by Wilde, Kati
Not much longer would he have to see her at all. He’d recovered canvas and timbers from the wreckage of her ship, then remade the dinghy to sail and added projecting floats to stabilize it. Another day or two would cure the resin that waterproofed the outrigger hulls, and then they would set out for Savadon.
Where she believed that Aruk would kill her father in exchange for one night with her. Yet that was not what Aruk would do.
Kill her father, yes. But Jalisa had already paid enough. No more blood would Aruk ask her to shed in her search for freedom.
The sun was high when he returned from a short hunt to the hut—which was empty. To the beach Aruk went in search of his princess, slowing as he saw Jalisa shedding her silk shift and walking into the turquoise water.
This cove was well-sheltered by a reef, the waves gentle and waters calm. Yet she had not often bathed in the water—not when the salt stung her wound. Now her sleek golden skin was bared to the sun, only slightly paler over her back and ass. Her hair was not so wild as it had been when she’d first arrived on the island. Aruk had carved a comb for her, and every night she untangled the snarls. Still the dark tresses hung in thick, messy waves to the upper swell of her ass.
He recalled the woman at the parade who had risked a trampling simply to see Jalisa’s beauty, and thinking that beauty was not worth as much as gold. Yet now Aruk would have crossed oceans to look upon his princess.
So beautiful she was. Yet Jalisa’s true beauty was not her face; instead it was her warm and generous heart.
A heart so generous, it might have killed her.
In all of his travels, Aruk had seen many warriors—men and women—fight and bleed to protect their homes. He’d seen them sacrifice their lives to defend the people they loved. He’d risked his own life many times, and not always for love. Sometimes simply for gold or for adventure.
Yet the risk Jalisa had taken…in Aruk’s experience, almost always it seemed to be women who sacrificed themselves in that quiet way. Almost always it was mothers and wives. Most did not use magic, but it was the same. Silently bleeding as they did what needed to be done. Always giving pieces of themselves to others, without keeping anything for their own.
Mothers and wives…and now a woman who would be queen. And Aruk had thought her selfish when she’d spoken of having something for her own. She had simply wanted a life where she was not always bleeding for everyone else. Still she would be kind and generous—but she wanted something for herself, too.
True freedom, she’d called it. Aruk would do anything to see her have that freedom. For she was worth so very much. He was nowhere near worthy of her.
Yet he could not stay away.
He shed the rag around his hips at the water’s edge. She had seen him bathe too many times in this cove to be surprised by his nudity, so when she turned to him, it was with a warm and welcoming smile.
“Join me! The water is so fine!”
As was Jalisa. Waist-deep she stood, two long locks of wet hair hanging forward over her shoulders and veiling her breasts, the waves lapping gently at her stomach. Waist-deep for Jalisa barely covered the hot rise of Aruk’s cock. Farther out he waded before facing her.
Her gaze slipped downward before lifting again, soft color in her cheeks as she laughed at him. “You returned from your hunt too quickly! I have been caught being lazy.”
Never lazy was she. If she had been, they would not already have a store of fruit and smoked fish ready for their voyage. “We only need enough meat for this night and tomorrow. So it did not take long.”
“Oh.” The laughter in her eyes dimmed and she sighed. “Yes.”
“Do you wish to stay longer?” Aruk would. But he did not truly think she wanted to.
She confirmed that with a small shake of her head. Softly she said, “It is just…so lovely this island has been.”
“Yes,” he agreed gruffly, chest aching.
Eyes downcast, she skimmed her fingers through the water in idle swirls. “You must be eager to rejoin the tournament finally.”
“I am not. But I must rejoin my brother and carry out our duty.”
“You are not rejoining the tournament?” She looked up, brows arched imperiously. “Then what is the duty that will take you away from me, warrior?”
That would take him away from her. As if he belonged to her.
As he did. “To make certain no one brings Khides’ gauntlet back to Solegius.”
