by Bec McMaster
“So many dirty promises.”
Solveig lunged forward.
A little metallic ping echoed somewhere to the left as she recovered, and Marduk looked down to where his shirt was suddenly missing a button. There was not so much as a tear in the linen.
“I thought you weren’t trying to get me naked?” He countered with a ruthless attack.
Solveig brushed it aside, but his response came lightning fast, and she was forced into a stiff retreat, countering vicious blows she barely managed to deflect.
A second button pinged.
Marduk retreated with a courtly bow.
Solveig glanced down at her gaping shirt, her jaw dropping open.
“A button for a button, my dear.” He spread his arms wide. “Though if you want more of mine, then all you have to do is ask.”
Fury overrode her. Their rapiers clashed again and again. He had strength on his side—and reach—but she was faster.
It was somewhat disconcerting to realize he was almost her equal.
Almost.
“What’s wrong?” Marduk’s smile made her want to kick his teeth in as they broke apart for a brief moment. “Were you not expecting me to match you?”
“I will admit I’m a little surprised, considering you look like a silk handkerchief. Pretty, but ultimately useless.”
Marduk threw back his head and laughed, and ugh, there was her dreki again, screeching inside her. “There wasn’t a great deal to do in my court while I was growing up. One of the swordmasters took pity on me, and offered to teach me how to duel. And I had visions of being some dashing pirate somewhere.” He waved the tip of his sword in a low zigzag. “Yourself?”
A pirate?
What was wrong with him?
“I wanted to protect my sisters,” she told him coldly. “And my people. In my court, princes and princesses are expected to serve their clan. We don’t run off to have selfish little adventures.”
His smile flattened. “Well, they did say you’re an ice princess.”
She almost lowered her sword. “What?”
“I was warned, most desperately, not to provoke you.”
“Well, you didn’t succeed,” she snarled, lunging forward.
“Who said I intended to listen? I told you, I like adventure,” he countered, and her rapier slid down his until they were practically entwined. His voice came in a rough-edged whisper, taut with smoky enjoyment. “What are you going to do now that this selfish little princeling has your measure?”
Solveig drove her knee into his thigh.
Marduk staggered back with a wince, their blades disengaging. “Storm’s teeth.” He shot her a murderous look as he hobbled to the side. “That was unkind.”
Solveig prowled the top of the tower. “What are you talking about? I missed.”
Another wince. “Well, they were right. You are ruthless.”
They.
She refused to let it bother her that the loyal members of her court might be sowing disparaging seeds about her to his ears. She didn’t care what they said about her. She’d decided—at the age of fourteen—that she was going to create her own destiny, and those who disapproved could see their wings clipped.
But it rankled that no matter her accomplishments—how much she did for her clan—she was “cold” and “untouchable” and an “ice princess” simply because she didn’t roll over and bat her eyelashes at some male.
She knew exactly who he was talking about too. The older males in the clan. The ones who resented the way she’d taken over the warband at the young age of twenty.
He wanted her to be ruthless?
So be it.
Solveig drove forward like murder in black leather. She hammered him until he was forced into a retreat. Marduk’s eyes widened as if he sensed the change in her demeanor.
He shoved her back with brute strength, the muscle in his shoulders flexing beneath his shirt. The dangerous flash of his smile distracted her, and then he was lunging forward, forcing her to leap back as his rapier whistled through the air where her abdomen had just been.
Solveig landed like a cat, her eyes narrowing as he examined the point of his rapier as if he’d proven his point.
And a third button slowly rattled edge-over-edge on the ground beside her.
A sudden chill breeze danced across her stomach.
“I was trying to be gentlemanly,” he pointed out. “I left you the crucial button.”
That son of a wyrm.
Solveig bared her teeth at him as she attacked.
She was fighting in earnest now, desperate to destroy this intruder—or at least to drive him from her home.
Beware the attack made in a storm of emotion, her mother’s voice whispered. Be lightning, Solveig. Fast. Deadly. Controlled. Strike with precision.
But it wasn’t precision that drove her forward right now.
How dared he?
The tip of her rapier scored across his cheek, and his eyes lit with dangerous fire. They were both breathing hard, and his shirt started to cling to him as steel flashed.
He’d lasted longer than she’d have expected.
He might have learned his lessons well, but she was cold discipline. There were years of daily training behind her. All she had to do was wear him out.
His teeth bared in a strained smile as if he knew it. His boot scraped across the tile as he danced back. Maybe a little hint of exhaustion.
Ambition flared.
And then somehow, she made a fatal mistake.
It was a step too far—her lunge slightly extended.
He wasn’t retreating. Instead, he broke to the side, slamming his blade down upon hers in such a jarring blow that it broke from her fingers.
She was disarmed, and he followed it up quickly, placing the tip of his rapier beneath her chin. Solveig straightened. She couldn’t believe it.
He’d beaten her.
Beaten her.
