by Bec McMaster
“What do I want?” The crowd of gorgeous, blond-haired men parted and a newcomer—clearly the leader—stepped forward. “I want you to kiss my boots, you dreki filth. Kneel.”
Marduk’s knees folded, and he hit the floor, his eyes bulging in his shocked face.
“What are you doing?” Solveig’s weight shifted forward, but everything inside her was telling her to run. “Get up.”
“I. Can’t.” Marduk strained to move.
“Get to your feet,” she insisted, grabbing his arm and hauling him up. “And fight.”
“It’s not that… easy….” Each word came through strained teeth, and she felt Marduk’s fist curl in her shirt as he half made his feet.
“Stay,” the newcomer commanded, and even she felt the weight of those words. “Both of you.”
The most gorgeous man she’d ever seen turned his entire focus upon her, and Solveig froze as though a fist had slammed into her midriff. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
All she could do was feel the vast noose of overwhelming love flooding through her. This man…. This amazing, stunning man was looking at her, and she wanted to go to her knees—
What the hell?
“Aren’t you beautiful,” said the creature, and the words screamed through her ears. “Aren’t you magnificent?” He smiled, and the sun rose and set in that smile, and her heart began to pound even as her dreki shrieked within her chest. “Come here, my love. Come here and let me see you.”
Solveig nearly screamed as she fought the lure of that call.
But it was Marduk who stepped forward, moving as if he was ensorcelled. Marduk who went toward the creature with a smile on his face and blank, bland eyes.
Of course he did, the idiot.
And the stranger’s smile deepened as his hand went to the hilt of his knife, one hand reaching for Marduk—
“These children have forgotten the old ways,” the creature said, and another one of them laughed in the background.
More of them. Five in all.
But she couldn’t escape, couldn’t make herself move, couldn’t even look beyond him.
“Marduk,” she managed to grate out.
The stranger smiled at her as if he found this oh-so-hilarious, and he drew Marduk into his arms, grabbing the dreki prince by the chin and spinning him until Marduk leant back into his embrace, barely cognizant of the knife the creature held to his throat.
“Is this one yours?”
A thin line of red slid down Marduk’s throat, but he didn’t fight. The stranger kissed the blood away, but he didn’t drop his gaze from hers. “Oh, look at you fight it. I’m going to enjoy cutting the heart out of his chest—"
“His heart is mine,” she managed to hiss, but still her feet carried her forward.
“Maybe I’ll make you eat it.”
Her dreki went mad.
Its wings were pushing at her skin, its claws tearing at her from the inside. Solveig found herself screaming, but with the scream came some sort of clarity. The fog that bound her will in chains slipped from her mind, and she focused on the knife in the creature’s hand.
“Come to me, you pathetic wyrm,” the stranger demanded, his voice shivering through her and wrapping its tendrils around her heart. “Crawl toward me and kiss my boots…. Beg for mercy. Beg for pain. Beg for my knife. Crawl, you bitch.”
Solveig felt her feet drag her across the floor toward certain death, and she couldn’t stop her lips from curling in a smile.
Please. Please love me. Please hold me. Please end this misery.
But just as the stranger beckoned her toward him, Solveig could smell the blood.
And somehow it broke the spell. Somehow, she could move her eyes, see the blood pooling in the hollow of Marduk’s collarbone.
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, and everything inside her was being torn in two.
Crawl to me. Crawl to me. Crawl.
But she was Solveig the Fierce and she’d never crawled for anyone in her life.
“If anyone is going to… cut his heart out of his chest,” she screamed, “it’s going to be… me.”
Solveig stopped fighting the call.
Her feet carried her forward, and suddenly she was almost lunging toward him. Solveig’s fingers curled into a fist and then her knuckles were lashing toward that bastard’s nose, and she drove every inch of her weight and fury through the blow.
Blood spurted and the stranger’s head snapped back.
Metal shifted as five other sets of hands dropped to their swords, but she couldn’t worry about the others. Instead, she hooked her left fist around and drove it into the creature’s jaw. The knife slipped free from Marduk’s throat, and Solveig kicked Marduk in the chest, which slammed the pair of them back into the wall.
Marduk blinked as if he was coming awake from a thousand-year sleep. Grabbing a fistful of his shirt, she spun him toward the bar of the inn.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” She slapped him across the face.
Hard.
And damn her if it didn’t feel good.
“You bitch.” The stranger hauled himself upright, wiping blood from his mouth. His eyes glinted murder, but whatever she’d done, she’d managed to break his hold over her. “I’ll have you on your knees—”
Solveig grabbed the nearest barstool and whipped it across his face. Timber shattered over his shoulders, and the slicing edge of his voice died a short death.
Steel crashed behind her. A hard body staggered into her. Marduk gave a grunt.
“Get off me!” she yelled.
“I’m trying to,” he said, and then he was lunging away from her, steel flashing in his hands as he stabbed one of the creatures through the eye. It went down with a scream, kicking and scrabbling on the floor as steam hissed from its wound.
Steel.
Iron.
Her gaze met Marduk’s, and she saw her own fears echoed in his eyes.
The alfar.
This wasn’t possible.
