The Pirate Prince by Gaelen Foley Read Free Book Online

organizing the festival that all she wanted to do was go up to her rooms to sleep and let the two fools knock each other senseless. Nevertheless, she remained, flinching every time their blows connected.
    The soldiers were bound to hear the fight soon. She had to stay so she could explain that the Ascencion man was only trying to help because he’d heard their struggle. She couldn’t have them chopping off his lovely head.
    For a moment she studied the stranger by the dim orange illumination of the garden lanterns. He was arrestingly good-looking, with a broad, elegant forehead under his skullcap, and finely etched brows, charcoal black, with a devilish flare at the outer corners. Beneath the poignant sweep of inky lashes, his large, soulful eyes were as black as the night sea. He had a proud, Roman sort of nose and the rugged square jaw of a born conquerer, but his lips were full and sensual, made for kisses and telling pretty lies.
    He grinned again with that mad, wild glint in his eyes as Domenic slashed at him, whirling easily out of the way to grab his arm, flipping the viscount onto the grass as if Domenic weighed nothing.
    “Are you through yet, or am I going to have to hurt you?” the stranger asked politely.
    “Hurt him,” she muttered.
    Domenic climbed to his feet, his face an icy mask of rage. “You will die for this, Ascencion dog,” he told him.
    “For this? Why, this is nothing,” he growled, launching at him.
    Within the next few minutes, Allegra began to worry. The duel grew fiercer, but even when she decided to go for the guards before either man really got hurt, she remembered the garden gate was locked. Domenic had the key.
    “Won’t you both please stop it,” she began.
    The stranger cast her a brief glance as if to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere, but it was a mistake. Domenic darted in at him, swiping at him with his dagger. Allegra gasped as the dagger sliced across the stranger’s left arm at his biceps, cutting his smooth, golden skin. Blood ran instantly from the wound.
    Laughing softly, Domenic backed away. “Have at you,” he said smugly.
    “Well, how do you like that?” the stranger murmured in surprise, peering down at his arm. When he looked up from the wound, his gaze was like a lightning bolt. “Rather stings,” he said slowly.
    They stared at each other. Allegra was suddenly terrified.
    She saw that if she did not take control of the situation at once, he would kill Domenic, and, as a result, he would hang—two young men dead because of her.
    “That’s enough, both of you,” she ordered them firmly, though her voice shook. “Sir, I will get you a doctor. Domenic,” she said, holding out her hand as she went toward him, though she was frightened of how perfectly sinister he looked with that bloody dagger in his hand. “You’ve proved your point. Now, give me the keys, and remove yourself from this house.”
    Domenic tossed her a cold, cruel smile, pleased with himself. “I’ll deal with you later, darling. First I’ve got to finish with this insolent…filth.”
    Even as Allegra cast the stranger a fearful glance, he hurled his knife away, staring at Domenic through narrowed eyes. The big, curved knife struck deep into the soil, shuddering where it landed.
    Domenic looked at the leather-wrapped hilt jutting out of the ground, then at him.
    “Now, my friend,” the stranger said softly, cracking his knuckles, “you have annoyed me.”
    Allegra stared at him, riveted with awful fascination. Domenic raised his dagger, bracing himself for another round, the stranger’s blood staining his hand and the Mechlin lace of his sleeve.
    There was a second of silence, stillness, all action suspended by the power of the stranger’s burning black predator stare. Allegra could not look away.
    Then he attacked.
    Without warning, he leaped at Domenic, tackling him into the flower bed by the garden wall. He tore the dagger out of Domenic’s hand and cast it aside. Allegra