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  Pretty Bride

  Kati Wilde

  Contents

  Pretty Bride

  1. Aruk the Lost

  2. Jalisa the Spoiled

  3. Aruk the Fool

  4. Jalisa the Selfish

  5. Aruk the Wrecked

  6. Jalisa the Difficult

  7. Aruk the Fettered

  8. Jalisa the Bride

  9. Aruk the Unbound

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  The Dead Lands

  Newsletter

  Also by Kati Wilde

  To anyone who’s ever cut out a piece of themselves, trying to help someone else. I see you.

  Pretty Bride

  A Dead Lands Fantasy Romance

  As keeper of a sacred oath, Aruk allows nothing to tempt him away from his duty. Not gold, not women, not power. So when the barbarian warrior is marooned in the middle of the ocean, his only thought is of escaping the island paradise and continuing his quest.

  Until a pretty princess washes up onto the beach. Spoiled and disobedient, Jalisa should have been easy to resist. But when Aruk discovers the secrets concealed by her beautiful smile, he’ll have to decide between his duty and his heart…

  1

  Aruk the Lost

  Here we are again, in the midst of five tales about pretty women—some in rags, some with riches—who are called virgin, human, daring, and prize.

  Now comes the pretty bride.

  The time is anotherwhen, a date unknown but only two nights before a fateful storm; the place is anotherwhere, a world unnamed but on the southern shore of the Illwind Sea. And this story begins, as many stories do, with a desperate princess wearing a smile that she doesn’t feel, and a barbarian warrior too preoccupied by his long, hard sword to perceive what she conceals.

  Only magic can pierce a guarded woman’s skilled illusion, and our barbarian warrior is no sorcerer. Fear not, however, that this tale will end unhappily. Our hero has a skull as thick as his sword, but his heart burns bright and true.

  And although love sometimes makes us bleed…it is powerful magic, too.

  * * *

  Savadon

  “I see Mara ahead.” Sheer relief filled Strax’s voice. “She is making her way past that fishmonger’s stall.”

  Trying to make her way. Aruk saw her now, a slim figure with dark hair. Crowds packed these streets so tightly, she was forced to wedge herself between the people standing in her way. A small woman she was, so it ought have been easy for her to slip through, but the saddle she carried and the pack slung over her shoulder prevented easy passage.

  No such trouble did Aruk and his brother have. They stood head and shoulders above everyone around them, muscles hardened by years of hiring out their swords. People made room for the brothers, even when there was no room to make.

  “Call out to her,” Strax said.

  “Has your voice broken?”

  “If I do, she will not wait for us.”

  That was truth. If Strax called her name, Mara might push harder through the crowd to get away from him. He’d made a quick enemy of her three weeks past, at the start of the tournament to retrieve Khides’ gauntlet, by telling her that she wouldn’t last a week on the difficult route—especially as her competition were all experienced warriors, and she an unskilled noblewoman.

  Aruk had thought the same, yet he’d had the brains not to say it.

  And in the past weeks, Mara had proved herself far more capable than either brother had expected. But if ever Aruk looked at a woman in the same yearning and hopeless way his brother looked at Mara of Aremond, he prayed some kind soul would take pity on him and run his heart through with a sword.

  A fine woman Mara was. Yet never could his brother have her—as Strax knew well. Mara believed Strax and Aruk were contestants in this tournament, as she was. In truth, they were bound by a blood obligation to prevent anyone from claiming the prize. In the end, all the obstacles she faced and all the sacrifices she made would be for nothing. For certain, she would hate them then.

  Or she would hate Aruk then. Strax, she already did.

  But from the moment Strax had clapped eyes on her, his heart had been ensnared. And there were but two ways for Aruk to watch Strax’s helpless tumble into love—with his heart sore and aching for his brother, or with amusement and laughter as Strax twisted himself into knots.

  Aruk always chose amusement. “For what purpose should we tell her to wait? We know where she goes.”

  To the docks, as they did. The tournament map clearly marked the route from Aremond, where the contest had begun, to Khides’ Keep, which would take at least six months of hard travel to reach. They were in Savadon now, a kingdom that served as the only port along the southern coast of the Illwind Sea. From here they would sail to the northern coast.

  Frustration marked Strax’s voice as Mara slipped out of sight, swallowed up again by the crowd. “She might find passage on a different ship.”

  And Strax would not see her again until they landed on the northern shore. Weeks of agony his brother might suffer. So Aruk would amuse himself a little longer.

  “She likely will, anyway. A noblewoman such as she will hire a ship we cannot afford.” And had probably not needed to sell her horse, as they had. She could have afforded passage for it, as well. But finding a ship that could also board a horse might take more time, and it was easy enough to buy another mount on the north shore.

  “Call to her!” Strax snarled.

  Grinning, Aruk shouted over the crowd, “Mara of Aremond! Hold where you are, and my brother and I will hasten your path to the docks!”

  Nothing would tempt her more than going faster. This tournament was a race, and she lagged far behind the other contestants.