Her lips parted. “Khides’ gauntlet is the relic they seek? My mother told me the legend of that weapon and of the brothers who broke the world. If it fell into the hands of a tyrant such as Solegius…”
Jalisa trailed off, as if every word she would choose to describe the horror of that was simply not horrific enough.
“Strax and I are bound by a blood obligation to see that no one unworthy ever wields it,” he told her. “And the gauntlet’s location is well-guarded…but I have to be certain none of the contestants wins the gauntlet and brings the weapon back to that sorcerer.”
“And so you must go,” she whispered thickly.
Throat constricted, Aruk nodded.
Through her lashes, her downcast gaze shimmered as brightly as the waters when she hesitantly said, “When you are certain the gauntlet is safe, warrior…would you return to Savadon?”
Hoarsely he admitted, “I know of nothing that might keep me away. Though more than a year might pass before I can return. The keep where the gauntlet is held lies six months’ journey away.”
A shuddering breath left her. As if in pain and relief, her eyes closed and the tears slipped over her cheeks. “I do not care how long it will be.”
Aruk did. Because every moment apart would be agony.
But these moments they had.
He surged through the water and eagerly she met him, lifting her mouth for his kiss. Catching her, Aruk hauled her up against his chest, her face level with his and her legs circling his waist. Salt from the sea and her tears flavored his first taste of her, then only her sweetness and heat as he licked his way past her lips. Her fingers tangled in his hair and fiercely she returned his kiss, his princess taking something for herself.
Aruk would give to her all that he had. Hungrily he consumed her mouth, slanting his lips over hers again and again until the low moan in her throat was a constant refrain. Greedily she met his kiss, lick for lick, then broke away, her gaze searching his as her heaving breaths swept over his lips.
Shakily she whispered, “I want more than one night, Aruk. I want every night until you have to leave.”
Nights not spent as payment or fee but in shared need. No sacrifice would it require. Only when it was over would they bleed.
“You will have every night,” he vowed harshly and began carrying her toward the shore. “And the days, too. Every moment that remains, I will have you so hard and so long, you will still feel me within you when I am gone.”
The word gone seemed to pierce her through. A gasping sob escaped her and she kissed him again, deep and hard, hands fisted in his hair. Branding herself on him. Sinking so deep under his skin. So that he would always feel her, too.
Aruk wouldn’t feel anything but her. Nothing but the way she filled his heart so full.
Beyond the waves, his feet sank into warm sand. Urgently she moved against him, stiffening his erection to throbbing steel. So hard he meant to fuck her. But no pleasure would she know with those rough grains abrading her every soft and wet crevice. Yet if he didn’t ease his need before taking her to the hut, their first time would be over the minute he sank his cock into her scorching embrace.
So hot she was. And so blessed he was, to ever know her thus.
Lowering her onto the silk shift she’d discarded on the sand, Aruk followed her down, and a tortured groan ripped from him when she eagerly spread her thighs to make room for his hips. His body shook with the need to accept that blatant invitation. Molten seed overfilled his sac, burning up the length of his shaft and dripping f
rom the crown.
But only a small taste would he take now. Only a small taste.
Her cunt glistened with her arousal, tight and pink and lush. Braced above her, Aruk fisted his aching length. Through her sultry folds, he slicked the head of his cock up and down, teasing her entrance before pressing forward through her cunt lips and over the top of her cleft, his long thick shaft riding over her clit. Beneath him, Jalisa cried out in frustration, her hips angling upward as if to draw him down to her entrance again.
So that he might sink his cock into her, again and again.
Not yet. His mouth claimed the wonder of hers as he stroked again over the slick heat of her cunt. Faster, over her clit with each thrust. Soon she no longer tried to lure him inside but moved with him, legs tight around his waist and her body arching beneath his. Sobbing gasps of pleasure she breathed into their kiss, then all at once she threw her head back and cried his name, her slim torso a quivering bow with plucked string.
