Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
He didn’t respond.
Stoic to a fault.
Nerves of steel.
I pursed my lips and blew him a kiss. “I’ll see you soon, darling.”
He’d just captured the notorious daughter of Edric Sharp. Curiosity and arrogance would bring him slithering into my lap before nightfall.
Just so, he didn’t acknowledge any of this as he vanished into his cabin.
Several hatchways later, my escorts dragged me through the lowest level of the warship. Weaving around coils of cables, live chickens and geese, and water stores, we had to stoop beneath the low rafters. Near the center of the ship, the crawlspace opened into a large area with more headroom.
As we turned the corner, the dank air perspired with the stench of too many unwashed bodies crammed together in close quarters.
Then I saw them.
Confined in one large hold behind an iron gate, sweaty men stood shoulder to shoulder, coughing, stinking, and spreading disease. I took in the shadowed landscape of unkempt beards, gold earrings, jackboots, distrusting glares…
Captured pirates.
Lord Cutler was a pirate hunter. Of course, I wasn’t his only prize. But twenty…thirty…forty of my kind? It was horrifying.
Worse, he meant to imprison me with the animals. I was one of them, after all, driven by the thrill of raiding, killing, and raising hell on the high seas.
With one distinct difference.
Dozens of eyes slid in my direction. Hungry, predatory eyes that saw only a female, a body to rut, and nothing more. I wouldn’t survive a night in that cage.
The lieutenants shoved me toward the gate.
My heart slammed in my throat. “How long have they been in there?”
“Some of them a month or longer.” One of the officers jabbed a key into the lock.
The clicking sound drove my pulse too hard, too fast, terrorizing my veins. Memories flooded, transporting me back into the body of a fourteen-year-old girl fighting for her virtue beneath the brutality of the Marquess of Grisdale.
My skin shuddered, tightening and pulling away from my bones. I refused to be violated like that again. Not by a marquess. Not by forty pirates. Not by any man.
But what if I didn’t have a choice?
A scream wavered on the end of my tongue, urging me to call for the commodore and beg him for mercy. But he’d ordered me down here, knowing exactly what awaited. He would grant no quarter, and my useless demands for special treatment would only reveal my crippling fear.
One thing I could not do was enter that enclosure showing weakness. The pirates would scent it, feed on it, and become rabid.
As the lieutenants shoved me forward, I fought fearlessly, furiously, thrashing, spitting, and doing what any man would do in my position. Instinct took over until all that existed was the savage impetuosity to protect myself.
But in the end, I was too small, unarmed, outnumbered, and quickly subdued.
My knees scraped along the planks as the lieutenants shoved and kicked me into the hold. I landed on my backside, and the sound of the gate locking surged bile through my chest.
I was a pirate captain, dammit. I’d maimed, tortured, and slaughtered some decisively evil and scary men. I didn’t possess Priest’s magnetic ability to win over a crowd, but I could command them with my eyes closed. I just needed them to see beyond my femaleness.
A pair of trousers would have been splendid right now.
Breathing deeply, I slowed the heave of my lungs, rose to my full height, and steeled my spine. Then I turned and faced forty ravenous rogues.
“Point me to your captain.” I searched the overcrowded space, taking an inventory of scars, long greasy braids, suspicious skin sores, and creatures crawling in beards.
If I’d kept Priest in the bilge for a month without a wash bucket, would he have reached this level of pungency? I didn’t think so, but I was rather inclined to favor his appearance, no matter everything else that was wrong with him.
The pack of thieves leered with wild eyes. Some sniffed the air in front of me. Others grunted throaty noises.
None pointed out the captain.
My teeth sawed the insides of my cheeks. It didn’t matter if they all came from the same crew or met one another in this hold. Pirates were a democratic breed, and they always had a leader.
“Were you hit on your heads?” I balled my hands at my sides, concealing the nervous shaking. “Or do you not speak the king’s English?”
“The king doesn’t speak English, lassie.” The low, rough Scottish accent came from somewhere in the back.
It was true that King George—who hailed from Germany to England—refused to speak in the tongue of his inherited realm. But that was neither here nor there.
What concerned me was the owner of that Scottish brogue. He was the leader, and if he knew things about the English king, he wasn’t without intellect. That didn’t bode well for me. Neither did the rising agitation rippling through his men.