Siv laid a restraining hand on her forearm. “No, you won’t, because that would start a war.”
“Fine. I won’t kill him. I’ll castrate him.”
Aslaug clapped a hand to her face. “This is why you’re unmated.”
“I am unmated because I have yet to meet a male I would consider my equal,” Solveig snapped. “And because my life does not revolve around a potential future mating.”
“Well, this is why both of us are unmated.” Aslaug’s voice rose. “I know you don’t want us to… to suffer the way Mother suffered. But this is all I’ve ever wanted, and every time a male dreki ventures to this court, he takes one look at you and decides courting me is not in his best interest.”
“I don’t do anything to them!”
“You don’t have to,” Aslaug said in exasperation. “Everyone at court can see the murder in your eyes.”
“I don’t see what the problem is? If he’s such a powerful male,” she said, “then he should be able to endure my withering stares. If he’s so enamored of you, then he would not hesitate to stand up to me. He would risk everything to steal your heart, and I won’t allow any male to court you who doesn’t deserve you. Don’t lower your standards just because he’s a pretty face. You deserve to be loved. Both of you. And I will not tolerate anything less.”
Aslaug threw her hands in the air. “At this point, I just want a chance to meet a male without you frightening him off. Can you do that? Can you not glower at Prince Marduk for all of a day? Smile, just once.”
Solveig ground her teeth together. This was utter fucking foolishness, and it was going to end badly for all involved.
But she managed to lift the corners of her mouth in a smile. “Like this?”
Aslaug winced. “Well, it’s a start. Are we agreed? The prince is mine. He just needs to be made aware of that fact.”
“Have at,” Siv offered. “I don’t want him.”
Solveig snorted when Aslaug turned that hard-eyed stare upon her. “I’m fairly certain he’s not going to look at me twice. And if he does, then I will disabuse him of any foolish notions. Firmly. He will not choose me. This, I promise.”
One must start as they meant to end, their father had once said, and Solveig smiled to herself as she strode toward the throne room where the prince awaited, because she was fairly certain her father did not mean this.
Aslaug and Siv had already made their appearances, and as the doors swung shut behind them, Solveig slammed both hands upon them and thrust them open.
They hit the walls of the throne room with a bang.
Several guards startled.
Her father’s head jerked toward her.
Aslaug shot a censorious look over her shoulder, where she stood clasping hands with some vapid blond.
And Solveig smiled as she rested her left hand on the hilt of her sword and strode toward the dais.
Clearly the prince was the one her sister was trying to manacle with both hands. All she could see was his back, but he was tall, broad of shoulder, and lean through the hips.
He was also wearing a red velvet coat like some storybook prince. If he turned around and there were golden tassels or epaulets on his shoulders, she was going to snort with laughter.
“Father,” she said in the sweetest voice she could possibly manage as she paused to kiss the king’s cheek—and completely ignore the foreign prince.
King Harald caught her arms reflexively, but there was a hint of humor in his gaze as he raked an eye over her attire. “Eldest daughter. I believe I said ‘a dress.’”
“It is a dress, is it not?”
She even gave a little twirl.
Voluminous black velvet skirts whirled around her ankles and then hugged her calves with a wicked little shiver when she drew to a halt. The bodice had been cut and molded to sculpt to her lean figure, a single slit of black lace hinting at cleavage, though the mess of antique gold necklaces hid anything she might have wished to show. A circlet made of twisted gold thorns sat nestled in her loose black hair, and the cape was made of black leather “feathers”, painstakingly pieced together to resemble Solveig’s dreki wings.
The entire ensemble said “evil queen in the making,” and Solveig adored it. Especially the slit down the center of the skirts that showed her leather leggings and the gorgeous boots that encased her calves.
“I should have expected no less.” Her father said, taking her hand and gesturing her toward the other end of the dais. “Prince Marduk, this is my eldest daughter, Solveig.”
There was gold frogging on the coat. Oh goddess, how was she going to hide her sneer?
She couldn’t help examining him from toe to chin, so it wasn’t until their gazes met that she realized there was a faintly amused look in his amber eyes.
And he was… gorgeous. Perhaps shockingly so, for even her breath caught a little before she took herself well in hand. He looked like trouble wrapped up in a fairy tale prince’s handsome charm—the kind of trouble that would bow politely to her father, wink at one of her sister’s, and then try to seduce her in the gardens.
No. Not seduce. Seduce was too polite a word. There was just enough edge in his wicked amber eyes to hint that he’d like to throw her over his shoulder and spank her ass instead, and—
There’d be none of that.
Marduk was young—perhaps of an age with her—and though they’d polished his boots and tamed that wild golden hair, there was something about the rakish way he wore it and the curve of his mouth that told her he was a devilish rogue.
And then he returned the insult with full, slow detail, pausing at her lean hips and then her lack-of-breasts before returning to her face.
Solveig’s cheeks heated. Definitely a skirt chaser. Despite her promise to Aslaug, she was going to make him grovel like a worm.
“Charmed,” Prince Marduk drawled. “I’m sure.”
“As am I,” Solveig purred. “I’m so ecstatic I can barely breathe.”
“Perhaps you should loosen your corset,” he murmured as he took her hand. “It might help… with the breathing.”
Her jaw dropped. Was he saying he thought her cold and stiff?
Or was that meant to be a suggestion?
Prince Marduk unleashed a smile upon her, and it felt as though the heavens finally opened after years of cloudy skies as he captured her free hand and lifted it to his lips, their eyes meeting.
Solveig’s feet ground to a halt the second he laid his lips upon her.
Her heart stopped dead in her chest.
And her dreki suddenly screamed within her, unfurling tight wings within the cage of her ribs and fighting to break free.
“Are you all right?” Siv whispered on a thought-thread, mind-to-mind, because she alone among others, always noticed the little things.
Solveig slammed a fist to her chest, fighting to contain the rage and fear. It was breathtaking. Blinding. She was left pinwheeling through stormy skies the way she had been when her mother had died right in front of her.
“Solveig?” This time, Siv sounded worried, but she merely slid her fingers through Solveig’s other hand so as not to be noticed, lacing them tightly together.
She would not be defeated by this foreign prince.