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

by Bec McMaster

  “You fools. Did you think you would come rushing here to stop me?” The vicious delight in Amadea’s eyes stayed him as she surveyed the army surrounding the top of World’s End. “You’ve brought me exactly what I need to open the portal and fulfill my part of my oath to Tyndyr.”

  “What do we do?” Solveig demanded.

  Her warband circled the skies above them, but she’d chosen to be on the ground with him. Marduk didn’t know what that meant, but he was grateful to have her ruthless sense of practicality at his side.

  “Wait her out?” Árdís suggested.

  “Unfortunately, those circles will expand until they can find enough magic to gnaw on,” Andromeda said.

  Solveig’s dark eyes met his. “I have my arrows. Dwarven-forged. They’ll cut through any sort of magic.”

  And then Elin would die.

  He hated to say it. “Last resort only. We have to give Elin a chance.”

  “Fine. How do we enter the circle?” Solveig asked. “You saw what happened to Haakon.”

  Marduk turned to consider it.

  His mother watched him, her eyes alight with green fire.

  She’d have attacked them by now if that was her plan. He strolled along the edges of the Chaos circle, examining it as he reached toward Ishtar. “Can you see how this is made?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “Can you not?”

  Chaos twined itself in strange waves. He’d thought it a circle at first, but if he looked closely, his eyes started to separate the individual strands. Instantly, the ache between his eyebrows was back and he wanted to vomit. He blinked to clear his vision before it crippled him. “Assume I’m some male idiot who was never meant to be able to use this magic.”

  “It’s not a circle,” Ishtar replied. “It’s a coil, and it all leads back to her. If a dreki crosses it, then it will suck the Chaos magic from their body and feed it back to her. If Chaos is wielded against it, it does the same.”

  “So we can’t cross it and we can’t break through it with magic.”

  Ishtar hesitated. “I could—”

  “No.” He wasn’t bringing her into this unless necessary. “You’re what she wants. This trap is designed for you, and if she gets her claws into you, we’re done here. She will have the power to open the portal.”

  “Unless I reverse the flow of magic within the coil,” she replied slowly. “I could suck the magic from her, until the spell fades to nothing.”

  Too dangerous. Far too dangerous. There were no guarantees that if Ishtar stepped within—

  “Can you do that? Through me?”

  “Maybe,” she whispered, their bond strengthening as she examined him.

  “Pull back.” The strain in his temples was back. She did, and he could breathe again. Marduk considered the entire trap. “If I cross the circle, she’ll try and suck the magic from me. But you can stop her. You can reverse the flow through me, and try to return the favor. We can weaken her to the point where Rurik can stab her with the knife and suck Mother’s soul from Elin’s body.”

  “I don’t think you realize how much this will hurt,” she replied dubiously. “I know it hurts when you try to touch Chaos, and trying to work through you feels… heavy.”

  Hurt was a slight understatement.

  “Let me deal with that.” There was one last thing. “If we fail, and she manages to latch on to you, then you have to cut the bond between us. You have to let me go.”

  Sadness swamped him.

  “I know you don’t want to be alone. But what you have to realize is that you’re not alone now. If I fall, then Rurik and Árdís will be there for you. They love you just as much as I do.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Promise me,” he insisted.

  “If we fail, then I will pull back and break the bond.”

  Her doubt ate at him.

  “I love you,” he sent. “Give me a moment to explain to the others.”

  And then he cut the link between them.

  “I have a plan,” he said, turning to the trio of women staring at him. He deliberately looked at Solveig. “You’re not going to like it.”

  Marduk stripped his coat off as the women prepared.

  Solveig wore a stony expression as she withdrew a dwarven-forged arrow and nocked it lightly. “Last resort,” she told him when he scowled at her.

  “If we fail,” he said, “then I’ve told Ishtar to cut the bond between us. I want you to promise me one thing.”

  Solveig looked up sharply. “What?”

  “I don’t know if I can trust her to do it. She loves me and she’s so tangled around me that she may not be able to pull back in time. She may not want to.”

  “If you fail, then this is all over, because then your mother has the power to open that portal.”

  “Exactly.” He caught her wrist, drawing her attention back to him. “Which is why I want you to put this arrow through my heart.”

  Solveig reared back. “What?”

  “If it hits a point where we’re losing, I’ll give you a signal.” He squeezed her hand, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Don’t you hesitate. You kill me. You break the bond between us so that my sister is safe. So this world is safe.”

  “Why are you insisting upon this?” Solveig demanded. She lifted the arrow. “I can end this. Now.”

  “Because Elin deserves a chance. And because this is what I do, Solveig. I take risks. And Elin…. She’s just an innocent girl caught in a trap. I promised Malin I would try to get her back, and I intend to keep that promise.”

  “What about your promise to me?” A faint sheen brightened her eyes.

  Marduk recoiled. “Are you… crying…?”

  “No. Goddess, no.” She dashed at her eyes. “I am about to murder you myself. Do you have any idea what you’re asking of me?”

  “Yes.” His voice roughened, because he knew she was back there in that moment where her mother was begging her to twist the knife. “Do you know why I’m asking it of you?”

