Page 61 of Ruthless Scoundrel
The captain closes the door behind her without waiting for my reply. Why the hell is she suddenly so willing to bend for us? Could she too be part of this Fynish rebellion? Could she be wanting to see the fall of the queen and her empire for another reason?
Who the fuck is Captain Alejandra?
Chapter eighteen
Reina
Soft orange light slips through my lashes as I blink awake. Everything is hazy. My vision, and my memory.
A gentle caress across the bottom of my foot sends a surge of adrenaline through me and I jolt upright. Jasper is sitting at the end of a bed that’s not ours, his thumbs massaging the bottoms of my feet as his opal magic twines around them.
“You ought to stop doing that,” he says.
“I’ll never stop running from you.”
He chuffs. “No, passing out in my arms. One might think you trust me or something.”
I jerk my feet back and pull my knees into my chest.
Jasper sighs, dropping his hands to his lap. “I wasn’t done yet.”
“What were you even doing?Selkiemagic?” I snap.
He rolls his eyes. “I was healing you.”
What?
He must read the scowl on my face because he follows up with, “You never asked me whether I was capable of healing, just if I could heal myself in that moment, and the answer was no. I was too magically drained.”
I glare at him as I process this.
He’s not justsomeselkie, then. He’s royal blood, high magus. And he’s captured a princess of royal blood.
I narrow my eyes, my voice coming out in a whisper. “You’re not stealing me to beyourqueen, are you?”
His face lights up with amusement. “Is that what you’re imagining?”
“Be serious, Jasper,” I say, my skin flaring blue. “Why have you taken me?”
His smile leaks away and he takes a deep breath. I give him time, despite wanting to shout at him to answer me right this second. I feel as though I may havefinallybroken through that shell of his, and I don’t want him to pull back into it. I want the truth.
He glances over his shoulder, then leans in. “I can’t tell you here, but I swear by all the gods Iwillonce we get to Illya.”
There’s an earnest pleading in his eyes, one that I’ve never seen. He does want to tell me, but he’s worried about who might overhear, especially because we’re in someone else’s room—someone with a lot more money than us.
“Where are we?”
“Captain Alejandra’s room. She is granting us passage.”
“At what price?” I ask, knowing he’d smelted down my tiara and we would have limited funds from it.
He shrugs but doesn’t meet my gaze. “A gold coin.”
With the amount of leverage the captain would have over us—this being a tiny speck of an island seemingly Wol-controlled—one gold does not sound like enough.
“And?” I stretch the word out, elongating it to let him know I know there’s an “and” he’s not telling me.
“I had to…” He trails off, looking away from me.
