The color drained out of his face. “That son of a bitch. That’s who was in the inn. Tyndyr. He’s heading for Ishtar.” He took two steps and threw a look over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”
“Coming?” Her eyebrows shot up. “You think I’m coming with you? To your court?”
“You are my mate.”
“A technicality I’ve been intending to amend.”
“Well, you can stay out here. Alone. With a pack of vengeful elves out there on your trail, baying to make you crawl toward them.” His eyes narrowed. “And don’t think I didn’t notice your knees weakening. You were fighting it with everything you had, sweetheart, but you were thinking about it.”
“Oh, don’t you talk. You were practically kissing his feet.”
Marduk dragged a hand over his face, but she could see the edge of frustration within him. “I wasn’t expecting the weight of that glamor. I couldn’t stop myself. How the hell did you manage to break through it? He was aiming twice as much of his glamor at you as he was at me.”
She didn’t want to think about it.
Her dreki had been fighting and furious, but that wasn’t the moment.
No, it had been the knife to Marduk’s throat, the blood dripping down his neck….
But she couldn’t say that, so instead she loaded her voice with all the disgust she could. “Do you think I would ever crawl? Me?”
“Thank the gods for pure arrogance then.”
“Pure arrogance? I wasn’t the one who started simpering the second he said, ‘Aren’t you beautiful? Aren’t you magnificent?’” Solveig batted her lashes at him.
“Jealous?”
“He was talking to me, you idiot.”
Marduk laughed under his breath. “I wasn’t referring to you being jealous about me. You’re right. I would have gone to him and I would have done anything to get my hands on him, and I’ve never felt that way about a male before.” His eyes darted to hers, shockingly intense. “Were you jealous of him, Solveig? That I was so infatuated with him that I could barely breathe?”
Her lips trapped her tongue. It wasn’t often that she felt flustered, and yet when he looked at her like that, the world narrowed until only the pair of them existed.
She hated that feeling.
“Is it morning yet?” she asked instead, balling her fist. “Can I hit you yet?”
“You can try,” he offered with a teasing smile. “But I didn’t promise that I would let you.”
Goddess, that smirk. She tilted her face to the moon. If I kill him now, will you truly strike me down for breaking my word?
The moon—and the goddess—didn’t answer.
“I need to get back to Ishtar’s side as soon as possible. They need her if they’re going to open that portal for the rest of their armies, and I’m not inclined to let the world start swimming with those smarmy mincing bastards again. Do you agree?”
The Zini court was the last place she wanted to go.
But…
She couldn’t return to her home.
She’d sworn an oath to the goddess that she wouldn’t return until she’d killed Marduk. Maybe she could reach her father via a psychic link in order to warn him, but the distance was great and the odds improbable. There was an entire sea between them and water often disrupted magic.
The Zini king would have a means to contact her father. She could warn him then. And then she would be perfectly placed to assist in this little elvish plot.
Vengeance could wait.
“Fine. We’ll return to your court. I want these bastards dead.”
“I thought you might see it that way.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Marduk, but don’t get comfortable. The second these elves are buried in the ground, I’m going to try to kill you again.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.” He suddenly flashed a smile at her—a perfect blinding smile that almost made her breath catch. “But be careful, Solveig. There’s more than one way to win a war. And now I know you’re out there and you want my heart, I’m going to be on my guard. One way or another, this needs to end. One of us needs to surrender.”
“You think it’s going to be me?”
“You did save my life. I don’t think you hate me as much as you claim to.”
You son of a bitch—
“I didn’t like the odds. And I wasn’t going to let that prick steal my kill.”
Marduk laughed as his fingers dropped to the buttons on the trousers he’d stolen. She could sense his magic swelling within him as he prepared to shift. “Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. And do try not to stare too much.”
Solveig growled and turned around as she started tugging at her own shirt. “I’m going to kill you slowly. So slowly you beg me for mercy. They will write sagas about the painful death I envision.”
“All these dirty promises…. You know what I think? One of is going to beg for mercy… But it won’t be me.”
Solveig fought the urge to scream.
4
“Elves?” Rurik demanded the second Marduk pushed through the double doors leading to his brother’s antechambers. “In my lands? Are you sure?”
Marduk sighed as he approached his brother. He’d contacted Rurik the second he and Solveig were free of their pursuit. Rurik sat at the head of a round table surrounded by at least twelve other chairs. Ten of them were filled with members of the Zini court.
“Yes, brother. I’m sure. They made my skin creep.”
“That’s not all they made you do,” said a voice behind him.
Heads turned.
Solveig sauntered into the room like a queen without her crown. The cloak he’d found for her was spattered with mud, and her hair looked like a wild tangle that had been through a storm, but she moved as if she intend to kick Rurik off his throne and claim it herself.
Despite her borrowed clothes.
Marduk suddenly realized his brother had never actually met the princess. Rurik had been exiled to the north long before she’d flown into Marduk’s life and set his fate spinning wildly off course.
This was going to be so much fun.
“Your brother was two seconds away from kissing the elf’s boot,” Solveig purred. “If we weren’t in such dire straits, I may have paused to enjoy the idea of seeing him so humbled.”
“And… you are?”
It was a challenge, for Rurik knew exactly who was standing in his council chambers.
“Oh, did I not mention my companion?” Marduk couldn’t keep the grin off his face as Solveig took a seat in the chair he held out for her.
Solveig reclined with ease, both arms resting on the arms and a relaxed expression on her face. She’d crossed one of her long legs over the other, her borrowed boots laced to her knees, and her lean curves encased in a slim pair of boys’ trousers.
“You did not,” Rurik said flatly. “Though I do note that the last I saw of you, you were going to fetch the assassin who had tried to put an arrow through your heart. You did not mention the fact you were going to return with her.”