Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
At that Aerik turns to look at her, giving her a cold look. “Yes, that is an issue with her.”
Finally she raises her head to look at him, fire in her eyes. Her hair moves back just enough for me to glimpse purple bruises along her cheekbone and edge of her eye. I know I was rough with her last night but I’d never hit a woman. It might be expected, especially among pirates, but I find it to be rather a sloppy and inelegant show of violence.
“What’s this?” I ask, peering at her. “What happened to your face?”
She wiggles her jaw together and avoids my eyes.
“She must have hit her face on the bars in the night,” the prince says, and I immediately know it was him that did this to her. I feel a twang of guilt in my gut, a feeling that I’ve felt less and less over the years.
“She’s clumsy like that,” he adds, tone more spiteful now. “Like a graceless newborn foal.”
The last thing I want or need is to complicate the matter and get involved in whatever marital trouble they seem to be having, and yet there’s a part of me that thinks I need to get the princess alone for a bit. I need to investigate this further, because if this weaselly prince is a danger to her in any way, then I’ll be losing a valuable asset.
“I’m going to open the door,” I say, taking out my keys. “Either of you try anything, I’ll remove your head. You get that?”
I spring the lock and open the door, quickly reaching down to grab the princess by the arm. As I’m pulling her up, the prince makes a go for the door, as I knew he would. In a blink of an eye I have the princess pulled tight against my side and with my other hand I remove my dagger from my holster and push the prince back. I pin him against the bars, tip of the blade pressed up against his chin.
“I told you I’d remove your head,” I tell him roughly, leaning in close so he can see the wildness in my eyes. “Might cut off a few pieces of your face first. With your fine royal breeding, you’d make a bloody good snack.”
He growls at me, a pathetic mewling and I push him back before swiftly exiting the cell, pushing the princess out of it and to the floor while I lock it. Aerik launches himself at the door but it’s too late.
“I’ll come back later,” I tell him, hauling the princess to her feet again. “If you behave, I might bring you some water. It might even be clean.”
I take her out of the room, keeping the door open. If any of my crew feel like tormenting the prince a bit, I’d look the other way.
“Where are you taking me?” the princess asks impatiently.
“Ah, she speaks again,” I say to her as I pull her toward the stairs. “First we’re going to get some fresh air and I’m going to ask the crew if they had anything to do with your black eye there.”
I glance back at her and she clamps her lips shut, looking away so that her hair falls over her eye.
“Unless,” I go on, “you want to tell me it was your husband.”
I know that no one on the crew would manhandle her like that (other than Sterling, but his impact packs more of a wallop, so to speak), but I want to hear her admit that it was Prince Aerik.
She still doesn’t say anything as I pull her up the stairs, passing through the main deck where I can hear some of the crew stirring from their quarters at the foredeck, and the smell of fresh coffee is now wafting from the galley. The princess makes an agreeable sound, almost like a moan that causes my cock to twitch, and I realize I might be able to use coffee as leverage with her. I save that information for later and continue to bring her up to the main deck.
The sun is bright, though there’s a haze in the air, cutting down its strength. Even though we’ve all spent years on this ship and many others, the sun is something that never ceases to be an annoyance. In my haste this morning I had forgotten my hat, so I’m squinting at the light as I bring the princess up to the quarterdeck and over to the helmsman.
“Princess, may I introduce you to Conner Benedict, our bosun, though you may wish to call him Crazy Eyes.”
Crazy Eyes look at her and widens his eyes so that the whites take over, leaning into his moniker. “Pleasure to meet you, Princess.”
She swallows. “How do you do,” she says unsurely, a greeting rather than a question.