by Bec McMaster
“In the meantime, I want this kept silent.” Draco glanced at the guards. “My people are still growing used to having strangers in the keep. It wouldn’t be wise for too many to know what happened here.”
15
Dinner was a terse affair. Solveig had managed only five minutes alone with Marduk—just enough time to tell him what she’d learned from Andromeda—before he broke the brutal truth to her.
Another young woman had been murdered.
And Draco’s suspicions fell upon them.
In the wake of Kirstin’s death, Haakon had insisted that Árdís and Ishtar dine in their rooms. Which meant that Sirius, Malin, Elin, Andri, Solveig and Marduk were sent to entertain the king and his court. They had to be even more careful with their tongues this evening. Even more watchful.
Elin seemed to be the only one thrilled at the prospect. A pretty flush highlighted her cheeks as she laughed at something Draco said, and Solveig noticed the anguished look young Andri sent her.
“Your cousin is in love,” she whispered, leaning over and stabbing a piece of Pinnekjøtt off Marduk’s plate. He’d been meticulously slicing the salt-cured lamb off its rib, and now the meat itself was fair game. It was also a blatant sign she saw herself as in control of the relationship between them. “Is there any chance he’s going to launch over the table and grab the king by the throat? Or is that merely an affliction you suffer?”
“Andri’s not in love. It was a flirtation that went nowhere. He’s merely nursing his wounded pride.” Marduk slid a piece of kumla onto his fork and held it out to her with a slight challenge in his eyes. “Elin flirts with every male that moves.”
“Even you?”
“Thankfully, no. She also tends to avoid Sirius, though I think that has more to do with her sister. Elin thinks Sirius is a monster, and she and Malin argued.”
Solveig eyed the offering. To eat directly from his fork was complicated. It might be seen as an intimacy a male offered a beloved mate—tradition stated that males would bring their mates food to show they could protect and feed them and any future offspring—but it was also an indication he considered himself the dominant partner.
To deny him would be a statement of rejection.
Solveig’s eyes narrowed at how deftly he’d played her, but she accepted the bite of potato dumpling, her teeth scraping on the tines.
And returned to watching the byplay, ignoring his satisfied smile.
The bastard always pushed her.
“Andri’s in love,” she mused as she swallowed. “You can see it in his eyes. If it was merely pride, he’d have challenged the king by now, but he’s spent more time staring into his goblet of wine. It hurts him to see this.”
Marduk leaned closer, his shoulder brushing against hers. “Why the interest in my cousin?”
“Not so much your cousin,” she murmured, “but your court.”
His eyebrow asked a question.
“Two Chaos-wielders dead within a month of each other in two separate courts. The only consistent theme appears to be the Zini clan.”
Or was one of the Zini a killer?
A pained expression flickered across his face. “My… mother….”
“Andromeda confirmed it. Dreki do not become ghosts. And I doubt your mother would have trapped her own soul forever in a soulstone.”
“No.” His mouth twisted. “Not unless she was certain she could escape.”
Solveig glanced under her lashes at Draco. “Speaking of such things, do you think that knife we saw….”
“I need Ishtar to have a look at it,” he cut her off, lacing his hand over hers. “And I need to speak to the others, the second we have a chance. Too many eyes and ears right now.”
Fingertips stroked down her spine. A thumb brushed against her ribs, and then it was trailing lower, learning the curve of her hip. She couldn’t breathe. Her corset was too tight, the dreki within her feeling as though it wanted to punch through her skin.
Solveig shot Marduk a glare, baring her teeth.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“More of this foolishness?”
His lips brushed the curve of her shoulder, skating against her neck. But it was the way his hand curled over her thigh that almost did her in. “Don’t make me mark you.”
Every inch of her was stiff as her heart warred with her body. “If you dare sink your teeth into my throat, I will return the favor. And I won’t be playing.”
“Who said anything about playing?” His breath stirred the hair tucked behind her ear, his fingers still caressing her spine with devastating impact. “And I wouldn’t presume, though you’re welcome to mark me anytime you like.”
Solveig drew back until they were nose-to-nose.
Was he serious?
Dreki lovers were possessive, but there were many different layers of possession. A casual lover was never granted marking rights. It was designed for a dreki to show that a female belonged to him, and vice versa. To mark another’s skin was an incredibly intimate privilege.
Solveig captured his chin in her fingers, staring into his eyes. Heat flared there, turning the already amber hue of his irises to brilliant golden flame. She could see the gift of Fire within him. A rare gift bred through certain bloodlines—goddess-blessed they sometimes called it—and every court in the land would be desperate to have him bred to one of theirs. For a second, the look threatened to turn more intimate—sometimes you could almost see through a dreki’s eyes to the heart of the creature within, monstrous and powerful and possessive when roused….
Possessive?
Was it because Draco was in the room?
