Page 51 of Settle Down, Princess

“I’ll give you anything…” the man babbled in between screeching sobs. “I’ve got gold.” He nodded to the bag he’d taken from me, but they just watched as the coins spilled on the ground. “There’s more further back in the cave, jewels as well.” He then looked past them to where I remained bound. “Furs for the lady—”

“Don’t fucking look at her.” And to drive his point home, Roan stabbed his sword into the man’s shoulder joint, staring into his eyes as he pushed it home.

“If you do, I’ll be forced to cut out your eyes.” Silas let his knife come to rest just under the man’s socket. “Before the ravens eat them.”

“So you…?” I liked the frantic way he looked from one man to the other. “There’s no way…?”

“The minute you took Jessalyn from us was the moment you signed your own death warrant,” Arik said, tossing his sword to his other hand. Then, using a reverse grip, he cut the man’s head from his shoulders in one sharp swipe.

“No…!” A high, almost girlish shriek drew our attention to where Creed stood with Rion kicking in his grip. “No, please, I didn’t—”

“You tried to take her from me,” Creed growled, his voice so deep and rumbly it echoed all around the cave. “You tried to take my mate!”

“I didn’t know! Please, sir, I’m begging—”

“No one that walks this earth will ever take my mate from me again.”

Creed consecrated his vow in blood, breaking Rion’s neck with a negligent snap before letting his body fall to the ground.

And then he turned to face me.

I’d thought Arik, Roan, and Silas beautiful, each in his own way, but as I ran my eyes over Creed’s body, I felt like none of them had anything on him. He was a big man—so much bigger than me—even in his purely human form, but, as I stood in front of him in his wolf-man form, I felt even more tiny and insignificant. Those massive arms, bulging with muscle, captured my attention first, then those savage claws that I knew could touch me so tenderly, but there was much more than that. The night we’d all met had been the first time I’d seen a naked man, but I’d been half out of my mind on roseblood and the differences between their bodies and mine hadn’t really sunk in. Now, my eyes were drawn to the heavy, pendulous weight between Creed’s legs and how it jerked as I took him in. He let out a low growl and stalked towards me with claws outstretched to slash through my bonds.

Then Arik stepped in his way.

“The princess tried to run from us.” His voice was sinuous as a snake’s, and it cut through the bestial haze Creed was caught in. “I think we need to make a few things clear. That she belongs to us.” The light in Creed’s eyes flared brighter as he studied Arik’s face. “And that if she tries to run away, she will be punished.”

I tried to yank against the rope, testing the knot that kept my arms high above me. But as I wriggled, twisted, and pulled, the rope tightened around my wrists.

“Punish me?” I stammered out, trying for a strident tone and failing utterly. “I just escaped a wicked plan to kidnap me and do… the gods know what.”

“Wicked plan?” Silas’ eyes slid down my body, taking in the way it was pulled taut by the rope above me. He flicked his wrist and a knife sliced through the bindings at my ankles before he smiled. “Oh, Princess, the wickedness has only just started.”

Chapter 29

Arik

“Let me down!” Jessalyn twisted against the ropes to no avail. While these bandits had been pathetically unprepared for a real fight, they seemed to have been terribly adept at tying up women. Which just made the rage I was trying to hold back flare hotter. I tried to tell myself it was the roseblood, but I knew better. The thought of that knife against her neck, that bastard bandit’s hands on her, doing her harm and ready to do more… I shook my head, trying to dislodge the red haze of anger. She stopped pulling at her bindings and turned to face me. “You’ve had your fun, now—”

“Have we?” I stepped closer, allowing myself the small luxury of sliding my eyes down her nubile little body. I planted my feet wide before I turned to the others. “Hmm... There was a little fighting, a little blood, but would I consider it fun?”

“Needs to be a lot more blood to make me happy.” I saw the look in Silas’ eyes and that gave me pause. They glittered like green jewels, lit from within by a light I didn’t often like to see. He grinned then, all teeth. “A lot more.”

“And it would have helped if you’d found better captors.” Roan cast a disgruntled glance at the bodies in the cave, then his eyes slid sideways when he saw one of the bandits twitch. He strode over and stabbing his broadsword into the man’s spine. The prick didn’t move again and never would. “I barely even broke a sweat.”

“We did get terribly hot though, back in the inn.” I stepped closer, feeling the evidence of it still in my blood. One of the names for roseblood was the red tide, and I felt it again. Just as powerful, just as inexorable as the pull of the waves, I could feel the heat radiating off my skin. “Know anything about that, Princess?”

Where she’d been all fire and defiance moments ago, that now faltered. I didn’t necessarily like to see the change. When she was irritated, Jessalyn’s cheek’s flushed and her eyes sparked in a very distracting way.

Which was perhaps why I worked so hard to annoy her constantly.

But while she sagged on the rope for a second, she rallied again quickly. Her chin tilted up and she stared at me down her nose as she answered.

“I was trying to get away!” She tugged against the rope as if in emphasis. “I won’t go to the capital to become the next casualty of your king. I don’t want to die…!”

Fuck. I watched her brows crease as she choked up and then her eyes begin to shine as she blinked back tears. Something in me broke when her voice did because she was acknowledging the thing we were all been trying so hard to ignore: that my men and I had been tasked to take her to her death; that she would not sit on the Emerald Throne for more than a few months before the king killed Jessalyn. I took an involuntary step towards her, but Creed showed no such reticence as he stormed forward, desperate to take her in his arms, to free her.

But I couldn’t allow that to happen, not yet.

---