  “Because I’m just ruthless enough to do it?”

  “Because I trust you,” he breathed, capturing her fingers in his. “Because I know that you—and only you—are strong enough to do the right thing when it comes to saving our people. You are a queen, Solveig, and queen’s fight to the last.”

  Anguish twisted her face. “I… I….”

  “Yes?” he breathed, leaning closer as his heart kicked swiftly behind his ribs.

  “I don’t know if I can,” Solveig admitted.

  “If I die, then you can go home.” He reached out and captured a lock of her hair in his fingers. “You’ll be free to live your life the way you—"

  “I don’t want to go home! Not without you!”

  The confession was breathtaking.

  All these weeks spent hoping she would lower her guard, and here it was, just when he needed her to be ruthless.

  Marduk captured her face in his hands and kissed her, a shudder running through him as he drew back and rested his forehead against hers. “I’m going to try not to die, Solveig. Because you and I still have a reckoning ahead of us. But to do my best, I need to know I can rely on you to protect this world. Promise me you’ll use that bow if I give you the signal.”

  She sucked in a sharp hiss of breath. “I promise. And then I’m going to trap your spirit in a glass bottle and lock it away on a dusty shelf somewhere so you can never leave me. I’m going to harangue you every day about your stupidity.”

  He forced a smile. “If we get out of this alive, then I’m going to lock you away in my chambers until you admit you love me.”

  She reared back in shock.

  “Because you do,” he said firmly. “You do, Solveig. I know you do.”

  “You’re so arrogant,” she grumbled, because it was safer than agreeing.

  The smile he flashed her felt like it split his face. She hadn’t denied it.

  He kissed her again, long, hard, and furiously.

  And b
y the time he drew back, they were both trembling.

  “If we survive this,” he whispered, “then we’re both going to return to your court, and deal with this little issue about you making a pledge of vengeance against me to a goddess.”

  “Sounds like a lovely little day trip after a war. Why not take on a goddess’s wrath? If we can defeat an army of elves, then we can deal with a puny goddess.”

  He winked at her.

  “Cover me,” he said before he stepped back and let her go.

  Amadea stood within the circle, her palms held down and her face tilted to the sky. Andromeda had been right. The vortex of magic was a foot wider than it had been, stretching almost all the way to the runestones around the clearing. It vibrated, and every time it shivered, it would expand an inch.

  “Ishtar?” he called, closing his eyes.

  “Here.”

  “Are you ready?”

  He opened his eyes and suddenly she was staring out through them too. He could feel the press of her in his head, like a drill set between his brows. “Let’s do this.”

  The first step through the circle felt like stepping through a whirlwind. Magic tore at him, tearing strips off his clothes and ripping at his hair. But it was the way it ravaged through his body that made him gasp. He staggered, feeling the spell clutch hungrily at his very soul before a firm, hard shield came between him and the magic.

  If that was what Haakon had felt, no wonder he’d collapsed.

  His mother opened her eyes, triumph darkening her irises. “Oh, you little fool.”

  She clenched her fist, and it felt like she’d grabbed one of his arms, while Ishtar held the other.

  The suction was immense.

  “Ishtar!” he yelled, as his hand lifted—completely out of his control—and waved away a spurt of magic.

  “Stop fighting me. Let me in. Let me do this.”

  Marduk surrendered.

  The drill finally broke through his skull, stabbing deep into his brain. A sound came out of his mouth, somewhat like a low moan, and something hot and wet slid from his nose. Blood, perhaps.

  But the spell was no longer tearing at him.

  Instead, it felt like he was grabbing hold of one end of the coil, and slowly hauling it back toward him arm-over-arm, like he was looping rope.

  “No!” Amadea rasped, jerking her hand up. “No!”

  The suction intensified. Step by step, he made his way toward her.

  He could taste blood now, his ears ringing and the pain in his sinuses threatening to drive him to his knees.

  “I don’t… have much… more… in me.”

  “Keep walking,” Ishtar told him. “I almost have it.”

  And then suddenly the spell broke.

  One moment it was sucking the life from his veins, and the next thing he knew, power was pouring back through him. He went to his knees with a shout as his head exploded.

  And then it was gone.

  Ishtar was gone.

  The pain was gone.

  The spell gone.

  The world went white and silent, his ears ringing as the spell ground out. He found himself staring up at his mother, who gaped at him from Elin’s body.

  “No!” she screamed, staring at the circular object in her hand.

  It was mere gold again, but the emerald in its heart flashed, and suddenly it was sucking at them. All of them. The spell had been broken, but now it demanded its due. A soul.

  “No!” Amadea dropped the key, murderous intent filling her expression as she ripped at the dagger sheathed at her belt.

  “Do it!” he yelled to Malin, staggering to his feet and wrapping his arms around Elin’s slim body. He wrestled the dagger from her. “Get Elin out!”

  Pebbles skittered across the ground toward the key. Dirt flew toward it. The emerald darkened, until it was a gaping black hole of magic. Deprived of magic, it sought to drag the entire earth within it.

  “Do it,” he screamed as his mother tried to headbutt him.

  Árdís stepped forward, both hands aglow. “You should have died when you had the chance, Mother.”

