It was very boring, being stuck in the captain’s stateroom. But if she left, she would have to deal with Dante. And Anara didn’t think she could. Something inside her wanted to succumb to him. And that frightened her.

She had to get off the ship, she thought, her attention coming to a subtle listing of the deck. The boards under her groaned slightly.

Assuming what Dante had said was the truth, she would be allowed to leave the following evening. She did not doubt what he told her. Something in her that Dante was trustworthy, despite his other faults. Was he truly so taken with her? Without the other troubles happening on his ship, would he force Anara to… was he really such a beast?

Putting the captain from her mind, she wondered what would happen after she was off the ship. Except, she had no idea. Anara was a princess of the Wind Steppe. She knew next to nothing of this world below her home. She had no idea where she could go or what she could do. The gold would run dry eventually.

What would she do, then?

Searching out her father was not an option and there was no way she could get back to the Wind Steppe, not without a pegasus mount. She felt a pang of loss thinking about Raizha and how she had died so horribly.

Eventually she decided to put that from her mind as well, along with the rest of her worries. With her time, she read books. Anara’s nerves had been frayed enough during the past few days. She quickly found that many of Dante’s volumes—the one’s not written in Amalfi—were not of her taste, though she read anyway to better acquaint herself with the underside of the world she was utterly unfamiliar with.

But every so often she was distracted from her readings. Anara didn’t know why she couldn’t stop thinking about the little red journal. Whether it was out of a perverse curiosity or that she just wanted to know how hedonistic Dante truly was, she had put her books down and looked through the rest of its pages.

The Wind Steppe princess was both horrified and disgusted by what she found, and yet she almost regretted burning the small pages as she destroyed them over the candle one at a time.

She was intrigued.

And gods—she was wet.

Perhaps Ulshar was right about her. In other circumstances she might be giggling now like a besotted girl, telling one of her friends that she had turned down a pirate king’s advances.

Elira? No, too chatty. She couldn’t keep secrets. Ursha. She nodded as she tore out another one of the pages.

He wasn’t a pirate king. Not really. In fact, Anara didn’t know anything about him. He seemed regal to her, though.

She found that she was biting her lip and stopped when she heard some sort of ruckus outside the stateroom. Anara glanced up from her burning, annoyed. It sounded like they were brawling. She rolled her eyes. These men on this ship were so rowdy at all hours.

But…

No, it couldn’t be.

Her eyes came back down to the page she held over the candle flame. Watching it burn was almost a shame. The fantasies of Dante Campione were quite detailed. In her lack of experience, she had never imagined such things. Not like this—and oh gods, ­not like that either!

Her own imagining would be different now. Did that make her a wanton woman? She was burning the pages, was she not? She had also refused Dante. She had integrity, though she almost wished she didn’t, especially if her integrity resulted in her eventual reunion my marrying Duke Korr.

Anara tossed the page in the empty ceramic wash basin and watched it burn into ash with a dozen others that were now gone forever, though the memories would stay with her. She wouldn’t tell anyone about this.

Someone screamed. Anara let out a sound of exasperation. When men play with swords, they tend to lose fingers. These louts were disturbing her thoughts!

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There was a crash and the doors to the stateroom shook. Anara jumped, letting out an audible yelp as her eyes darted to the edge of the room.

Quickly she tucked the little red journal into her dress pocket as the shaking persisted. Stained glass from one of the small windowpanes shattered, making a mess on the floor.

“Who—who goes there?”

Her eyes widened as a large hand reached in for the door handle. Was Dante trying to break into the stateroom?

“What are you doing?”

She ran for the door to attack that hand, to prevent it from opening the lock.

Too late.

A thrill of excitement screamed within her. It must have showed on her face when the doors swung open. Where she was expecting to find a lustful Dante all but ready to force himself upon her, and she being amenable to such an advance, she instead found three men, armed and armored.

She stopped dead, took a step back in pure shock, unable to say a word. They lurched into the room and grabbed her by the arms.

“Get your hands off me, you brutes!”

Two hands as strong as iron manacles hauled her out, one by her hair, the other by her wrist. They nearly lifted her feet off the deck with the force of their haste as she cried out in pain.