Grunting, Aruk followed her into that release, seed spurting over her belly. Then chest heaving, he kissed her. Soon he would rise with Jalisa in his arms and carry her into the sea to rinse the abrasive sand from her skin before continuing to the hut. Not much time did they have to waste.
But time spent kissing her was never time wasted.
Her lips were swollen and smiling when he lifted his head. Then she frowned and her brow pleated…as she heard what he suddenly did.
The rhythmic splash of oars. The creaking of boats. A petulant voice drifting over the water.
“…do you think I will still have her now? After we have all watched that barbarian defile her? Better that I had never cast the spell that let you find this cursed island!”
Jalisa scrambled out from beneath him, eyes panicked. Blindly she fumbled for her shift, shaking loose sand from the silk. Aruk turned to look as she dragged it over her head.
Twelve boats full of armed soldiers—and the vessel at their head also carried three men in silks. One with a protruding bottom lip as petulant as the words he’d spoken. One with a weasel’s sly air and his hot eyes fixed on Jalisa. The other with rigid face whose narrowed eyes returned Aruk’s gaze before he looked down at Aruk’s side, where his ward softly glowed.
“Your father?” Aruk guessed.
“With his pig advisor Fin Ketles and the prince.” Frantically Jalisa tugged on his arm. “We must run.”
“Where to?”
“The hut.” With desperate strength, she tried again to drag him up. “There I will cast a spell that—”
With her blood? Urgently Aruk caught her arms. “Never like this, Jalisa. Never in fear and to harm. The scaling is always unknown but that is more certain to scale larger. You must have seen. Your mother saved you out of love and the scaling was small, but she died when she attacked your father. And your worst scaling was when you spelled the ship in fear and desperation to leave. Swear to me you never will.”
“But—”
“Swear to me!”
“I swear it!” she shouted at him, then her terrified gaze swung past Aruk to the water. “Then what do we do? We cannot fight this many.”
In time, Aruk could. He only needed to flee with her to the jungle that grew on the mountain—and as the soldiers pursued them, he would hunt them and kill them one by one. Or ten by ten. It mattered not to him.
Yet such a plan put Jalisa at high risk. In the confusion of the jungle, a soldier might mistake her for Aruk when loosing an arrow. As they ran and hid, more likely would she be injured. And when he left her to hunt the soldiers, she would be unprotected—not just from her father, but from the fanged predators that stalked the mountainside.
“We will surrender to him,” Aruk said.
Jalisa looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “Surrender to him?”
“You did not defy him. I laid eyes upon your beauty and stole you from Savadon. Here on this island, I held you prisoner and mercilessly ravaged you against your will.”
Eyes filled with tears, she shook her head. “Aruk, no. He will—”
“Kill me?” No. It was her father who would die. As Aruk had vowed to her. “He will keep me alive.”
Her swimming gaze fell to the glowing rune at his side. Helplessly she shook her head. “Let me instead—”
“No,” he snarled. “You risk sacrificing everything. What I propose sacrifices nothing. He will not harm you. And he will do no real harm to me.”
Agony filled her face as she implored him, “Please, Aruk. He will chain you like an animal.”
“Chain me, he might. Imprison me and keep me away from you?” Aruk smiled with grim determination. “He can try. Now rip away from my grasp and race toward the water, screaming for rescue. Then do not watch any of what occurs after.”
“No, Aruk, please,” she sobbed, beating at his chest. “Please. I love you.”
His heart swelled so fiercely his entire soul ached with it. Such a sweet ache.
“Then I have strength to survive anything. As you will, princess, for so much do I love you in return,” he told her gruffly, and her wondering gaze lifted to his. Her sobbing breaths eased, and he saw the hope and determination in her that matched his own. “Now, go.”
After one last lingering look at his face, Jalisa yanked free of his hold and fled. From the king’s boat came the shouted order to take the barbarian alive.
Naked, Aruk turned to face the soldiers surging up onto the beach. Lifting his arms wide, he grinned at them. “Come on, then!”
