Page 50 of Ruthless Scoundrel
Desperate.
Evil.
Like my mother.
He breathes heavily through his nose as he watches me. “What will happen when they take you home? Do you think they’ll return you to the safety of your rebellion?”
His words cut through my rage.
They’ll take me back to the queen.
I’d be trading one prison for another, but hers will undoubtedly end in my death.
“And what if they don’t take you home? What if Wolfsheim would like another Fynish princess?”
We’d been at war with Wolfsheim for decades before the tentative peace was struck just twenty years ago. Twenty years is not long enough to forget what we’ve done to each other over the half-century of bloody war.
“We’re coming!” the men behind me shout, getting closer by the second.
Jasper’s eyes glimmer with opal light. “Think, Rei. Who’s the worse captor? Is this really your best chance for escape?”
Fuck. He’s right.
“Please stop burning my cock now, princess, or they might get the wrong idea about who we are to each other,” he says, nodding to the boat over my shoulder.
I release him and he groans in relief. I wipe my hands off on his pants and then pull on my arms, but he holds me still.
“You’re my bounty, Amaya, and I’m not going to let anyone have you.”
I scowl at him and he grins. Before I can ask just what the hell he’s playing at, the rowboat pulls alongside us.
“Ho there! What happened?” a man with a scruffy red beard asks in heavily accented Fynish as he throws us a rope with a loop at the end.
Jasper catches it and holds tight as the other men in the boat pull our raft closer. “We were shipwrecked on our way to Illya. I’m returning this fugitive to the king and queen for punishment.”
I want to fight him, and argue, and escape—but he’s right. His stupid reasoning and logic. The likelihood that I would be able to get back to my rebellion with these men is lower than if I wait it out and come up with something else, some other way to escape him.
He wants me to play, I’ll fucking play.
“Get fucked, you bastard son of a whore,” I say, then spit in Jasper’s face. He looks at me with wild amusement as he wipes it away.
“She’s a vicious one, and mighty powerful. Don’t let her get these manacles off,” Jasper says as he holds up my chained hands.
“Understood, sir,” the bearded man says. “Lucky we found you. Storm’s comin’ in soon.”
One of the other sailors grabs onto our raft, and Jasper holds my waist as he passes me into the boat. There’s not much space, so I end up sitting on the floor between Jasper’s legs. I consider biting him, show them all just how vicious I can be, but I can’t muster the energy to care.
I need a meal, a proper one, and a bed. Given the size of this town, there’s likely to be both here. I’m not sure how Jasper intends to pay for anything, but I have to trust he has it in hand—I don’t have another option.
“Is there somewhere we can rest and coordinate safe passage?” Jasper asks Red Beard.
“There’re a few taverns for the merchant vessels in the lower city—but I’d warn you not to go into the upper village. The miners are protective of their homes.”
Curiosity eats at me, but I know that after my show moments ago, I can’t pull off the switch in behavior and keep things believable. I glare up at Jasper. He quirks an eyebrow at me, then sighs and rolls his eyes.
“Why so secretive?” he asks with barely veiled boredom.
“They don’t ever show themselves, but the rumors are…” Red Beard leans in conspiratorially and whispers, “They’re eksteinvas.”
