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

by Bec McMaster

  But she knew, with her very soul, that he was speaking of her.

  And that the need within him hung thick and heavy in his veins, like barely warmed honey.

  It wasn’t just her who felt it.

  It wasn’t just her who was struck by this horrible, conflicting need that both trapped and consumed her.

  It was real, dangerously real, conjured between them with a mere slip of the tongue.

  Awareness exploded into being within her. They were inches apart and yet she felt his nearness as if his very gaze stroked her skin. Unwanted heat formed in the pit of her stomach, tracing slick fingers between her thighs.

  His gaze asked too much of her. Solveig couldn’t meet it.

  She fought to pick her way through an answer that wouldn’t condemn her. One that pushed them away from the dangers of the topic at hand. “You are nothing like your cousin Roar. You yearn for the experience of everything you look at. You don’t yearn to own it. I’ve seen you fly. I’ve seen you laugh and fight. You live for the sheer enjoyment of living. If someone offered you a mountain of gold, you wouldn’t give a damn about it. It’s a terribly un-dreki attitude.”

  “Careful now; you’re going to make me blush. And what can gold do for me? It’s cold and it’s heavy. I don’t even have a volcano to store it in. I would have to guard it against avaricious humans. Who could be bothered?” His face twisted. “I hate volcanoes. I want to explore the world, and I can’t carry all that gold with me.”

  “Un-dreki,” she repeated again, grateful he’d allowed that moment to slip between his fingers. “And why do you hate volcanoes?”

  They were the closest a dreki could get to the heart of the goddess. Warm. Groaning with fire. A place to hibernate when needed. Everything a dreki could desire.

  Tension slid through him again. He pushed to his feet instead of answering and offered her a hand. “Want to get out of here? I’ve been eyeing the mountains nearby. We could climb one. The cliffs are amazing.”

  The sudden change of direction confused her.

  She eyed his hand. “Why would I climb a mountain when I can fly?”

  A strange gleam lit his eyes. “To conquer it. To prove you can. To drive everything out of your head, because every thought you have is focused on hauling your sheer weight up a virtually impossible cliff.”

  Ah. So that was why his fingertips bore those calluses. But she was not to be distracted. “Why do you hate volcanoes?”

  Marduk must have realized she wasn’t going to take his hand, for he lowered it and looked away. There was a distance to his expression that tore at her heart a little. “When I came of age, I began to realize my mother was trying to distance me from the court. Until then, I’d been her eager little puppet. I had no idea she saw me as a threat.”

  Solveig, who was used to male dreki and their ambitions, arched a brow. Of course, he would have been a threat. Amadea was a Zilittu queen, and if she ruled as Queen Regent, then she might have been able to hold the Zini court together in the wake of Rurik’s exile—but only through a Zini heir.

  He looked back at her, cold and hard, and as tempestuous as any storm. “That was when the dreams began. Every second night I would wake up gasping, certain the cave walls of my bed chambers had collapsed down upon me. I was crushed in rubble, trapped under granite…. I’d scream and beg for help, but no one came. Earth is not one of my gifts, and it would fail me, again and again, until the oxygen would finally run out.

  “Dream-walking was one of my mother’s skills, but I didn’t know that. Sleep became impossible under the court roof. Leaving—even if it was to venture to your court to assist with a treaty—was an opportunity I leapt at. I hate going back there even now. It’s not my home. It’s never been my home. I hate it.” His voice roughened. “My mother…. She gets inside your head, and she makes you believe all the worst fears you have about yourself.”

  Solveig wrapped her arms around her knees. Fear was a currency she traded in. Her father had always said that to find a dreki’s greatest fear was to find a means to bargain with him. And she’d never been able to work out Marduk’s weakness, for he shrugged everything off with a smile or a laugh.

  But this….

  “You’re afraid of being underground,” she whispered.

  “I’m not afraid…. I managed to break into the Ikkibu court to rescue Ishtar….” His eyes were a little wild. “But the only way to do that was to let the song overwhelm me. If all I knew was her and Chaos, then it wasn’t… it wasn’t so bad. I was awake, the roof was holding, I could get out.” His breathing roughened. “But to venture underground for any other reason? No. I would rather throw myself off a cliff without my wings a thousand times than voluntarily claim a volcano.”

  She could destroy him with this information. It was troubling to realize she didn’t particularly wish to. “I put you in chains in a cell underground.”

  He closed his eyes. “I know. Trust me. I know. It was the worst thing you could have done to me.”

  And she’d mocked him once for wanting to run off and be a pirate.

  A foolish dream. A boy’s dream.

  It went against the grain of everything she’d fought for in her life—to protect her family and sisters and court—and she’d thought him selfish at the time.

  It all made sense.

  No brother.

  A murdered father.

  A sister who’d been kept away from him unless necessary.

  A mother who’d driven him from his court.

  I’d scream and beg for help, but no one came.

  No one came….

  Amadea had done a masterful job in isolating him from his court, from his family and even from his own heart.

  He had no yearning to fight for the Zini court, because to him, they’d been… a weight around his neck. Not family. And despite all she’d lost, she’d grown up with pillow fights with her sisters, and stolen dresses, a mother who’d sing to them at night as she stroked their hair, and a father who put a sword in her hand when she was eight, because he’d known that was what she’d desired most of all.