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
Marduk never looked away from her as he kissed her fingertips. “Are you not my mate? My love? The heart of my clan’s alliance with yours?”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“Always irreverent. Is everything a joke to you?” She pushed away from him, slipping to her feet. She wasn’t in the mood to be toyed with tonight. Most of the time she had her armor engaged, but there was something about his words that arrowed directly into her heart.
He captured her wrist. “Where are you going?”
“I need some air.”
And then she tore herself free and stalked from the hall, though she couldn’t quite shake the sensation of Marduk’s fingers digging into her thigh.
The cool evening breeze skimmed through Solveig’s hair as she stirred her fingers through the fountain.
It was easier to breathe out here.
Today’s encounters had dealt her a blow. It was one thing to agree to this fiasco for political expediency, but the more time she spent with him, the more she… liked him.
She had sworn an oath to the goddess that she would kill Marduk within the year. Without his bloody heart clenched in her fist, she could not return home.
And there was a part of her that no longer wished him dead.
Solveig closed her eyes. You don’t want him dead. At all.
“What were you thinking?” her father’s voice whispered in her memories. “I warned you never to make such a reckless promise. The goddess shall not be cheated.”
“Whoever said I intend to cheat her?”
What a fool she’d been. She’d accused Marduk of impulsiveness, but was she any better?
She couldn’t go home without his heart.
And she could no longer kill him—if she’d ever been able to.
Which meant all her dreams had vanished in a cloud of ashes, and she had no one to blame but herself.
A shadow flickered beneath the archway leading into the gardens.
Marduk.
He’d followed her and then waited at the entrance to the gardens, giving her some semblance of privacy.
What she wouldn’t give to simply wing her way out of this mess, before she let this feeling within her grow too entrenched.
But that was not her way.
“You are a warrior
queen,” she whispered to herself. “So get on your feet and fight.”
It helped.
Solveig braced herself and then started the long return.
Slipping down the stone stairs, she stared at Marduk defiantly. “I thought you would be eating and drinking and dancing merrily. What are you doing here?”
“I upset you,” he said, staring at her with his hands in his pockets. “But I’m not entirely certain how.”
“It was nothing.”
Marduk moved to intercept her. “Don’t do that. Please. Is that not how you spent ten years hating me?”
How to tell him that she feared her feelings for him were stronger than she’d ever let herself believe?
Simple.
She didn’t.
“I don’t like your jealousy.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were. You’ve had your hands all over me all evening.” She cut him off before he could retort. “And if it was because you couldn’t keep your hands off me, it wouldn’t have started in the Great Hall. You don’t like it when he watches me.”
A muscle leapt in his jaw and he looked away. “Do you… wish to encourage his advances?”
“Draco’s?”
“Yes,” he growled out, his jaw clenching and then unclenching. “He is king of his clan. Ruthless. Charming—”
“Ridiculously handsome,” she suggested, because she wasn’t entirely above taunting him.
Marduk gave her a flat stare.
“If a handsome face could charm my heart, I’d have fallen head over heels for you ten years ago. I desire more than a pretty face in a mate.”
There was no response.
But she could feel the fire raging within him and see him fight against it with everything he had. Finally, he said, “If you truly wished to make an alliance with him, I would not stand in your way. I would… I could sunder this agreement between us here and now.”
The words stole her breath.
It could be advantageous for her clan.
The Zilittu were strong and ruthless, a constant threat to the north. In a single moment she would silence such a threat and bind it to her court with chains of iron.
No, shrieked the creature inside her, the one that tore and ravaged at her heart with violent claws. No. It would be a cage. It would be wrong in all the ways that mattered.
And she would never escape the feeling that she had chosen the wrong course.
But what was the right course?
“You would do that? I thought we were to present an allied front? I thought I was ‘yours.’ You made a great display of it last night.”
He’d been making a very good display of it tonight too.
There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t read. “Politically, my brother would remind me this idea is a nightmare for the Zini.”
“Then why would you make such an offer?”
“Because I stole your future,” Marduk admitted, “with my careless words. And as much as it pains me to even consider the concept, if there was something there for you with Draco, if you could find the future you desire, then I would not stand in your way again.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You would be a terrible king.”
He drew back as if slapped. “Pardon?”
The first few drops of rain slapped against her skin. “You think with your heart instead of your head—”
“I was trying to—”
“Apologize. Yes, I know.” I know. But where did that leave her? Solveig paced. “Goddess, you’re so arrogant. You stole my future? My future is in my hands, Marduk, and while you humiliated me once, you had nothing to do with the rest of my life choices.”
His shoulders straightened, rain slicking the soft linen of his shirt to his golden skin. “I wasn’t trying to say I did—”
“And if I chose to pursue the promise in Draco’s eyes?” She turned on him. “Then make no mistake. I would. But quite frankly, male dreki have done enough damage to my life already. Why would I wish to saddle myself with another one? One is enough, and it seems I can’t even get rid of him.”
“I’ll wear the first part of that, but if you’d truly wished to get rid of me, you could have done so long ago.”
“Unfortunately, you seem to keep tangling yourself in my life.”
