“Dinna ye know, leannan, I’ve seen ye without a stitch on, nigh on a month? We stripped ye bare when first we boarded ye upon my ship.” He leaned in close, his white teeth showing between two wide masculine lips, and whispered, “I’ve touched ye. Weighed and measured ye. Found ye ripe for the picking.”

Faryn gasped. “Nat!” 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, but she could not, and part of her wondered if he was simply messing with her head.

“Oh lovely, dinna worry, your maidenhead is still intact. That is Queen Orelia’s to take from ye.”

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. Well, she vowed, she’d kill herself first.

Unless… There must be a way to escape this fate. The man exuded a sensuality that gave her an idea, though she wasn’t certain she could pull it off in her current condition. However, there was only one way to find out—she had to try.

“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 ye my family can pay ye ten times what ye’ll receive from…your queen.” That was a lie, of course. She might have been borne of Irish nobles, but they’d been wretchedly poor for far too long.

He did not move, nor did his facial expression change. Had she succeeded only in tempting herself? But they she saw a heated flash of desire in his eyes, before he shuttered it.

“Captain Noir.” As he said his name, his fingers danced along her waist, over her ribs and just under her breasts. “But ye needna bribe me with…these.” He brushed the undersides of her breasts, sending wicked frissons of heat straight 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.

Faryn blamed it on a month of near starvation.

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. Tears of frustration stung her eyes.

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, leannan?”

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

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 ye are no longer. Ye will serve the queen. Your family’s titles mean nothing here.

Curb your tongue of threats, for they will only see ye 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, lass, for ye 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, though she did shudder.

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 Ireland. 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 lass. Indeed, she would have only sold Lady Faryn to some sop for less than he would bargain for her.

Och, he had a mind to see it done and have the little filly, Faryn, warming his bed this very night with her gratitude.

C H A P T E R T W O

Q ueen Orelia’s castle was warmer than the ship, by far. Even the marble floor was warm to the touch on Faryn’s bruised and frozen feet, as if hot rocks had only just been removed from its surface. Yet, Faryn still had the urge to rub her arms furiously to ward off her chill. A chill that she didn’t think would go away no matter how warm her environment.

The slaves were lined up in a great hall that was dimly lit with sconces on the stone walls, the wax dripping down the candles along the walls and into creamy puddles on the floor. Faryn gazed around the hall, taking in the elegant columns with vines climbing their way around the marble until reaching the ceiling. Exotic flowers and plants filled the corners and tabletop surfaces. A fountain stood in the middle of the room in the shape of a Greek goddess, looking so much like Dido, a temptress carved in marble, her beauty and sensuality emanating from the stone. Dido’s statuesque form poured blood-red liquid from a pitcher into the mouths of a carved nude male and female who knelt before her in supplication. Their bodies were connected in an embrace, heads upturned, mouths open, both receiving what she offered. Wine, not water.

Where was she? What was this place?

She recalled stories regaled to her in her youth of places such as this. Where queens reigned supreme and wantonness was a daily ritual…

As Faryn watched the fountain, mesmerized by its uniqueness and sensuality, several male and female servants, dressed in only silver-chained loincloths, their torsos bare, entered the great hall.

She gasped in shock at their near nudeness, even though she herself was completely without clothes.

They walked past the fountain, scooping the wine into their own pitchers.

They approached the newly gotten slaves, who stood in a row, Faryn all the way at the end, as she’d been last to enter. The servants passed down the line, pouring wine into the slave’s parched mouths. When a female slave approached Faryn, she forgot about wanting to resist anything of this place and opened her mouth, greedily taking in the sweet wine. The female servant continued to pour until wine dripped from Faryn’s mouth, over her chin, down her neck and body. Nay, she was thirsty, but not that thirsty.

Faryn closed her mouth, wine splashing over her closed lips. She tried to back away but someone held her in place from behind, pulling her arms back so her chest was thrust out and she couldn’t move. Her back pressed against warm hard flesh—a male chest. The female servant who stood in front of Faryn leaned forward, her exotic jasmine scent mixing with the aroma of wine, as she gazed into Faryn’s eyes, assessing.

The woman pulled a linen square from somewhere and started to wipe away the spilled wine along Faryn’s chin and neck. When she moved to Faryn’s breasts, Faryn resisted, wanting to clean

herself up. With a strength she’d not known she had, Faryn yanked her arm from the man’s grasp behind her and ripped the linen from the woman’s fingers.

“Dinna touch me,” she hissed.

The two of them only laughed and moved on to the next person in line. Another woman. But she did not resist their ministrations. If anything, she relented, closing her eyes. And Faryn was too shocked not to watch as the man and woman licked the wine from the other woman’s body.

Fingers roved between the woman’s legs, touching her in her most private place. Faryn gaped as the slave moaned at the touch. Gaped wider when her own body sparked a little twinge of something foreign and wicked.