Solveig kicked another stool up into her hand and then tossed it at a pair of warriors who ran at her. Yanking Marduk’s knife from the warrior’s eye, she threw it at the stranger who’d sought to charm her with his voice.
He slapped it aside with the strange blade he wielded, and that was when Solveig knew they were outmanned and outmatched.
She couldn’t allow him to speak again.
Not when her ears were already blistered and she could still hear “crawl, crawl, crawl” echoing through her veins.
Clearly Marduk had the same idea. “This way!” he yelled, grabbing her arm and wrenching her toward the nearest window.
“Now you want to run?” Incredible.
The pair of them leapt through the window, spraying glass all across the cobbles below. She hit the ground with a grunt, tumbling forward into a roll before Marduk hauled her to her feet.
“Elves,” Solveig hissed, pacing in front of the fire she’d made and scratching at her arms. Every hair on her body remained on end. “What in the name of Tiamat are they doing here?”
Thousands of years ago, the dreki and the elves had fought a monstrous war, and although the dreki won the right to rule this world, exiling the elves back to their home world, the threat always remained that they might return.
Marduk shivered as he stared into the flames. They’d stolen a shirt and a pair of trousers off some poor washerwoman’s line, and he’d taken the trousers, courteously giving her his back while she buttoned herself into the itchy shirt. “’They came through the gates, laughing so brightly it pierced the ears; armed with voice and face and the desire to please….’ I’ve never understood that line of the saga until now.”
It was an uncomfortable moment to realize she agreed with him.
The night seemed to press in around them.
They’d taken to the skies and found a secluded glen to camp in for the night, but who knew whether the elves could even track them?
It
was like discovering a long-lost myth had come to life—and it was armed to the hilt.
“How did they even get here? The gates to Álfheimr should have been locked,” she said.
It was how those long-ago dreki had defeated the elvish forces.
Hundreds of dreki Chaos-wielders—those who could manipulate the wild, uncontrollable magic of Chaos that Tiamat had spawned—had forged a key that could unlock a portal to the alfar home world. A daring band of dreki warriors had invaded Álfheimr, captured the king’s queen, and then forced the alfar king to withdraw to his home world with his legions—or risk seeing her dead.
The king had agreed to the terms, no doubt assuming he could return with a vengeance.
But the Key of Chaos had been used again to close the portal and then had vanished into myth and legend. Some said it was destroyed. Others whispered it had been cast into a volcano or the deepest of oceans.
But Solveig—who knew her kind and their weaknesses best—knew that somewhere out there, a dreki guarded the key like a treasure in his horde.
“Someone has the key,” she whispered. “Someone used it.”
It took her a long moment to realize that Marduk wore a wincing expression.
“It’s not the key,” he admitted. “My sister, Ishtar, was born of pure Chaos. She cannot shift forms and fly, but she can perform seemingly impossible feats, and several months ago, she opened the portal at World’s End where the alfar staged their invasion. Nothing came through the circle there, and we insisted she close it, but….”
But.
The world fell away from her.
Solveig’s mouth dropped open.
“You mean to tell me that the circle at World’s End—which abuts my father’s lands—was opened to Álfheimr, even for a second, and nobody saw fit to inform the Sadu of this potential threat?”
The words came out flat and hard and incredulous, because surely nobody was that stupid?
“And what would you have done if you had been told?”
“Removed the threat,” she burst out. “Placed guards at the circle. Ensured that none of these stinking elves came through—”
“Precisely.” He prowled toward her. “We were handling it. The queen of the Ikkibu court has placed watchers at the portal, and—”
“Zorja Ravenspire?” Her voice rose several octaves. “The queen of the Forbidden Court? You allowed a foreign queen into my territories without telling me?”
“Your territories? Or your father’s?”
Solveig paced, her dreki lashing its inner tail. “I am my father’s heir. They will be mine one day. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes,” he snarled. “You weren’t warned.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve already threatened to kill me,” he pointed out sharply. “What would you have done if you were told my twin sister had the ability to form a portal between the stars and open gateways to any of the nine worlds?” He laughed bitterly. “You said it yourself. You would remove the threat.”
Solveig fell into stillness.
And then she considered him.
“You misunderstand me,” she said coldly. “I am the daughter of Harald the Shrewd. I was raised on politics. My father has always cautioned for a steady head and a careful hand. You say your sister owns the ability to create such portals? That’s a powerful weapon in the wrong hands. In the right hands, it’s a gift. The Zilittu clan to the north have far too many Chaos-wielders within their clan. It’s bred into their bloodlines. The Sadu have none. That’s why we formed an alliance with your family’s clan in the first place. That’s why my father wanted you bred to me or one of my sisters. We can’t fight the Zilittu and their magic. But Chaos magic runs in your bloodlines and maybe, if we had Chaos-wielders in our court, we wouldn’t have to.”
Marduk’s shoulders squared, and any sense of good humor fell away from him. “Nobody is going to hurt my sister or use her for their own cause. Ishtar’s not a weapon. She’s not a gift to be used. She is a young female formed of flesh and blood who has never had a chance to live her own life. And I won’t let anyone manipulate her into a corner.”
