Page 16 of Master of Storms
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 yourknees—”
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.