Because surrender, he would. But not until he unleashed upon them his fury and pain at sending Jalisa back to her father, even for a moment. So he did not surrender until the golden beach was soaked in blood.
Better their blood—and his—than Jalisa’s.
On the red sands Aruk finally kneeled, and let the soldiers put chains upon him, then let them beat him to the ground with clubs and boots. Into the dark hold of the king’s ship he was tossed, in fetters, imprisoned.
But Jalisa loved him. So not once in the long, painful days that followed did Aruk’s grin fade from his bloodied lips.
8
Jalisa the Bride
Savadon
Such a pretty bride she was.
With dull eyes, Jalisa stared at herself in the polished silver mirror as the maid secured her tiara atop sleek, shining tresses. Her golden tan had not faded, but was hidden beneath a pale powder. Aruk’s kisses no longer swelled her lips. As if the island had never been.
But it had been. And Aruk loved her. So she would not despair.
Even though tonight, she would marry another.
No notice had she been given of the wedding except for her maids scurrying in to make her ready. So it seemed that, in spite of watching her be ravished by a barbarian, Prince Wanieer must have agreed to marry her. Because she was not what Wanieer wanted, anyway. Her kingdom was.
And her father only cared that she was bred. No doubt he believed that Aruk had already taken care of that part. So proud he’d seemed of her for catching Aruk’s eye and—for all that her father knew—for being abducted and raped. As if Jalisa had deliberately set herself up as bait to catch her father a warrior from the Dead Lands and impregnated with his powerful seed.
But the child needed to be legitimate, so Jalisa must be wed. And in Savadon, after every royal wedding came the royal bedding—a ceremony witnessed by officials who confirmed consummation had been completed.
Consummation with the odious Wanieer.
Jalisa closed her eyes. She would not cast spells in rage and fear. She would not.
But she might vomit on him. Not such a pretty bride would she be then.
And if not vomit, something else. Jalisa would think of a way to stop this wedding—and attempt an escape that would take her down to the dungeon and free Aruk.
The sacrifice he’d made would not be in vain. Because although he’d told her not to look back at what happened on the beach…she had looked. She had seen. A great fighter he was. Yet
still he’d been brought to his knees. Beaten.
Her heart had been screaming ever since. Screaming for her to fight, to run. All that kept her compliant was the terror of what her father might do to Aruk if she rebelled against him.
The time came to be escorted to the ceremonial chambers—and never had she wished for her father’s company, but now she did because her escort was Fin Ketles. His attentions toward her had never been subtle. Yet ever since he’d seen her on the beach with Aruk, it was as if he believed seeing her naked meant that she belonged to him now in some way. As if the brief ecstasy she’d found with the man she loved had been only a show put on to tease Fin Ketles.
That possessive gaze swept her the moment they stepped into the corridor. His eyes settled on her breasts. “How beautiful you are, princess.”
She ignored him and continued on, needing no escort to find the chambers. Never had the ceremonial chambers been used in her lifetime, but it was one of her favorite rooms within the palace. There was the altar room where a ribbon would be tied around her hand, binding her to Wanieer. There was the large, open bedchamber with discreet nooks for the observers to sit in. None of those did she ever spend time in. Instead she always opened the doors to the enormous balcony. The palace had been built on a cliff overlooking Savadon’s busy bay, and on that balcony she could see so far north over the Illwind Sea, and so far south through the rolling hills. Her view west was obstructed by mountains, yet they were also so beautiful—and when the sun set, the snowy peaks were painted in such incredible hues of rose and gold.
Fin Ketles’ voice demanded her attention again. “I will be one of the observers tonight,” he said gleefully. “So this will be the second time I see you fucked.”
Jaw set, Jalisa heard nothing. He was nothing.
“Or perhaps I won’t,” the advisor smirked. “I do not know that your groom will be able to complete this consummation. No woman—or man—has yet been able to get a rise from him. So perhaps your father will have me take his place.”