  She would kill to protect everything she had.

  He was trying to find his feet within his court after years spent in self-imposed exile.

  No wonder the gulf between he and his brother existed.

  It felt like she’d just unlocked the key to his heart—and her vengeance.

  “Tell me a secret,” Marduk whispered, and she knew he needed to regain the equilibrium between them.

  Solveig released another steady breath. “Do you remember the night my sister was crying?”

  “Aslaug?”

  “I saw you with her in the gardens,” she admitted. “It was the night before you tried to kiss me. But all I could think of was the way you took your cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders, then sat beside her and talked her out of her tears. You had your arm around her shoulders, and my sister looked at you as if you’d hung the moon in the sky.”

  Every inch of him stiffened. “Is that why—?”

  “I stabbed you when you tried to kiss me?” She arched a brow. “Yes.”

  “I was offering her comfort. Not romance. She was upset because she knew I didn’t have any feelings for her. Not the way she wished them to advance. I told her there was someone out there just for her, and she shouldn’t settle upon the first handsome stranger who came along. Or something like that.”

  “You were being kind,” Solveig said, drawing her knees up to her chest. She could see it now, in a way she hadn’t been able to at the time.

  He was letting Aslaug down gently and trying to assuage her tears. Her sister had been laughing, even as she dashed them from her cheeks, but back then, all Solveig had been able to see was the way he made Aslaug happy.

  And then he had tried to kiss her.

  And she’d erupted with into a jealous rage because she hadn’t understood any of it, least of all her own feelings.

  The heat drained from her cheeks
as realization struck her like an arrow to the heart. It had always been easy to hate him. If she hated him, then she did not have to confront the truth in her heart. If she hated him, then she could lash out at him with impunity. She could protect herself. Her pride. Her name. But most of all, her heart.

  That fledgling beast that had broken upon her mother’s death and never truly healed.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow. “I forgive you,” she whispered.

  “What?” His gaze tore back to hers.

  “I forgive you.”

  His jaw fell open. Hot amber light burned to life in his eyes. “Why?”

  Solveig slipped from the wall, and then paused as she straightened her shirt. “I forgive you because it hurts me to continue carrying the weight of it all these years. And because…. I think I understand now. Why you are who you are. And why I am the way I am. And I think I’m starting to understand what happened between us all those years ago.”

  13

  They spent the afternoon touring the castle, though one of Draco’s guards seemed to be following them.

  Never overtly. Simply there every time Marduk paused in a new area of the castle. That might be a problem.

  “Can you sense anything?” Solveig murmured as she slipped through the gardens, as cool and serene as a glacier, despite that moment earlier this morning. “I swear you’re leading us in circles.”

  “I am.” He paused by a fountain in a walled courtyard and plucked a rose from a nearby bush. “Here you are, my love.”

  “I forgive you.”

  Those words hammered within his chest with every beat of his heart, but she’d simply closed herself off again, as if she’d bared her heart for a moment and found it too unbearable to continue. Her walls were back in place, her castle ramparts firmly guarded, and she’d hauled up the drawbridge behind those words, as if to pretend they’d never existed.

  I won’t forget, Solveig.

  You yielded for a second. You let me in. And you can lock me out all you like, but I know your heart is vulnerable now.

  She looked distinctly unimpressed as she accepted the rose.

  “I left the thorns on,” he teased.

  Solveig brought the red flower to her nose and breathed it in, watching him over the top of those petals as if she was waiting for the trap to spring shut around her. Her fingertip stroked one of the thorns thoughtfully, and the muscle in his jaw flexed as he met her dark eyes.

  He wanted, quite desperately, to kiss her.

  But the others were relying on him to find the key. He couldn’t let them down. Not again.

  “There are tunnels beneath the castle,” he told her, trying to focus.

  One of her eyebrows rose. “How do you know?”

  “Because I can feel Chaos magic beneath us in three different locations. One beneath the northern tower, where Draco and Andromeda reside. One beneath the heart of the keep. And one beneath us here. This is where I sense it the strongest. There’s just one little problem.”

  “There’s no way to access such tunnels?”

  “Oh, there’s a way, I think. But no. Our friend is back,” Marduk murmured, pushing her back against the castle wall and nuzzling at her throat as if he just wanted a taste of her. He could feel her pulse kick in her throat as his lips grazed her soft skin. “Can you see him? On the castle ramparts?”

  Stillness ran through her—a slight tremble—as if she was deliberately trying to restrain any hint of reaction to his touch. “I see him.”

  “Good.” He kissed the muscle of her throat, his hand curving over her hip as he whispered in her ear. “There’s a door half-hidden by the ivy beside us. No, no, don’t look…. Don’t give the game away.” He captured her chin, forcing her to stare into his eyes. “I almost missed it the first time around. I want to see why this entire area sends a shiver over my skin. There’s definitely something beneath us. And I think that door will lead us there.”

  A hand slid up his nape, curling in his hair. “The key?” Solveig breathed, her body melting into his as if they were just two lovers, stealing kisses in a secluded spot of the gardens.

