Page 67 of Master of Storms
“Draco looks like his uncle, Fornax. It makes me feel uneasy.”
His silence was a pointed thing. He waited for her to tell him more, but she’d said enough. This one small concession would have to be enough.
“Your mother was evil,” she said instead.
Marduk took a deep breath. “Evil is the wrong word, I think. It’s too easy a word to use for her. It’s an excuse, as if to say, oh, well, she was evil, she couldn’t help herself. And she could.” Pain shadowed his eyes. “My mother was cunning and spiteful and ambitious. She could be cruel or she could be playful. She could love. She loved her twin brother, Stellan, with all her heart. He was everything to her and nothing else could penetrate the bond they shared.”
Solveig’s lip curled.
“Not like that. They were bound together the way Ishtar and I are. And… I don’t know what her life was like before she mated with my father, but sometimes… sometimes she would have nightmares. She’d wake screaming, saying she couldn’t breathe, that ‘they’ were burying her alive. I don’t who she meant, but my uncle would always rush into her room and haul her into his arms. ‘You’re safe now,’ he would say. ‘You’re safe.’ And he would rub her back and hold her while she sobbed.” Marduk swallowed as if he tasted something bitter. “I’m not trying to excuse her, but… there were pieces to her that weren’t all bad.”
Solveig could see the truth in his eyes. “You loved her. Once.”
“I… don’t know what I felt. I was younger than the others, and it always seemed as if there was something missing in my life. It turns out there was. Ishtar. But in their absence, my mother filled that void. I could make her smile. I could make her laugh. She loved me best, I think. As much as she could have loved any of us.” And he wore the shame of that on his face. “But her attention was never absolute. I was a moment of respite for her. A moment of joy. A performing dog. And I’m ashamed to say that when her attention wasn’t upon me, I sought ways to earn it.”
He wore that cutting smile he often wore. A flash of tight lips, his teeth smothered behind them. “I was reckless and childish. I got into fights and did everything I wasn’t supposed to do. I was spoiled and spiteful, and if it wasn’t for Árdís, I probably would have turned into a vile little creature, much like my cousin Roar.”
“No.” Solveig studied his face. “I met your cousin. Roar was born hungry, and it wouldn’t have mattered how much he had, he would always want more. You… don’t yearn for anything.”
“That’s not true.” His voice roughened, and he looked at her. “I want a lot of things I can’t have.”
Solveig’s breath caught.
There were numerous ways she could take that statement. Desire for something purely because he was told he couldn’t have it. A sexual innuendo. Nothing to do with her at all.
But she knew, with her very soul, that hewasspeaking of her.
And that the need within him hung thick and heavy in his veins, like barely warmed honey.
It wasn’t just her who felt it.
It wasn’t just her who was struck by this horrible, conflictingneedthat both trapped and consumed her.
It was real, dangerously real, conjured between them with a mere slip of the tongue.
Awareness exploded into being within her. They were inches apart and yet she felt his nearness as if his very gaze stroked her skin. Unwanted heat formed in the pit of her stomach, tracing slick fingers between her thighs.
His gaze asked too much of her. Solveig couldn’t meet it.
She fought to pick her way through an answer that wouldn’t condemn her. One that pushed them away from the dangers of the topic at hand. “You are nothing like your cousin Roar. You yearn for the experience of everything you look at. You don’t yearn to own it. I’ve seen you fly. I’ve seen you laugh and fight. You live for the sheer enjoyment of living. If someone offered you a mountain of gold, you wouldn’t give a damn about it. It’s a terribly un-drekiattitude.”
“Careful now; you’re going to make me blush. And what can gold do for me? It’s cold and it’s heavy. I don’t even have a volcano to store it in. I would have to guard it against avaricious humans. Who could be bothered?” His face twisted. “I hate volcanoes. I want to explore the world, and I can’t carry all that gold with me.”
“Un-dreki,” she repeated again, grateful he’d allowed that moment to slip between his fingers. “And why do you hate volcanoes?”
They were the closest adrekicould get to the heart of the goddess. Warm. Groaning with fire. A place to hibernate when needed. Everything adrekicould desire.
Tension slid through him again. He pushed to his feet instead of answering and offered her a hand. “Want to get out of here? I’ve been eyeing the mountains nearby. We could climb one. The cliffs are amazing.”
The sudden change of direction confused her.
She eyed his hand. “Why would I climb a mountain when I can fly?”
A strange gleam lit his eyes. “To conquer it. To prove you can. To drive everything out of your head, because every thought you have is focused on hauling your sheer weight up a virtually impossible cliff.”
Ah. So that was why his fingertips bore those calluses. But she was not to be distracted. “Why do you hate volcanoes?”
Marduk must have realized she wasn’t going to take his hand, for he lowered it and looked away. There was a distance to his expression that tore at her heart a little. “When I came of age, I began to realize my mother was trying to distance me from the court. Until then, I’d been her eager little puppet. I had no idea she saw me as a threat.”
