments meant anything.

  Ten years ago he had insulted her, and everyone at her court knew of it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said instead.

  Solveig drew back as if slapped. “What?”

  “All these years and I’ve never said that to you. And I am. I’m sorry I hurt you—”

  “Don’t you dare.” She tugged at her ropes.

  “What’s wrong? Does it ruin your little revenge scheme?” Marduk scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m tired of fighting with you.”

  “You’re lying.”

  The edge of his temper roused. “If there’s one thing I don’t do, it’s lie. You want the truth? The full truth? Then here it is: I didn’t know why my mother had sent me to your court until it was too late. Your father offered one of his daughters to me, and it was a complicated situation to extricate myself from without causing a political storm. I didn’t want to be mated to anyone. I didn’t intend to choose any of you. But I didn’t wish to offend your father, and the longer I waited, the tighter the noose around my neck became. I should have ended it before it began.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  He didn’t quite have the words.

  None of it made any sense. He’d lingered at the Sadu court for weeks, playing Harald’s game and trying to avoid promising anything that might tie him to one of Harald’s daughters.

  He should have put his foot down the day he realized what game was afoot.

  He should have been honest from the start.

  Except he’d taken one look at Solveig, and she’d wrapped smoky tendrils around him, leaving him questioning everything in his life.

  “It was a bad time in my life…. And my pride was hurt,” he admitted. “I nursed my wound with ale and let my bitterness brew within me. I said something stupid in front of too many dreki warriors. And when all was said and done, instead of doing the right thing and apologizing to you in front of your court, I was already gone. But I didn’t flee your court because of you.” He let out a shaky breath. “My mother sent me to your father’s court to remove me from her own. My brother, Rurik, had been exiled years ago, and I’d only just come of age. I knew there were rumblings within the court that she should step aside from her regency and allow me to rule. I knew her heart. My mother would never allow me to set foot on that throne, but it wasn’t until your father greeted me with news of my forthcoming marriage to one of his daughters that I realized she had plotted to remove me in a way that would keep the dreki within my clan from revolting.”

  He raked his hands through his hair, clasping his palms behind his head. “I wasn’t ready to be mated, and I was resentful. I was too young and too stupid to see it for the chance it could have been. I just wanted to escape. And although you tempted me—”

  “Tempted you?”

  “Yes.” Was she truly so blind? “You were ice and fury, and I wanted you in my bed the second I saw you. And I even thought about it—about choosing you. About mating with you and living within your father’s court.” He shook his head. “But you made it very clear that you thought the concept beneath you. You despised me from the start, and so, when I saw my chance, I slipped away from your father’s court. I vanished into the wind, because it was the only way I could see to escape my mother’s noose. I didn’t think of the damage my words might have caused you. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I was so careless and stupid. I embarrassed you. And I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could return to that night and shut my fucking mouth before I sang that song.”

  Solveig leaned back in her chair, her expression frozen.

  Say something. Marduk’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. “You have nothing to say to that?”

  But she tilted her head, and then she was looking down.

  At the floor.

  “Something just tripped my wards.”

  It occurred to him that he was dealing with a powerful, cunning, devious female dreki who had never shied away from a battle in her life.

  “If this is some sort of means to escape—”

  “It’s not.” She strained against her ropes. “Untie me! Some sort of warning is itching across my skin.”

  Of all the rotten timing….

  He growled under his breath as he crossed to the door. “I thought your wards weren’t working?”

  “I don’t know why they didn’t recognize your presence. They should have—but they’re—” She gasped. “—screaming at me right now. Untie me!”

  “Do you think I’m a fool? The second I untie you, you’ll put that knife through my throat.”

  “If you think I’ll aim for anywhere as benign as your throat, then you should think again.”

  He winced. “One day my balls are going to take exception to the way you’ve so poorly treated them.”

  But a commotion caught his attention. Marduk pressed his ear to the door, the hackles down his spine rising. He looked down at the hairs on his arms.

  What was this?

  Every inch of his skin wanted to crawl off his body.

  Magic. Someone was using magic nearby, and it wasn’t dreki magic.

  “Can you feel that?”

  Solveig rolled her eyes. “I’ve been trying to tell you about it for nearly a minute—"

  He sprinted across the room and clapped a hand over her mouth. Solveig dug her teeth into his palm, and he hissed under his breath, cupping the back of her skull.

  “Not now,” he whispered. “You’re right. I feel like someone just dipped me in slime, and my magic’s never reacted like this before.”

  Those dark eyes considered him.

  And then she nodded and stopped biting him.

  “If I let you go, will you promise not to attack me?”

  The arch of her brow held shades of condescension.

  “Until morning,” he amended. “Or until we’ve discovered what just entered this building.”

  “I promise I won’t kill you until morning breaks,” Solveig purred.

  And a dreki couldn’t lie.

  Marduk took his knife from his hip sheath and sliced through her ropes. They fell to the floor in a slithery rasp, and Solveig stood, rubbing at her wrists. He tossed her the pair of leather leggings that she must have kicked off before she slipped beneath her blankets.

  Her fist balled, but he caught it, leaning close enough to whisper in her ear. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the precise implications of your statement. Later. You can hit me later. Right now, I’m the only ally you have.”

  3

  Marduk slipped down the stairs ahead of Solveig, his broad shoulders blocking the light. For such a large male, he moved with a silent grace that surprised her.

  Must have been all the bedrooms he’d stolen out of over the years.

  Solveig followed him like a wraith on the prowl. She couldn’t sense whatever was making his skin crawl, but the way the intruder had tripped her alarms made her wary enough to work with him.

  For tonight.

  Tomorrow…. She was going to work her way through the implications of his apology tomorrow.

  “Where is the dreki?” someone crooned, and the sound of that voice lilting up the stairwell made her skin tingle. “We know he came in here. We saw him ente
r. We just want to know where he is.”

  “D-dreki?” The innkeeper stammered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We are good, honest Christian folk in here and—”

  A scream echoed.

  Solveig caught Marduk’s wrist, and he flashed her a heated look over his shoulder.

  “Someone you know?” she mouthed.

  He shook his head.

  “How many?”

  Marduk flashed a white smile. His shrug said it didn’t matter, and then he was tearing his wrist free of her grip and jogging down the stairs as if he had not a care in the world.

  Cursed male dreki didn’t know the benefits of subterfuge. There was some sort of innate battle within them that dictated that slipping out the back window until they could discover just what they were facing was impossible. They were all rage and full-frontal assault, alpha males who waded into uneven odds as if the concept they might be the prey here was simply unthinkable.

  “I swear…,” she whispered under her breath as she drew the knife he’d returned to her.

  And then she followed him, because someone had to save his neck.

  Nobody was going to steal her kill.

  “Now, what were you saying?” the stranger laughed. “Something about… he went upstairs and he’s—”

  “He’s standing right here,” Marduk called, as he sauntered with all the arrogance he could muster into the common room of the inn. “Who are you? And what do you want?”

  Solveig slipped into the room behind him, lingering in the shadows.

  Half a dozen men all turned to look at Marduk, clad in an unusual sort of golden armor. They were all pale-eyed and sulky-mouthed, with long, shining silken hair, like a group of troubadours who just needed lutes to start strumming, even as they expected ladies to toss handkerchiefs at their feet.

  But there was something wrong about them.

  Something that made her inner dreki flex its claws quietly within her.

  Solveig froze, her weight shifting forward into the toe of her boot. Her dreki never shied away from battle. And while it might have urged caution until she’d taken in the room, it had never felt uneasy like this before.