Page 1 of The Sea-Ogre's Eager Bride

Chapter

One

VALESSA

It’s funny how the Lords of Fate work. One day, I’m in a slave pen, chained up with seven others and waiting to be sold the next morning. The next day, the woman that was going to sell me is chained up next to me on our captor’s ship.

And she isloud.

“This is an outrage!” Lady Dywan screeches as the slave chained to her left pukes on her gown. “I demand that I be treated as a lady!” She rattles her chains, determined to get to her feet, but one look at the slavemaster and Lady Dywan sits back down, a pout on her spoiled face. “I am anoblewoman. My husband is the Lord Ruler of Parness.”

One of the soldiers on the ship just laughs. “Youwerea noblewoman,” he says. “But Parness has fallen to Aventine, praise be to the Butcher God.” He makes a gesture on his chest, his fists closing over his heart as if he holds Aron the Battle God’saxe. “And now you’re just a slave. And since you’re an ugly slave past her prime, you’re chained up with that lot.”

He gestures at our group, and Lady Dywan sputters in outrage. He’s not wrong, though. Lady Dywan is bony and gray-haired. When the Aventine soldiers broke through the walls of Parness and sacked the city, they stole every woman and child that could walk and that might fetch a price in the Sunswallow slave markets. We’ve fared better than the men—those that were left were put to the sword. The Aventine soldiers looted and burned all of fair Parness, and loaded the newfound slaves onto their heavily laden ships. As they did, they sorted us into two groups—the pretty slaves and then the rest of us.

I’ve been through this before, and I know I don’t want to be with the pretty slaves. Even now, the men are touching them and flicking up their skirts, enjoying the women’s screams of outrage. Nope. In this particular instance, it’s far better to be ugly. So I’ve knotted up my thick curls and fixed a stupid look on my face. I’ve rubbed dirt on every bit of my exposed skin, and it looks terrible next to the bruises on my arms and legs. I hitch up my ill-fitting Parnessian tunic, which belts right under my very large breasts and makes me look as if I’m carrying even though I’m not. And I’m tall. Tall, dull, and pregnant? I’m not going to be bothered, not when there’s prettier girls nearby.

I should probably be more upset that I’ve been enslaved (again), but there’s a spiteful sort of pleasure in being chained up with the haughty Lady Dywan. She ruined my life. I guess it’s only fair that I get to watch hers be ruined, too.

Six years ago, my father’s farm on the outskirts of Parness was “claimed” by Lord Dywan. He needed my father’s funds to support his emptied coffers, and the war with Aventine was right at the city’s doorstep. My father refused…so Lord Dywan had my father killed and his only child—me—sold into slavery. Luckily, I was sold to an elderly man who wanted a kitchen wench, andI was happy to bake and cook for him. One of the other slaves—a kind man named Luseth— had purchased his freedom and offered to purchase mine so I could marry him. I wasn’t in love with Luseth, but a respectable wife instead of a slave is a much better living. I was hand-fasted to Luseth, only for him to be put on the front lines to defend Parness in the ongoing war.

Luseth didn’t last long.

Now, here I am, still a slave, but glad, at least, to see Lady Dywan suffering next to me. She and her husband have brought this awful war down on Parness, and now the city is destroyed, all its inhabitants decimated. I don’t even know what the war was about. Some sort of land dispute, but I’ve heard over and over that Lady Dywan is the one responsible. She wouldn’t let her husband call off the war, because she didn’t want to lose face. It was Lady Dywan’s greed that caused my father’s farm to be snatched, and Lady Dywan’s arrogance that made the war continue on and on and on.

So am I smug that she’s sitting next to me? A little.

It doesn’t change the fact that my status is still in danger. I’m still a slave. And I’ve got to figure out how to save my own hide so I don’t end up in the Sunswallow brothels for the rest of my days.

If an opportunity arises, I have to take it, no matter how terrified I am. This is a time to be brave and bold, because I might not get another chance. The last thing I want is to spend the next several years next to Lady Dywan in a whorehouse. So I edge closer to the water as the ship slices through the waves, and I twist my hands in the cuffs. If I can get free close to shore, I’m going to swim for it, I decide.

By the gods, if I get my hands free, even if we’re not close to shore, I’m still going to swim for it. I’d rather face the monsters of the sea than the ones on land. At least if they kill me, it’ll be quick.

So I sit on the heavily laden, crowded ship and I plot. I keep my ears pricked and I listen for any sort of opportunity. I’m not going to let these raiders decide my fate.

I’ve had enough of that sort of thing.

“Land!”one of the men cries.

I sit up straighter, my senses pricking with attention. The afternoon sun has been beating down upon us captives for hours on end, making the travel in the boat a miserable experience. Add in salt water, hunger, thirst and the endless weeping of the others and I’ve never been more miserable in my life, not even when I was enslaved the first time…and that’s saying a lot.

At least when I was first sold, I knew I wouldn’t be killed unless I misbehaved. A slave is valuable alive, not dead. But after watching the “pretty” slaves get fed food and water, and our group does not? I’m worried that they won’t feed the rest of us until we get to Sunswallow, and whoever lives gets sold. Whoever doesn’t probably gets tossed overboard. The situation just keeps getting worse and worse. I lick my dry lips and send a prayer to Vor, the God of the Seas.Help me survive this, I pray quietly. I have no offering to send to the depths at the moment, so I’ll have to hope he’s in a benevolent mood.I’ll sacrifice the biggest fish I can find if you help me find safety. Please, great Vor.

We sail into the shadow of a large cliff, cooling my overheated skin for the first time in hours. I breathe a sigh of relief and hope that’s a good sign. The gods are fickle, Vor especially so, but sometimes they help. I can only hope.

“What do you mean, land?” The captain pushes past the soldiers manning the oars of our long, flat boat and stridestoward the far end of the deck. “Of course there’s land. We’re hugging the shore because we’re too heavy.”

“No, I mean land on all sides.” The man gestures ahead, holding out his spyglass for the captain. “Look.”

I crane my neck, trying to look, too. We’re still passing the tall cliff in the middle of the water. A strait, someone called it a while ago. Land is on the other side, the cliffs just as high and forbidding. I could swim to shore if I wasn’t chained…not that there’s a shore. There’s just cliffs and more cliffs.

And between the two cliffs, up ahead blocking the way? Is something that looks like an island. It’s mostly flat with a gentle slope towards the center, and there it looks like a tent of some kind is set up, and a spindly tree right smack dab in the middle of the strange island. It doesn’t seem all that threatening to me.

As the captain raises the spyglass to his gaze, his man continues. “We’re trapped.”

“We can’t be trapped. This is open sea. This is…” He trails off as he squints into the spyglass. “Is that a turtle?”

“Ahamariiturtle,” the navigator agrees. “And Vor protect us, but it’s got a sea-ogre on its back.”

---