“This is the finest dream yet,” he said gruffly, his hungry gaze consuming her from head to toe.
Jalisa closed her gaping mouth. Then opened it again. But…what was there to say?
Except, “Again you are bare, warrior.”
A slow smile curved his firm mouth. “So are you, princess. And more beautiful than ever I imagined.”
For she left nothing to his imagination, standing before him in a transparent shift, with nipples hardened and cunt slick. Because he had just… With her name on his lips.
And the coin.
Silently she backed out of the hut and closed the door. So hard it was to think. Monkeys screeched in the trees. A multitude of birds seemed to be chirping and singing and flapping around inside her brain.
Had she gone mad? Was this a long-delayed scaling of a magic spell—an unraveled hangman’s rope becoming a knotted mind? Or was it the effect of a fever? Was she perhaps still in her bed, drowning in her own lungs?
It couldn’t be. Even vomiting, never in the palace had she been so…unkempt.
Through the door, she called out, “Why are you on my island, warrior?”
It opened. So tall he was, ducking his head to leave the hut. Around his hips he tied a fraying rag barely long enough to cover what she now knew hung between his legs. A small napkin would not have sufficed.
Oh, and so thick and hard his thighs were. And his chest. And his arms.
And his head. “This is your island?” he asked.
“Would I be here if it was not?”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “It is not my island and yet I am here.”
“All of the Smoking Islands belong to Savadon—which you were supposed to leave and never return. Why are you here?”
He narrowed his eyes as if the answer required deep thought, idly scratching his chest. “A wave swept me from my ship and into the sea.”
Oh. “Then you swam here?”
“Only part of the way. I grabbed hold of a kindly dolphin’s fin and rode upon its back for a few days. But a monster squid attacked the dolphin’s pod, and I only narrowly escaped after cutting through one of its arms. Then the sharks came, but I had lost my sword battling the squid, and so a full night I spent heroically battering them to death with my fists before I could swim the remaining distance.”
May the gods have mercy upon him. The solitude had addled his brain. “How long have you been here alone, warrior?”
“Since two days past your parade.”
It was that storm he’d been swept to sea in? Six months he had been here, then.
Her heart stilled. “Did you eat all of my provisions?”
“Those were also yours?”
“Were?”
He grinned. “Still some are left. I touched none of the prunes. Far better fruits are found in the trees. And I am a mighty hunter. If you fear starving here, you need not.”
“I do not intend to be here.”
His gaze sharpened. “You are not also marooned?”
“Of course not. I do not ride dolphins to islands. I have a ship.”
Sheer relief filled his expression. “Then I will leave with you.”
“And starve upon the sea? How are we to survive a three month voyage to the western shore when you have eaten all the provisions?” Sheer frustration burst from her in a sharp screech. “You thieving pig! If you are such a mighty hunter, could you not have hunted your meals instead of raiding my stores?”
Unbothered he seemed. “So I will hunt and fill them again. Where on the western shore do you go?”
“Grimhold.” She kicked sullenly at the sand, because it was true—the island might provide what she needed. But so long the preparations would take. “Kael the Conqueror seeks a bride.”
So utterly still the barbarian became. His voice deepened as he asked, “And you intend that bride to be you?”
“I do.”
“Did you not disapprove of barbarians from the Dead Lands who killed tyrants and stole their thrones?”
“That is why I would marry him. So he might come and kill a tyrant.”
“Who? Solegius of Aremond?”
Who needed killing, too. But—“I hoped he would start with my father.”
He gave her a doubtful look. “A tyrant he is?”
Throat tight, Jalisa nodded.
“Because he does he not buy you enough silks? Or because he forces you to marry?”
As if she were a silly girl. Fire burned in her gut and she pivoted away from him. “I think instead I will send a ship back for you, warrior.”
The maddening barbarian kept pace with her through the sand. “He is no Solegius of Aremond, murdering and enslaving all those who stand against him.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He does not fill his mines with slaves, true, but he has enslaved some in other ways. And he orders all who stand against him executed. But the fates conspire against him, because the methods he uses keep failing. And in Savadon, if a hangman’s rope breaks or if an executioner’s axe shatters, the law states they must be sent into exile, instead.”