His hand splayed over the wall beside her head, and he leaned closer, caging her in with his proximity. “Do I? Because I seem to recall that you had me dragged back to your court in chains.”
Her fist clenched. “Vengeance—”
“Is the excuse you keep throwing in my face, but I’m not entirely certain it’s the truth.”
“And what do you think the truth is? That I was pining for you? That I desired you so much I couldn’t let you go?”
The words left her breathless.
Because she hadn’t been able to let him go, and she still didn’t understand why.
“Ask me,” he demanded. “Ask me for a secret.”
Solveig leaned back against the wall, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to escape the overwhelming press of his scent.
“Fine,” she grated out. “Tell me a secret.”
Marduk’s eyes turned molten, and his gaze dropped to her lips. “I would have chosen you. That first time, I would have chosen you.”
Solveig sucked in a sharp breath.
“If you want to know the truth”—his voice roughened as he captured her face in his hand, his thumb rasping over her cheek—“I could no sooner have chosen one of your sisters as my mate than I could have stopped breathing. My fierce, sweet nemesis. It was you. It’s always been you, from the moment I laid eyes upon you that first time.”
The mess of emotion churning within her pushed her right to the edge. “You had no intentions of being mated. You told me that.”
“No,” he told her, rivulets of rain sliding down his face and dripping from the bottom of his chin. “I wasn’t ready to be mated. I was furious at my mother. I couldn’t see the opportunity before me. And yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You were everything I shouldn’t have wanted, all wrapped up in a body that still makes me ache.”
His hand reached out, stopping just above her clavicle. His fingers trembled and Solveig stared up at him, fighting the urge to flee.
“You hated me from the moment you saw me, and I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve such hate,” he whispered. “And the stupidest thing was that I didn’t care. If my mother hadn’t tried to kill me, I think I would have stayed. I would have chosen you. I wanted to kiss you so much I ached with it—”
There.
His fingertips grazed her skin.
And it was too much. Her heart erupted like a stampeding herd of cattle.
Today’s kiss had been wild need. A game. A taunt.
This was something else entirely, and she couldn’t escape it.
“I still want to kiss you.” His whisper skimmed her jaw, and then his lips followed them. A ghostly caress that had her yearning for more. “Do you know what it feels like to know I’ve tasted you once? I can still feel your nails digging into my back, Solveig. I can still feel the mark of your teeth in the skin of my throat. You haunt me. And every night, I hear you gasp as I kiss my way down your neck”—his hand splayed firmly over her midriff—“and I dream of the sounds you would make if you let me kiss my way lower.”
Lower, to where the trail of his fingertips led.
Past her belt.
Over the buttons of her breeches.
Solveig froze, breathless with want as he touched her there.
Right where it ached the fiercest.
And their eyes met as he drew back, practically daring her.
Marduk leaned closer, until his breath stirred her lips. “I’m not the only one who aches, am I? Your eyes turn molten sometimes and I can almost feel your lips on mine. And your fingers curl into your palms as if you’re fighting not to reach out and touch me. Despite everything, you want me and I want you. And maybe we can
keep lying to ourselves, but maybe there’s no reason to do so. We’re alone here, Solveig. Nobody would ever know.” His voice softened to a whisper. “Only you. And only me.”
It wasn’t right to want a man so. It wasn’t right, and yet it had been years since she’d felt another’s touch, and worse, all she could remember was his, and she wanted—no, she needed—it to be more.
One night.
“I would know,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
It was a dare.
She looked into his eyes, and maybe this was what she needed? Maybe she’d be able to breathe again if she just let this happen. Maybe she’d no longer feel like chains constricted her chest every damned time he looked at her, if she drove this wretched feeling from her veins.
But he promised pleasure, and she didn’t want mere pleasure.
She wanted it to be a fight. She wanted to slay these treacherous demons within her heart. She wanted to punish herself for even wondering what it would feel like to have his hands on her skin.
“Maybe we need to deal with this attraction between us, once and for all?” he growled.
Solveig bit his finger, watching the heat flare to life in his eyes.
“What will it cost me?” he whispered.
Her heart skipped a beat. “Surrender. Complete and utter surrender.”
There was a devilish heat in his eyes. “Then you have it.”
“Just this once.”
Marduk’s eyes widened, but she was sliding a hand up his chest, feeling the erratic thump of his heart. Fierce desire flared in his amber irises as if the monster of his own need was unleashed.
“As you wish,” he whispered.
No more words. No more promises. No more secrets.
“Then kiss me.” Solveig grabbed a fistful of his collar as his mouth lowered to claim hers.
There was something to be said for surrender.
Marduk kissed as if she’d aimed her ballista at his dam walls and an entire torrent of passion was bursting through. He slammed her back against the wall, claiming her mouth as if she’d given him permission to own it.
It took precisely two seconds to realize this wasn’t surrender. Or not on her terms. Indeed, she found herself lifted up, her thighs clamping around his hips as his tongue lashed against her own.