Page 44 of Master of Storms
“Stay away from me,” she hissed. “Don’t… don’t touch me. Just go, Marduk. Crawl off into a cave somewhere and die.”
Solveig darted toward her horse, hauling herself up into the saddle. She urged her gelding into a gallop, putting a quarter mile of distance between them before she finally eased up.
What was wrong with her?
Holding her hands out, she stared at them.
They were covered in blood.
And they were shaking.
* * *
Marduk stared moodilyinto his ale as the tavern bustled around him. The bleeding had stopped, but he wasn’t entirely certain the wound was healing.
He’d told Niels that he was done with this farce.
There wasn’t going to be a mating ceremony, and if his mother pushed for it, then she could mate with one of the damned princesses herself.
His mother.
His ears were still ringing after she’d contacted him through the flames in his hearth.
But that wasn’t what set the hairs along his spine on edge.
“He never did trust your mother.”
What if… Rurik was innocent?
He barely even daredbreathethe thought. But there was a horrible, knotted feeling inside him.
He fled. Why would Rurik flee if he was innocent?
He’s never once tried to contact you, to see how you felt about it all—
And if Rurik was innocent, then… that meant his father’s killer had been by his side all his life, purring in his ear about how Marduk wouldn’t be as treacherous as his brother was, would he?
Every inch of him felt battered and bruised—from his pride, to his thigh, and the hollow ache within his heart.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Why had she said it?
“What’s wrong, Your Highness?” A hand clapped on his shoulder, and then one of theSaduclan warriors straddled the bench beside him. Erik, he thought. “You look like you’ve seen the inside of a storm.”
“Not the inside, no. Maybe the storm’s teeth.”
“I smell blood.”
Well….“Your princess stabbed me.”
“Oh, that one.” Erik laughed. “Aye, she’ll tear your throat out if you look at her sideways. Best you look at one of the others.”
“Damned if I do,” he muttered, and swayed a little bit. “If I look at one of the others, she’ll cut my throat for daring to break her sister’s heart. If I glance her way, then she castrates me for even thinking of taking her to bed.”
Erik shuddered. “Perhaps better to lose your balls than to allow them anywhere near her.”
