A Pirate's Bounty (3 page)

Wicked girl! What was she thinking? To have such thoughts… Her family would be ashamed! Her betrothed would surely break their engagement. This place was bad. Very bad. And yet…

Her eyes were opened to so much surrounding her. Her mind could never forget the experiences she’d had, the things she’d seen and felt.

She flicked her gaze to the floor, where she tried to count the marks of imperfection in the marble. She’d only gotten to four before a pair of black leather-booted feet came into view.

“
Mademoiselle.
” The captain held out his hand to her.

Take it and she was saying yes to this fate. Run, her mind screamed.
Run and never look back!

She took his hand, the flesh and bone overwhelming her own with its sheer size, and she was by no means a dainty miss. Faryn was the height of most men, although slender.

“You are mine now,
chérie
.” He leaned in close, his lips brushing her ear, causing a shiver to race along her spine in a way that even the multiple mouths and fingers on her body had not. “But even the bargain I struck does not make you free from the queen. She has a request.”

Faryn looked up into dark eyes, hoping to find a measure of comfort in them. For this was her champion who would take her away from this place, even if it was to be his slave in return. Somewhere, deep inside him, she sensed a goodness. Although not readily visible on the surface, she felt it. She trusted her instincts most of the time. Could she trust them now?

“A-a request?” she stammered, unable to get control of her vocal cords.

“Yes, my sweet.”

Faryn peered over his shoulder and watched as the servants ushered the other slaves from the room. Orelia slinked into the background, seemingly melding into the shadows from which she’d emerged.

“Captain, we both know that I am a well-educated woman—unless, that is, you are not aware that a woman of my status would have been taught a few things, unlike a common serving wench. Tell me no lies, Noir, for I am not naïve as you may have convinced yourself.”

The captain took her by the elbow and guided her into a dimly lit corner.

“It is not often we have a virgin come to Orelia’s court,
mademoiselle
. You heard her speak of spilling virgin’s blood?”

“Yes, she means to sacrifice me to whatever gods it is she prays to.” Or preys upon. Faryn lifted her gaze to the ceilings, for the first time noticing their domed design with intricate scene paintings, but the tears pooling in her eyes blinded her vision.

“Do not speak ill of her, for she is willing to be kind to you. Instead of sacrificing you, she is allowing for another type of blood.”

Faryn frowned, her gaze returning to the captain’s. “Well?” she said in mock exasperation, hoping he did not see through her bravado.

“She will allow for virgin’s blood to be spilled… In other words, your maidenhead to be taken in front of witnesses.”

Faryn felt every single drop of blood rush from her face down her neck and into her chest, before pooling in her stomach like burning lava. She was going to retch.

“
Mademoiselle
,” the captain said, but his voice sounded hollow, distant. “Do not be so discontent. For the price of your virginity, she is willing to let you go to me. And I am willing to rethink your earlier bargain.”

Faryn glanced around her, her eyes glassy. The captain’s lips continued to move but she couldn’t hear the words that were coming from his mouth.

He gripped her shoulders, appearing to attempt to regain her attention, but she was lost.

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she started to fall.

* * * * *

Wraith caught her just in time.

Despite being pale as a ghost, her flesh was warm, the heat of it seeping through his garments.

He wasn’t such a monster. He offered her freedom in exchange for one thing. Well, two, he supposed. Virginity and a large sum of her family’s fortune. But the payment was nothing compared to the gift he was giving her.

Didn’t she realize that although he’d pierce her maidenhead and spill the blood of her virginity, that he would do it with kindness, give her pleasure in return for her sacrifice?

Merde!

The fact that he wanted to give her pleasure at all sent the blood rushing from his face. But he liked to pleasure all women. Why would it be any different with the slave girl?

Her silky hair fell over his arm and she moaned in her unconsciousness.

“You have such a way with the ladies,” Orelia said as she walked across the room, her gaze roving over the girl in his arms.

Wraith chuckled mercilessly. “Wouldn’t you know?”

“I’d like to know again. Now.”

“And I want to show you.” His mind revolted at anything having to do with Orelia but in order to gain the girl, he would have to acquiesce to her. “Let me take her to my rooms, where she can sleep away her shock. I shall come to you directly.”

“No,” Orelia snapped. “That will not do at all.”

His gut clenched. What was the ungrateful bitch up to now?

“I await your commands, my queen.”

“Tie her to the bed in the sacrificial room.” Her lips curled in an angry way, making her beauty diminish a fraction. “You can make love to me lying next to her.”

“As you wish, my queen.”

“Come. My cunt grows wet with wanting.”

Wraith dutifully followed Orelia, glad of only one thing. If the lovely Faryn lay next to them, at least he would be able to get hard, something he’d found harder and harder to do as his time serving Orelia continued.

But do his duty he would, and he would do it well, for it was the only way to escape this place both alive and with his own bargain for freedom. The girl had no idea how much was riding on her. Not only her own life, but his.

* * * * *

“Oh yes! Yes! Yes!”

Faryn awoke to the throaty moans and shouts of a woman lying so close it could almost be right in her ear.

Her world was also rocking. She rocked back and forth. Was she back on the ship? She tried to sit up but her hands were bound tight to something. She tried to move her feet but they too were bound tight.

Her world was still black. But then again, she hadn’t opened her eyes yet. She blinked.

“Fuck! Harder! Oh yes!” The moans grew louder, the rocking fiercer. A wet slapping sound paled against the moans but was there nonetheless.

She turned slowly to her right.

Dear Lord! The woman was right next to her ear.

