Pretty Bride (Rags to Riches 3)

She blinked. “I did?”

“You asked me not to when you hired me. And said you wanted to choose when you would have children, to wait until you were ready.” Which Aruk had no argument with. This was the freedom his wife needed. So he would give it to her.

“Oh.” She softly bit her full bottom lip. “With you, all is different. I am ready now.”

Never had his cock hardened so fast. And she laughed at him as he spread her legs and pushed inside her, but on the next thrust her laugh turned to a pleasured gasp. Then she joined him, racing to the end with her cunt clutching his pumping shaft, coming helplessly beneath him as he endlessly filled her with his hot seed.

For a longer time he kissed her, but the day could not be delayed much longer. Savadon was waking up to a new queen—and king—and so much would need to be done.

Aruk untied the ribbon, then tied it again around his wrist. To the balcony he walked to relieve himself over the railing, while Jalisa groaned and moaned her way to the privy cupboard. A clever design that was, with a waste shaft that emptied over the cliff—though she had told him that when the wind blew strong enough, it might blow the piss right back up the shaft and onto the person seated there.

So when she gave a short scream, he briefly wondered if that was what had happened. Yet there was not even a breeze. Frowning, he turned as she burst out of the privy—where the weasel advisor was climbing out of the shaft, knife in hand. All night he must have hidden in that waste shaft, because Aruk had himself looked into the privy cupboard in search of him.

Blood thundering, he surged toward her—but not before the weasel caught her by the hair and jerked her back against him, knife at her throat.

“She was mine!” the weasel wailed. “And if I cannot have her, no one will!”

To his knees, Aruk fell, meeting Jalisa’s panicked gaze. “Anything you wish,” he begged hoarsely. “Anything—”

Heart rending in two, Aruk watched the blade slash across her throat. A primal scream ripped from his chest and in the next moment he was on his feet and—

Jalisa still stood, unbleeding. Looking as stunned as he.

The weasel slashed again and the sound was like steel scraping over iron.

“The scaling,” Aruk told her, beginning to grin. “You weakened the iron chain by stealing weakness from yourself—and gained iron’s strength.”

“Scaling?” the weasel exclaimed. “What scal—”

That was as far as he got before Jalisa whipped around and punched him in the throat. Gasping, he fell back. With a scream of rage, she struck with her knee between his legs, sending him reeling out onto the balcony. Then her dainty foot she shoved into his ass and sent him flailing over the railing.

Chest heaving, she looked to Aruk. “I have wanted to do that for so long.”

Laughing, he went to her, cupping her cheeks—and feeling in amazement the warm suppleness of her skin. No different it seemed. Yet when she picked up the dagger and drew the blade over her flesh, nowhere could she cut. Not even her tongue, when she tried that.

“No more blood magic,” she whispered.

Aruk could not be sorry. No longer would she silently bleed herself to death while giving all that she had to others. Yet he knew that, in Jalisa’s eyes, blood magic had been her way of helping—and of not being helpless. “You are queen,” he reminded her softly. “With iron skin, so no one might do you harm. You will not need that magic. Other options you will have…and a husband who will always fight for and protect you.”

Smiling, she lifted her mouth for a kiss—then drew back to look up at him imperiously. “Many riches we have in this castle, Aruk. Reassure me that I will not find you one day, jerking your cock on a pile of gold coins.”

Heartily he laughed and drew her up for that kiss. “The only promise I will make is that, if I do, they will bear your likeness.” Then his heart filled, and he kissed her again. “It was the only likeness I had of you. And when you gave it to me, still warmed it was from your skin. Now I need no gold at all.”

For the greatest of riches he’d already found in her.

Epilogue

Aruk the Found

Savadon

Here we are again, in the kingdom of Savadon, on the southern coast of the Illwind Sea. Eight months have passed, and on this day, two travelers are escorted from the docks to the palace at the behest of Savadon’s king.

Hardly surprised Aruk was to see Strax, though lack of surprise was not lack of joy, and fiercely the brothers embraced. More surprising was his companion, Mara, who had hated his brother so fiercely—though after Aruk’s own tumultuous path to love, perhaps no surprise it should have been. Full with child Mara was, and the trip across the sea had been difficult for his brother’s new wife. Soon it was settled that the pair would stay in Savadon until she gave birth, and was strong enough to continue home.