My Husband Left Me On An Island

Safer?

I laid curled up in my small bed and stared at the dark wooden wall. I had the door firmly shut and had slid the heavy trunk of clothes provided to me in front of it for added security. When I'd questioned Tyr about them earlier, he had said that the Captain picked them out for me in the two weeks I'd been unconscious.

For now, I was just in a simple cream and green nightgown. I knew from experience that this color made my blue eyes a hazy blue-green color, like the sea. My eyes felt deep like the sea too. Like if you stared into them too long, you'd find depths of sadness and chaos and anger.

I clenched my teeth and let out a shaky breath to attempt to release all the pent-up tension in my chest without releasing the tears that threatened to spill. So much had happened so quickly.

I replayed everything in my head. My heart hurt for a second as I remembered Max's stormy face when he found me. He must have had spies following me. I closed my eyes and touched my cheek where he had struck me. I should hate him... but I didn't.

When the marriage was arranged, my mother had held my hands and looked deep into my eyes and told me it was for the best. She said that marrying this foreign King I'd never met was my best hope for a good life, for a life in which I had so much power that the things I did were never questioned.

Then she coughed up blood into a handkerchief.

We both knew she didn't have much time. So it pained me greatly to sail away from the mother who'd shown me so much comfort in spite of the fact she knew I was monstrous just like the mysterious man she'd slept with so long ago.

It made her sad to talk about him. Once, I got her to say he had dark hair and eyes like mine. She said he was a little dangerous, but in a good way. The way that made you a little weak in the knees.

Born into riches and a royal family, she was destined for an arranged marriage like mine. But once she met my dad, she said she fell hard and fast. Knowing the otherworldly appeal I myself often had to others, I often wondered if he had just manipulated her into loving him. But I had no doubt that she loved him.

According to her, he left before she realized she was pregnant. Her family, aghast at the baby out of wedlock had condemned her to live in a small castle in a large forest. Although it was meant as a sort of banishment, it ended up working to our advantage. Once it became clear that I was no ordinary child, it was much easier to protect my identity.

I was young then, and naive. I believed my mother. I believed that though I was going to a much more exposed location, as a Queen I would be protected.

What I hadn't predicted was that Max's grey eyes would light up like molten lava and that they would scald me with their heat. That a touch from him would melt me. That I'd dream about his hard muscles. Our wedding night he'd caressed me so softly until i was pleading him to claim me and then he'd grabbed me roughly and made me his in a way I'd never felt before.

But in the heat of passion, my fangs had slid out and I'd nearly bitten him. I had to roll onto my stomach and present him with my backside to avoid him seeing my face.

After that, I tried to make our encounters as short and cold as possible. Even though inside I was begging him to fill me with heat again. But I knew I was condemned to a life of cold loneliness. So I filled myself with momentary warmth from other men, played cat and mouse with them and tried to keep it a secret. But Max was smart, and he had a temper. Things my mother never could have predicted.

So there I ended up, on that godforsaken island. I knew Max hadn't been trying to kill me, only teach me a lesson. He'd thought I'd be safe there, and could easily fill my belly with coconut.