by Bec McMaster
It was the only time he ever felt true freedom.
To be bound to another felt like a cage.
And yet, a part of him suddenly wondered what it would be like to try and tame her.
Solveig reminded him of a Moroccan dervish. The mere thought of being mated to her left him somewhat breathless—as if the oxygen was thinner here in the throne room.
It was a horrible idea. They'd tear each other to pieces. Spiral out of control. Destroy everything in each other's paths.
Marduk suddenly realized the room was silent, everyone watching as the pair of them stared at each other.
"I have made my choice," he said softly, staring into her blazing eyes.
He could sense her holding her breath.
"Excellent," the king said with a clap of his hands.
"I choose Solveig."
The sudden sound of Princess Solveig’s exhale echoed through the court, as if Marduk had driven a fist into her sternum, but there was no sign of it on her face as King Harald looked her in the eye and lifted a hand toward her.
Instead, her features merely smoothed into a mask of nothingness, as she accepted his hand.
Tormund couldn’t help feeling a chill run down his spine. That was not the expression of a woman walking calmly to her doom. No. That was the mask of a woman who was plotting revenge.
“Excellent,” the king purred, offering his daughter’s hand to Marduk. “Let us begin the ceremony.”
“Now?” both Marduk and the princess asked.
“What better time?” Harald said smoothly, clapping a hand on Solveig’s shoulder as though he sought to stop her from fleeing.
Marduk stared at Solveig’s hand as though it was a dead rat. But he grudgingly accepted it.
They both looked like they were sentenced to the gallows.
“Árdís said to protect the treaty,” Haakon muttered grimly, “but I’m not sure this is what she expected.”
“Árdís is a romantic. She’ll be overjoyed her little brother is mated.”
“To the woman who tried to kill him?”
“I don’t think she tried that hard.” Solveig didn’t strike Tormund as the kind of woman who failed when she set her mind to something. “Relax, cousin. Enjoy the feast—these events always have a feast. We can let him play the dutiful son-in-law, then kidnap him and slip out the back door when everyone is deep in their cups and snoring.”
“Your plans always have a fatal flaw in them.”
“What flaw can you see?” he protested.
Haakon looked across the room, his gaze as sharp as a hawk’s. “You didn’t count upon a certain redhead showing up.”
Tormund’s head whipped around.
Bryn slipped through the crowd, her gaze locked on the unhappy couple. She still wore her hunting leathers, but her hair had been braided into a coronet for the occasion.
She must have sensed his stare, for she suddenly stilled, and her head turned inexorably toward them.
The world froze.
The court dropped away.
And he was right back there in bed with her, the taste of her skin under his tongue and the sound of her moans in his ear.
"By Fire, I bind thee.” The ancient lore master bound Solveig’s and Marduk’s hands together with a golden cord.
Tormund’s head whipped back to the couple on the dais. “What is she doing here?” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.
“Find out,” Haakon said flatly. “If Solveig is up to something—"
“In the Goddess's name, I name thee mates, and let no dreki strike thee asunder.” The lore master snapped his fingers, and flames bloomed in the small pit beyond him. "May you seek forever in each other's arms.”
The distant rumble of thunder echoed through the hall, as though the dreki goddess heard the vows.
But there was no fierce clap, the way there had been at Sirius’s mating ceremony.
No shiver through the air, as though the goddess personally blessed the union.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who noticed. Dozens of dreki whispered behind their hands and looked around as the lore master sealed the bonds of the cord around their hands with wax.
Marduk’s lips thinned as he glanced down at Solveig, and he stepped forward, lowering his face toward hers dutifully—
She stopped him with a firm palm to the chest. “This nonsense is done.”
“To the feasting hall,” the king roared and captured Solveig’s other hand, before bending down and whispering something sharply in her ear.
Her face paled with fury, but she ceased trying to tear the cords from her wrist and accepted the fact that she was bound to Marduk’s side, until they—
“Oh, gods.” Tormund winced. “The mating bed. She’s going to murder him.”
“Go talk to Bryn,” Haakon told him. “I’ll stand guard over our precious prince while they feast.”
Dreki streamed through the doors someone had opened at the end of the room. Flowers were flung from baskets, and some poor dreki tried to lift Solveig into the air to carry her alongside Marduk. One glare was enough to disabuse him of this notion, and he tucked tail and ran as Solveig walked beside her husband, who was being carried by several dreki.
It looked ridiculous.
It also looked planned. There were garlands everywhere upon second look.
“King Harald plays a deep game,” he muttered under his breath, as he swam through the crowd. That smug old bastard had looked him in the eye the other day, nodded sincerely, and then went and plotted a mating ceremony.
Ahead of him, a red head appeared.
Bryn pushed her way through the crowd, looking far prettier than she had any right to. His heart squeezed in his chest. She’d fit in his arms like she’d been made to fill them, and then she’d left.
“I thought you’d be halfway to Oslo by now,” he told her curtly.
Bryn snatched at his wrist. “I need to talk to you.”
“Now?” He used his broad body to shield them from the room as his voice dropped. “There was plenty of time for talking before you stole from my bed.”
