The Pirate’s True Love
Description
A prince rejects her. A pirate steals her. Betrayed at the altar by Prince Adrian and hunted for carrying a pirate-blood mark, Beth is dragged onto the ship of Alaric Stormborne, the most feared pirate on the Eastern Seas. He hides a stolen crown; she hides the salt-mark on her wrist-an ancient curse the ocean itself seems to recognize. Every clash between them turns into heat neither can steer away from, a storm of longing and fury on open water. And somewhere between tempests and stolen glances, she stops wanting rescue... and starts wanting him. But when their past resurfaces, will desire save them-or drown them both?
Chapter 1
Dec 23, 2025
POV: Beth
I wake before the bells.
For a moment I lie still, listening to the quiet house and watching my breath fog in the cold gray air. Then the thought hits me so sharply I almost laugh.
My wedding day. The words feel too big for this little room.
I push the blanket aside and set my feet on the stone floor. It is icy until I find the little rug Father bought last winter so “his girl wouldn’t always start the day with a yelp.” One corner is fraying. The hearth is ash. The cracked brush and chipped basin sit patiently on the crooked table.
The brown stain in the ceiling has crept a little farther since the last storm.
The room looks smaller than it did yesterday, as if it already knows I am leaving.
I cross to the window and shove the shutters open. Cold air rushes in with the smell of salt and smoke. The harbor lies below, wrapped in a low band of mist: dark masts, rocking boats, gulls crying as men push their little vessels out. Farther out, beyond the working ships, a row of larger silhouettes sits neat and proud.
Royal hulls. Painted sides. Polished cannon mouths. Their banners hang limp in the weak light, but I can see the king’s crest on the tallest mast.
One of those ships brought him. Prince Adrian Lancaster. Second son of the king. The man strangers in the market whisper about when I pass. The man I will see for the first time at the end of an aisle full of roses.
I touch the stone sill, cold against my fingertips, and try to picture his face. The sketches I have seen in broadsheets do not agree: sometimes his eyes are sharp, sometimes soft, sometimes his mouth is stern, sometimes smiling. In my imagination he changes by the day. This morning I decide he will be kind.
He will look at me and see a wife, not just a signature to balance a ledger. He will give Father back his sleep. He will give me a life where I do not know the price of everything we own.
“Beth?”
Father’s voice comes before the door opens. I turn.
He stands in the doorway in his best coat, the dark blue one with the decent buttons. It hangs a little looser than it once did. Gray threads his dark hair at the temples. The lines around his eyes are deeper than they were even last year. He holds a small bundle wrapped in linen.
“You’re awake,” he says, though it is not really a question.
“It would be rude to keep a prince waiting because I overslept,” I answer.
He huffs a small laugh and steps inside. His gaze flicks over the familiar things—the ceiling stain, the rug, the crooked shelf—and his jaw tightens for a heartbeat before he looks back at me.
“Is everything ready?” I ask quickly. “The chapel, the flowers, the musicians—”
“The chapel is standing, the musicians have arrived, and the roof did not fall in during the night,” he says. “By our standards, that is very ready. The flowers came at dawn.”
My heart lifts. “The roses?”
He nods. “Three crates, fresh and white.”
“We ordered five,” I say, then wish I had not.
“We paid for three,” he corrects gently. “They are enough. No one will count them. They will be looking at you.”
All my life I have heard sentences like that: we paid for this much, we can manage with less, no one will notice. Today is supposed to swallow those words. Today a prince’s name is supposed to do what Father’s hard work could not.
“Three will be perfect,” I say. “If there were more, the king might sneeze through the ceremony. Imagine the scandal.”
That earns a real laugh. Some of the weight leaves his shoulders.
“I brought you something,” he says.
He lays the linen bundle on my little table and unwraps it. Inside lies a pair of gloves. White leather, soft and fine, stitched at the wrist with tiny silver vines. They look like they belong in a court portrait, not in this room with its warped mirror and peeling paint.
“They’re beautiful,” I breathe. “Where did you—”
“Never mind that,” he says, too quickly. “They’re for you. A wedding gift. Try them.”
I pick one up.
The leather is cool and smooth, smelling faintly of oil. When I slide it over my fingers it fits as if someone traced each of them. The second glove hugs my hand the same way. My fingers look slender and elegant, not like the hands that scrubbed pots and carried ledgers and mended stockings by candlelight.
Father takes my gloved hands in his. His palms are warm and rough. He turns my right wrist slightly, thumb pressing over the place where the skin underneath is not smooth at all.
A flicker of memory stirs: a crowded market street, the stink of tar and sweat, a stranger’s grip like iron, the flash of searing pain, my own scream, Father’s shout. Weeks of bandages. After that, gloves when we left the house. I was very young. They told me it was nothing.
“Listen to me,” he says now, voice low. “You must not take these off today. Not on the road. Not in the chapel. Not in front of the prince. No matter what happens.”
The air feels suddenly thicker. “I wasn’t planning to wave my bare hands at the royal family,” I try to joke, but it comes out thin.
“I am serious, Beth.” His eyes meet mine, dark and steady. “Promise me.”
“Why?” The word slips out before I can stop it.
He hesitates. It is only a heartbeat, but it tells me there is a reason he will not give me. “Because I am asking,” he says at last. “Because I will breathe easier if I hear you say it.”
There are parts of his life he does not talk about. I have learned to feel them like rocks under the surface of calm water. Today is not the day I want to dig them up.
“I promise,” I say. “I’ll keep them on.”
He exhales, as if some knot inside him loosens. “Good. They suit you.”
I look down at my hands. The gloves make them look almost like the hands of the women in court paintings: pale, smooth, untouchable.
“Do you think he’ll like them?” I ask softly. “The prince. Do you think he’ll like me?”
His mouth twists. “If he has eyes and any sense at all, yes.”
“That’s not the same as yes,” I say.
“I haven’t met him,” Father admits. “I know his letters were polite and his offer mended more than one crack in these walls.”
He kisses my forehead and leaves before I can ask more. The room feels suddenly hollow.
I stare at my new gloves, at the way they hide my wrist, and force myself to breathe.
The maid arrives with the gown and veil, chattering about crowds and princes while she laces me in. When I stand before the mirror at last, I see only a bride walking toward a future, never the cliff waiting beyond it.
The Pirate’s True Love
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