She would not be undone by a single smile.
She could control the dreki inside her. And whatever had set it off, she would deal with it later.
“I’m fine,” she sent back, then turned to the prince. “Are you quite… done?”
He glanced up at her, his lips still caressing her knuckles, and their eyes met.
It was as if he stole the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. The world around them vanished. There was only Marduk with that knowing smile as he straightened, and the soft brush of his lips doing dangerous things to her skin.
Another lance of fury went through her, almost twisting her inside out. The dreki hissed, wanting to stab at him with its claws, wanting to hurl itself at him, to pin him down, to kiss that arrogant mouth, to kill him.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed as she tore her hand from his, her skin prickling as if she’d dipped it in pure lava. Curling her fist to her heart, she fought to see through the fury. Goddess, what was happening to her?
“Solveig?” Her father called.
Solveig had never wanted to kill someone so much in her entire life.
“I am fine,” she snarled, turning on her heel and stalking toward the throne room doors. “I have done my bit for this farce. I need air.”
And a chance to breathe.
Because she’d promised Aslaug she wouldn’t kill him, and Solveig always kept her promises.
“Well, that went as well as expected,” Niels murmured the second Marduk was shown to his rooms.
Marduk barely noticed the doors shutting. Everything within the throne room had turned to a muted murmur of apologies and hushed voices the second the princess stormed from the chambers.
He slung the velvet cloak from his shoulders. Niels had chosen it for him, intending to present him as some pretty princeling from a foreign court for some reason. It wasn’t until he’d walked inside the throne room and come face-to-face with the three daughters of King Harald the Shrewd that he’d begun to realize exactly why he was dressed like a peacock.
This entire affair was a trap, and he’d walked into it blithely, with his eyes closed.
“You’re needed for the signing of a treaty,” he said, pitching his voice high enough to mimic his mother’s. “Just smile and shake hands, Marduk. Sign with a flourish. Charm our new allies.” He shot Niels a sharp look as he dropped the falsetto. “It’s strange, Niels, but I could have sworn there was a gleam in Harald’s eye when he introduced his daughters. All three of them. He practically gift wrapped them too. What’s going on?”
The dreki ambassador picked up his cloak and began to fold it. “The Zini clan is forging an alliance with the Sadu.”
“How?” His voice became steel. “Precisely how are we forging an alliance?”
Niels arched a cool brow. “Your mother assured us you would be key to securing this treaty—”
“I knew it.” He curled his right hand into a fist. “No. I will not mate with a female I’ve only just met! I never agreed to this. My mother presumes too much.”
The seneschal gave a little smile.
Marduk chased after it. “What? What was all that about? Did you not hear me? I said I won’t do it.”
“You didn’t ask which one it was.”
He’d been expecting protestations of “but the treaty” or “serve your clan.” He’d been prepared for such arguments too.
Except this one caught him at an odd angle.
It was bait.
Bait dressed in a fine gown, with a head full of braids and a smile of white, perfect teeth. Or more to the point…. Bait dressed in slick leather with a cloak of raven feathers, and a golden circlet resting on its brow.
And he couldn’t resist taking it. “Which one?”
Niels tucked the folded cloak within his traveling chest. “I believe… you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. It’s to be your choice, though your mother has a preference.”
“You crafty old bastard.” The seneschal had served at his father’s side for years. He knew Marduk’s nature almost as well as the prince himself. “Fine. I will work it out. But the answer’s still no.”
“We shall see,” Niels mused as Marduk paced to the windows.
He twitched the curtains aside, and there she was, staring down from distant battlements with her raven-black hair streaming behind her, and her plain, ringless hands resting on the stone as she glared into the winds.
What a curious creature.
Not even half as pretty as her sisters, nor as sweet, but she’d still somehow managed to drive the breath from Marduk’s lungs the second he’d kissed her hand. For a moment he’d heard the wind howling through foreign chasms, begging him to join it. The dreki within him had wanted to spread its wings and chase after her, knowing that she was the wind and it danced to her tune.
Such an unusual feeling.
Because the second he’d frozen there, looking up at her with his lips still pressed to her skin, she’d torn her hand from his, her expression glacial.
“Not that one,” Niels murmured, tugging the curtain closed. “That one is bidding to become Harald’s war marshal. Powerful. Fierce. Uncontrollable. Your mother wishes you to make an alliance. Not war.”
The blonde then.
Or the redhead.
Marduk rubbed at his knuckles, glancing back toward the window. “Why would you say mating such a female would be war?”
“Because, my prince, they call her the Storm with Teeth, and I daresay from her warm welcome this afternoon, she is hardly inclined to submit to your proposal. Choose one of the others. They’re pretty girls. Biddable. Kind.”
Biddable. Kind. He couldn’t think of two more unappealing words. So that was to be the play. Here, Marduk…. Here are two beautiful princesses. It will be your choice.
As if it was any sort of choice at all.
“I will… meet with them,” he replied, though he had no intention of taking either of them as his mate. “Harald cannot demand anything more than that, can he?”
How badly could this go?
1
Now, Iceland
Two golden dreki princes alighted on the ledge of Hekla's volcano, oblivious to the assassin that waited below. A golden shimmer surrounded both gilded dreki and then magic blurred, leaving them standing there in their mortal forms.
Perfect.
Just perfect, Solveig thought, as she nocked her arrow to her bow.
A dreki was difficult to kill, but in mortal form they were far more vulnerable. A single arrow might slay one, if it struck its target accurately.
And when it came to revenge, she was nothing if not accurate.
The king of Iceland's Zini clan, Rurik, hauled on a pair of trousers he took from his travel bag, throwing his golden head back as he straightened.
But it was to the other prince her attention turned.
Marduk.
The lying, honorless dreki prince who'd accepted her father's offer of an alliance—with her hand as the prize to seal the treaty—and then fled the night of their mating.
Solveig looked along the line of her arrow.
Its point locked upon her feckless mate's heart as she drew the bow.