  Strax surged ahead, forging a path through the crowd. A laughing Aruk followed in his wake. Quickly his brother was upon her, hauling the burden of the saddle from her grip and snarling, “If you cannot even push your way through a crowd, how will you have strength enough to climb the Skull Cliffs?”

  “By eating the hearts of my enemies,” she snapped back. “Though I think yours might taste like piss.”

  “More likely troll dung,” Aruk said. “Fresh and steaming.”

  Strax growled at both of them.

  Mara held out her hand in clear demand. “Give back to me the saddle. I can carry it.”

  “You wish to go faster? Then I will carry it. Follow close behind Aruk as he makes a path.”

  And with Strax close behind Mara. The besotted, cursed fool. Aruk glanced back once to see his brother bending his face nearer to Mara’s hair, as if to catch her scent, eyes closing in a mix of agony and ecstasy when he breathed her in.

  She ignored Strax utterly. Around them, the crowd grew restless as trumpets sounded in the distance.

  She tapped his shoulder, voice lifted over the din. “The horse dealer said the primary route to the docks will be near impassable, and to cut through to the lower street after we pass through the main square.”

  Aruk nodded. “What is this celebration?”

  “Savadon’s princess has come of age, so they are gathered for a parade.”

  A parade for which the entire kingdom seemed to have turned out. “A popular princess she must be.”

  “I do not know about that,” came Mara’s wry reply. “In short time, I have heard her called spoiled and selfish and difficult. So I suspect they truly gather because gold coins were minted with her likeness, and as part of the celebration, they will be tossed into the crowd.”

  “They toss gold at the crowd? Then I might also linger for a glimpse of this princess, spoiled and difficult though she is.”

  Mara laughed. “I have seen your purse. You are not so desperate for coins.” />
  “But we will not hire out our swords while seeking the gauntlet,” he said to her. “So there will be many coins leaving that purse and none going in. What sort of selfish princess tosses away gold?”

  “I do not know that she is truly selfish. That is only what was said—and not much weight would I give to such words. Spoiled, she might be. Many princesses are. But I have known too many women who were called selfish and difficult, simply because those women did as they liked without regard for the opinions of those who would have her behave in a manner better suited to their own interests.”

  “I think you might have been called difficult a time or two.”

  “So I have.” She sounded amused. “Though by that measure, I am not nearly as difficult as a barbarian from the Dead Lands.”

  As he and Strax were. “You think we only do as we like?”

  “I think that you are so big that even if you were selfish and spoiled, never would I have the courage to say so aloud.”

  Aruk laughed, for that was a clear lie. She had courage enough to say anything to warriors of his size. Had she not just threatened to eat his brother’s heart? Though there was nothing left of it that she had not already consumed.

  The trumpets sounded again, nearer. The crowd surged, breaking around Aruk as a stream broke around a rock. Mara staggered into his back.

  Her sharp protest sounded, then his brother’s gruff, “Quiet, woman. When they begin throwing coins, you’ll be trampled by the mob. I’ll set you down again when we are clear of the crowd.”

  It was not coins yet, but the parade—mounted soldiers riding two abreast, banners flying, and those at the front shouting for everyone to make way. The crowd surged again, parting to clear a path through the street. The press of people around him became a tight crush, as they jostled for position and shoved closer together. On opposite side, he saw a woman stumble against another and disappear.

  This was madness. Pushing forward, he threw back to Strax, “Get Mara away from this. I will meet you at the docks.”

  With Mara cradled against his chest, his brother gave a short nod and pressed on.

  Aruk broke through the line and into the cleared street, paying no heed to the mounted soldier shouting at him to make way. Into the crowd on the opposite side he shoved, gaze locked on where the woman had fallen. With sheer muscle, a path he made and dragged the woman up to her feet.

  “Are you hurt? Shall I carry you out?”

  Crying, the woman shook her head. “I wish to see our princess. A great beauty she is said to be.”

  This woman risked her life in this crowd to see a princess’s beauty? At least the gold was worth something.

  He made certain she was steady before pushing back toward the street. At the front of the crowd he was forced to wait by the passing parade. Mounted soldier after mounted soldier, then the princess herself, riding a white mare.

  And a beauty she was indeed. A gold circlet crowned black curls that tumbled over her shoulders in waves. Dainty features she had, from the arch of her brows to her pretty little nose and delicate chin. Her pink lips curved into a sweet smile that never faltered as she waved to the crowd shouting her name.

  Princess Jalisa. Who smiled and smiled and smiled as she rode past Aruk, her eyes meeting his for a brief moment before swinging sharply back. Her gaze ran down his length and the smile vanished, revealing the fullness of her mouth in the instant before her lips pressed into a thin line.

  Reining her horse around, she stopped before Aruk, regarding him imperiously from the height of her saddle. Abruptly the shouts from the crowd quieted.

  “Have you no respect for a royal princess, barbarian,” she said in haughty voice, “that you arrive bare to my parade and flaunt yourself before me?”

  Aruk was not bare. He wore boots and a sword and a ragged length of homespun weave tied around his hips that covered him to his knees, for it had been a cursed hot day.

  And he had not much respect for royal princesses, but he had a little respect for the number of mounted soldiers who’d preceded her.