Breathing hard, he slowly lowered his sword. “You’re good—”
His mistake. She swept the sword aside with her forearm guard, rolled into him, and drove her elbow into his ribs. An “oof” of breath burst from him, and she dug her fingers into the nerve of his thumb. Suddenly, she was in possession of his blade.
Flicking her own rapier up into her left hand, she spun and kicked him in the chest, slamming him back against the wall before pressing both crossed blades across his throat in an X.
“Please tell me you weren’t going to say that you’re better,” Solveig mocked, her chest heaving with exertion.
He noticed, and the insolent look in his eyes fired her fury. “Oh, I know I’m not. But technically, I won.”
She leaned into the blades, and his head tipped up frantically as both edges caressed the sides of his throat. “I never surrendered, Marduk.” Raking a scornful glance down his sweat-dampened body, she arched a mocking brow. “Somewhat premature of you to claim victory, don’t you think? Rather like this concept of… foreplay. Disappointing.”
“Oh, I promise you, there’s nothing premature about any of my foreplay. Easy,” the prince mocked, tilting his throat to her as he pushed gently at her hand. “You’ll start a war with just one reckless moment.”
Solveig leaned closer, until she could almost taste his breath on her lips. “Maybe it would be worth it.”
His chest rose and fell, and to her shock, a thumb brushed against her thigh as he gently laid his hand there. “To my utter surprise, you echo my sentiments. Though not their target. A reckless moment with you might indeed be worth the risk of war.”
Solveig froze as his gaze slid to that single button holding her shirt together. The fingertips on his other hand traced another soft, teasing little circle on her hip. It asked a question.
And for the life of her, she wasn’t sure what the answer was.
The dreki writhed within her, on edge with his presence. It physically hurt to hold it within her, and Solveig’s fingers curled into a fist.
�
��There’s a storm inside you.” His voice sounded as though he was just making this realization. “How do they not see it?”
“Who?” she whispered.
“All those idiots who think you’re cold and ruthless.” Heat blazed to life in his eyes as he pushed closer, careless of the cold steel she still wielded. “You’re not cold. Not at all—”
“But I am ruthless.”
Stabbing the blades between his legs, she shoved away from him, pleased to see him scramble away from the warning blow. Both swords wavered back and forth, their points driven into stone. Ruined.
But worth it.
Because it gave her a chance to catch her breath.
What was he doing to her?
She could almost taste that thwarted kiss.
And worse still, a part of her wanted it.
“They don’t see it because they don’t want to see it,” she snapped as she crossed to where her water flask sat. Goddess’s mercy, he was getting beneath her skin. Him. A handsome, arrogant charmer.
What was wrong with her?
Marduk pushed away from the wall, his eyes filled with predatory intent, as if he could sense her struggle. “They don’t see it? Or you don’t want them to see it?”
She froze, unscrewing the lid. It was incredibly close to her intentions. “What do you mean?”
His smile was savage. “I think I understand you now, Princess. Nobody gets close, do they? You don’t allow it. No one is allowed to touch. No one is invited to linger. You take what you want and then you walk away, and it makes me wonder….”
“Wonder what?” she demanded, because she’d never run from a fight in her life.
“Why you’re so intent on scaring away potential suitors.”
Solveig could barely breathe. “Because I will not belong to any male.”
Marduk started toward her, but she’d had enough. The dreki inside her hissed and screamed, but while it had tolerated him pushing until this point, now it sought escape.
“I’m done here,” she snapped, shoving past him, her shoulder collecting his hard enough to spin him off-balance. “I won, Marduk. Now leave me alone.”
“Did you? I see it.” The words followed her down the stairs, where her heart was rabbiting so hard in her chest she almost felt as though she was fleeing. “I see the storm within you, Solveig. And I want to ride it.”
She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Never.
6
Now
Marduk watched as Solveig’s gaze raked his bedchambers.
One bed. Enormous mounds of pillows. A rug on the floor before the hearth. Two chairs, though one was piled high with his saddlebags and clearly unused.
“These are your chambers,” she said.
“Yes.”
She prowled the room like a dreki whose tail was lashing behind her. “Surely the court has more bedchambers.”
“It does.” He scrubbed at his mouth, wondering how much to say. She was an ally, but revealing any weakness to Solveig was like showing your throat to a predator. “However, you’re to stay here with me. Whatever the real nature of our agreement, in the eyes of the rest of the court we are mated. My brother feels appearances need to be kept until the mating lines are formally dissolved.”
There. That sounded plausible.
And it was true. Rurik had insisted she reside with him.
Narrowed eyes locked on him, as if Solveig could almost sense he was hiding something. “I see.”
Marduk waited for her attention to return to the bed, and sure enough, there it was.
A wintry chill settled over her expression. “Where am I sleeping?”
“In the bed.”
It was probably a good thing her dreki gifts turned more toward Air rather than Fire, because if they did, he was fairly certain he’d have been immolated on the spot.
