A Brother's Price

to move out of the way. “Let her live, and I marry you willingly. I’ll stay by your side. I’ll pleasure you in bed, and I’ll take joy in our children. My word of honor.”
    “She knows too much,” Kij explained to him gently, then made a shooing motion with her gun. “Move aside, Jerin.”
    “Kij!” Kij’s sister Meza hissed. “Not in front of him. Frankly, I want a husband with a tongue.”
    “Let’s keep our options open,” their sister Alissa added.
    Kij stared at him and then lowered her pistol. “You win for now, beloved.” She turned away. “I don’t want him haring off over the countryside again. Search them both, Alissa, and handcuff them in my cabin. We’ll do a rotating guard on them.”
    “Search them both?” Alissa quirked up an eyebrow.
    Kij holstered her pistol. “He may be gently born, but his family were knights of valor. Unless I miss my guess, they’ll arm anything that can hold a gun.”
    They found his derringer and knife, which made them search up under his robe, teasing and touching him rudely. He covered his face, and hid his fierce attention to which pocket Alissa dropped his stuff into. When Meza found his stash pouch, Cira winced. Obviously she had hoped he would free himself a second time.
    “I can’t believe you’re turning against the Queens,” Jerin said to cover his turning, watching Meza as she frowned at the jumble of items in his pouch and then slipped it into her own pocket.
    “You can’t?‘” Kij took his hand, pleading understanding with her eyes. “Did you think we gave a fuck which princess was Eldest? Either one would have been the same to us! So an idiotic war we cared nothing about was waged, and our entire livelihood was blown away!”
    “That doesn’t give you the right to murder the royal family!” Jerin cried.
    “They destroyed our family!”
    Cira gave a bitter laugh. “How do you figure that? No Porter was killed in the war, and you received reparations for the damage to the locks!”
    “We received chicken feed! We could only rebuild half the system on what we received, and half is worthless! We had to mortgage everything to scrape up the money, and still it wasn’t enough! So we started smuggling and stealing and murdering to make ends meet. We lost our honor. We lost mothers and sisters overseeing the dangerous construction and smuggling ring. I had to shoot my own sister in the face so she couldn’t be identified! The indignities we’ve suffered—all because the royal family couldn’t settle who would be Eldest. Well, never again. We’re taking the thrones.”
     
    Jerin exaggerated his limp, and as he came off the stage, stumbled against Alissa. She caught him out of reflex, and as she righted him. he dipped his hand down into her coat pocket. His fingers closed on the cold, welcome grip of his derringer. Lightly, he lifted the small pistol out, his heart hammering fit to break, and slipped it into his robe pocket. There was no outcry from her sisters and Alissa smiled as she took the opportunity to grope him. Even Cira, who was watching him with concern, seemed unaware. He limped forward, faked another stumble into Meza Porter, and retrieved his stash pouch. He didn’t even want to try for his knife—it was so awkward a shape he was sure to be caught. Instead he meekly allowed himself to be led to Kij’s cabin.
    Kij’s cabin was on the second deck, in the corner farthest from the great churning paddle wheel. Jerin balked at the door, for here was surely a den of seduction. A huge bed dominated the room, covered with a thick feather mattress, sheets of silk, and drapes of brocades and dark green velvets. Cherry paneling and stained glass on the portholes darkened the room. Alissa, entering before him, took a match to the oil lamps, and the warm glow of their flames reflected on gold leaf and brass.
    Alissa looked at the bed and then at him, nostrils flaring. “On the bed, love.”
    Conscious of the four armed Porter sisters behind him, Jerin limped to the bed and sat on the very edge.
    “Chain her to the foot like a dog,” Alissa said, eyes locked on him. “She can watch while I tumble him.”
    With a great deal of laughing, they handcuffed Cira to the foot of the bed. Jerin braced himself. Against the five of them, there was nothing he could do except act as if he would honor his vow. Thankfully Alissa made no attempt to undress him. She merely pushed him back onto the bed. He twisted his robe as he fell so