  Evil woman.

  “I don’t know. It’s Chaos magic. I can feel it thick and heavy in my abdomen.”

  “That’s not magic. Even I can feel that.”

  A rough laugh escaped him as the heat pouring into his erection doubled. It rested against her hip, and the way she slid her thumb up the column of muscle in the back of his neck made it difficult to concentrate. “That… is a reaction to our current circumstances. And it’s a spell of some description, though I think you’re the one weaving it around me. But no, I’m not talking about my cock right now.”

  Their eyes met again, and he could feel the connection between them.

  Like a hammer to the chest.

  One that took his breath, his soul.

  Her eyes were pure night. He could almost see the stars themselves gleaming in such mesmerizing darkness.

  And then Solveig brushed the rose against his lips, her gaze lowering to them almost curiously. “I think I can distract him.”

  “Good.” She was distracting him. “How?”

  The slightest smile crossed her lips. “All dreki have the gift of at least one element. Yours is Fire, Marduk. Flashy, bold and dangerous. But mine is Air. Stealthy. Subtle. And lethal, if need be.”

  “Killing a guard is a bad idea.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s almost as if you think I’m a fool. It can be lethal if I choose to encase you in a bubble of pure Air and slowly deprive you of oxygen. But subtle works in this situation. He’ll never know it’s me.”

  “Do it then.”

  A faint wind blew her long raven hair behind her.

  His shirt stirred, ruffling in the breeze. And hell if his heart didn’t leap, because he could sense that wind caressing every inch of his skin, stirring languorously between his thighs. It called to every inch of him—man and dreki.

  Fly with me.

  Chase the wind with me.

  Forever.

  “Watch,” she whispered, brushing the rose against his lips again. “And learn. Because there’s more than one set of eyes watching us.”

  A gust of wind tore through the gardens, tearing the petals from her rose.

  Someone cried out. The guard, he thought, catching a glimpse of a black cloak fluttering. The guard staggered back, fighting with his cloak as it wrapped itself around his face.

  Solveig’s smile held a dangerous curve. “We have ten seconds before he gets free. Any longer and it might be suspicious.”

  Marduk jammed his thin dirk inside the lock of the hidden door, heard it click, and then they were slipping inside, plunging into pure darkness.

  “Well?” Solveig purred.

  Marduk snapped his fingers, conjuring a spark of fire that danced off his fingertips and lit the devastating planes of her cheekbones.

  “Impressive,” he admitted.

  A finally controlled gust of wind like that was impressive. Dreki could turn the skies into blazing battlegrounds, but for her to control a breeze so minutely meant great skill.

  Not so impressive was the sudden roiling of his gut as he stared around him. His cock flagged.

  Underground. The stone walls were so smooth they might as well have been carved by dreki wielding the gift of Earth. And the stairs led into a darkened pit.

  Marduk swallowed hard.

  The walls weren’t going to collapse. They were too smooth. Carved directly out of solid rock. From the indentation in the center of the stairs, enough dreki had traveled this stairwell over the years safely.

  And if the roof did collapse, then he was with a dreki who could encase them both in a bubble of Air.

  A dreki who may or may not enjoy watching him scream….

  No, that thought wasn’t helping.

  Solveig stalked past him, her boot heels clicking on stone tiles, and her long legs eating up the ground. The leather breeches she wore did marvelous t
hings to her legs, but he didn’t even think the sight of her ass could distract him right now. “You’ve seen nothing yet. Coming? Or do you want me to hold your hand?”

  He forced himself to follow her, his gaze settling between those shoulder blades. This wasn’t the first time he’d ventured underground. He could do it again. He just had to lock it all out and focus on the song of Chaos that wound its way up the stairwell.

  “I’m fine.”

  Solveig hesitated. “I can go on alone if you wish?”

  Kindness? From her?

  “Lead on. You won’t know what you’re looking for. I’ll manage.”

  “As you wish,” she called over her shoulder, her dark eyes all too knowing.

  The staircase led down and down, deep into the earth.

  Marduk followed her on stealthy feet, and Solveig had to look behind her several times to ensure he was following. For such a large man, he moved with an incredible grace. He moved as though he’d had plenty of practice in being silent and invisible.

  Though there was sweat on his throat, and his cheeks looked pale and clammy.

  “Which way?” she asked, as they paused at an intersection.

  He closed his eyes, tilting his head one way and then the other. His eyes blinked open and his head turned, a flash of eerie green lighting his irises for a second. “Left.”

  He pushed past her, the little flicker of firelight dancing over his shoulder.

  No mocking commentary. No endless spill of words from his lips.

  Solveig’s eyes narrowed as she considered his earlier revelation. Fear could be paralyzing. She needed him whole and focused. “You never did tell me what you’ve been up to for the last ten years.”

  “A little of this, and a little of that.”

  She followed him like a silent wraith. “I find it interesting how you deflect such questions about your past.”

  He sighed. “I found mountains to climb, Solveig, and canyons to chase the wind through. I soared over the pyramids of Egypt, and sought to climb to the top of the highest mountain in Asia.”