She’d never seen him like this.
Gone was the rakish charmer.
Gone was the flirtatious prince who didn’t give a damn about anything.
In his place was a furious male dreki who was bound to protect what he considered to be his.
She’d never have believed it possible.
“And here I thought you were immune to your overprotective male urges,” she drawled.
He bared his teeth at her. “Not immune, no. Just selective in whom I apply them to.”
She glared at him.
He glared back.
Stalemate.
Solveig breathed through her anger. Ultimately, it was unimportant. What mattered was that the Sadu were unaware of the danger that was presented to them from Álfheimr. Their flanks were guarded by a foreign queen who had a reputation for ruthlessness. The Zilittu were still poised at their throat.
And any form of alliance between the Sadu and the Zini relied upon the mating bond between her and Marduk.
This was a disaster.
And despite her all-consuming rage—that little smoldering ember deep inside her—she couldn’t afford to give into her anger right now.
“I can’t kill you,” she said out loud.
His eyebrows shot up. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“Not right now.” Solveig tapped her lips. “Your sister can open a portal to Álfheimr, and it’s clear that something must have slipped through. Zorja’s watchers must not have been watching closely enough.”
“Or they’re dead.”
“Or they’re dead.” She crossed to the fire and warmed her hands, her mind a million miles away. “You say this Ishtar locked the gates. Why did she open them in the first place?”
Marduk looked troubled. “She said the voice in the moon told her to do so, but she claimed his name was Tyndyr.”
Solveig sucked in a sharp breath. “Tyndyr was the king of Álfheimr’s most brutal warlord. They said he died in battle.”
“But nobody ever found his body,” Marduk pointed out. “And yes, I’m aware of the implications of that.”
Troubling.
And elves were reputed to wield illusion and glamor.
“So someone was either impersonating him, or the bloodthirsty elvish bastard is still out there.” She could see him slipping away from a battle, wounded and bloody and hungry for revenge. “It was over a thousand years ago, but elves are long-lived, and he must have been sharpening his instinct for revenge for a long time. He finds your sister and manipulates her into opening the gates. She’s proven she has the power to do so. But she’s locked them, and now I may presume she’s carefully guarded in your court.” Solveig looked up. “And here we are in Iceland, barely a handful of miles from the Zini court within the Hekla volcano, and we’ve just run afoul of a handful of elves, which are admittedly scarce on this world.”
The color drained out of his face. “That son of a bitch. That’s who was in the inn. Tyndyr. He’s heading for Ishtar.” He took two steps and threw a look over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”
“Coming?” Her eyebrows shot up. “You think I’m coming with you? To your court?”
“You are my mate.”
“A technicality I’ve been intending to amend.”
“Well, you can stay out here. Alone. With a pack of vengeful elves out there on your trail, baying to make you crawl toward them.” His eyes narrowed. “And don’t think I didn’t notice your knees weakening. You were fighting it with everything you had, sweetheart, but you were thinking about it.”
“Oh, don’t you talk. You were practically kissing his feet.”
Marduk dragged a hand over his face, but she could see the edge of frustration within him. “I wasn’t expecting the weight of that glamor. I couldn’t stop myself. How the hell did you manage to break through
it? He was aiming twice as much of his glamor at you as he was at me.”
She didn’t want to think about it.
Her dreki had been fighting and furious, but that wasn’t the moment.
No, it had been the knife to Marduk’s throat, the blood dripping down his neck….
But she couldn’t say that, so instead she loaded her voice with all the disgust she could. “Do you think I would ever crawl? Me?”
“Thank the gods for pure arrogance then.”
“Pure arrogance? I wasn’t the one who started simpering the second he said, ‘Aren’t you beautiful? Aren’t you magnificent?’” Solveig batted her lashes at him.
“Jealous?”
“He was talking to me, you idiot.”
Marduk laughed under his breath. “I wasn’t referring to you being jealous about me. You’re right. I would have gone to him and I would have done anything to get my hands on him, and I’ve never felt that way about a male before.” His eyes darted to hers, shockingly intense. “Were you jealous of him, Solveig? That I was so infatuated with him that I could barely breathe?”
Her lips trapped her tongue. It wasn’t often that she felt flustered, and yet when he looked at her like that, the world narrowed until only the pair of them existed.
She hated that feeling.
“Is it morning yet?” she asked instead, balling her fist. “Can I hit you yet?”
“You can try,” he offered with a teasing smile. “But I didn’t promise that I would let you.”
Goddess, that smirk. She tilted her face to the moon. If I kill him now, will you truly strike me down for breaking my word?
The moon—and the goddess—didn’t answer.
“I need to get back to Ishtar’s side as soon as possible. They need her if they’re going to open that portal for the rest of their armies, and I’m not inclined to let the world start swimming with those smarmy mincing bastards again. Do you agree?”
The Zini court was the last place she wanted to go.
But…
She couldn’t return to her home.
She’d sworn an oath to the goddess that she wouldn’t return until she’d killed Marduk. Maybe she could reach her father via a psychic link in order to warn him, but the distance was great and the odds improbable. There was an entire sea between them and water often disrupted magic.
