Untouchable (Wolf Kings of Twilight Book 1), page 23
“I won’t give him a choice,” I say.
Vamir nods. “I believe you will keep your promise. Your words have the ring of truth in them.”
“Are your people able to tell a truth from a lie?” I ask.
“Most humans lie, even to themselves. It’s why my people could never trust yours.”
“What do you mean by that? Are you saying humans and fae have interacted before?”
“A long time ago, but that’s in a past that should be forgotten. I don’t wish to talk about it.” Vamir turns his gaze to something directly behind me. “It appears another boat is approaching. Are they friends of yours?”
I spin around to see what Vamir is referring to.
“Damn it,” Oliver says, also seeing Captain Castor’s ship heading our way. “I should have looked for that fool harder, but I swear I couldn’t find Alek anywhere before we left.”
“It should be all right,” I say. “Alek told me he contacted his father to let him know about his participation in the tournament.”
“Then why is his ship turning to aim its cannons at us?” Oliver asks in alarm.
I grab Vamir by the arm and yank him off the bench.
“Run!” I shout as I shove both him and Oliver to the back of the ferry.
We hear the scream of a cannon ball fly through the air right before it strikes the bow dead center. Simon and his pack race out of the ferry to see what’s going on just as another cannon strikes the bow again.
“We’re going down!” I yell. “Jump overboard before the ship takes us down with her!”
I look to Vamir. “Can you swim?”
“Like a fish,” he says before diving into the river.
Once Oliver follows him, I dive into the water too and swim over to the shoreline.
Everyone is able to make it off the ship and onto shore. No lives were lost, but the ferry boat sinks like a rock to the bottom of the Issip River. A few minutes later, the pirate ship sails by us. Its crew is cheering their success, but I wonder if Captain Caster understands the hell he just unleashed on his people by attacking not only one king but two.
“Ahoy, there!” Captain Caster says, waving his tricorn hat in the air at us like we’re old friends. “Looks like you’re stranded for a while there, King Damon! Pity that!”
The pirate crew gets a great laugh out of our misfortune.
“You’ve doomed yourself, Captain!” I call out. “This river isn’t big enough for you to hide from me now!”
“Oh-ho-ho!” The captain laughs. “Well, now. That might be true, but I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere anytime soon! It’ll be too late for you and yours once you catch up to us anyway!”
“What does he mean by that?” Oliver asks me.
I shake my head. “I’m not sure.”
I turn back to the captain before he’s sailed too far to hear me.
“What do you mean by that, Castor?” I shout.
The captain leans out over the railing of his ship to make sure I hear his next words.
“Alek has your girl! Ivy! I’m betting that son of mine will have her knocked up before the day is through!”
The laughter of the pirates lingers in the air as an anger I didn’t even know I possessed claws its way to the surface.
I knew I shouldn’t have left Ivy in Midnight. It wasn’t a ghost that was a threat to her. It was a man of flesh and blood. A man I thought I could trust not to harm her.
“What do we do now?” Oliver asks me.
“We hunt those bastards down and find Ivy,” I say, doing my best to keep the monster inside me just below the surface. “God help Alek if he touches a hair on her head. If he does, I’ll rip his heart out myself and stuff it down his father’s throat to choke on. They’ve messed with the wrong woman and the wrong king because I will make them pay for this one way or another.”
Epilogue
(Ivy’s Point of View)
I awaken with a start and sit straight up. That ended up being my first mistake. Pain wracks my body like someone hit me upside the head.
Oh, wait. Someone did. Alek, the bastard pirate!
I look at my surroundings and find myself in a room underneath the stern of what appears to be a large ship. I’m lying on a bed built into one wall of the ship. In the center of the room stands a long table with maps, books, and a compass laying on its surface. Through the windows, the sun shines through, telling me it has to be close to noon. At the foot of the bed is a leather outfit that looks like it’s meant for me to wear.
The door to the room opens, and Alek walks in carrying a tray of food and a bottle of wine. The smug smile on his face makes me want to slap it off. Despite my aching head, I leap from the bed and run toward him, but my attack is cut short when I feel the collar around my neck tighten as the leash it’s attached to snaps me back.
“Ha!” Alek places the tray on the table and closes the door behind him. “The castle was buzzing with a rumor that Damon was keeping you on a short leash in his bedroom. I thought since it was something you’re used to, it would be a good idea to keep you on something similar until you calm down.”
“Why are you doing this?” I demand to know. “You lost the tournament. You have no right to me. Damon will come for me and kill you, Alek. This is madness!”