“Not about us, you idiot,” she hissed, shooting a look over his shoulder.
His gut dropped. Of course not. What had he been thinking? This was not a woman given to her emotions. “About what then?”
“Princess Solveig paid me for my role in this entire affair, but she also offered me another job. She wanted me to help prevent Marduk from taking her as a mate. At any cost.”
The words cut through the throb of anger that smoldered within him. “You think she expected this?”
“I don’t know what happened between them all those years ago, but yes, I think—despite her protests—that she feared this. And after I refused her….”
“She’s not the sort of dreki to have only one escape plan in motion.” No. Solveig was her father’s warlord. She thought in circles. She prepared for any possibility.
“Precisely.”
Their eyes met.
“She’s going to kill the prince,” he said.
He’d only been joking when he said it earlier.
Bryn wore a grim expression. “I think she’s going to try.”
The second the bedchambers closed, Solveig turned on him with a hiss. "You ruinous, wretched beast!" Clawing fingers came for his face.
Marduk was ready for her.
* * *
Capturing her wrists, he avoided the snap of her elbow and managed to twist under the blow. Hauling her back against his chest, he tried to restrain the rage. It was like riding the winds of a hurricane.
“Do you think I wanted this?”
For a second, he thought he had her contained.
Then a foot swept out behind her and he was falling, his back hitting the floor and a warm weight still in his arms. Solveig slammed on top of him, the breath driving out of her chest. Marduk slung his arm around her hips, but he could have sworn he was wrestling the Midgard Serpent, Jörmungandr.
“Wanted this? Do you think I wanted this?”
He pinned her wrists to the floor, trying to use his weight against her, but then her legs flexed up, her thighs locking around his neck, as she bent herself fair in half.
A quick twist and he was flat on his back again, still slightly breathless with the shock of finding his face buried between her thighs.
"You wyrm," she snarled.
He captured her thighs, staring up the length of her body. Fuck. He was so close to her that he could almost smell the musk of her body. And he suddenly wanted to turn his face into her thigh and bite her.
Solveig pinned him to the rug, slamming his wrists to the floor, her thighs straddling his shoulders. Her eyes flashed dreki gold, her teeth bared in a snarl.
Every instinct demanded he roll them and slam her to the floor to conquer the challenge in her eyes.
But there was also a part of him that was still dealing with the realization that he was between her thighs.
"You've ruined my life. Did you think to punish me? Was this revenge for capturing you?"
"It had nothing to do with you," he snapped.
"Nothing to—" Her lips parted in shock. "You chose me to be your mate!"
"I couldn't pick Aslaug. She'd be picturing little dreki in her arms within the year, and imagining life by my side. And Siv is terrified of me. She wants nothing to do with me."
"I want nothing to do with you."
"Likewise," he snarled. "Which makes you the perfect choice. You're not frightened of me. You don't desire anything from me. Your father demanded we mate. He said nothing about living together."
"That's what you intend? You plan to dump me here, mated by word—but not in truth—and continue on your merry way? You son of a dragon.”
And then they were both wrestling again.
Sitting up, he tried to escape her grasp as she fell into his lap. But then she shifted—as if she saw the heat in his gaze—and her weight settled heavily over his groin. His cock, ever an opportunist, roused to the challenge as she leaned over him, her nails digging into his wrists.
Marduk froze.
Don't you dare, he told his exuberant erection as Solveig's weight shifted atop him. Anyone but her.
It was having none of it.
And why the hell would it? Solveig's shirt gaped, revealing the slight curves of her breasts, her dusky skin caressed by the thin stream of sunlight through the window.
She was the sort of female who wouldn't lie meekly beneath him in bed. No, he'd feel the kiss of her claws in his back. The bite of her teeth in his throat. A constant challenge to be won. He could pin her, just as she was doing to him, and fuck his way into—
Stop it! She's an evil, treacherous Sadu princess with a savage heart.
Solveig gasped. "What did you just call me?"
And he realized he was projecting the thoughts right through his shields.
She sat up, releasing his wrists, her entire weight settling over his groin. "Did you just call me a—"
The moment she realized his predicament was priceless.
Solveig gasped, sounding so much like meek Aslaug he had to look twice. Red burned through her cheeks. "What is wrong with you?"
"Product of our circumstances, I'm afraid."
"Product of our—?"
His hands dropped to her thighs, and he tried to ease her weight from his aching cock. "Are you planning to get off me? Or would you prefer to repeat everything I say?"
She sat frozen.
Eyes bulging, and her fingers tangled into claws in his shirt as if she didn't dare move.
What an absolute delight. He'd finally found something to shut her up. Fierce Solveig, with her tart mouth and narrow-eyed glares, couldn't cope with the sensation of his erection.
"Unless you want me to mate you in truth?" he breathed, feeling an odd, perplexing twist of need deep in his abdomen. If he shifted half an inch, they'd be lined up perfectly. He could almost scent her arousal. Her—
"I would rather kiss a wyrm!"
