Read Online Jabone's Sword by Selina Rosen - Free Book Online Page A

blood is still Jethrikian. You're blond headed for the god's own sake."
    "So what?"
    "So maybe these people will be perfectly nice and maybe we will enjoy their company, and maybe, just maybe, we need a little help before we go off on our great adventure," Jestia said.
    "Oh so . . . Now that adventure looms have you gotten as careful as your brother?"
    "I wouldn't be on this ship if I was as careful as Katan. Hell I wouldn't even step out of the castle. But I have thought long and hard on all that Tarius the Black told us and I think it's high time that maybe I do learn at least a little caution. The Great Leader's breath running through your body won't protect you from swords and arrows either."
    Tarius nodded thoughtfully. "You make a good point."
    "Do you really think so, or would you just say just about anything to get me into your bed?"
    Tarius looked only some taken aback. After all having the Great Leader's breath running through his body had gotten him a lot of action among the packs. He was known as a ladies' man. "Can't it be both?"
    Jestia laughed in that way that girls do when they have no intension of sleeping with you and then she walked away. He followed her not so easily put off.
    "So what about it?" he asked her.
    "I'd like to ask what , like I didn't know what you're asking, but I do, and no . I'm not going to sleep with you."
    "Why not?" Tarius asked angrily. "You've slept with half the kingdom."
    "First off if I really had I wouldn't be able to walk," Jestia said angrily, "and second off . . . It's a wonder anyone sleeps with you considering you're such a little pig!" She stomped off towards bellow decks and this time he knew better than to follow.
    "What did you do pig?" Ufalla asked at his shoulder a few seconds later.
    "Nothing, and I'm getting a little tired of women calling me that!" Tarius screamed after Ufalla, who was obviously going after Jestia.
    Jabone looked at Tarius and smiled.
    "What?" Tarius demanded.
    "So, did you say something really stupid?"
    Tarius laughed and slapped Jabone on the back. "Yes, yes I did, incredibly stupid and insensitive and more or less a guarantee that I'm never going to get a piece of the royal ass."
    "Do you think that would be such a good idea anyway? If we're going to work together I mean," Jabone said, thinking that considering how Ufalla felt that if Tarius ever actually slept with Jestia there would never be peace between these already feuding siblings.
    "I suppose you're right."
    Jabone looked out over the endless waves and wondered again if they were as ready for this adventure as they had all thought they were.
    He wondered if his mother was still crying.
    * * *
    A young man in the uniform of a Sword Master of the Jethrik met them at the docks. They recognized the uniform though they'd never seen one before because they'd heard it described dozens of times in stories. He wore the plain blue puffy pants, black stirrup boots, and the plain long sleeved white tunic with an air of importance. Obviously a man used to being respected.
    "So I'm guessing it's you four then," he said with a brilliant smile as he walked up to the four youths eagerly awaiting him on the dock. Jabone nodded yes. "Do you speak Jethrik?"
    "Yes, all four," Jabone answered. He clapped his hands, and when one of the sailors looked at him he said in Kartik, "Please unload our horses and gear we must depart."
    "Yes my prince," he replied in Kartik.
    Jabone made a face. He never thought of himself as a prince. The Katabull picked a leader. Even when the end of his madra's days came he would not automatically take her throne. Still the Katabull thought of him as their prince.
    "I am Master Richard," the man said.
    Jabone didn't hear because he was to busy sniffing the air. He looked around him at the sea of blond-headed people and the hair on the back of his neck rose. Amalites. Madre is right; they do have a different smell about them. A bad one. He made a face and watched as the horses