Alek shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. He’ll have to find us first, and I wager that will take a while. He’s never gone out to sea before. He and Simon keep to their sides of the river, but they’ve never thought about traveling farther than that. The sea is a very large place, and they’ve never been to where we’re going. That much I can assure you.”
“I’ll kill myself before I let you lay a hand on me,” I promise.
“I hope not,” Alek says sincerely. “All I want to do is what both Damon and Simon want to do with you. Why should you look at me any different? I simply had the good sense to take what I wanted. Wouldn’t you rather have a man of action instead of pretty words?”
“I would rather have a man who has a moral bone in his body, and I don’t think that includes you.”
Alek grins. “In time, I think you’ll come to realize you’re meant to help my people. You and I are a lot alike, you know. My people have been shunned by those in Dawn and Midnight just like you have. We’re good, hard-working folk, and besides, aren’t you a thief? There’s no difference between you and me, Ivy. I dare say we make the perfect pair. The princess of the king of thieves and the prince of pirates. We’re not like those royals in their high towers. We know what it means to work for what we have.”
“I still won’t let you touch me,” I growl, pulling on the leash but seeing Alek took notes from what he heard at the castle and tied it around the foot of the bed.
“We’ll see,” he says, scooting the tray down the table so I can reach it. “In the meantime, why don’t you eat?”
“How do I know the food hasn’t been drugged?”
“You don’t,” he says with a shrug. “But I promise you it hasn’t. You can take my word for it or not. You’ll eat eventually. No one likes to starve. Besides, if I wanted to take advantage of you while you were sleeping, I could have done it a few hours ago.” Alek opens the door. “I brought you that outfit. It’ll be more comfortable on the ship than what you have on, but again, take it or leave it. That’s your decision to make. I’ll be back later to check on you. I still have a ship to run so I can make sure we get to where we’re going safely.”
Alek leaves the room and shuts the door, locking it behind him.
I sit back down on the bed and place my head in my hands.
How am I going to get out of this mess? What’s happening to Boris? Is he even still alive? And what will Damon do after he finds out what Alek has done?
I know exactly what he’ll do.
He’ll rip the ocean apart until he finds me, and God help anyone who tries to get in his way.
The End
AUTHOR’S NOTE
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NEXT FROM S.J. WEST
Pandora's Gift,
Pandora's Legacy Book 1
My name is El, and I live in a quiet southern town where the most exciting thing that happens is Friday night football and the Harvest Moon Festival. That is…until I learn that the three women who raised me have been lying to me all my life.
I thought I was an orphan. I thought my aunts loved and respected me enough to always tell me the truth.
I was wrong. Dead wrong.
A month before my eighteenth birthday the truth of my birth, of my whole existence, came crashing down all around me, destroying everything I thought I knew about my life. Not only is my mother alive, but she’s the mythical Pandora. You remember her. She’s the one who opened the box Zeus gave her and unleashed chaos into the world.
Supposedly, I’m the savior that three other worlds I didn’t even knew existed are counting on to rescue them. There’s just one problem. I can only save one of them.
A champion from each of these troubled worlds are coming to my home so I can choose one to marry. Whoever I pick, gets to not only save their world but also have me as their wife. The battle to win my heart won’t be easy for them, if my aunts have anything to say about it. They’ll all have to participate in a tournament that will challenge not only their physical strengths but also their ability to charm me into falling in love with them.
I don’t want this responsibility. I don’t want to save one world while dooming two others. There has to be a way out of all of this, but the evil forcing this choice on me…the one who has waited a millennium for me to finally come of age to participate in this game…is my own brother, and he won’t take no for an answer.
He’s chaos unleashed, and I’m the only one who can stop him.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Once upon a time, a little girl was born on a cold winter morning in the heart of Seoul, Korea. She was brought to America by her parents and raised in the Deep South where the words ma'am and y'all became an integrated part of her lexicon. She wrote her first novel at the age of eight and continued writing on and off during her teenage years. In college she studied biology and chemistry and finally combined the two by earning a master's degree in biochemistry.
After that she moved to Yankee land where she lived for four years working in a laboratory at Cornell University. Homesickness and snow aversion forced her back South where she lives in the land, which spawned Jim Henson, Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey, John Grisham and B.B. King.
After finding her Prince Charming, she gave birth to a wondrous baby girl and they all lived happily ever after.
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S. J. West, Untouchable (Wolf Kings of Twilight Book 1)
