Unleashed (The Pirate & Her Princess Book 3), page 1
UNLEASHED
ALLI TEMPLE
CONTENTS
Dedication
Content Warnings
1. Lou
2. George
3. Lou
4. George
5. Lou
6. George
7. George
8. George
9. Lou
10. George
11. George
12. George
13. Lou
14. Lou
15. George
16. Lou
17. George
18. Lou
19. George
20. Lou
21. George
22. Lou
23. George
24. Lou
Epilogue: George
Acknowledgments
LGBTQ+ Fantasy By Alli Temple
Contemporary Romances By Allison Temple
About the Author
Copyright © 2023 by Alli Temple
Unleashed
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-990719-01-1 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-990719-04-2 (paperback)
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design is for illustrative purposes only, and any person(s) featured is a model.
Cover Design: Cate Ashwood Designs
Developmental Editing:Jen Graybeal, Jen Graybeal Author Services
Copy Editing: Adam Mongaya, Tessera Editorial
Proofreading: Lori Parks, LesCourt Author Services
For Dad.
Thanks for the magazine. Pirates are awesome.
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Content warnings: This book is a fantasy pirate adventure that takes place in a fictional world resembling a historical Earth. It contains the usual levels of piratical violence, consistent with that depicted in Uncharted and Unbroken. For additional information, visit the Content Warnings page.
1
LOU
“If you rub that any harder, we’ll have to cover your eye with a patch.”
I started at the familiar voice as Maro settled into the chair beside me. For a moment, I forgot about the eye I’d been rubbing for the better part of the last five minutes. I had no doubt the entire left side of my face must be puffy and red, but whatever flake of grit or dust had settled under my eyelid was still there, making tears stream over my cheek.
“Might as well get me a stumpy leg and knock out a few of my teeth to complete the look,” I grumbled. “It’s what everyone expects, anyway.”
The reception hall in the Vestrian palace, with its high ceilings, and hung with the banners of Queen Cheray’s court. The space could have held hundreds, and while it was far from full, enough people were gathered that more than half of the chairs set out in the gallery were occupied, and strangers had no doubt been forced to sit next to each other. Yet the chairs nearest to me on all sides, and even the rows in front and behind of me, were empty. The crown had proclaimed us honored guests, but most of the nobles who had come to see the spectacle, as well as the foreign delegations, still gave me a wide berth. They whispered amongst themselves. Captain Cinder. I hadn’t gone out of my way to hide my identity, but sometimes, I wondered if my presence was more help than hindrance.
“We’ve lost everything,” the man on the reception room floor was saying. He was old enough to be my father, and while his severe dark clothes and wide vowels identified him as Redmerian like my father, the straightness of his shoulders and the way he filled out his coat said he had never known hunger or struggle the way my father had. “The duke forced us from our home. He took everything we had. My sons were in the city, and both died of the fever in the spring.”
Murmured sympathy rippled from the people seated in the gallery. The man on the floor looked stricken, but my sympathy didn’t reach quite that far. He’d sailed into Hilltop Harbor two days ago, having paid passage on a merchant ship. With him, he brought three adult daughters and a somber wife, all dressed in heavy Redmerian cloaks and veils, and immediately demanded to see the queen. Once at the palace, he’d then furthered his demands by requesting an armada to sail to Redmere with him and reclaim what he had lost. Whatever tragedy he thought had befallen him, he had escaped relatively unscathed.
The same could not be said for everyone who had washed up on Vestria’s shores after escaping Redmere these days. Most were dead, drowned from overfull and makeshift boats. Others were nearly dead, having spent whatever they had left to buy passage from the unscrupulous who saw a business opportunity, without a thought of how they would feed themselves during the journey. Where the nobleman addressing the queen now had carried several trunks of belongings with him, these other unfortunates only had what remained on their backs.
“So it’s still going, then?” Maro asked. They stretched a booted foot in front of them, gently kicking a chair ahead of us out of place. A couple glances were sent our way as it scraped on the floor, but no one was brave enough to make eye contact for long.
“Still going,” I said, then sniffed, wincing at the mix of salt, tar, and unwashed bodies that wafted toward me. “Did you come straight from the harbor? You could have bathed, at least.”
“You’ve never complained before.” They inhaled exaggeratedly in my direction, then scowled. “You smell like a rose garden. It’s giving me a headache.”
Maybe that was where the irritation in my eye came from. The Vestrian servants had a habit of putting out a perfumed bath for us every morning, and today, I’d hoped the warm water would calm me before sitting through more negotiations. It had not, and perhaps even made things worse, as the strong scents made my head spin and eyes water.