Bewildered, she looked about when she found that the entire crew had been summoned, four dead men on the deck, their life’s blood pooling beneath them.

Gods and goddesses!

“What is happening here? I demand an explanation!”

“Silenzio!” one of her captors barked. Another laughed out something in an Amalfi accent so thick she couldn’t make out the words.

Was this it? Was this the mutiny Dante had told her about?

She was pushed through a press of sailors and fighters. At least ten men had swords, their blades exposed and their armor glinting in the orange sunset.

The Wind Steppe princess swallowed as she was pushed through the group of men and then hauled up on the gangplank where she found Dante standing at the end, a sword in one hand, ready to fight.

The cold air gusted into her nightgown, but that was the least of what sent chills down her back. Dante was cornered, and Anara knew what was happening. They were kicking him off the ship. Clearly they couldn’t kill him—he was too good a fighter if he had already killed four of them without getting a scratch on him in return.

“Perhaps being trapped with a beautiful woman will help put things in perspective, eh, Dante?” One of the sailors asked, his tone sneering and contemptuous.

It was the man holding her. Anara thought he was the first mate, but she couldn’t be certain since his head was covered. She could tell she was about to be thrown over the railing and into the water.

There was land beyond the ship. Waves washed up onto shore. It looked like a very small island with little outcroppings of black rock and cliffs of similarly-colored slate. There were trees, and a mountain, and…

Oh gods!

Black clouds roiled above and thunder rumbled overhead, making it seem even more ominous as the cold wind pressed against Anara.

“I can’t swim!” she declared in a panic, her heart thundering inside her chest. Her ears throbbed as she breathed in and out. She was feeling dizzy and sick. Glancing about in every direction all at once wasn’t helping matters.

“Well,” the man who had taken hold of her said, “then I guess the shining Duke here will have to rescue you again!”

“Cordilio!” Dante called to the mate, his teeth showing in a fierce warning. “Don’t.”

“Then give me what I want.”

“I don’t have them!”

“Then it’s away with you, Dante!” He shook Anara, nearly shoving her off the ship. She flinched, moving her body for better balance.

Laughter abounded.

“Don’t,” Dante called. “I surrender. I give up my sword.” He let the blade fall, keeping the hilt in his hand, but hanging from the finger guard.

Anara cried out as the mate yanked viciously at her hair, his grip on her wrist twice as cruel as Ulshar’s had been. “It’s too late for that. I don’t want your surrender. But don’t worry, Dante. We’ll give you some time to think things over.”

She felt her captor admiring her neck, smelling her and lusting after her with his hot breath on her skin. Warm wetness spread from her collar bone to her ear. She snarled in disgust as Cordilio dragged his tongue across her.

“I’ll kill you!” Dante snarled.

“Hmm,” the mate said in his steely rasp. “I think not. Besides, she gets to say with you… so enjoy your prize during your stay at La Lanterna dell'isola!” He barked out, his Rs rolling furiously while his other vowels were stressed to the point where it seemed he was poetically reciting verse. He laughed raucously with the crew. “Ciao, Capitano di Niente!”

Her head whipped, sending a lash of pain through her neck as she was shoved from behind. Anara flailed in the air, but she did not scream as the water came rushing at her.

A shock of cold and an overwhelming rush of pain assailed her face and neck and forearms as she immediately fought to orient herself under the water which stung her eyes.

The surface. It was above. She pulled at it, kicked with her bare feet, but the nightgown seemed to weigh heavily upon her. That, and Anara was not a good swimmer.

She simple sank as she flailed uselessly under the water, the blurred image of the ship above, utterly out of her reach.

She kicked. Nothing happened. It was like swimming in mud while wrapped in a rug. Air. She needed air.

Her flailing became disoriented. Desperate. Vision darkening, she moaned and screamed from behind her closed mouth.

Some of her air escaped, bubbling to the surface. She would breathe any moment.

Something crashed into the surface of the water.

Her vision was darkening just as she made out a large man swimming down after her. It was Dante.

Why was he so slow?

Anara blacked out.