Page 87 of Clash of Storms
"So pride is the thing keeping you from asking the prince for sanctuary after we rescue your brother?" Malin pushed herself upright, her palms splayed across his chest. A horrible doubt began to gnaw at her. Had he only agreed to her plan in order to seduce her? "You say you don't want the princess, but you won't give her up, will you? Not even for... Andri."
It wasn't what she'd intended to say, but self-preservation reared its head at the last minute.
Sirius trailed his fingertips down over the smooth skin of her hip, and Malin shivered. "Of course I don't want her. How many times do I have to say it? But you don't understand the consequences of such a course of action."
"Of course not." Malin's smile could have cut like a knife. "I'm just a drekling. What would I know of the arrogance ofdrekimales? Or court politics? Or avoiding the queen's knife? It isn't as though I've spent all my court-based life sidestepping danger." She leveled a hard stare upon him. "If you won't even ask your cousin for assistance, then it has nothing to do with Rurik not trusting you, and everything to do with pride. Don't you dare pretend otherwise."
Scrambling off him, Malin tried to ignore the fist of hurt inside her chest. Dragging her chemise toward her, she tugged it over her head, but strong hands caught her by the hips and dragged her back onto the bedroll.
"Malin." He curled around her, burying his face against the crook of her neck with a sigh, his body wrapping around her from behind. "Don't be angry with me. I want you. You know I want you."
"I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed. It feels as though you won't even fight." And if he didn't fight, then what hope did either of them have?
"It's not that simple."
"Then explain it."
Silence.
Malin slowly rolled in his arms, looking up at him. "I just want to understand why you won't even risk fighting."
Anger flashed. "Because I would be starting a war with my father. And IknowRurik won't help me."
"Why?"
Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose. "I was there the night they found the king. There was blood... everywhere. Rurik's scent lay thick in the chambers. The guards had seen him leave the room last, and I... I stood with my father when he pronounced Rurik the one who'd killed the king. Rurik's never forgiven me for it." He gave her a thin smile as he lowered his hand. "You speak of this as if it has an easy solution. But you're talking about twodrekimales who've spent years competing against each other. Years hating each other. I know he's the one all you drekling look up to as the prince who could restore the court, but to me, all he's ever been is the cousin who spent his entire life despising me. The king was going to accept me as his page when I was young, but Rurik talked him out of it. I couldn't be trusted, he said. I was sent to theZilittuclan court to serve instead."
His voice roughened. "I made my name there, Malin. All those stories that speak of the Blackfrost? It's all true. That's where I earned that moniker. I helped them crush other courts. I obliterated any who rose against them. I was young and foolish and ruthless. I couldn't even see how they were using me. I just wanted to prove myself after the king denied my request. I wanted to show Rurik what he'd forged."
She lay curled in his arms, her heart pounding slowly. "What changed?"
Sirius looked at her.
"Something must have changed," she pointed out. "For you are not thatdreki."
"Are you so certain?"
She traced a swirl on the hard slab of his pectoral. "If you were, then Árdís would be in chains at the court by now; I'd still be trapped in the cells, sentenced to death; and Rurik wouldn't be breathing."
Sirius stared for a long time at the ceiling. "The king died. For all the enmity Rurik and I shared, the king.... He would sit with me sometimes. He would ask me,who do you want to be? There was never any recrimination in his voice. I wish he'd fought for me when Rurik and the queen sent me away. If I could have served him then maybe there would be no blood on my hands."
"You admired him," she whispered.
And this resentment for the prince would not be half as strong if Sirius hadn't—once upon a time—admired the prince too.
How many years separated them? She frowned. Magnus had been a good hundred years older than Sirius, and of a similar age to Rurik, from what she could remember.
His older cousin.
The honorable Rurik.
She could only imagine what it must have been like to grow up in the shadow of the golden prince, only to realize you would never be seen as anything more than aZilittuinvader. Despising your older brother, your father, but given no other options of a male to aspire to mimic.
Except for the king.
"Aye, I respected the king more than anything." The faint quirk of his lips hinted at a bitter smile. "Which is why the queen would never let me near him."
"She must have feared him very much."
