Before the navigator can answer, the boat dips and tilts to one side. Everyone screams in alarm, and then the sea-ogre hauls himself onto our already struggling boat.
The screams abruptly stop.
He’s terrifyingly huge. Water trails off his skin in rivulets, and his greenish body gleams despite the shadows of the cliffs. He’s got four big arms, two on each side of his body, and all of them thickly muscled and strong, with tiny fins along the backs and next to his wrists. His chest is massive, and he wears nothing but a loincloth made of some strange dark material. Criss-crossing his chest and along his waist are a few belts covered with what look like small knives, and I have no doubt he could tear us all apart with ease. He has the look of a predator to him.
The strange sea-ogre has no hair, just a large fin-like crest atop his head, and as he looks around at the ship, a membrane slides back from his gaze. He barely spares a glance in the direction of the captives and instead seems to be sizing up the soldiers.
I am too, and they’re not going to win if he picks a fight.
Instead, he gives a cruel smile and puts his large foot on the other side of the boat and shoves. The entire craft bobs again, and more of the women scream. “Stop that!” the captain yells, and the message is clear—we could sink at any moment. The sea-ogre has our lives in his hands, all four of them.
I want to laugh hysterically, because a few moments ago, I was in danger of being sold as a slave. Now I’m in danger of dying at the bottom of the ocean, because if he topples us, I’m still chained to everyone else, and I know they won’t be able to swim. I just know it.
The crest on his head flicks and he straightens, giving the captain a challenging look as if saying, well, what are you going to do about it?
“We didn’t realize this was your territory,” the captain says, his shoulders flung back and his chin in the air. “We are simply passing through.”
The sea-ogre crosses his arms over his chest. He glances back at the massive turtle as big as an island, blocking the strait, and then at the captain again, as if to point out that we are not going anywhere.
“We are at your mercy,” the captain says, his gaze on the foot still on the side of the boat, and I can’t help but notice how close to the water’s edge we are. A few more people on board and the ship would sink from the sheer weight of its passengers. The captain seems to be thinking along the same lines that I am—that greed is going to get us all killed—and he eyes the sea-ogre, standing tall. “We must pass through. Surely you see that we cannot turn our ship around. You have us pinned in place. Move your hamarii at once.”
The ogre puts one hand out, palm up.
Lady Dywan jumps to her feet, jerking on the rest of our chains. “I demand to be freed!” she cries. “I am the lady of Parness, stolen from my lands unlawfully—” She cuts off with a yelp as one of the soldiers brandishes a knife in her direction. “Idon’tbelonghere!”
She blurts the words out quickly and then thumps back into her seat near me, cringing away from the knife-wielding soldier.
I hold my breath, glancing at the sea-ogre to see what he’s going to do. Is he going to help Lady Dywan? Or barter with the enemy soldiers?
The sea-ogre gives the lady a dismissive look and then focuses on the captain again. He rubs his fingers together and then flattens his hand, his request the same. Pay me.
“Make a deal with him,” the navigator whispers.
The captain shoots him an ugly glare, but I know we’re all thinking it. Just pay the monster and let us through. But the captain? No. The captain has to think about it. He looks the ogre up and down, and after a long, terse moment, states, “Name your price. Surely we can pay you something.”
The sea-ogre lifts his foot off the side of the boat and stands at his full height, that strange crest of his drawing the eye. He says a single, ominous word.
“Bride.”
Chapter
Two
VALESSA
Bride?
Surely I didn’t hear him correctly? He wants a bride? I’ve heard of pirates taking food or weapons—or riches—from ships. But taking a woman?
The captain seems thrilled at this request, though. His face is suddenly wreathed in smiles. “We have a great many slaves taken from enemy lands. You can have your pick of them. Here.”
The captain points at the chained line I’m tied to—the dull slaves, the ones they think they won’t get much coin for. The sea-ogre narrows his eyes at the captain, as if realizing he’s being shown the rejects, and I wait for him to explode at him, to toss him overboard, to twist his neck with those huge, powerful arms of his.
Lady Dywan speaks up again. “Are you mad? No woman in her right mind would want to be the bride of a monster!”
And I suddenly realize how I can get off the boat. How I can get free of the future awaiting me in Sunswallow, where—if I’m lucky—I’ll get sold to a whorehouse.
So I raise my chained arms into the air and speak as loudly as I can. “I’ll do it!”
All eyes turn to me.
I realize my disguise is probably not doing me any favors. I’m filthy, with my hair in my face and my dress-waist moved up to make me look as unappealing as possible. I struggle to my feet —no easy task given that I’m chained to people on both sides and on a crowded boat—and while all are staring at me, I adjust my dress, lowering the hemline so my cleavage can be shown to its advantage and push my hair back. I’m not the greatest beauty in the land but I can be pretty when I smile, I’m told.
I smile brightly at the sea-ogre. “I’ll do it. I’ll be your wife.”
The captain is eyeing me—and my newly bountifully revealed breasts—and I can practically see the coins clinking in his head as my price just doubled. “Sit down, tart. The ogre gets to pick.”
“Yes, but I’m sure he’d want an eager bride,” I say in a cheery voice, giving the monster my most winning smile. “I’m very eager, and I’m also experienced. I know all about pleasuring sea-ogres.”
I might also be a bit of a liar.
The ogre just stares at me with hard, strange eyes. He hasn’t said a thing. My heart is racing with terror. If this doesn’t work, my fate is going to be worse than ever. I’m putting everything on this moment, just like Lady Dywan is. Unlike Lady Dywan, though, I’m willing to work with the enemy.
“Pleasuring sea-ogres?” the captain repeats, a sneer on his face. “You?”
“Me,” I agree, continuing to lie with audacity. “Look at me. I’m tall and strong, the perfect sort of woman for a sea-ogre. They like their women with a little meat on their bones, am I right?” And I give a sly wink. “Plus, I know all about the two-finger tease.”
It…sounds specific. Like something an insider might know. I figure either the ogre himself will call me out for the liar I am, or he’ll be intrigued enough by whatever a two-finger tease is and take me with him.
I would rather service one man—monstrous or not—than an entire brothel full of them. I would rather run off with the sea-ogre than end up at the bottom of the harbor with the rest of the slaves on this overloaded boat.
My father said that the gods smile upon those that make their own luck. I hope Vor of the Seas is watching because here I am, making luck. I just need one of the gods to smile upon me and nudge things in the right direction.