But her heart was beating rapidly, and her eyes darted as if she didn't know what to do.
"Really?" he purred. "Because you don’t seem to be in any hurry to get off me.”
Solveig paused, her expression taking on a considering slant. Eyes narrowing, she put her face right in his. “And here I thought fucking me would be akin to putting your cock in a bear trap.”
“I apologized for that,” he growled. “I was drunk, and we’d spent all day arguing. It was a slip of the tongue when in my cups—”
“And every warrior in my court knows the entire cursed poem,” she snarled. “I despise you. You’re the most hateful, arrogant, worthless wyrm I’ve ever met.”
“And you’re akin to a harpy.” His voice rose. “I don’t know what your father was thinking. We’d kill each other within the month.”
“A month is a generous assessment,” she snapped. “And I think he was thinking that he had signed a contract with your court and intended to honor it, despite the way you slunk off like a whipped cur last time.”
“Whipped cur?” His temper roused. “You threatened to kill me.”
“You deserved to die!”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, and lower, to where her breasts heaved against her shirt. His dreki fluttered within him, craving the taste of her mouth. Don’t you dare.
“Nothing to say to that?” she growled. “Perhaps you can’t say anything because a lie can’t cross your tongue. The Sadu clan have always honored their contracts—as I will do now, regardless of my feelings—while your worthless—”
Marduk grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her down.
"What—?"
He kissed her.
The second their mouths met, he realized his mistake. Solveig gasped, her claws sinking into his chest. Biting his lip, she growled deep in her throat.
He bit back.
And then her tongue was thrusting into his mouth, her hands tearing his shirt open. Marduk threw his head back, offering her the vulnerable flex of his throat as she bit at his chin. Sharp teeth grazed his throat.
“Curse you,” she whispered. And then she was claiming his mouth again, her tongue lashing against his.
Every inch of him fired with need. The dreki within him pushed against the cage of his flesh, demanding release. Sliding a hand down the flexible curve of her spine, Marduk grabbed a handful of her ass and drove her against him.
This was what came of all those arguments.
This was what happened when two storms drove against each other, battering and lashing at each other’s defenses. There could be no surcease, no quarter. Only the overriding urge to claim.
Capturing her wrists, he flipped her onto her back and found himself in the chasm between her thighs. One of her hands slid up his spine and then she was undulating beneath him, rocking into his touch and moaning.
Gods. His mind went blank as her hand splayed across the back of his scalp. Solveig kissed as though she meant to stake her claim upon him, and the dreki within him liked it. It wanted to claim her in return, to finish what they’d started all those years ago.
He caught a glint of gold out of the corner of his eye and saw the knife rising.
Instinct surged. Marduk captured her wrist and rolled them, slamming her fist to the floor. The knife rang against the stone, but she didn’t let go of it. A flick of her wrist and then the blade was at his throat, though he gripped her firmly.
And he saw now, what he hadn’t seen then.
Rage mixed with desire.
Fury undone by lust.
She had never capitulated. She would never submit.
But though she’d clearly plotted to drive the knife through his heart, she hadn’t entirely counted upon the effect his physical presence would have upon her.
Marduk bit her lower lip. “Trying to get rid of me so soon?”
“Did you honestly think I would ever truly desire you?”
He kis
sed his way along her jaw, his breath a whisper over her skin even as the knife pressed against his carotid. The scent of desire was in the air, and it wasn’t just coming from him.
“I think you’re lying to yourself,” he breathed, his teeth skating over her chin. “I think… maybe there’s another reason you were so disappointed I fled. Did you miss me, Solveig? Did you remember that one time we almost kissed? Did you dream of it every night for the past ten years, replaying it over and over in your mind? And did you let yourself touch your sweet wetness when you did think of it?”
She had the knife to his throat, and yet he saw her hesitate. He felt it in the core of his bones.
It went against every instinct to ignore the danger, but he kissed her again, hot and wet and openmouthed. She hadn’t feigned her earlier desire.
Solveig the Fierce, who had claimed to despise him from the start.
“I hate you,” she panted as he traced his lips down her throat, and slowly pushed the knife away.
“I think you’re lying—” He bit her earlobe as he whispered her darkest secret into her ear, “—because I don’t think you hate me at all.”
Their eyes met, and hers were full of dark flame.
“You wanted me, didn’t you?” He thrust against her, that delicious friction igniting the mating instinct deep within him. Marduk growled, turning her head to the side with his fist still clenched in her hair. He bit the soft muscle where her shoulder met her throat, and Solveig gasped, her spine arching to press her body closer to him.
Well, now.
From spitting hellcat to undulating kitten.
“I always wondered why you claimed to despise me from the moment we met….” Another kiss, this one gentle, as he worked his way down. His tongue lashed against the hollow indentation at the base of her throat, and he felt her still. “I came to this court with a gentle manner, but you were bared steel. And I tried to win your trust—for I’ve never met a challenge I couldn’t surmount—but every time I tried to make you smile, it felt like crossing swords. And we would always end in an argument. Always two storms colliding against each other. And it’s because of this, isn’t it?”