Page 5 of Mated to the Mad Marquess

Solis didn’t put her down, not immediately. As he lowered her from his shoulder to his arms, Hrafn stopped thrashing. She craned her neck to stare at Malcolm, a line deepening between her brows, her wings drooping off her back in defeat. Long black feathers came free at the ends and swooped toward the earth.

Solis held her out to him, an offering. An extremely tempting one.

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm told her as he took her from his soul, and her defiant glare sharpened on his face. He’d meant to set her down immediately, but she was solid and warm, her braids tangled together behind her in a long train that swept over his arm, her brow gleaming from exertion. Meeting those murderous brown eyes, he felt captured and half certain she could kill him if she had a mind to. He’d rather she didn’t, but the knowledge that she could made him want to smile. He repressed the urge.

Best not to encourage his demise.

Another one of her feathers had come loose in the scuffle. Cradling her carefully, he ran a hand down the silken wing and connection shot between them. It reverberated into his palm, then down his arm, leaving his fingers tingling.

Hrafn gasped and grabbed for him, winding both hands into his waistcoat.

“I’ve got you,” he said softly, squeezing her to his chest.

Hrafn’s eyes rolled back in her head and her body went limp in his arms.

“Well damn,” Malcolm sighed.

* * *

She swoonedis all, Solis soothed.Our mate is fine.

“She’s not fine,” Malcolm grumped, not feeling comforted in the least as he hefted his unconscious mate back in the direction of her homestead. “You scared her half to death, you bastard.”

Didn’t you see the way she threw that spear at us? She’s no spring chicken. She’s an ancient Vanir warrior. Hrafn’s seen far more frightening things than me.

“You overwhelmed her. This isn’t the first impression I wanted to give my mate.” Malcolm stomped through the underbrush, soggy ground squishing beneath his boots. “She’d find out I was an ass eventually, but I’d prefer she got to see a few of my better attributes first.”

What better attributes? The drinking or the courtesans?

Malcolm groaned at the tree canopies. “Gods, we’re the worst.”

Solis had returned to his usual form but continued to defy the laws of light, floating in front of Malcolm instead of remaining tethered to his person like a proper shadow.Do you see how strong she is? Her arms and legs feel like they were cut from stone.

“Shut it,” Malcolm grumbled.

Oh, come on, Solis beckoned.Don’t pretend you didn’t notice. You’re never this boring when it comes to women. We love women.

“Mates should be different.”

Spoil sport.

Malcolm sighed and slowed his pace. He glanced down at the woman in his arms as he stepped carefully over a tangle of tree roots. Sunlight cast her bronze skin in flattering gold. Long thick lashes feathered her cheeks. “I’ve never seen hair so long or so lush. She’s beautiful,” he confessed.

Hair that long, you could tie her to the bed with it. Tie up the rest of her too perhaps if she wanted to play.

The image flooded his mind, Hrafn on her knees on his bed, wrists bound by her long braids, because she asked him to do it—begged him to play like the old gods used to . . . His blood fired. “She’s more beautiful than either of us deserves. We’re bastards for treating her this way.”

Solis let out a roguish cackle.Might as well keep her then since we’re already no good.

“Don’t rutting tempt me,” Malcolm snapped. “I’m putting her back before she wakes up and kills us.”

And then we come and get her later?Solis said hopefully.

“We give her time to cool off first. Maybe then she won’t throw a spear through our heads the moment she sees us.”

Solis whooped excitedly, throwing his shadowy fist into the air as the first set of stone archways came into view.

The birds and bugs of the forest fell eerily quiet, and Malcolm slowed to a halt, sensing a disturbance in the nature around them.

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