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“I’m relieving you of your cargo, sir, but I also need the gold you collected in Anberra. Open your safe and give it to me, or your life is forfeit.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have it.”
“Jacobs,” I said, “cut off his ear.”
“Wait! No, please! I’m telling you the truth. I don’t have it. Lord Lexington here took charge of the payment.”
“Lord who? Oh, you mean Brandon? Interesting.” The idiot was calling him by the wrong title. His cousin Lex had the title of Lord Lexington, and I despised the man. Brandon was the Earl of Bedford, though I’d always called him Brandon, like his cousins did. Narmadan titles could be so confusing, and unnecessarily so. I nudged Brandon’s shoulder, but he still lay stubbornly half-conscious and merely groaned. He had the nerve to snuggle his face against my boot.
“I suppose we’ll have to wait for him to wake up. Unless he has it on him somewhere.” I eased him to the deck on his back and began to search him. For the first time in too many years, I put my hands under his coat, and ran them over his body.
He was still as lean and muscular as ever, damn him. Wide shoulders tapered down to a flat waist and slim hips. I must have made a little sound of appreciation, because I heard a gasp from the other ship’s captain. Irritably, I waved my hand for the man to be taken back to the others and returned my concentration to the one at my feet. I intended to conduct a thorough and exhaustive search.
Perhaps it was unreasonable for me to be so cross with Brandon, I thought, as I patted him down familiarly, checking every nook and cranny. But I’d been holding out real hope that he’d had the common decency to get a bit fat. Even a little paunch would have helped. A slightly receding hairline, maybe, or some discoloration of teeth. But no, he was as maddeningly perfect as ever, his body too slim perhaps, but his hair still thick and caramel colored, and his breath, as he gave a tired, deep sigh, wafted up to me as sweet and fresh as it had ever been—as I remembered it from those long, nightly kissing sessions we used to have. Practicing, we’d called it, so that we’d be ready one day when we found our omegas.
Maybe if I was lucky, I’d discover that he had to wear spectacles. The thick glass might dim the color of that extraordinary blue in his eyes. But there was no sign of that, so his vision was probably as annoyingly sharp as ever. He’d always been able to see right through me, for sure. I stood back up and gazed down at him.
Damn him, he had no right to look even better now than he had when he was ten years younger. Not that his looks could sway me in the least. I’d meant the last thing I’d said to him all those years ago, and time hadn’t tempered nor changed that. I had shouted at him that night that I was renouncing our friendship or whatever the hell you might call that relationship. That I’d be his most bitter enemy from that day forward, and by the gods, I’d meant it.
Chapter Two
Maybe it hadn’t been the very last thing I’d said to him. I seemed to recall that I renounced our friendship shortly before I stomped away, and turned before I’d made it three feet and begged him to change his mind and run away and live with me forever. That was also just before I pleaded with him to please not do this to us. To us, as if there had ever been an “us.” That had obviously been a pathetic lie I’d told myself. Back in those days, I believed that we could defy our fate and the world we lived in and just follow our feelings. How stupidly naive I’d been. Had I ever been so young as to believe the lies I told myself? That despite the fact he was another Alpha, I could steal him away from his family and make him mine alone?
In my defense, I’d been very young.
And so had he. He simply hadn’t been brave enough to defy them all for me, to throw caution to the wind and run away with me. And I’d hated him for that. He had only been sixteen, and I was just a few months older. I’d been a pathetic mess that last, terrible night, and I cringed now to even think of it. No doubt he and his “noble cousins” had often had themselves a good laugh over the years at my expense, as they recalled my sorry behavior. My hands clenched in anger every time I imagined it, and I had done so a thousand times over the years. I had promised retribution on them all. I’d take my revenge one day, and most especially on Brandon, because he’d hurt me the worst—by far. Yet my biggest mistake hadn’t been in loving him. It had been in being foolish enough to think he loved me too.
He continually called me his “best friend,” when what I had felt for him then had only a nodding acquaintance with friendship. Something so pale and insipid had nothing to do with how I felt about Brandon. How I had always felt since the first moment I saw him. Those caramel-colored curls, lit up with a few gold-tinted highlights. Those eyes I could get lost in for days and a body that made my mouth go dry.
Now the chance for revenge was finally at hand. I had him captive, and I wouldn’t let him go. I’d show him friendship, all right. I would strip him naked and ravish him—fuck him through the bed until he begged for mercy. I wanted to feel the shudders running through his body and hear his ragged breathing and revel in his soft groans. I’d make him plead with me, beg me not to hurt him. I wanted to destroy him like he’d once destroyed me. I was going to knot him. Maybe once or even twice a day until he learned his place. My cock gave a hopeful twitch and a throb at the idea.
He moaned as he was waking up and restlessly put the back of his hand to his fair, noble brow without opening his eyes.
“Seriously, Brandon?” I said, rolling my eyes as I stood with my back against the rail looking down at him. Wasn’t it bad enough he had to look like Prince Fucking Charming? Did he have to act the part too? His eyes fluttered all the way open then, and I got a full blast of fierce blue that hit me like a blow to the chest.
He blinked up at me a few times and then gasped. “R-Roxbury? Oh gods, is that you?”
That’s when he did the most extraordinary thing. He held out his arms to me, as if trying to reach for me. “They said you were dead! That you were lost at sea, and I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, using the tip of my boot to shove his arms away. I put little force behind it, not being willing to hurt him, so it was more of a strong nudge. I studiously ignored the startled look he flung at me, though. “The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated, as you see. Now get your ass up.”
He didn’t move fast enough, so I yanked him to his feet and didn’t react when he swayed slightly and put a hand on the railing to keep on his feet. “You’re coming with us. I figure you’ll fetch a nice ransom. But first tell me this. Where’s the gold that you collected in Anberra?”
“T-the gold? What are you talking about? Do you mean the payment? That gold’s not mine. It belongs to King Harrison. You can’t have it!”
That startled a laugh from me, but Jacobs growled from beside me and menacingly held out his knife. “Do you want me to get it out of him, Captain? He won’t be so pretty when I get through with him.”
Stifling my first response, which had been to shove that knife up Jacobs’ ass, I gazed down at my old “friend,” Brandon. I was perhaps two inches taller than he now, which was most gratifying. He stared back up at me with that stubborn pout on his pink lips that I remembered all too well. He used to have that same busybody, spinsterish look when he was telling me I couldn’t do something I wanted to do in the old days, like sneak out to drink with my friends in the local tavern. He was such a killjoy. Back then, I would have pushed him against a wall and kissed that little pout right off his mouth. What I’d really wanted was to throw him to the nearest flat surface and fuck all that right out of him. But that was then, and a lot of water had passed under that bridge between then and now.
I’d still fuck him though, and fully intended to do so at my earliest convenience.
His eyes were hurling angry blue daggers at me. “Jacobs,” I said, still looking directly into Brandon’s watercolor gaze. I couldn’t seem to drag my eyes away. “Go find the captain again and bring him here. I’ll cut off a piece of him every time our noble friend here tells me no. It’s much more effective to hero types like Lord Bedford here.”
“What? No! Leave him alone!” He flushed and grabbed my arm. I shook him off with a growl.
“Please don’t, Roxbury. Don’t hurt the captain. The gold is in my cabin. I-I can get it for you.”
“Where in your cabin?”