  Though perhaps only very little.

  “Forgive me, princess. What bare part of me offends you most? I will cover it now.”

  “Your chest.”

  With a nod, Aruk began to untie the knot at his hip.

  A frown creased her brow. “What are you doing?”

  “I have only enough cloth to cover my bottom or my top, your highness. But as it is my chest that most offends you, I hope you’ll forgive me when I flaunt my cock.”

  Her mouth dropped open. And a very pretty mouth it was. Pretty enough that the cock he was soon to flaunt began to stir.

  Or perhaps what stirred him was not her mouth at all, but what came out of it. For her eyes narrowed and she said, “I will give you a small napkin to cover it, too.”

  Aruk laughed. “I would be grateful, your highness.”

  The crowd murmured and jostled again as she gracefully dismounted. A gossamer cape she wore over a dress of white silk, and that cape’s golden clips she unfastened as she approached.

  Though not near to Aruk’s height, a tall woman she was, with the top of her head on level with his chin. A soft perfume reached him, a scent both sharp as a lemon and sweet as its blossom.

  She crooked her finger, and obediently he bent his head. That scent spun around him as she draped the cape over his left shoulder, and the warmth of her fingers as she smoothed it into place crosswise over his chest filled his cock with answering heat.

  Clipping the cape closed beneath his right arm, she placed her palm against his ribs and softly said, “Keep this glowing mark on your skin concealed, or you will find yourself in chains.”

  The ward that protected him from spells. Most people from these realms did not even recognize what it was. “Why?”

  She gave him no reason, but pressed a heavy coin into his palm. “With this you may purchase swift passage upon any ship you choose. Leave this kingdom as quickly as you can. All from the Dead Lands must stay away.”

  “Why?” he asked again.

  She looked to him in exasperation, as if unused to being questioned. “Perhaps because you are conquerers and butcherers who kill kings and steal thrones.”

  “Only from tyrants. Is that what you fear—that I’ll steal your throne? Be not a tyrant, then.”

  Dryly she said, “I only fear that you’ll inspire others to tear off their clothes.”

  He grinned. “I should like to inspire that in you, princess.”

  Her lips quirked slightly, but she only stepped back and swiftly mounted her horse. “Let me never see you again, warrior.”

  “You will not,” he told her—for it was likely true. His duty and blood obligation had demanded that he sail away from here long before she made the same demand. And a long journey lay ahead. No thought did he have of returning.

  Without looking back, she rode away from him, continuing her parade down the street. Easy then it should have been to leave. But he watched until she was out of sight.

  Then Aruk did what his duty demanded. As dark clouds gathered over the Illwind Sea, he sailed away from Savadon.

  And two days later, he was lost to the waves.

  2

  Jalisa the Spoiled

  The Smoking Islands

  Six months later…

  Salt water splashed into Jalisa’s mouth as she fell yet again, struggling to drag the dinghy onto the sand. A small wave broke behind the stern and assisted her next heave, and when the water receded the boat did not go with it. Onto the beach she collapsed and breathlessly laughed, exhausted and sunburned and free.

  Only free would she be for a short time. Yet even temporary freedom was so sweet.

  Climbing to her feet, she secured the dinghy’s rope around the trunk of a palm tree, then looked out to where her ship was anchored beyond the mouth of the cove. Not a breeze stirred through the canvas sails—nor would it, until she returned.

  Turning away from the water, she tr
udged through the soft, shifting sands. Only dawn it was, so the sun had not yet warmed the beach to burn her feet. Water dripped down her bare legs. She had abandoned her long, tangling skirts her first day upon the sea. The sleeveless silk shift she wore now had soaked through, and she might as well have been naked. Her hair was in a salty, ratty tangle. Her lips were chapped and nose peeling. And the finest part of it all was that there was no one to see, no one to care that Jalisa wasn’t the pretty princess she was supposed to be.

  Soon she would have to make herself into a pretty bride. But not yet.

  She consulted the map of the island that her handmaid’s brother, Bashir, had sketched into parchment almost a year past. A volcanic peak towered ahead, the steep sides covered in lush vegetation. The hut that stored all of her provisions lay at the western end of this cove, at the base of that mountain.

  In no other way could she have stocked away so many supplies without being found out, except to have almost nothing to do with the process. As her coming of age day neared, Bashir had stored enough dried food to last a voyage to the western shore. Then for six months, it had waited here for her, because her father had not tried to marry her off as quickly as she’d expected him to.

  Then two months ago, Prince Wanieer had arrived, as odious as could be. Almost as odious as her father’s advisor, Fin Ketles, whose leering attentions had begun with the first budding of her breasts. So it became time to flee. Marriage still awaited her, but at least it would be a husband of her choosing.

  The hut stood precisely where the map claimed it would be. After six months of neglect—and particularly since a savage storm had blown across the Illwind Sea a few days after she’d come of age—she had expected more disrepair. The thatched roof caved in, perhaps. Or a wall blown down, the door hanging open. She had prepared herself to find at least some of her goods spoiled by moisture or rummaged through by animals, yet the hut appeared intact.