Siren's Song

Chapter One

1787, Morocco

Moments like this made her life legendary.

Being a practical sort, she preferred being a living legend.

An Arabian guard yanked her thick, long braid, demanding attention she refused to give. Undeterred, he hooked her bound arms, currently tied from behind, and dragged sideways towards the auction block. It was uncomfortable, not to mention, the height of rudeness.

Stumbling, but stubborn to the end, Alexandra Stafford levered bare feet against the hardwood steps and pressed backward against the guard with all her strength, her body nearly horizontal, stretched open to the crowd of attentive buyers.

Another figure sauntered into her peripheral vision and the face of her kidnapper appeared as he bent down, nonchalantly, to observe her distress. His hand lifted to halt the guard. Tilting his sun-darkened face parallel to hers, he frowned with a disingenuous expression of worry, shaking his head over her situation. The sour smell of tobacco emanated from his breath and skin, and Alex grimaced in disgust, before unleashing her fury.

“I swear if you do this, my family will hunt you down, cut you limb from limb, gut you like a pig, and feed you to the sharks, you miserable, sonofa—.”

She cut off, choking, as Reginald Paxton blew smoke in her face. Her body convulsed with hacking coughs, and the guard took advantage to yank her back into standing position. Alex kicked out at Paxton with rage, her bare feet doing little damage to the parts she could reach. He laughed. It infuriated her further to think he was laughing at her puny efforts. Once freed, she would kill him. With any luck, a few different ways.

“Tell me where the map is, and I can make this all go away, Miss Stafford.”

“I told you.” The guard painfully tightened his grip on her. “I don’t know anything—” She slammed her heel down on the guard’s foot. “—About some stupid map.”

The guard whacked her in the side of the head, causing her brain to rattle.

Alex faked a recovery she didn’t feel, raised her head, and smiled.

Incensed, Paxton waved for the man to proceed.

“No! You bastard! I’m an American. I’m a free woman,” Alex screamed, fighting violently as she was forced toward the platform. Her efforts were so fierce another guard came to assist.

“Someone help me!” she begged, searching desperately for a sympathetic face or word from the crowd. There were none. Only the foreign sounds of Arabic. She understood enough to heighten her fear, as she was dragged onto the small stage and held in place.

In her short life she’d had many roles—daughter, heiress, sea captain, and now she thought bleakly, slave. Boston was a lifetime away and she was at the wrong end of a sale gone bad. Very bad. Fear no longer prickled the hairs at the back of her neck, but suffocated the life from her with dizzying force. She swore to kill Paxton for this—if her father didn’t get to him first.

Forcing self-pity aside, she took stock of escape options.

They appeared dismal at best.

To her left, the door she entered, was protected by a long hallway of armed guards. Paxton stood aside waiting to collect his earnings for the night. She had not been his only sale, but the other woman had appeared blessedly incoherent. Forward, she faced the eyes of a hundred dark predators, staring, eager for conquest. She couldn’t breathe without tasting their steamy, musky sweat. Finally, to her right, stairs to a place she didn’t want to know about. The place they took the slaves. Her stomach wrenched with dread.