Page 3 of Clash of Storms
Where was she?
The scent wasrighthere....
"Wine for the princesses," he snapped to the drekling servant girl who knelt beside them.
Blanching with nervousness, the servant stood and brought her tray closer. He reached for one of the golden goblets on her tray just as she did.
Their fingers brushed.
And the spark that had been missing with all three princesses suddenly ignited between them, like lightning lancing through the faintest brush of their skin.
Her.
Sirius's heart stopped dead in his chest as he jerked his hand back. The scent wasn't coming from the princess.
It was coming from the serving girl.
Pure, absolute horror filled him as he met those startled eyes.
He took her in once. Again. Big, brown eyes lay framed by a set of indecent lashes. Her hair gleamed like dull copper, braided back so strictly it drew the skin on her forehead tight. She barely came up to his shoulder, and her cheeks were dotted with freckles that betrayed the human half of her bloodlines.
Halfhuman.
Drekling.
Powerless and unable to shift into adrekiform.
Barely tolerated at court for their bastardized bloodlines.
A choked sound echoed in his throat. His father would kill her if he gained even an inkling of what she meant to Sirius. And he'd be struck from the court, banished if he dared even look in her direction.
This couldn't be.
The drekling sucked in a sharp breath as if she felt it too, and the tray slid dangerously askew. Sirius moved to catch it at the same time she did and there was a jolt, goblets rocking precariously.
Magnus took a step back, "What in the name of Loki—"
Wine splashed from one of the goblets all over his brother's shirt, trousers and boots. Magnus gaped, holding his dripping hand out in horror.
Tiamat's breath. Magnus's temper was precarious enough as it was, without humiliating him in front of adrekiking and his daughters.
King Harald laughed. "It almost looks like blood all over your hands, Magnus."
"An omen, perhaps?" This from Solveig.
"Curse you," Magnus snapped, flicking wine off his fingers. His face mottled with rage as he locked eyes on the drekling. "Are you stupid, girl? Or just clumsy?"
Magnus lifted his hand to backhand her, and a sudden rage came over Sirius.
He caught his brother's wrist with a resounding slap, barely realizing he'd moved until it was too late. The muscle in his biceps tensed as he pushed a little to make his brother back off. It was as if his body obeyed someone else. An instinctual snarl growled from his throat, both a warning and a claim.
He couldn't afford for it to sound like a claim.
Kill him. Take her.
A riotous cacophony of impulses fired through his synapses, driven by the thought of another male anywhere near his mate. And it would get her killed. Sirius choked down all his mating instincts with an iron will.
"Brother?"
