Page 64 of Master of Storms
Molten desire poured through him. “I’ve heard you beg, Solveig. And last night, the king’s presence wasn’t the only scent you were giving off. You want the truth? Last night in bed I ached, but I wasn’t the only one aching. My cock was as hard as your pussy was wet. And we both know it.”
And then he bit down on her toast.
Heat flashed through Solveig’s eyes. This was how he liked her best: irritable and raw with her own leashed desires. Needy and furiously frustrated about it. Fighting a war with her own urges.
“I’ll win, Solveig, because you’re not just fighting me; you’re also fighting yourself. And you can’t fight us both.”
She stole the remains of her toast from his fingers. “If you think I can’t rein myself in forever, then you barely know me. There is no game I can’t win out of sheer spite.”
“Mmm.” He licked the crumbs from his finger, taking the time to suckle them from his thumb. “We’ve barely spent three nights in bed together. Imagine what it’s going to feel like once those nights stretch into weeks?”
Oh, she was furious now, glaring at him through thin slits. “I might just murder you yet.”
“Not today,” he said with some enjoyment. “Today, we’re going to start searching for the key.”
“How?”
Marduk smiled. “Chaos magic leaves an imprint. An entire object crafted into being by that many Chaos-wielders can be hidden and warded, but its footprints remain. And luckily, our party has two Chaos-wielders and me.”
“You?” she asked dubiously, sipping her tea.
“Me.” He shrugged. “Ishtar bound herself to me in the womb. I’m sensitive to Chaos magic now. I can hear its song. I can see its weft sometimes. I just can’t use it myself.”
“Mmm.”
“So you and I are going to explore the castle grounds,” he said, buttering another piece of toast, “while my sisters greet the Chaos-wielders here. If anyone is watching—and I daresay they will be—they’ll be focusing on my sisters. Not me. Here.”
He held the piece of toast toward her—a quiet challenge. To eat from his hand said a thousand things indrekiculture, and was often a sign of intimacy between mates.
Solveig never took her eyes off him as she bit into it.
* * *
On a hilltop overlookingthe castle stood a timber palisade, and within it, a little village.
Chickens ran amuck, clucking hysterically as children tried to catch them. There were small vegetable gardens everywhere—even sprawling into the street that wended its way between thatched houses—and right in the heart of the village spread the roots of an enormous oak.
Little bundles of sticks and offerings to the goddess had been hung in its branches, including the skeletons of smaller animals, and Marduk wasn’t entirely certain as to whether it was a warning toward otherdreki—or perhaps something to ward away evil spirits.
“Well met,” called Andromeda as she waited beneath the oak.
Queen she might be, but her feet were bare and her pale blue gown was simple. One didn’t need to see a crown to know she ruled here, because everything about her was regal, from her square-set shoulders to the straightness of her spine.
“Sisters,” she said, greeting Árdís and then Ishtar and clasping their forearms.
He was watching Ishtar’s face when she said it, and realized he’d never seen his twin look like this before. There was a radiance about her in that moment, as if she had finally found her place in the world.
He forced himself to look at the village again.
They were women.
All women.
And they moved about their day, ignoring the four intruders as if they had a thousand better things to be doing. A group of young girls sat cross-legged in a field, threading Chaos magic between them. The song caught his ear from several directions, but there was a harmony to it here that he’d never felt before.
The children weresingingthe magic into harmony.
And Ishtar looked at them as if she wanted to join. A little arrow of sadness went through him at the thought. She’d been called monster in the past, and locked away from a world that was frightened of her power, but here, she was merely one among many.
