“Is this what has happened to you—exile? Did you stand against him?”
“No.” Not openly. Not for a long time. “I decided to find someone who might more successfully stand against him.”
“I will do it.”
“I would rather the Conqueror, for I know he killed four tyrant kings with great success.”
“Kael is already married.”
Dead in her tracks she stopped. “Are you certain?”
“I am. My brother and I were hired to bolster the army at the southern pass of Grimhold before we came to Savadon by way of Aremond.” Intensely he regarded her with unreadable expression. “He married a princess from Ivermere.”
Everything within Jalisa deflated—then filled again. Hired to bolster the army. “You are a hired sword?”
“I am.” He gave a wry smile. “Though my sword is at the bottom of the sea.”
She would buy him a new one. “What is your fee?”
For a long time his dark gaze searched her face, her eyes. Finally he said in a gruff voice, “One night in your bed.”
In astonishment she stared at him. “You want a night in my bed? And that is all?”
Jaw clenched, he gave a single nod.
“Very well. If that is all it will cost me, then we have a deal.” She laughed. “You sell your services so cheaply, warrior.”
His face darkened. “Cheaply?”
“I was willing to marry Kael the Conqueror in exchange for what you offer to me at only the price of my virginity. My whole life I would have spent married to a man I didn’t love, with no other purpose but giving birth to his heirs. You could have asked to marry me, and for me to make you a king, and I would have agreed. Are you certain you do not want that? I do not want you to feel cheated. Especially as this job carries deep risk.”
The skin over his cheekbones drew taut. Hoarsely he said, “I cannot have a wife or a kingdom. When this task is finished, duty calls me elsewhere.”
“Ah.” Duty, she understood all too well. “I would not take advantage of you, warrior. What of a mountain of gold? Will you not ask for that?”
“I cannot carry a mountain of gold upon a horse.”
“I suppose you cannot. So one night it is, then. And in exchange, you hand to me true freedom.” She sighed happily, her chest swelling with emotion. Because if this warrior succeeded, then her freedom would not be temporary. “And it is so much less than I ever expected to pay. Less than I have already paid. So yes, warrior—I think you sell your services very cheaply.”
3
Aruk the Fool
The Illwind Sea
What the princess called cheap might come at the cost of Aruk’s heart. A fool he was. Such a fool. The woman he’d woven so many dreams around did not exist. She had been but a focus for his mind as the endless days passed on the island, burning with frustration that he was trapped in the middle of the Illwind Sea instead of helping his brother fulfill their sacred obligation.
His brother still lived, at least. Even when separated, Aruk could feel the distant presence of his twin like a touch at the back of his head. So he had no fear that whatever obstacles Strax faced upon that tournament route had defeated him.
But he hated that his brother had faced them alone. For no doubt Mara would have nothing to do with him.
What would Strax have given for a single night with her? Aruk suspected that his brother would have given anything. A fine woman she was.
Not a haughty, spoiled princess who demanded that Aruk cover himself, then threatened to put him in chains for exposing a harmless rune, then screeched at him for eating unmarked provisions that had seemed abandoned and left for the very purpose he’d used them: to nourish someone trapped on the island. And now she wanted him to kill a king whom Aruk suspected had done nothing better or worse than any other king. Every ruler punished those who rebelled against him. And these had only known exile? That was not what Aruk called a tyrant.
More probably, this princess rebelled because the husband chosen for her wasn’t to her liking.
And because Aruk was a fool, every part of his heart rebelled at the thought of her taking any husband.
He had not meant to think of her for even a single moment after the parade. She had stirred his cock, true. Because she had smelled so fine, and her mouth was so lush, and her tongue so sharp. The imperious way she looked down at him had fired his blood. And so his first imaginings had been of her beneath him, instead. Not haughty and demanding but writhing and begging.
So very satisfying those imaginings had been. And that should have been the end of them. But although he’d tried, no other woman could he picture while stroking his cock. Until he never even tried to think of other women. His mind had returned to her again and again. So often that it almost seemed as if she had been his companion on this island these past six months.