“Are you hurt? Shall I carry you out?”
Crying, the woman shook her head. “I wish to see our princess. A great beauty she is said to be.”
This woman risked her life in this crowd to see a princess’s beauty? At least the gold was worth something.
He made certain she was steady before pushing back toward the street. At the front of the crowd he was forced to wait by the passing parade. Mounted soldier after mounted soldier, then the princess herself, riding a white mare.
And a beauty she was indeed. A gold circlet crowned black curls that tumbled over her shoulders in waves. Dainty features she had, from the arch of her brows to her pretty little nose and delicate chin. Her pink lips curved into a sweet smile that never faltered as she waved to the crowd shouting her name.
Princess Jalisa. Who smiled and smiled and smiled as she rode past Aruk, her eyes meeting his for a brief moment before swinging sharply back. Her gaze ran down his length and the smile vanished, revealing the fullness of her mouth in the instant before her lips pressed into a thin line.
Reining her horse around, she stopped before Aruk, regarding him imperiously from the height of her saddle. Abruptly the shouts from the crowd quieted.
“Have you no respect for a royal princess, barbarian,” she said in haughty voice, “that you arrive bare to my parade and flaunt yourself before me?”
Aruk was not bare. He wore boots and a sword and a ragged length of homespun weave tied around his hips that covered him to his knees, for it had been a cursed hot day.
And he had not much respect for royal princesses, but he had a little respect for the number of mounted soldiers who’d preceded her.
Though perhaps only very little.
“Forgive me, princess. What bare part of me offends you most? I will cover it now.”
“Your chest.”
With a nod, Aruk began to untie the knot at his hip.
A frown creased her brow. “What are you doing?”
“I have only enough cloth to cover my bottom or my top, your highness. But as it is my chest that most offends you, I hope you’ll forgive me when I flaunt my cock.”
Her mouth dropped open. And a very pretty mouth it was. Pretty enough that the cock he was soon to flaunt began to stir.
Or perhaps what stirred him was not her mouth at all, but what came out of it. For her eyes narrowed and she said, “I will give you a small napkin to cover it, too.”
Aruk laughed. “I would be grateful, your highness.”
The crowd murmured and jostled again as she gracefully dismounted. A gossamer cape she wore over a dress of white silk, and that cape’s golden clips she unfastened as she approached.
Though not near to Aruk’s height, a tall woman she was, with the top of her head on level with his chin. A soft perfume reached him, a scent both sharp as a lemon and sweet as its blossom.
She crooked her finger, and obediently he bent his head. That scent spun around him as she draped the cape over his left shoulder, and the warmth of her fingers as she smoothed it into place crosswise over his chest filled his cock with answering heat.
Clipping the cape closed beneath his right arm, she placed her palm against his ribs and softly said, “Keep this glowing mark on your skin concealed, or you will find yourself in chains.”
The ward that protected him from spells. Most people from these realms did not even recognize what it was. “Why?”
She gave him no reason, but pressed a heavy coin into his palm. “With this you may purchase swift passage upon any ship you choose. Leave this kingdom as quickly as you can. All from the Dead Lands must stay away.”
“Why?” he asked again.
She looked to him in exasperation, as if unused to being questioned. “Perhaps because you are conquerers and butcherers who kill kings and steal thrones.”
“Only from tyrants. Is that what you fear—that I’ll steal your throne? Be not a tyrant, then.”
Dryly she said, “I only fear that you’ll inspire others to tear off their clothes.”
He grinned. “I should like to inspire that in you, princess.”
Her lips quirked slightly, but she only stepped back and swiftly mounted her horse. “Let me never see you again, warrior.”
“You will not,” he told her—for it was likely true. His duty and blood obligation had demanded that he sail away from here long before she made the same demand. And a long journey lay ahead. No thought did he have of returning.
Without looking back, she rode away from him, continuing her parade down the street. Easy then it should have been to leave. But he watched until she was out of sight.
Then Aruk did what his duty demanded. As dark clouds gathered over the Illwind Sea, he sailed away from Savadon.