Page 88 of Master of Storms
Solveig captured his chin in her fingers, staring into his eyes. Heat flared there, turning the already amber hue of his irises to brilliant golden flame. She could see the gift of Fire within him. A rare gift bred through certain bloodlines—goddess-blessed they sometimes called it—and every court in the land would be desperate to have him bred to one of theirs. For a second, the look threatened to turn more intimate—sometimes you could almost see through adreki’seyes to the heart of the creature within, monstrous and powerful and possessive when roused….
Possessive?
Was it because Draco was in the room?
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
Marduk never looked away from her as he kissed her fingertips. “Are you not my mate? My love? The heart of my clan’s alliance with yours?”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“Always irreverent. Is everything a joke to you?” She pushed away from him, slipping to her feet. She wasn’t in the mood to be toyed with tonight. Most of the time she had her armor engaged, but there was something about his words that arrowed directly into her heart.
He captured her wrist. “Where are you going?”
“I need some air.”
And then she tore herself free and stalked from the hall, though she couldn’t quite shake the sensation of Marduk’s fingers digging into her thigh.
* * *
The cool eveningbreeze skimmed through Solveig’s hair as she stirred her fingers through the fountain.
It was easier to breathe out here.
Today’s encounters had dealt her a blow. It was one thing to agree to this fiasco for political expediency, but the more time she spent with him, the more she… liked him.
She had sworn an oath to the goddess that she would kill Marduk within the year. Without his bloody heart clenched in her fist, she could not return home.
And there was a part of her that no longer wished him dead.
Solveig closed her eyes.You don’t want him dead. At all.
“What were you thinking?” her father’s voice whispered in her memories. “I warned you never to make such a reckless promise. The goddess shall not be cheated.”
“Whoever said I intend to cheat her?”
What a fool she’d been. She’d accused Marduk of impulsiveness, but was she any better?
She couldn’t go home without his heart.
And she could no longer kill him—if she’d ever been able to.
Which meant all her dreams had vanished in a cloud of ashes, and she had no one to blame but herself.
A shadow flickered beneath the archway leading into the gardens.
Marduk.
He’d followed her and then waited at the entrance to the gardens, giving her some semblance of privacy.
What she wouldn’t give to simply wing her way out of this mess, before she let this feeling within her grow too entrenched.
But that was not her way.
“You are a warrior queen,” she whispered to herself. “So get on your feet and fight.”
It helped.
