Read Online Jake's Justice, Book Three of Wizards by John Booth - Free Book Online Page B

marrying our country’s wizard champion has even less excuse. It is my responsibility to put the kingdom above everything else and I have been derelict in my duty. The King has instructed that you beat me severely to remind me that my role is to serve my kingdom, not to place it in jeopardy.”
    I should have spoken, but the ability to speak had left my body. This was my Esmeralda speaking, and I would have sworn she would have rather died than deliver that speech.
    She looked at the floor in front of me. “I hope that my Lord Wizard will see fit to bestow his love upon me, three times in a row like he did with Jenny , once he has satisfied himself with my chastisement.”
    There was a bit of the woman I married in that statement, but I still couldn’t find the words to reply. Esmeralda took my silence as agreement with her proposals and began to strip. Watching her take her clothes off, made it even more difficult to find the appropriate words. She is so fit, my other wife, and so beautifully pregnant. That fierce pride she carries in her heart gives her skin a glow I cannot describe, except to say it makes her irresistible.
    She walked demurely to the large marble mantelpiece and retrieved the hairbrush her mother had given me as a wedding present. It was an old flat wooden brush that had been polished on the backsides of hundreds of young female apprentices of the previous Grimaldis. Apparently, the King had also used it on his daughter when she was a child.
    Esmeralda handed me the brush.
    “Would my Lord prefer me to bend over his lap or over the bed?”
    I gulped and finally found where my vocal chords were hiding.
    “Neither,” I threw the brush across the room. “My wife is forgiven. Let us start our marriage afresh from this moment and let what has happened in the past stay there.”
    She gave me one of those suspicious looks I dread and her hands slipped to her hips.
    “And has my Lord Wizard something he wishes to bury in the recent past?” Sometimes I swear that girl can read my mind. It isn’t fair.
    I opened my right hand and the brush flew back into it.
    She placed herself over my lap so quickly I nearly fell off the chair. “Do it then, if it assuages your conscience.”
    It was tempting. Her cheeks lifted up as though they wanted it. I reminded myself severely that I don’t hit women.
    “For God’s sake, Esmeralda, I’ve had a rough day.” I pushed her off my knee and somehow she managed to fall gracefully. I wonder if that’s something they teach princesses at school. Rather than get up, she turned to face me resting on one arm with her legs slightly splayed. If we didn’t resolve this thing soon my balls were going to ache for days.
    “And what or who has my Lord been up to today?”
    “This morning a Knight of Justice tried to kill me in a farmer’s field and this afternoon the Representative from Malevon tried to add me to her harem.”
    A steely glint appeared in Esmeralda’s eye. “And just how far did this Malevon bitch get?”
    I looked her straight in the eye and replied with complete honesty. “Nowhere, I turned her lust magic back on her and left her defeated and weeping.”
    Esmeralda smiled. “Does my Lord Wizard Husband want to beat me now, even though he was lying about the Knight?”
    That is so Esmeralda. She knows a lot about magic and other worlds and can’t resist a final dig at me even as she acquiesces. I smirked at her.
    “Did so, too. Fluffy says it’s the first time one of them has ever been defeated.”
    Somehow in the space of a heartbeat, Esmeralda was on my knee, clinging tightly. “You could have been killed, with me not having forgiven you and Jenny three ahead.”
    No, I don’t understand my women. I just accept that I love them.
    “Can’t we just go to bed?” I may have put on a pleading hang-dog look.
    A finger played with my hair. “The King will be upset with you for not beating me.”
    “Maybe later, if you are very good.”
    “I am