The Princess Tied - Cari Silverwood

CHAPTER ONE

This story could start with Xander and Princess Po falling in love, but the smut, the kidnapping, and the action are more interesting,

so let’s begin…

Here.

ears of his mount twitched as hooded soldiers spilled onto the road before him and his brother, John. They were on their way to the capital of Bitzocoin and this close to the city, Xander would never have expected an ambush. Instead of being alert, he’d been wondering how to tell his beloved bro that he had actually fallen in love with a woman.

Since she was infuriating, bratty, and a princess, he felt sure he would win John over to also loving her, eventually…after they had both spanked her and bedded her. He’d been smiling at that thought.

Then this happened. Inconvenient. The wedding plans needed finalizing.

Xander frowned at the soldiers.

Yet ambush this was—the many bows raised and pointed their way made that clear.

For a moment longer, he kept his hands on the reins to quieten the skittish mare, then he raised them to show he was not resisting. “What is this?”

Stating who he was could wait. In a week he was to marry Princess Pollianna, but that status could get him killed if these were the wrong sort of enemies.

He twitched his gaze over to John, wondering at the calmness his brother showed, yet knowing that John might burst into action at any second. Most likely he could dispose of them all and not suffer a scratch.

Then a man spoke, “Hold!” A single word, and yet a strange expression melted over John’s face. He was no longer an alert, killing machine.

Who was this man who could disarm John with one word?

As he turned in the saddle to see the newcomer, Xander found the locket at his neck, and wrapped his hand about it. It was a treasured gift from Po.

Something bad was about to happen. The chill in his bones told him so.

A lanky man in flowing robe and coat strode among the hooded, silent soldiers—two heads taller than most of them. Though his concentration fell on this stranger, Xander glimpsed a malevolent writhing within some of the hoods.

What horror lay within those?

And who was this over-confident man?

“I am the Storyteller,” the man said, smiling. “And you will be coming with me on a long journey, Xander of Guerre. Your brother, however, I have no use for. Him, I will send to Hell.”

* * * * *

The last chunks of dirt fell away above, letting in a shine of light, blinding him as he forged upward and squirmed from the tunnel to Hell. John pushed all the way out and straightened to his full height. Clods of earth and paving stones slid from his shoulders. He looked about, squinting, spitting out soil, brushing the brown from his dark shirt. A few stray embers and ash flakes puffed away to nothingness in the drab rays illuminating this alley.

He gave a last shake, like a dog that has just left the water, only he had left a whole pile of dead demons down there, not water.

The Storyteller had underestimated him. Most did.

This was a street off Fleur Parade, the main street of Grand Poncifer, capital of the kingdom of Bitzocoin. It was a kingdom about to become a queendom, unless his dates were off? A strange intuition slash feeling, slash certainty told him this was the same day he’d been thrown into Hell.

A week before the coronation.

He needed to find out for sure.

No one had entered this ramshackle alleyway while he’d stood recovering his bearings and becoming definitely human. Not that he’d ever been anything but human.

Considering where he had been, it was a good point to raise.

John rolled his shoulders, pleased at the familiar shift of heavy muscle beneath his thick riding coat. He reached into a pocket and his round-lensed spectacles met his fingers. Thanks be. Everything was where it once was—muscles, spectacles, and hopefully every other essential part.

He raised the glasses to hitch the curled ends over his ears and saw what he did not wish to see.

Flames. Flames reflected in the lenses, flickering and flaring.

“Damn. What did you do to me, Storyteller?” He needed to get moving so as to find his brother, Xander, likely still in the clutches of that long tall piece of evil, but first he had to know what had become of himself.

The words from the Storyteller reverberated in memory.

You are heartless, a man of straw. Do you feel guilt when you kill, John of Geurre? No, you do not.