A Pirate's Bounty

A Pirate’s Bounty

Eliza Knight

1764
~ When Faryn is captured by the mysterious and sensual dread pirate Captain Wraith Noir, who delivers her as a slave to the flesh-hungry court of the pirate queen, she expects her future will be bleak and death imminent. Lucky for Faryn, Wraith offers a different destiny—he wants her for his own.

Duty, desire, passion, revenge and treachery besiege Faryn and Wraith. With the future uncertain, only fate, love and the truth will set them both free.

Chapter One

The Coast of the Greek Isles, 1764

The crack of the whip stung as it struck the flesh of Faryn’s bare buttocks. She bit hard on the inside of her cheek, refusing to cry out as she knew the crew liked to hear. She would not try to jump overboard again.

Metal clanked against the masts as men shouted, “Heave! Ho!” to get the sails down now that they’d come into port. Instead of a white sail flying prominently against the mainmast, this ship’s sail was a flag. Large and intrusive, its image would shake any ship or person who neared it. Eerie wisps of clouds dusted the night sky, and the large silvery moon shone in flashes on the design, which sent an involuntary shudder through her now, just as it always did. Against the wide black backdrop, sewn in white, a large skull, and beneath it two silver swords crisscrossed. Below that was clearly an image in white of the top half of a man, well-muscled, who held the two swords.

“School your hands, mate! Orelia will not be pleased that you marred the flesh of one of her slaves.” The voice was filled with authority, and though he spoke English, she noted a slight undertone of French, something she ought to remember as he could prove to be an ally, but as soon as the thought entered her mind it was quickly gone again.

The word echoed in Faryn’s mind over and over in tune to the throb of the welt on her flesh. She looked around with glazed eyes. A rough crew this was. Weapons covered their bodies, some crude, some elegant—and so very out of place, with their rough clothing. They smiled, some with teeth and some without. They leered at her with one or two eyes, some covered with a patch. Some grabbed at their crotches and waggled what little bits of male flesh hid beneath the layers of grubby breeches. Except for one. The captain. He stood out—dark, mysterious, large and eerily handsome. A cut above the rest.

Slave. Slave. Slave
.

This was why they’d taken her in the middle of the night. She cursed her sleeplessness and need to walk on the beach that dreadful evening. They’d ripped her from everything she knew, tied her hands behind her back, tossed her over their shoulders and disappeared into the fog. She would be slave to Orelia. But who was Orelia? She’d never heard the name before now.

“Avast, ye wretches, down ye go, else prepare to feed the fish!” a man shouted, as he hobbled up and down the line of slaves on one foot and a wooden pegleg.

The captain’s gaze held hers, catching her breath in her throat. She was frightened…yet another feeling had her belly twisting into knots. Without taking his gaze from hers, he flicked his hand toward her and sliced through the rope tying her arms around the mast. He jerked his head toward the other gangplank and Faryn hurried to line up with the other beaten and naked men and women who would serve as slaves to the mysterious Orelia, eager to have her feet walk on steady ground again. They’d traveled far, she was sure. And as she stepped down the gangplank, splinters sinking into the tender flesh of her feet, she was hit with the knowledge that escape would not come easy.

Ocean stretched far and wide. The sounds of water crashing against the shore, and the scents of salt and ocean surrounded her. Loud voices shouted all around her, mixed with the creaking of boards, boot heels clicking on wood and other ship sounds. From the dock came people, she could barely make them out with only the small lanterns they carried. Naked bodies trembled and wobbled down the planks in front of her. She was delirious from hunger and pain. Cold and wet.

Gooseflesh rose along her limbs, her nipples were hard and stung as her hair whipped violently against her chest.

She cried out and lost her footing. Arms flung out, she sought hold of anything, her hands catching the slippery back of another slave, who jumped forward at her touch. Her knees dropped to the wood of the gangplank.

“Get up!” shouted one of the men wielding a whip. But she could not. She was so weak…too tired. Her vision blurred.

“That one won’t make it. Captain, ye want her back? Might be best to toss her to the sharks.”

Cruel laughter reached her ears. “Ah, Toothless, you know I’d love to have another wench to work my cock, but I won’t be stealing from the Queen. Orelia will have all her slaves, half-dead or not.”

So, she was dying, and her last moments of life were to be serving a foreign queen. But mayhap this Orelia would know that she, Faryn, was no ordinary slave but French nobility. She didn’t belong here. Yes, she would plead her case with Queen Orelia and beg to be sent home.

When she looked up Faryn noticed that the rest of the slaves had departed the ship and she was alone, still crouched on the cold splintery gangplank. The boards shook beneath her and the thunderous methodical thump of boots on wood sounded behind her.

“Stand, slave, or risk another lash of the whip.” His voice was softer than it had been before.

Faryn chanced a glance above her and was taken aback by what she saw. A man dressed completely in black, from shining leather boots leading to mid-calf, black leather breeches, black linen shirt and cape. His face was darkly tanned, lips covered by a neatly trimmed dark beard on his chin and a mustache. Hard gray eyes stared out at her from beneath raven brows. His hair was not pulled back but left to hang to his shoulders in sleek black locks, and atop that black head was a black cap, various accoutrements attached to it. Beyond beads, feathers and bones, she couldn’t make out more of what hung from his cap, nor did she care. She was sure she stood staring directly at the devil.

He moved to hold out his hand, the light glinting off a large and sharp sword as his arm gently nudged it. From his other hip swung a black leather cat-o’-nine-tails.

