King’s Captive Bride
Millie Adams
Chapter One
A dragon’s hungeris only satiated by the blood of maidens.
I think about my grandmother’s words now as my sister’s cries of despair echo through the house.
“I can’t marry him!” She’s sobbing in earnest and I do feel bad for her, though I’ve always thought that level of emotion was an expense people in our position can’t afford.
Eve is more fragile than I am. My mom has always said that—she isn’t wrong. But my mom says it like it’s a truth that can’t be changed, and I’m not sure I agree with that. Eve knows she’ll be taken care of—no matter what.
I’d love to be hard now. To leave her to the dragon. The Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean, our feared and reviled King Lucian.
The trouble is, I can’t.
What lesson is she going to learn being wrenched away from the man she loves? I do believe she’s in love with Marcus, even if I think love is a foolish endeavor. It’s certainly never served any of the women in our family.
It’s why my mother has two daughters with two men and neither of them are still here. Why my grandmother spent all her days living with us. Why her mother before her left England for Alabria—because she’d fallen in love with a man she’d met in London who told her to come here. She did. She had his baby. He abandoned her.
So we are three generations of women who have been abandoned by their husbands.
Love seems stupid to me.
I want more. I want to make a difference, to matter, to mean something. Love is fine; you can make a quiet life in a quiet house. I’ve already had that life. A life of struggle, a life where I am in the shadows of other people whether I want to be or not.
What I can’t understand is being so distraught by an arranged marriage since no marriage has historically lasted till death in our bloodline.
Though with Lucian death could come sooner than expected…
On that she has cause for concern. That’s the real worry that I have. The real fear that sticks in the pit of my stomach and makes me feel cold.
King Lucian has been married two times before. Both times to women from other countries. One princess, one duchess, and then he attempted a wedding last year to the Princess of Basilia, but she ran away with her bodyguard.
I suppose you could draw the conclusion that like us—he’s cursed.
Or you could look at it the way I do. Which is that since he’s a man, and a whole king besides, his inability to hang onto a wife feels intentional, and is likely a character flaw.
In his case, perhaps that he’s a killer.
That’s the legend of the Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean. The dragon on the mountain. He is more myth than he is an actual man at this point, and his legend has expanded—some would say to hysterical proportions—through the years.
But he’s done nothing to correct it.
There are rumors he’s disfigured from the wars—which took place before I was born. There are rumors he was cursed by a witch and made half monster—I don’t believe that. That’s ridiculous.
Schoolchildren have rhymes about him. The mad king who might devour his subjects as soon as rule them.
He rules Alabria with an iron fist—he isn’t a dictator by any stretch. But he controls the sky—not allowing planes to fly in or out. Every square inch of accessible coastline is patrolled heavily. No one gets in or out without him knowing. We’re allowed in and out, but…
There was a war when he was born. Way before my time—he’s forty years old to my twenty-two. I came along after the violence stopped. I don’t know how it would have shaped me. My mom did what she does best during that time. She smoked and drank and had a nice time; she met men she liked and some she didn’t. She worked—waiting tables or doing nails and hair for a while—she always took care of my grandmother and our modest house.
It’s Eve’s beauty that put her on his radar. He was determined—or so it was whispered—to marry a woman from Alabria this time. A woman to represent the people, from the people. His scouts looked far and wide for the right woman—and they happened upon Eve in the salon she works at.
“The Beautician and the Beast”—the headlines write themselves.
My family doesn’t want headlines.
