Malchus

I’ve bed a lot of gorgeous women in my time, pleasurable but ultimately meaningless encounters. I didn’t even know their names and I’ve already forgotten their faces. 

But I already know I’ll never forget this moment for the rest of my life. Like I’ll never forget this girl now standing before me, breathless and unkempt, with wild, flowing hair and radiant teal eyes the color of the sea after a storm.

I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful, and her beauty is made all the more dazzling for the manner in which she introduced herself. Her impulsiveness and haste, her brilliant mind and obvious head for figures and administration—she’s perfect. I could not have designed a more perfect bride for myself if I’d been given a hundred years than this one the gods have crafted for me.

Is this what love feels like? My heart hasn’t stopped pounding from the moment she burst upon the room. My throat is dry and it’s hard to swallow, and for the first time in my life I feel so nervous and clumsy. The pen I’m holding slips from my fingers and clatters to the table, rolling noisily to where it clangs on the floor.

Only now does it occur to me the room has fallen absolutely silent after my sudden marriage proposal. Every single eye goes back and forth between me and the astonished princess, wondering what’s coming next.

Well, I think, pushing my chair back with a clatter and rising to my full height. That’s obvious, isn’t it?

“Come, Princess,” I command, hardly knowing my own voice. “I have a home in the northern islands, a villa as big as this palace. That will do for a wedding present, no?”

We don’t need to wait for the grain to be loaded, my right hand man Carthalo will handle the details. Right now all I can think of is getting my bride back to the Reef Shark, the flagship of my armada, and spending the next three weeks below deck getting to know every inch of her.

“No.”

I stop a few feet from the princess, a little confused by her sudden declaration. She’s tiny in my six and a half foot shadow, but undaunted. Unlike the rest of them, she’s not shaking in her boots, her brain misfiring, wondering what she ought to do in this situation. Princess Delphine seems to know her mind very well, and although she’s just rejected me, or perhaps because of it, that only makes me want her more.

“No one tells me no,” I explain to her, and reach out a hand with intent to catch her arm, but she pulls away with startling reflexes.

“I’m the crown princess of Sanos,” she declares with her head high. “I’m not leaving my home just to marry some crusty, smelly old tyrant.”

I balk. Crusty? Smelly? Old?

Is that how I look to her? I suppose it has been a few months since my last bath. But life on the sea doesn’t allow for such luxuries. I guess I could have rinsed in sea water before I showed up at the palace but—old?

I’m only thirty—turning thirty-one next month. And this girl, she’s what? Seventeen? Eighteen? I guess I am rather old next to Delphine. But that doesn’t change anything, I determine, gritting my teeth so ferociously I feel them creak under the pressure.

“I said—no one tells me no.”

I reach for the princess again and all hell breaks loose. Diplomats are hollering, guards from both sides are scrambling, clashing against one another. No one seems quite certain how to handle this sudden and very heated international dispute as the emperor’s son tries to make off with the king’s daughter except for perhaps the girl herself.

She’s as quick and slippery as a fish as I try once again to get my hands on her. But no one gets away from Malchus Zenobia once my mind’s made up.

As she tries to fly past me, I grip a fistful of her hair. She shrieks and rounds on me, returning the favor by gripping a fistful of my fiery orange mane. With a growl of irritation I yank her towards me, and she doesn’t even hesitate to knee me in the groin.

“Oof!”

I bend double with pain and she vaults right over me, taking off at a dead run. Aroused by the chase, ignoring for the moment the pain in my nether regions, I scramble after her, heart thrumming with a mixture of emotions. Anger and elation, frustration, insult, desire, terror at the thought of losing her and—fascination. Pure, complete, absolute fascination.

I’m sure of it now. Princess Delphine is the only woman for me. And I’m going to make her mine.

Realizing I’m hot on her tail, she squeaks with terror and bursts onto the veranda overlooking the Meddio. More than a hundred and sixty feet above the sea, it doesn’t even occur to me at first that she would think to jump. But as she dashes right up to the railing, I feel my stomach drop.

