Chapter Three

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After spending at least several days below decks of the ship, the light of the sun blinded Danica when she was finally brought out. She had no way of telling how long she had been on the ship, but it felt like it had been weeks. She was filthy, thirsty and hungry, and she only hoped that getting off the ship meant that would change. Somehow, though, she doubted that.

Danica was being forced to walk, but she had no idea where she was going. She knew she was in a foreign land, but she knew nothing else about her whereabouts. She hoped that her captors would speak in hopes that she would be able to identify the language, but they seemed to communicate entirely with hand signals.

Finally, after a long walk, she was stopped and her captors finally spoke. They were speaking quickly and she couldn't understand most of what they were saying, but she did know they were speaking in Tanti, which wasn't as useful as she had hoped. At least three different countries spoke Tanti, and she had been taught it was fairly widespread around the world.

Within several minutes, her captors had left, but she found herself facing a tall, tanned man, whose green eyes appeared more feline than human. He looked at her for a moment before grabbing her by the arm and pulling her along with him. Danica tried to fight back at first, but the man didn't even seem to notice, and she decided to save her energy.

A large palace came into view, and Danica realized that she was being led there. For a brief moment, she thought the man knew who she was and she would be able to get back home, but that was impossible. She'd been captured and taken away by northern men who couldn't have possibly known who they had kidnapped. They entered in what she thought must have been a servant's entrance and were unchallenged by the guard standing by the door.

After walking up several sets of stairs and going through several different hallways, the man pushed her into a small room and closed the door. Once he was gone, Danica tested the door but as she suspected, it was locked. A small window let in just enough light for her to look around the room, not that there was much to see. There was a small bed, a dresser, and a table. With nothing else to do, she sat down on the bed to wait until someone came for her.

She had started to drift off to sleep when she heard the door opening and she sat up. The man that had taken her to the palace had returned. Without saying a word, he stepped towards her and grabbed her off the bed. He gripped her arm in the same spot as before, causing Danica to wince. He had bruised her earlier, but he either didn't notice her discomfort or didn't care.

He took her to another room not too far from the first room she was in, but this room had a large bathtub filled with water. The man released her, and Danica waited for him to leave, but he didn't, and he soon became impatient with her and started to take her clothes off. She shrieked and clawed at him, trying to stop him, but the man hardly seemed to notice her struggles. Once she was naked, he effortlessly lifted her into the tub and pushed her under the water.

Danica continued in her attempts to fight him, but he was able to ignore all of it and went about washing her. Eventually, she no longer had the energy to fight him and even though she wasn't happy about it, she had no choice but to allow him to bathe her. She could at least take comfort in the fact that he didn't seem to have any desire to look at her, although that only made it slightly easier to deal with.

As soon as he deemed her sufficiently clean, he pulled her out of the tub and dried her off with a towel. She held onto it after he turned away to cover herself. Apparently, he must have thought she was helpless, as he started to dress her. Even when she tried to do it herself, he just brushed her arms away and continued until he had all the clothes on, which wasn't very much. The skirt was made out of a light material that didn't even go to her knees and the top left her arms and stomach exposed.

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