Rebel, Pawn, King

A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)

A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)

AN OATH OF BROTHERS (Book #14)

A DREAM OF MORTALS (Book #15)

A JOUST OF KNIGHTS (Book #16)

THE GIFT OF BATTLE (Book #17)

THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY

ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)

ARENA TWO (Book #2)

ARENA THREE (Book #3)

VAMPIRE, FALLEN

BEFORE DAWN (Book #1)

THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS

TURNED (Book #1)

LOVED (Book #2)

BETRAYED (Book #3)

DESTINED (Book #4)

DESIRED (Book #5)

BETROTHED (Book #6)

VOWED (Book #7)

FOUND (Book #8)

RESURRECTED (Book #9)

CRAVED (Book #10)

FATED (Book #11)

OBSESSED (Book #12)

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Copyright © 2016 by Morgan Rice. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Jacket image Copyright Ivan Bliznetsov, used under license from istock.com.

CHAPTER ONE

Thanos felt a pit in his stomach as the ship rocked its way across the sea, each passing current taking him farther and farther from home. There had been no land in sight for days now. He stood at the prow of the boat, looking out at the water, waiting for the moment when he would finally spy something. Only the thought of what might lie ahead, who might lie ahead, kept him from ordering the captain to turn the ship around.

Ceres.

She was out there somewhere, and he would find her.

“You sure about this?” the captain asked, coming up beside him. “No one I know wants to take a trip to the Isle of Prisoners.”

What could Thanos say to that? That he didn’t know? That he felt a bit like the boat, pushed forward by its oars even as the wind tried to push it back?

The need to find Ceres, though, surpassed everything else. It drove Thanos, filling him with excitement at the prospect of finding her. He’d been so sure that she was gone, that he would never see her again. When he’d heard that she might be alive, the relief had flooded him, had made him feel as though he might collapse.

Yet he could not deny that thoughts of Stephania were there too, making him glance back, and even, for a flash, think about going back. She was his wife, after all, and he’d abandoned her. She was carrying his child, and he’d walked away. He’d left her there on the docks. What kind of man did that?

“She tried to kill me,” Thanos reminded himself.

“What’s that?” the captain asked, and Thanos realized he’d said it aloud.

“Nothing,” Thanos said. He sighed. “The truth is that I don’t know. I’m looking for someone, and the Isle of Prisoners is the only place she might have gone.”

He knew Ceres’s ship had sunk on the way to the island. If she’d survived, then it made sense that she might have made it there, didn’t it? That explained why Thanos hadn’t seen anything of her since, too. If she’d been able to get back to him, Thanos had to believe that she would have.

“Seems an awfully big risk to take for not knowing,” the captain said.

“She’s worth it,” Thanos assured him.

“She must be something special to be better than Lady Stephania,” the smuggler said with a leer that made Thanos want to punch him.

“That’s my wife you’re talking about,” Thanos said, and even he recognized the obvious problem with that. He couldn’t defend her when he was the one who had left her behind, and when she’d been the one to order his death. She probably deserved everything anyone said about her.

Now, if only he could convince himself of that. If only his thoughts of Ceres didn’t continue to be punctuated by thoughts of Stephania, as she’d been with him at the castle feasts, as she’d been in quiet moments, as she’d looked on the morning after their wedding night…

“Are you sure you can get me onto the Isle of Prisoners safely?” Thanos asked. He’d never been there, but the whole island was meant to be a well-guarded fortress of a place, inescapable for those who were brought there.

“Oh, that’s easy enough,” the captain assured him. “We go by there sometimes. The guards sell some of the prisoners they’ve broken as slaves. String them up on poles on the shore for us to see as we get close.”