Wen Spencer - A Brothers price

“If I were you,” Cira called out to Kij from behind him, “I’d think long and hard before you walk down that road.”

“It’s a road we’ve walked before.” Kij raised her revolver. “A few more miles, and Queensland is ours.”

“Kill her and I will never be your husband!” Jerin growled. “You’ll have to keep me chained to a wall, because I’ll escape you every chance I get. I’ll tell anyone I see of the crimes you committed. You’ll have to rape me for my seed! You’ll have to raise our children alone.”

“Jerin, hush.” Cira caught his shoulders and started to push him aside. “Don’t give them cause to hurt you.”

Jerin dug in his heels, refusing to move out of the way. “Let her live, and I marry you willingly. I’ll stay by your side. I’ll pleasure you in bed, and I’ll take joy in our children. My word of honor.”

“She knows too much,” Kij explained to him gently, then made a shooing motion with her gun. “Move aside, Jerin.”

“Kij!” Kij’s sister Meza hissed. “Not in front of him. Frankly, I want a husband with a tongue.”

“Let’s keep our options open,” their sister Alissa added.

Kij stared at him and then lowered her pistol. “You win for now, beloved.” She turned away. “I don’t want him haring off over the countryside again. Search them both, Alissa, and handcuff them in my cabin.

We’ll do a rotating guard on them.”

“Search them both?” Alissa quirked up an eyebrow.

Kij holstered her pistol. “He may be gently born, but his family were knights of valor. Unless I miss my guess, they’ll arm anything that can hold a gun.”

They found his derringer and knife, which made them search up under his robe, teasing and touching him rudely. He covered his face, and hid his fierce attention to which pocket Alissa dropped his stuff into.

When Meza found his stash pouch, Cira winced. Obviously she had hoped he would free himself a second time.

“I can’t believe you’re turning against the Queens,” Jerin said to cover his turning, watching Meza as she frowned at the jumble of items in his pouch and then slipped it into her own pocket.

“You can’t?‘” Kij took his hand, pleading understanding with her eyes. “Did you think we gave a fuck which princess was Eldest? Either one would have been the same to us! So an idiotic war we cared nothing about was waged, and our entire livelihood was blown away!”

“That doesn’t give you the right to murder the royal family!” Jerin cried.

“They destroyed our family!”

Cira gave a bitter laugh. “How do you figure that? No Porter was killed in the war, and you received reparations for the damage to the locks!”

“We received chicken feed! We could only rebuild half the system on what we received, and half is worthless! We had to mortgage everything to scrape up the money, and still it wasn’t enough! So we started smuggling and stealing and murdering to make ends meet. We lost our honor. We lost mothers and sisters overseeing the dangerous construction and smuggling ring. I had to shoot my own sister in the face so she couldn’t be identified! The indignities we’ve suffered-all because the royal family couldn’t settle who would be Eldest. Well, never again. We’re taking the thrones.”

Jerin exaggerated his limp, and as he came off the stage, stumbled against Alissa. She caught him out of reflex, and as she righted him. he dipped his hand down into her coat pocket. His fingers closed on the cold, welcome grip of his derringer. Lightly, he lifted the small pistol out, his heart hammering fit to break, and slipped it into his robe pocket. There was no outcry from her sisters and Alissa smiled as she took the opportunity to grope him. Even Cira, who was watching him with concern, seemed unaware. He limped forward, faked another stumble into Meza Porter, and retrieved his stash pouch. He didn’t even want to try for his knife-it was so awkward a shape he was sure to be caught. Instead he meekly allowed himself to be led to Kij’s cabin.

Kij’s cabin was on the second deck, in the corner farthest from the great churning paddle wheel. Jerin balked at the door, for here was surely a den of seduction. A huge bed dominated the room, covered with a thick feather mattress, sheets of silk, and drapes of brocades and dark green velvets. Cherry paneling and stained glass on the portholes darkened the room. Alissa, entering before him, took a match to the oil lamps, and the warm glow of their flames reflected on gold leaf and brass.

Alissa looked at the bed and then at him, nostrils flaring. “On the bed, love.”

Conscious of the four armed Porter sisters behind him, Jerin limped to the bed and sat on the very edge.

“Chain her to the foot like a dog,” Alissa said, eyes locked on him. “She can watch while I tumble him.”

With a great deal of laughing, they handcuffed Cira to the foot of the bed. Jerin braced himself. Against the five of them, there was nothing he could do except act as if he would honor his vow. Thankfully Alissa made no attempt to undress him. She merely pushed him back onto the bed. He twisted his robe as he fell so his pistol and stash were under him as Alissa sprawled on top of him. She writhed against him as she raped his mouth.

“Really, Alissa,” Cira said in a tone near boredom. “Taking Diva from me hurt me more than anything you can do with him.”

Alissa laughed, tossing her head to flip her gold hair out of her eyes, and slunk up, catlike, until she sat astride Jerin. “She was a delightful little bitch. You had her trained well. Tell me,” she said as she ran her finger over Jerin’s painted lips, “is he as talented with his mouth?”

“Why would you think I would know?” Cira drawled. “You know my tastes. You’ve eaten my leftovers.”

Alissa glared at Cira. eyes narrowing, Jerin all but forgotten below her. “If you are so disinterested, why are you riding herd on him?”

“What better bait for wolves than the sacrificial lamb?”

Alissa made a sound of disgust and climbed off of Jerin. “Leave you to take the fun out of it. Meza, gag the bitch.” She handcuffed Jerin firmly to the headboard. “You’ll have first watch, Meza.”

Meza gagged Cira tightly, settled at the paper-strewn desk, and reached for a pen. “Good, I can get caught up with these invoices.”

I made the right decision. I made the right decision.

Ren clung to the mantra, though as the sun moved across the sky, she sank into utter misery. Runners bringing her updates from her sisters did nothing to shake the soundness of her decision, or give hope that Jerin would be restored to them. The ever-so-polite raid on the Herald ferreted out the Porter mole and a wealth of information. Recent deliveries of cooking goods to the barracks turned up enough poison to lay waste to the Fifth Battalion. Incensed by their close call, the troops marched the street, arresting all loiterers, turning up scores of heavily armed river trash.

The Red Dog steamed into port, low and sleek as a hunter, the late afternoon sun glinting off the crimson-painted wood shields enclosing her decks. As women and supplies were loaded at frantic speed. Raven reported that orders had been sent downriver as far as the mouth for the Red Dog’s sister ships to join in the hunt.

Wait, was Raven’s unvoiced appeal.

Ren shook her head. All afternoon, the image of raped, mutilated, and murdered Egan Wainwright seared through her memory. Gods have mercy, her sweet beautiful Jerin was in the hands of women that had done that to a man! If the Porters meant to marry Jerin for his royal bloodline, then he would be spared that fate. But what if she had been wrong about the Porters? What if they had taken Jerin as disposable bait?