But time had changed a great many things.
He was no longer the young dreki prince who’d been left alone in their mother’s court as a boy, desperate for answers. He’d survived her hellish reign, and he’d done it without Rurik. He’d escaped and managed to forge new armor for himself. A smile to deflect a threat, and charming words to wrap an enemy in confusion.
“Relax, brother,” he drawled, turning his gaze back to the fleeing princess. “I just want to talk to her.”
A conversation between them was long overdue.
Marduk forced the rush of the shift through his body, his arms lengthening into wings and his heart pounding with fierce glee.
Run, sweetheart. There's nothing I like better than a chase.
2
The floorboard creaked.
Just a faint shifting of timber beneath someone’s weight, but it definitely spoke of an intruder.
Solveig’s eyes shot open in the darkened room.
Who would dare enter her chambers?
The innkeeper and his wife had promised her sanctuary for the night, and she’d already proved to the drunks in the tavern that they’d be best not to trespass further. After an entire day spent laying false trails and avoiding a certain golden-haired prince, she needed rest.
Silence settled in her room behind her. Solveig eased out a breath, trying to sound as though she was still relaxed in slumber. Nothing moved. Not even a mouse. A hint of doubt crept through her.
Had she been dreaming?
Another faint creak.
Sleep sloughed off her as she realized there was definitely someone in her rooms. Why they hell hadn’t her wards awoken her? They should have been screaming at her the second an intruder touched either the door or the window.
She slid her hand under her pillow, pretending she was merely stirring in her sleep as her hand closed around the hilt of the knife she kept under there.
The intruder froze.
Each tick of her heart left her breathless as she tried to listen. She didn’t dare shift again. No, she wanted him close enough to kill.
There.
The shifting of floorboards as someone eased their weight forward.
Her nostrils flared.
A dreki male. One primed for battle, judging by his racing heart. Hints of smoke and burned cinnamon….
She knew that scent.
Solveig burst upward just as a hand stole over her mouth.
"Did you miss me, sweetheart?" said a mocking voice in her ear as Marduk hauled her back into the cage of his arms.
If looks could slay, then Marduk would be twitching on the floor.
Solveig glared around the gag as she strained against the magical rope he’d used to tie her to the chair. Marduk hauled a second chair closer, slinging it backward and straddling it as he faced her. His back was a mess of claw marks, and she’d bitten his shoulder, but he’d finally managed to subdue her.
Barely.
If he hadn’t caught her by surprise, then he had little doubt he’d be the one with a knife to his throat right now. Instead, it had missed his thigh by half an inch. And now she was tied to a chair wearing little more than a shirt, though he’d caught a glimpse of white drawers beneath them.
He’d have expected an iron chastity belt.
But there was something utterly tempting about the crisp white linen. No ribbons. No bows. Not a single thing to draw his attention except for the concept of what removing them would feel like.
With his teeth….
And there you fucking go again, he growled to himself.
No. Hell no.
Many, many times no?
But it felt as though his cock was paying absolutely no attention to him.
They stared at each other, and despite the mixed emotions surging through him, he couldn’t deny that he felt more awake than he’d felt in months. He’d… missed this. Missed the heated flame in Solveig’s dark eyes and the scent of a storm brewing on the horizon that always clung to her.
Even missed the battle between them, for his body could still feel the ghostly whisper of her skin against his as he pinned her to the bed. It was a battle of will to force his cock from engaging at the merest memory of it.
Why her?
Why was it always her?
Why—out of all the women he’d kissed—was she the one who made him feel so alive?
“Are you ready to talk?”
Solveig arched a cutting brow.
He tugged the gag out of her mouth—and nearly lost two fingers.
“Ah, ah, ah, sweetheart.” He yanked his hand out of the way of her clashing teeth. “I just want to talk.”
“Curious way to go about it…. Sneaking into my rooms and tying me up. One would think you had other plans.”
For fuck’s sake. His cock roused. “If I had other plans, I might tie you up. But I wouldn’t use a rope. Or a chair. I’d use silk and I’d have you on the bed. Consider this a precaution. Not a courting ritual. You did try to kill me.”
“I missed.”
“Oh no, your aim was perfect.” He rubbed a hand over his heart. “You’re lucky I sensed it coming.”
“How?” Her dark eyes fired to hot coals as she leaned forward. “I made no sound. I’d been watching you for days and you never saw me. The magic on that arrow should have made it undetectable to your senses.”
A troubling thought. “Perhaps I should be more specific. I didn’t sense the arrow. But there was something in the air. My inner dreki rousing. Trouble, it was warning me.”
Though it had not roused to battle, merely… intensity.
He’d not considered the thought until now.
Somehow his dreki had known she was there.
Somehow it had sensed her, even though she’d been downwind and hidden on the shale-covered mountainside.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded. “How did you get through my wards?”
“I didn’t feel a single thing.”
She nearly kicked him in the balls—an enviable achievement considering there were slats in the back of the chair.
He skidded back, catching her bare foot against his thigh. The sensation of it derailed him. He’d been trying not to focus on what she was wearing—or more particularly, what she wasn’t wearing—but the idea of Solveig tucking her bare feet up under her blanket was strangely adorable.
He’d only ever seen her in boots with heels a good three inches high.
All the better to crush you beneath them, she’d once taunted.
“My wards are impenetrable,” she said, and curse the gods but she was so glorious when her temper was roused. “I should have felt your presence the second you set foot inside this inn.”
“Sorry, sweetheart.” He couldn’t resist stroking the arch of her foot. “Perhaps you forgot to set them.”
“Get your hands off me.”
“What’s wrong?” Another mocking caress, this time digging his thumbs in a little harder. “You liked it last time.”
Murder.
She was trying to visually murder him.
“Why are you here? What do you want?” he demanded.
Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Haven’t you realized yet, my love? I want your heart. In a box.”
“Then we have a problem, for I find I’m quite partial to it where it is. Go back home. Forget this foolish vendetta. I’ll pretend you never existed, and you can excise me from your life however you wish.”