Page 132 of Master of Storms
Because, in her mind’s eye, she had always sat alone on that throne.
And… would the loneliness be worth it?
“I don’t know if Icantake your advice,” she whispered. “The very thought of submitting to such a thing makes mydrekirage.”
“I understand.” Árdís gave her a rueful smile. “They’ll never know what we fight for. They’ll never understand the lives we’ve led.”
“He… hurt me.” It was the first time she’d said those words out loud. “And I’ve been carrying that hurt for so long that it feels like this bonfire in my chest.” Solveig raked her hair out of her face. “I’m so tired of fighting myself. Every time I look at him, mydrekigoes wild. He is both threat and… something else. I don’t know what to do.”
There was a certain glint in Árdís’s eyes, and Solveig couldn’t read it.
“What?” Solveig demanded, still seething with the mess Marduk had made of her. Her heart was going to rupture her ribs, she swore it.
Árdís looked back toward her brother’s shirt. “Nothing. I just….”
“What?”
“They say males always know first,” Árdís said slowly, “though that was not the case for me and Haakon. He was human, you see, so he couldn’t feel it. And I feared I never would.”
The world grew very still.
Solveig stopped breathing.
The mating bond.
The princess was talking about finding one’s true flame. It was myth. It was legend. It was what everydrekisecretly yearned for in the depths of their heart—the other piece of their soul.
Her jaw dropped open.
“We arenot….” She couldn’t even speak the word.
“I don’t know what my brother is feeling. But I do know that before I discovered I was mating with my husband, I was wildly irrational and territorial, and angry over the smallest things.... I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me until Rurik pointed out I was acting like a matingdreki.”
Solveig’s heart kicked hard. “You think I am… mating with him?”
Again that pause. “I don’t think I’m the one who has to answer that question.”
Solveig pushed forward in the chair, suddenly desperate to move. Her thoughts spiraled like a whirlwind.
Oh, goddess, no.
Marduk couldn’t be the other half of her heart. He couldn’t be.
But the pieces began rearranging themselves together in a way that fit only too well.
Herdrekihad tried to tear itself free the second she saw him. It had been frightening. Overwhelming. A caged feeling that left her trapped and breathless and desperate to escape the only way she knew how—by lashing out.
She’d thought she’d hated him, but what if it was the feeling she hated?
She hadn’t understood the primal forces trying to tear her apart, and so she’d tried to reject them.
To reject him.
“Perhaps it is possible femaledrekidoacknowledge some aspect of the driving urge to mate, but because it is such an overwhelming instinct, males usually sense it first?” Árdís pointed out. “You’re naturally a very dominant, aggressive female. Perhaps you’re more aware of it than most.”
It made sense.
It made far too much sense.