“Your Majesty.” On the floor below, another old man stood, bowing deeply toward where Queen Cheray sat. He was even more well dressed than the Redmerian noble, in blue velvet with a wide-brimmed hat adorned with a long white feather.
“Lord Amphram,” I said to Maro. “The Divaran ambassador.”
They sighed heavily. “I don’t need their names. I already know what he’s going to say.”
So did I, and sure enough, he launched into a speech I’d heard twice this week about how Divar was sympathetic to the individual plights of Redmerians but couldn’t intervene on the business of a sovereign nation.
“King Kasra’s uncle was the brother of the last queen of Redmere,” he said, as if that explained everything, though the old queen had been dead years before I was born.
Queen Cheray didn’t need the plain circlet on her brow to let everyone know she, not pompous Amphram, was the one who held court in this room. She leveled him with a gaze that said she wasn’t here for another lesson on Divar’s family tree.
“I thought the queen of Redmere was here,” said another diplomat with a confused frown. I’d already forgotten his name. He had a fondness for guaram leaves that stained his lips brown and spoke with a whistle where the air escaped through a gap left by a missing tooth.
The room went silent. Even Maro caught their breath. Every gaze had shifted to the dark-haired woman who sat to Cheray’s left. And while I couldn’t do anything but look at her myself, even with my eyes closed, I would still have been able to see the way the corners of her mouth tightened, how her fingers gripped the arms of her chair a little harder under their scrutiny.
George cleared her throat and stood stiffly. Her hair was unbound and cascaded over the squared shoulders of her Vestrian jacket in soft waves.
“Redmere has no ruler. Only villains who will strip everything she has left. The number of people who have fled the country and the stories they carry with them should be evidence enough that nothing has changed,” she said.
Maro’s breathing resumed on the same exasperated sigh I was holding back. The room around us dissolved into confused mutters. The same questions every time. Who was George to make such accusations? How did she know the duke who had laid claim to Redmere’s throne was a villain? Had she spoken with him?
“So that’s still happening too?” Maro said.
“How was your trip?” I asked them, not willing to start new squabbles when the diplomats below were doing such a fine job.
Their annoyed glance was answer enough. “We got as far as Archidia, but no one had heard anything about a missing Redmerian princess.”
I nodded. “North, then. Sevnan. That’s all that’s left.”
“Or she doesn’t exist, and we’ve wasted all this time for nothing.”
Another argument that never ended. I kept my gaze trained on George as she and Lord Amphram circled each other verbally. George was always so compassionate, but her refusal to fully stand as the future leader of Redmere weakened her position.
“Allowing the new duke to systematically oppress women is unacceptable,” she was saying. “Redmere has a history of denying women basic rights, and the number of widows showing up on your doorstep is evidence that this continues under Duke Aubrey’s reign. They would rather leave everything than continue to live
under Redmere’s laws.”
“If it means that much to George, we should kill him,” Maro said casually, like they might have been talking about the weather or the price of cephyr oil. But several heads turned sharply in our direction, and I jabbed them in the ribs with an elbow.
“Not here,” I said, ignoring the way those seated closest to us seemed to lean a little farther away. Weapons weren’t permitted in the hall, but even the most oblivious had to know Maro and I each had a few knives hidden where the cursory searches of Vestrian guards wouldn’t find them.
“Fine.” They stood abruptly, and the smell of the sea poured from them in waves. I missed it. Hilltop was on the ocean, the air around us briny. But it wasn’t the same as the deep salt and sun scent that came from weeks and months free on open water. “I’ll speak with you later.”
The statement was a threat. Maro wouldn’t be ignored. On the floor, the Redmerian nobleman had started his tale of woe and loss again.
Finally, as my head began to droop, Cheray rose.
“We’ll end there for today,” she said. The relief that washed over the people gathered was palpable. George stood, remaining behind Cheray’s shoulder. She needed to step forward. No one would side with her if she remained in the background. But she wouldn’t listen to me. Not about this, anyway.
I hurried to the steps so that I could join her and Cheray as they exited the hall and made their way to a private sitting room guarded by two serious Vestrian soldiers. Once there, Cheray wiped a tired hand over her face as a servant brought cups of wine. George paced in a nervous circle, plucking at her bottom lip like she was thinking hard about something.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought Count Farnham would be more compelling.”
“He didn’t tell us anything the others don’t already know,” Cheray said. “The duke dispossessed most of the Redmerian aristocracy. They’re understandably upset about having their lands and influence stripped, but transitions of power happen all the time. No reason to intervene.”
“But the people. The women are still veiled. Their husbands die in the fever, leaving them with nothing.”
Cheray nodded. She knew the number of Redmerians coming into her country was increasing, as it was elsewhere.