  Green light smoked away from Elin’s body. She threw her head back and screamed.

  Malin continued chanting, reading directly from the book in her hands.

  “Let go of me!” Amadea raged, driving her elbow back into Marduk’s solar plexus.

  “Never.”

  She screamed and fought like a wildcat, until his arms were bruised and bloodied. Malin’s chanting grew louder. The light springing from Árdís and Ishtar’s fingertips formed a net around the former queen.

  “I will see you all dead!” Amadea screamed.

  “Alas, you appear to be stripped of all your weapons.”

  She started laughing. “All but one.”

  What did she mean by that?

  He gave her a sharp look, but Rurik stepped forward with the knife forged of raw matter.

  A Sumerian blade woven of a hundred dreki souls.

  One that would cause no harm to a physical body, but would slice straight through a soul.

  This was the dangerous bit. Because the knife would not differentiate between Elin and Amadea’s souls.

  “Malin?” Marduk yelled.

  Her voice rose. A silvery form began to slip from Elin’s body—a startled wisp of a blonde drekling looking around her in shock as Malin’s magic drew her sister’s soul from her body. Elin’s soul flew toward the necklace Malin held and vanished inside the gem.

  “Done!” Malin called, sinking to her knees as the strain of the spell struck her down.

  “And now we finish this,” Rurik said grimly, driving the soul-blade directly into Elin’s chest. “I cast you from this body. You will find no tether here. You will never ride the horizon with your ancestors. The goddess shall not welcome you. You will be forgotten and nameless, known only as the murderous dreki queen who was struck from her court like a stain on its history. The only name the eddas shall know shall be Reynar, the great king who lived his life with honor.”

  The scream that tore from her was so high-pitched it could have shattered glass. Grass whipped past, vanishing inside the heart of the key.

  Elin’s body suddenly slumped in Marduk’s arms.

  Rurik tossed the kunuk la’atzu into the gaping hole. It vanished with a sizzle of sparks, and then there was a small implosion. The pressure vanished. They all collapsed on the grass as the key dropped onto the ground, inert once more.

  Marduk’s heart pounded. She was gone. His mother was finally gone. His ears were ringing.

  “Is Elin breathing?” Sirius yelled.

  Marduk hauled himself out of the reverie and held his hand in front of the drekling’s mouth. “Yes.”

  Malin threw herself over her sister’s body, squeezing tight. “Thank you.”

  He met Solveig’s eyes. “Looks like we’re going to be returning to your father’s court for that promised trip.”

  Solveig muttered under her breath and tore a strip of linen from her shirt, using it to wipe at his nose. “Lucky. You were lucky.”

  He eased Elin’s unconscious body into Sirius’s arms and then slung his arm around Solveig. “She’s finally gone.”

  He wanted to spin her in the air.

  He couldn’t stop smiling.

  Rurik stared down at the key, before he pocketed it. “It feels like an enormous weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Come. Let’s put Elin back in her body.”

  The pair of them smiled at each other.

  And gods, he felt the apology on the tip of his tongue—the resentment he’d once felt for his brother, the way he’d cried into his pillow for years because he’d thought the brother he’d loved more than anything had killed his father—none of it mattered.

  Because it had all been a lie.

  And that lie died. Today.

  “I wish I had known you as a young dreki,” he finally said. “I wish I could have made you proud of me.” His voice broke a little. “I wish
I’d been there when you needed me.”

  “You bloody fool. I’ve always been proud of you.” Rurik’s eyes flared gold. “And you’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

  It was a moment he wished could extend forever, but Sirius’s head suddenly snapped up, his nostrils flaring. “Wait. I can smell—"

  “Now,” yelled a melodious voice, and then an arrow hissed out of nowhere and drove straight through Rurik’s chest.

  28

  “Rurik!” Freyja screamed as she went to one knee.

  She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t… stand. The pain in her chest was indescribable, and when she lifted her head, she saw her husband slump to the ground in Marduk’s arms.

  She had to get to him.

  Just had to… reach him.

  Sirius was there. Sirius could heal him. But she could hold Rurik here, through the strength of their mating bond, if nothing else….

  She crawled forward, choking on the pain before fetching up in front of a pair of polished boots.

  “Well, now” came a mocking voice. “This is more like it. A queen on her knees before me.”

  A rough hand caught her face, and she was forced to look up into the sneering expression of the most handsome, most beautiful man she’d ever—

  No. Handsome was her husband’s once-broken nose. Handsome was the kindness in Rurik’s smile, the joy in his amber eyes when she teased him…. There was nothing beautiful about the cold, sinister smile on this creature’s face.

  Nothing but malice.

  And the bow in his hand gave her no doubts she was looking at her husband’s would-be murderer.

  “Get out of my way,” she said, looking for Rurik desperately.

  Someone slammed into the elf, driving him away from her. Andromeda. Freyja lurched to her feet, one arm clutched against her chest.

  But as she watched, an image of herself fell to her knees beside Rurik, sobbing as she reached for his hand—

  It was enough to cut through her grief and fear.

  Freyja reared back in shock. “What…?”

  It was so real, so lifelike, that she might have already been at his side.