“If you think—”
“It’s an enormous bed, Solveig. You won’t even know I’m—”
“No.” The word rang through the room but it was the tension in her shoulders that made him growl under his breath.
Damn it. She wasn’t going to back down. And he liked his bed. He’d spent more than enough years snatching sleep on the rocky surface of a cave floor or in a bedroll that smelled distinctly of horses.
All those pillows. The thick weight of his blankets, spun from the finest wool…. The mattress itself, which came the closest to imagining what it would be like to fall asleep on a cloud.
And the look on her face when she’d captured him three months ago and one of her father’s guards had sniggered about bear traps.
It had been barely a flinch, but he’d known she’d heard about the song, and the second he opened his mouth to apologize, she’d walked past him and hissed that she was going to see him dead, no matter what it cost her.
This was the cost of youthful pride.
And maybe she wouldn’t accept his apology, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep offering it.
“Fine.” Marduk tossed a pillow on the floor before the hearth with a sigh. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“You?” Hard eyes watched him. “The floor?”
He dragged a blanket from the bed and made a nice nest with several of the furs there. “This hard thing beneath our feet.”
“You’re not the sort of dreki male who enjoys such roughness.”
“Then take ease in the realization that I’ll spend a miserable night,” he growled.
Solveig lay awake for long hours, trying to ignore the flicker of light from the slowly dying fire. The bed was the softest thing she’d ever slept in, and her wretched body yearned to succumb to sleep, but every time she relaxed, she could smell his scent in the pillows and the blankets.
It felt like being cocooned in his arms.
And worse, if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine the brush of his silk sheets against her skin was the faintest kiss of his lips….
Damn it.
Every inch of her remained tense.
It was him.
The nearness of him. The scent. The way her dreki raged to be set free every damned time she saw him.
The way his amber eyes watched her.
She’d taken lovers in the past, but none of them had made her feel this way, and he hadn’t even touched her. She’d forgotten how intense his presence was. Given enough time, she’d even begun to think that perhaps she’d imagined it. Perhaps the way he affected her was merely a youthful… infatuation of some sort.
She hadn’t overestimated it.
It hit her with the weight of a dragon at full charge, and every inch of her was tight with horrific tension.
She was going to get no rest tonight, and she needed it if she was going to keep her wits about her. There were elves afoot and a treacherous trip ahead of them.
And she hadn’t missed the number of guards stationed within the Zini court—or the fact Marduk had been skirting the truth with the best of them when he insisted his brother had sentenced them to confined chambers.
Solveig rolled over, glaring at the recumbent figure before the fireplace.
Golden light gilded Marduk’s hair. He’d removed his shirt, and the gleam of bare skin drew her attention before she firmly looked away. She was not going to look at his bare chest. She was not.
She knew he was awake.
He knew she was awake.
This was growing ridiculous. “Go to sleep.”
“You first.”
“What’s wrong? Afraid I’m going to cut your throat while you’re vulnerable?”
“No.” He turned his head toward her. “You gave your word you wouldn’t harm me until this was done, and if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s that you would never break a promise.”
She snuggled into the sheets grumpily. There was nothing one could take affront at within that statement. “Then what’s the matter?”
He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “You wouldn’t believe me if I t
old you.”
“You would be surprised at the levels of stupidity I expect from you.”
“Fine. Just remember, you insisted.”
Solveig offered him an evil smile. “Awe me.”
He stretched, tugging at the blankets around his waist. “You smell… nice.”
“Nice?”
“Apparently, I can shock you.”
“I’m not shocked. I maintain a certain level of hygiene, and my soap is milled from….” She suddenly realized what his irritability and constant shifting of that blanket meant. “Nice?” Her voice hit new levels of depth. “If your cock is hard right now, Marduk, I will punch you.”
“Don’t take it as a personal affront. It’s been a while since I’ve felt anything but the touch of my own hand. And my brain equates the smell of you with that moment I had you beneath me. It doesn’t take much for my cock to signal its enthusiasm right now.” He snorted. “Don’t tell me you can’t smell me all over your skin? You’ve been sniffing my blankets ever since you climbed into my bed. It’s distracting.”
Stop using the words “smell me all over you” and “my bed”.
“The idea that I’m drowning in your scent is insulting. I’m trying not to think about it. You stink like cheap wine and arrogance.”
“I haven’t drunk anything in over a month. Rurik’s virtually a priest these days. And that stink is the scent of your prejudice.”
He threw his pillow at her.
Solveig captured it and dragged it into her mound, intent on hoarding it. “That was a hasty decision. You’re not getting it back, and now you’re going to spend the rest of the night suffering for it.”
“If you hold my pillow to ransom, I may have to come marauding to get it back.”
She swiftly lobbed it back at him. “For the sake of peace between our courts. I’d hate to break my word and murder you.”
“You’re so predictable,” he laughed, as he hauled his pillow back under his head and then rolled onto his side to stare at her.
There was something intensely unsettling about the look he bestowed upon her.