Queen Orelia lay next to her. Her eyes were closed in ecstasy as a man, bare, bronzed and full of sinew and muscle, buried his face against her breasts and his fingers between her legs… But then she noticed, it wasn’t his fingers exactly, but some sort of phallic tool, long and hard, that he wielded with his hands as he thrust it inside of her.

Faryn gasped, her eyes widened. She looked about her. The room was dark except for the lighted candles surrounding the massive bed. She was bound with white ties about her ankles and wrists. Thank God they had not gagged her as well.

She opened her mouth to speak, to shout out, but she couldn’t find her voice. And even if she did, the sounds the woman was making would surely drown out any pleas she could issue.

Where was the captain? Hadn’t he promised her freedom? Safety? Had he lied?

She pulled at the ties but that only seemed to make them tighter.

She glanced around frantically. Trying to see something, anything—what she wasn’t sure of. She did know that once she saw whatever it was she was looking for, she would know.

The woman shrieked one last time, her body quivering for what seemed like minute upon minute upon minute, and then she stopped and the man leaning over her stopped thrusting the long thick leather phallus into Orelia’s cunny, tossed it aside.

“Oh captain, my captain, you still know how to pleasure a woman,” the queen crooned.

Captain? Had she truly said captain? Was it Noir who’d pleasured the queen? Faryn’s eyes widened as her gaze roved over the man whose face was turned away. The dark hair matched his but truly that was all she could recognize, for she’d only ever seen him clothed, and this man…was most definitely not clothed.

His shoulders and arms rippled with muscle. His back bulged and flexed and beneath that the most beautiful, muscular, round, hard halves of a male’s buttocks she’d ever seen. He could have been forged from one of the many godly statues and paintings she’d gazed on. His legs were long, lithe, strong.

She swallowed hard, her nipples tightened, her belly quivered.

This man was more than a man. And that was only her impression from seeing him from behind. If he were to turn around… If he were to stand before her…

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her breaths were shallow. Her mouth suddenly dry. She wouldn’t mind at all if this man, this god who’d pleasured the queen until her limbs shook and she screamed with release, were to do the same to her. If he were the one to see to the ghastly farce of bedding her before one and all…

She shook her head, as if doing such a thing would force her thoughts to flit away. She couldn’t think of enjoying his body. She couldn’t think of garnering pleasure from this pirate plundering her. No! She should be outraged. Yet she was not. If anything, her blood heated. The place between her legs thrummed with need.

Indeed, she would secretly enjoy it if the captain were to climb atop her and thrust himself between her thighs.

She whimpered before realizing the noise had escaped her.

The man turned then and indeed, dark stormy eyes locked with hers. His gaze moved over her face, pausing at the lip she had tucked between her teeth down to her rapidly rising and falling chest. Her nipples tingled, already hard and begging for his mouth to clasp the flesh between his teeth, to lick and suckle her.

The queen still appeared to be dazed from the thorough plundering Noir had given her. A pang of jealousy filled Faryn, startling her.

Her emotions must have flitted across her face, as the captain smiled at her in a devilish and inviting way. He slowly pushed away from Orelia and stood at the foot of the bed. The front of him was even more impressive than the back.

His chest and stomach were sculpted into ridges and valleys tapering down to his navel, where the sprinkling of his chest hair came to a line that led directly to…

She gulped, her mouth opening and closing. Faryn wasn’t sure how to react or what to think. Sculptures and paintings had not prepared her for what jutted from between his muscled hips. Long, thick, hard. And that was only the beginning. She couldn’t describe more. Her body instinctively approved—mouth watering, belly fluttering, wetness pooling between her thighs. Beneath his cock a velvet sac. If her hands weren’t tied she would have had to stop herself from reaching out to cup the sac and stroke her fingers over the length of his cock. For cock was the only word to describe his member. It wasn’t a penis as she’d heard it called, but a cock, and every naughty, wanton thought she’d had since arriving at this place came to the forefront of her mind, ending with what Noir could do to her with the swollen flesh of his cock.

Her desire must have been written on her face. His lips quirked up in a smile and he nodded as if answering her unuttered question—yes, he said. Yes, he would pleasure her until her body shook like the queen’s. Yes, he would take her to the pinnacle of the heavens and back down to earth again. Yes, this was happening.

And with that one last thought, reality snapped back.

Her body might be pulsing a tune of anxious anticipation but her mind screamed no. She couldn’t allow this to happen. She had to stall for time. She tore her gaze from Noir’s magnificent body and stared at the impossibly high ceiling.

Tears pooled in her eyes again. She’d only been in Orelia’s lair for a few hours and already she was changing. Already her morals were leaving her. Everything she valued tossed to the wind. Everything she believed in—gone.

The mattress moved beneath her and from her peripheral vision she watched the queen stand and saunter toward the captain.

“You have one hour to prepare her for what is to happen. I will be most disappointed if she doesn’t open her legs for you willingly and equally disappointed if she doesn’t enjoy it.”

Faryn closed her eyes, though she couldn’t close her ears.

God help her, she would be ruined.

Yet she didn’t have much choice. Be ruined, or forever a slave in this place.

* * * * *

Desire had filled the innocent depths of the slave girl’s eyes as she’d greedily taken in the sight of Wraith’s nude body. Just as quickly fear, anger and hurt had replaced it and she’d turned away.

He’d seen the calculation in Orelia’s eyes as she’d watched the interplay between them. She’d seen a way out of her bargain. A way to keep the girl, who he was sure she wanted for herself.

One hour.

Was one hour enough for him to convince the girl to be willing, to squeal with pleasure?