Is she insane? Or just that desperate to escape me?

Delphine doesn’t hesitate, but hops onto the railing and rises to her full height. The wind whips around her, blowing her hair back as she pushes off into the perfect swan dive.

I come right up to the railing, practically falling over it in my effort to catch her, but she’s just out of my reach. I watch, sickened as she falls.

Never mind the danger of rocks at the bottom of the cliff, she could die just from landing wrong. From this height, even water can hit as solid as rock.

Gods!

More people rush up to the railing, including the girl’s father, his face white with horror.

“What have you done?!” he cries, but I have no answer for him. All I can do is hold my breath and watch as she hits the water with a splash.

I wait for her to resurface. We all do. No one makes a sound. My heart is in my throat; my tongue is numb.

Then, far below us, a tiny pink head appears some twenty feet away from where she hit the water. She turns to look back at me, then turns again and starts to swim away.

That—little—fish!

I’m not thinking. While others scramble away to rush down the cliffs and collect the princess, I’ll take a more direct approach. I climb up on the railing, intent on diving after her when I’m caught suddenly around the middle and pulled back so I fall on my ass. 

I stare up at the cloudless sky, a bit dazed, not sure this hasn’t all been some fantastic dream. I’m sickened with guilt, yes, when I think I was the one that drove her to jump. But the fact that she did it! She’s so hotheaded, so gutsy, so god damned cool!

My body tingles with the memory of her touch. My aching scalp and balls, everywhere she viciously assaulted me, I can’t forget that feeling.

I’m smitten. What do they call this emotion? It’s something more powerful than simple attraction, more powerful even than love. What’s the next level after that?

Whatever it is, I’m in it. Completely, utterly drowning in everything that she is. Even the memory of her scent as she was running away, everything—everything!—

“Ahoy, Captain.”

A familiar swarthy face appears in my vision, obstructing my view. I push past him irritably and sit up.

“Well, that was fun,” Carthalo says, offering me a hand. I accept it and come to my feet. “No need to thank me for saving your ass.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“There was no way you were surviving that dive. It’s a miracle Delphine missed the rocks as it is; not even you are lucky enough to see two miracles in one day.”

“Where’s the princess? Is she alright?”

“I suppose we’ll find out when they bring her back up. Her father and some guards just went running down a rather treacherous looking cliff path to fetch her. Somehow, though, I get the impression it’s not their first trip down.”

I scoff, easily imagining Delphine making such a dive at least once a week. “Of course it isn’t. Come, I’ll meet her on the way back up.”

“You sure that’s a good idea, Mal? She might spook at the sight of you and jump all over again.”

I stiffen at his words. He has a point.

The guilt comes back to me. It’s been a strange, wild three minutes, and a lot of stuff’s just happened, changing my life so absolutely I’m sure I’ll never be the same again. But that doesn’t change the fact that the girl’s rejected me. Quite firmly and in no uncertain terms. She does not want me.

The realization leaves me jolted, dismayed. Utterly lost.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

Carthalo leads me to the edge of the cliff where I watch the girl get pulled out of the water. Her father strips off his own himation and throws it over her, hiding the nakedness revealed by her sodden garments. I wait with raging emotions for them to climb the long, treacherous pathway back up to the castle.

When at last her face breaks over the edge of the cliff and our eyes meet, her expression is cold. The king likewise seems to have come back to himself a little, and addresses me coldly.

“Prince Malchus, I wonder if you would give us a little space? My daughter is quite shaken by recent events and she needs to rest.”

I swallow, tongue tied, and nod. Delphine looks away, refusing to meet my gaze, and I watch with a helpless feeling as she’s led away, back into the palace.

As I watch them disappear behind the door, I feel Carthalo slap my back with a hearty motion.

“Is that the first time our trade prince has been rejected by a girl?”

“I…think so.”

“Ha,” he’s amused. “About time someone put you in your place.”