Page 45 of Master of Storms
“Like sticking your cock in a bear trap,” he muttered.
“Exactly! Here, drink up, friend!” Erik lifted his hand and called for another round. “Torin! Axel! Come and join us. My friend here needs to drown his woes. He’s run afoul of our sweet lady of knives.”
He really ought to return to the court and see to his wound, but a foaming tankard of ale was plonked in front of him, and, well, curse it. Drowning his sorrows seemed to be the perfect way to end this day.
Because a part of him didn’t want to be alone right now.
* * *
Marduk staggeredout of the tavern, the sound of a dozen beardeddrekiwarriors singing at the top of their lungs behind him.
Something about baiting the bear and trying to subdue it before it ripped your throat out. Or your cock off. He couldn’t remember.
Hell of a night.
There was blood on his breeches, wet and sticky.
Marduk laughed as he ran a finger through it. “Stuck me good.” He swayed sideways and fetched up against a fence. “Beg pardon.”
The fence did not answer as he pushed himself off it.
It felt as though there was a noose around his neck.
“It’s not as thoughIwas given a choice,” he muttered under his breath, ducking into an alley in search of a place to piss. “Did anyone ask me whetherIwanted to ’gree to this?”
Why was he even lingering?
The longer he stayed, the more tangled this web around him became.
But where the hell are you going to go?
TheZinicourt wasn’t an answer.
Even thinking about returning home made the breath catch in his throat. He’d leaped at the chance to take this trip simply because it got him out of there. And now he was here, with no constant nightmares hauling him out of sleep, he’d begun to think that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
But he couldn’t stay here.
Goddess’s breath, what a mess. Marduk limped down a street to the right, then blinked at the sign. Where was he?
Well, fuck.He was probably drunk enough to have gotten well and truly lost.
Staggering sideways, he tripped on a snarl of ivy and landed on his ass, which was so laughable he simply lay back in the ivy and stared at the stars.What an utterly, miserable, wretched day.The only relief was that tomorrow could not possibly be as bad as this, despite the promise of a hell of a thumping head and—
“He went down this way” came a whisper-soft voice.
Marduk froze in his patch of ivy, because he hadn’t, until this moment, been aware that he wasn’t alone.
“Make it swift,” another voice murmured. “I’ll keep watch. TheSaduclan patrol these streets at night, and we can’t afford to have this witnessed. Make sure you leave the princess’s knife somewhere nearby with Marduk’s blood all over it.”
Every hair on his body rose. It was a baffling moment where his ale-befuddled brain provided a menacing sort of Shakespearean underplay to the night, despite the instant recognition of the speaker’s voice.
Niels.
That was Niels’s voice. Friendly, affable, always polite Niels who would never—
“This isn’t my first assassination,” the first voice muttered.
Drunkenness sloughed off Marduk in a prickling wave of ice. It was real. His brain wasn’t leaping to nonsensical conclusions. He crouched and slowly gained his feet, still a little unsteady, but the rush of blood in his veins sharpened the world around him.
