Pretty Bride (Rags to Riches 3)

And two days later, he was lost to the waves.

2

Jalisa the Spoiled

The Smoking Islands

Six months later…

Salt water splashed into Jalisa’s mouth as she fell yet again, struggling to drag the dinghy onto the sand. A small wave broke behind the stern and assisted her next heave, and when the water receded the boat did not go with it. Onto the beach she collapsed and breathlessly laughed, exhausted and sunburned and free.

Only free would she be for a short time. Yet even temporary freedom was so sweet.

Climbing to her feet, she secured the dinghy’s rope around the trunk of a palm tree, then looked out to where her ship was anchored beyond the mouth of the cove. Not a breeze stirred through the canvas sails—nor would it, until she returned.

Turning away from the water, she trudged through the soft, shifting sands. Only dawn it was, so the sun had not yet warmed the beach to burn her feet. Water dripped down her bare legs. She had abandoned her long, tangling skirts her first day upon the sea. The sleeveless silk shift she wore now had soaked through, and she might as well have been naked. Her hair was in a salty, ratty tangle. Her lips were chapped and nose peeling. And the finest part of it all was that there was no one to see, no one to care that Jalisa wasn’t the pretty princess she was supposed to be.

Soon she would have to make herself into a pretty bride. But not yet.

She consulted the map of the island that her handmaid’s brother, Bashir, had sketched into parchment almost a year past. A volcanic peak towered ahead, the steep sides covered in lush vegetation. The hut that stored all of her provisions lay at the western end of this cove, at the base of that mountain.

In no other way could she have stocked away so many supplies without being found out, except to have almost nothing to do with the process. As her coming of age day neared, Bashir had stored enough dried food to last a voyage to the western shore. Then for six months, it had waited here for her, because her father had not tried to marry her off as quickly as she’d expected him to.

Then two months ago, Prince Wanieer had arrived, as odious as could be. Almost as odious as her father’s advisor, Fin Ketles, whose leering attentions had begun with the first budding of her breasts. So it became time to flee. Marriage still awaited her, but at least it would be a husband of her choosing.

The hut stood precisely where the map claimed it would be. After six months of neglect—and particularly since a savage storm had blown across the Illwind Sea a few days after she’d come of age—she had expected more disrepair. The thatched roof caved in, perhaps. Or a wall blown down, the door hanging open. She had prepared herself to find at least some of her goods spoiled by moisture or rummaged through by animals, yet the hut appeared intact.

A simple wooden latch secured the door. Swinging it open, she stepped into the dim interior—and froze as her senses registered the presence she’d not heard from outside.

A man. Laying upon a woven mat, his heavy muscles covered with a gossamer cloth. So sheer and light the fabric was, the golden glow of a ward carved into his ribs shone through. And she could not mistake the rough pumping movement of his big fist, or the jutting length that made a tent of the filmy covering.

“Jalisa.” That deep groan sent her gaze flying to his face, but his eyes were closed, his teeth clenched. “I love how you spread those pretty thighs so wide for me. So eager you are for my cock.”

Never had she been eager for any cock. Never had she spread her thighs for anyone.

And never had she heard anyone say her name with such naked want, unfettered by calculation and ambition and greed.

Faster he jerked his thick curving length. His hips arched up from the mat, the gossamer slipping away. “Your cunt…so tight…fill you up, princess, so deep.”

Skin prickling with heat, she watched him bring a gold coin to his mouth and press it to his lips. That firm mouth she knew. That glowing rune she knew. She knew that long black hair and the cheekbones like blades.

The barbarian from the parade.

“Jalisa.” Head back, the cords in his neck stood in sharp relief. “Give your sweet mouth to me as I— Unnnnnh.”

Now he kissed a coin imprinted with her likeness as he grunted and shook, pounding his shaft into his fist before abruptly stilling, ropes of seed splashing across his ridged abdomen.

Chest heaving, he eased his muscular ass down to the mat again. He lay the coin over his heart before rolling his head toward the door in languid motion, as if utterly pleased and spent. He blinked, then regarded her without much reaction while she stared at him, mouth hanging open, every inch of her skin hot and tight and tingling.