She shuddered. She didn’t want to take his hand.

She wanted to disappear. Her hair cascaded down her back like a cloak, and for a fleeting moment she wished that the cloak of hair could make her invisible. Foolish thoughts of a desperate and scared woman.

She shook her head and tried to stand, almost making it but collapsing again onto the hard wood.

“Will you take my help now, slave? Or shall I let you fall another time?” His voice was soft, not at all in tune with his devilish appearance. Again he held out his hand.

Squeezing her eyes tight, she reached up and placed her cold, trembling fingers into his warm, rough hand. She expected to be roughly yanked to her feet and shoved or whipped the rest of the way down the gangplank. Surprise registered again as he gently lifted her up to her full height. When his gray eyes widened slightly, darkening with hunger as they traced the outline of her body, she was once again reminded how very nude she was. She crossed her legs, covered her mons with a hand and attempted to cover her breasts with one arm, but he only chuckled at her foolhardiness.

“Don’t you know,
chérie
, I’ve seen you without a stitch on, nigh on a month? We stripped you bare when first we boarded you upon my ship.” He leaned in close, his white teeth showing between two wide masculine lips, and whispered, “I’ve touched you. Weighed and measured you. Found you ripe for the picking.”

Faryn gasped. “No!” A shiver raced along her limbs and her traitorous body reacted to the wicked words whispered to her even as her mind abhorred it. She wanted to remember the feel of this devil man’s hands on her.

“Oh lovely, don’t worry, your maidenhead is still intact. I will let Orelia take that from you.”

Her mind whirled in confusion. Orelia was a woman. How could she possibly do such as he suggested? Unless she meant to only sell Faryn upon gaining her. She would be sold to the highest bidder, no doubt a nasty, foul-smelling nightmare of a man. She’d kill herself first.

There must be a way to escape this fate
.

“Please, Captain… What is your name?” She leaned toward him, letting the tips of her breasts rub seductively against his black linen shirt. She shivered from the sensations—her mind warring with her body—she wanted only to entice him and yet she enticed herself as well. She hurried her proposition before words failed her. “I can assure you my family can pay you ten times what you’ll receive from…your queen.”

He did not move, nor did his facial expression change. Had she succeeded only in tempting herself?

“Captain Noir.” As he said his name, his fingers danced along her waist, over her ribs and just under her breasts. “But you needn’t bribe me with…these.” He plucked at first one nipple and then the other, sending a wicked frisson from her nipples to the pleasure bud between her legs. “Or your money. I do my duty as I see fit.”

Faryn gulped. She was hungry for something beyond her imagination. Wicked. Wanton. Why did this terrifying man, this Captain Noir, make her feel like she wanted to lie down beside him, have him crush her, sink into her?

She shook her head again and looked down toward her bare toes. What was she thinking? To give herself to this scoundrel just to get away from a queen who could possibly help her? Once Orelia knew who she was, she wouldn’t sell her. And to think she’d been about to disgrace her family.

Her mother and father would never forgive her. And her betrothed! He would surely search the open seas calling every pirate he found into battle only to die at the end of the blade, all to revenge her honor, which moments ago she had been willing to give away.

She stepped back from Noir and whipped around, intending to walk the rest of the way down the gangplank, her head held as high as she could possibly hold it under the circumstances.

His hand, rough with calluses, gripped her arm, stopping her. “What is your name,
chérie
?”

“Faryn. Lady Faryn. My father is a powerful man. You shall all be punished severely for stealing me away. And I shall rejoice when the cat-o’-nine-tails rips into your bare
ass-
ets.”

The captain had the audacity to smile. Although it wasn’t a curving of the lips filled with humor but of cruelty and distaste. He laughed
at
her.

“Lady Faryn you are no longer. You will serve the queen. Your family’s titles mean nothing here. Curb your tongue of threats, for they will only see you harmed.”

Faryn wrenched her arm from Noir, her resolve restored, and stalked down the rest of the gangplank, acutely aware of the air hitting her behind, her thighs, her breasts, places that had never felt the cool air or spritz of seawater before.

“Be wary,
mademoiselle
, for you have descended upon the first gate of hell, where no earthly man of morals would dare to cross. Our queen is not a queen by divine right but by right of the blade.”

Faryn didn’t turn back, nor did she take heed to what he had to say.

* * * * *

Wraith watched the sway of creamy white buttocks as the raving beauty walked determinedly away. Despite her being aboard ship for thirty days, her long golden hair still held luster as it hugged her body and waved with the breeze. He imagined running his fingers through her hair, gripping it in his fist and giving it a gentle tug. He couldn’t help but smile, for never had he met a woman as tart of tongue and simultaneously innocent as the day she was born.

Cruel world that it was, she would be wasted on the hedonist ways of the queen, then most likely tossed to the wharf.

Dammit, he wanted her!

For himself.

She was a right beautiful woman but beyond her beauty there was something more. Her fiery spirit stirred his blood. And he’d a need to set foot in France. This blonde vixen might be the key to his entry.

The queen did owe him a hefty sum for bringing the nearly two dozen slaves this trip had proffered. However much he abhorred doing her dirty work of transporting her sex slaves, at least she kept her mouth shut about his true identity. Perhaps he could convince Orelia that instead of his usual charge for shipment, he would take half and the girl. Indeed, she would have only sold the slave girl to some sop for less than he would bargain for her.

Oh
mais oui
, he had a mind to see it done and have the little filly, Faryn, warming his bed this very night.