Page 166 of Master of Storms
“Solveig?”He was meshed with her, until their thoughts bled into each other.
She wanted to keep flying, but he was weighing her down, his shock and grief knotted around his throat like an anchor. Ishtar was gone, and there was a gaping hole inside him, and she wanted to patch that hole.
And then they were plummeting down, her wings feeling like lead as she slammed to the ground in his arms—
And suddenly she was lying there, naked against him, torn from the mental plane and breathless with the shock of landing.
They were in bed in the warm dark room, but it seemed like a different world.
Marduk blinked at her, one of his hands caressing her spine.
She barely dared breathe. Because she was no longer alone. He filled her from the inside out, and it was difficult to work out where she began and he ended.
“Did you just… mate with me?” he demanded.
* * *
“What?”Solveig sat up in the bed, staring down at her claws in astonishment.
Marduk came up onto his elbows.
He was naked and they were… in their room at theZilittucourt. And Solveig looked like some monster-fused version of her mortal form. Her eyes were cat-slit and burned like amber flame, and he was fairly certain actual claws were digging into his arms.
He didn’t know who was more surprised.
“My, my.” His surprise bypassed his brain and blurted straight out of his mouth. “What big teeth you have, my love.”
Clapping a hand over her mouth, she clearly realized her teeth had lengthened into fangs. Faint golden light rippled over her skin, and then she was naked and mortal once more.
“You didn’t have to get rid of them,” he protested, brushing her hair off her shoulder. “I quite liked them.”
The overwhelming urge to take her almost choked him.
He could have died smiling in this moment.
She washis. Now and forever.
And years of thwarted frustration welled within him as hisdrekirose. It was almost as though it sensed this too; the mating bond between them had been smothered by his link to his sister, but now it roared back into being like a wildfire racing through a hot, dry forest.
Outside, three enormous claps of thunder echoed through the glass.
The goddess approving this mating.
Marduk collapsed atop her, his mind reeling. He could feel her soul entwined with his, and it was… so peaceful. As if he’d spent a lifetime roaming the world restlessly, looking for the one piece of his soul that he knew deep down he was missing, and finally finding it here within her.
“What just happened?” Solveig rasped.
She looked so adorable, but he could feel the shock rampaging through her.
She hated surprises.
“You just accepted the mating bond. I could feel you lacing yourself around me, opening up to me, and then it just snapped into place.”
“Mating bond?” she blurted. “But you couldn’t feel me…. It’s not real. You’re not my soulmate.”
“Weare. It was you. It was always you, but I couldn’t feel it.” He captured her face. “Ishtar knew. It finally makes sense. She was trying to tell me she’d somehow stolen you from me.”
Solveig scrambled off the bed, wrapping her arms around herself. “That makes no sense.”