“The refugees are hungry. Frightened. It’s never been a stable place to live. But if you can’t bring me real proof that there’s more than what’s already been happening for years going on behind Redmere’s borders, the most we can do is look after those who make their way to our doorstep.”
Once upon a time, Cheray had paraded us through the city like conquering heroes, but when we’d finally returned months later, instead of rebellion, she’d shut us inside dreary council chambers as the wheels of diplomacy ground out their slow pace.
“So much for taking back the kingdom,” I muttered to myself, though the thought came out louder than I meant it to, because Cheray sent me a narrow glare.
“If we’d acted in the months immediately after the prince’s death, there might have been a chance. But the duke’s control in the city has solidified, and there isn’t much for Redmere to offer the wider world that would motivate an invasion. Without someone to lead the charge . . .” Her gaze drifted to George, and some of her reproach faded, particularly when George looked away. Cheray knew what it meant to lead. She wouldn’t force George into it. Instead, when George didn’t answer, Cheray tipped her head back, stretching her arms overhead and turning her wrists in circles. She made a high sighing sound before it dropped lower into one of tired dread. “I have to eat dinner with awful Amphram again tonight. Will you join me? He talked for two hours last night about the price of cephyr oil and kept trying to hint at preferential rates for lingus root this year.”
“We’d be happy to,” George said with a dip of her chin, though I wasn’t sure Cheray’s invitation had included me. It would be better if it hadn’t. I’d rather polish all the brass on a decades’ old frigate than make small talk with people like Lord Amphram. And there was the issue of Maro. They wouldn’t wait to speak with me forever, and if they got too impatient, they were like as not to also show up uninvited at dinner and make more uncalled-for remarks about assassinations. The shock on Amphram’s face would be amusing enough, but it wouldn’t serve our purposes.
“We have to find the princess,” George said as we walked back to our rooms. “The duke’s claim to the throne is no more legitimate than mine would be. If we found Beverly’s sister, the others would have a reason to stand behind us.”
Like a shield, the way she stood behind Cheray?
I didn’t answer. Instead, I took her hand, giving it a squeeze as we made our way down the corridor. It wasn’t all bad here. We had an entire palace’s worth of security. A roof over our heads. More food than we could eat. And I could hold my princess’s hand whenever I wanted, because Vestrians didn’t care who you loved. Of course, we couldn’t stay here much longer. Even without the Redmerian question, I wouldn’t live beholden to someone else’s hospitality forever. But in some ways, the respite was worth it.
Unfortunately, that very same respite only lasted as long as the corridor, because when we closed our chamber door, a somber voice said, “We need a new plan.”
George yelped, and I had her tucked behind me while I drew a knife before I registered the dark shadow across the room was Maro.
“Are you trying to get stabbed?” I asked.
“Unless you’ve grown a third arm in my absence, I don’t think there’s much risk of that,” they said. And truly, George was gripping my arms so tightly that I wouldn’t have been able to fend off any attacker that wasn’t coming directly for my hip.
“What about privacy?” I asked, untangling myself and approaching Maro. “If you need a place to sleep, we can arrange that, but the advantage to life in the palace is we don’t all have to bunk together.” Feeling daring, I reached forward and patted their cheek. Maro’s eyes narrowed to slits as I smothered my laughter.
“Did you find Princess Evelyn?” George asked. “Did the intelligence that she’d gone to Archidia yield anything further?”
Maro curled their lip into a sneer. “I told you not to waste money on the Archidian lead. Any of the leads.” This was directed at me. The question of what to do with the riches from the ancient ship we’d found had been a sore spot between us. No doubt Maro would have preferred we use it to buy a country of our own and pay soldiers enough that no one would ever bother us again. Instead, George and I had used a large part of our portion paying spies and traders to follow rumors of Princess Evelyn’s existence in various corners of the world. So far, it had not been gold well spent, and I didn’t need Maro to remind me of that, so of course they said, “The people I spoke with hardly knew Redmere existed. They wouldn’t recognize a runaway princess if she strangled them with her veil.”
“Then it’s Sevnan,” George said. “That’s the only place left. If you—”
“This search is pointless. What will we do with her if we find her? Tie her to the throne? How do we get her there when you won’t let me go in and kill the duke? We should have done it months ago.”
Maro often accused me of being dramatic, but here, they were the one to take the mantle. Before I could say so, though, George let out an irritated growl.
“I told you before, the solution is not assassination. You can’t treat this like pirates anymore.”
“It’s always worked before,” they said with a shrug.
“Because we didn’t stay for the aftermath.” I ground my teeth, trying to head off the argument Maro and I had every time they returned to Hilltop without Prince Beverly’s lost sister in tow. Repetition. I was so tired of all this endless repetition.
