Desire's Prisoner (Planet Desire Book 1)
Read Desire's Prisoner (Planet Desire Book 1) Online
Authors: Delilah Devlin
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance
Delilah Devlin
Copyright © 2016 Delilah Devlin
Kindle Edition
Love on the edge of the galaxy…
For Captain Adam Zingh, the mission is simple—acquire one hundred wives for him and his crewmates to help colonize a new planet, far from Dominion rule. Rescuing prisoners from penitentiary in deep space should have been a simple in and out operation. The women would be grateful for a second change at freedom, or so he thought. However, he hadn’t yet encountered the stubborn captain of the prison ship.
When pirates overtake their ship, Evena McClure resists, mindful of her duty to protect the women under her command as well as her impending pardon.
The pirate and the prisoner have only a week to seduce the other side to their will.
A pirate’s parlay has never been so sweet!
To those of you who’ve read me before—hello, friends! To new readers, welcome to my world!
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Delilah Devlin
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Excerpt from Night Fall on Dark Mountain
‡
“C
aptain, I’ve picked
up the ship’s warning beacon.”
Captain Adamarik Zingh straightened from the navigation console.
At last
. The final stage of his plan was about to unfold. The beacon was programmed to broadcast as soon as any ship approached within hailing distance of the penitentiary. “Let’s hear it.”
His communications mate pressed the intercom switch.
“Warning! You are entering Interplanetary Dominion-controlled space.” The computer-generated message transmitted in the Universal Language. “This ship is a Dominion Prison. Any vessel detected within a one hundred milli-league radius of the ship will be destroyed.”
“Retract the visor,” Adam ordered, ignoring the warning.
The whirring sound that accompanied the retracting curtain of metal made Adam wince, reminding him of the loss of his previous spacecraft. Its state-of-the-art bioluminescent screen would have recreated the view of space without leaving the ship’s hull vulnerable.
But pirates couldn’t be too choosy. The lumbering transport vessel he now captained had enabled his band of raiders to creep close to their target, beneath the blanket of the Dominion’s detector beams. Its unremarkable appearance in this little-traveled part of the universe was a perfect ruse.
“I see her, Adam.” The man at the helm, first mate Cantor Marlow, dipped the prow of the ship leeward. The sudden change in tack caused the old barge to shudder violently as it resisted the gravitational pull exerted by the desolate, uninhabitable planet the larger prison ship orbited. Then a low, ominous groan from the hull itself rattled the consoles, spilling cups and charts onto the floor.
Adam maintained his balance, barely, and turned to glower at his first mate. “Cookie’ll dice your innards for that. He’ll be cleaning grub from the ceiling for a week.”
Cantor shrugged, a wicked twinkle in his eyes. “I was just making sure the breaching crewmen were out of their bunks.” His gaze shifted beyond Adam. “There she is.”
Adam glanced through the open portal, searching space beyond the rim of the small planet. An infinite, black night stretched before him. Full of endless possibilities. An irresistible siren’s call that had beckoned him from his first voyage.
Then he saw it. The enormous hull of the prison ship loomed in the distance. Anticipation leapt in his veins. “Alert the breaching crew.”
His first mate grunted. “Lucky sods.”
Three whistles shrilled, followed by the alert message.
“Cantor, you’re in charge,” Adam called over his shoulder as he headed toward the ship’s hold.
“Aye, sir. Good luck—and don’t forget my list.”
Adam slapped his palm against the door button, and it slid silently open. Within the hold, the breaching crew was assembling—or at least, he thought it was his crew. Gone were their beards and rough pirate’s clothing. In their place stood well-scrubbed, clean-chinned men.
His security officer, Darak, strode toward him clad in a deep azure shirt tucked into tan leather breeches.
“What in hell are you wearing?”
“It’s just a little something I picked up at our last port of call. Alarian silk.” Darak shrugged, grinning sheepishly. “Quite sturdy material, actually.”
“You look like a damned peacock,” Adam muttered. His gaze swept over the rest of his breaching party, and he fisted his hands on his hips. “I’m capturing a ship with a bloody
flock
of peacocks.”
Darak cleared his voice and wiped his expression clean of amusement. “The men await your orders, sir. They’re eager for this mission. Every one of them volunteered.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “They fought for the right to board. I’m lucky to have any crew left with blood enough for this capture. Is the breaching craft loaded?”
“Aye, aye, sir. With eight days of supplies, should we need them.”
“Very well. Let’s get on with this.”
Darak pivoted on his heels. “Attention,” he shouted.
The crew leapt to obey, forming two ranks along the bulkhead.
Adam stomped down the line, his nose itching as he passed through a cloud of contesting colognes emanating from his bloodthirsty crew. “Are you planning on conquering them with smell?” he growled. As he passed his medic, he stiffened, and his eyes watered uncontrollably. He paused, sniffing.
Doc blinked rapidly, moisture welling in his own eyes. “It’s the scent of Alarian rose, sir—mixed with the pheromones of a Moldan yak. Very potent.”
Adam growled and stalked back to the front of the formation. “We’ll enter the prison through the docking station. Be quick. Let’s have them contained before they realize we aren’t the warden and her guards. We only have a narrow window of time to get aboard undetected by the Dominion’s security system.” As he delivered his last instruction, he narrowed his gaze. “Don’t trip over your lace.”
“Captain.” Darak lifted a hand.
“Yes, Darak?”
“Sir, the men want to know if we’re certain this is the right prison ship.”
“I paid ten thousand
dinars
in Earth gold for the information. If it’s not the right ship, you’d best be ready to defend your virtue.” Adam enjoyed a moment’s satisfaction as his crew absorbed the message, their gazes shifting. “We’ve eight days to survive aboard ship before the
Intrepid
can rendezvous again without Dominion detection.”
Another crew member raised his hand. “Is it really a ship full of female convicts?”
“Aye, and ripe for rescue,” Darak answered, producing muffled laughter and cheers among his shipmates.
“How long have they been deployed?” one yeoman asked.
“Over three years,” Adam answered. “And their last resupply was a year ago. They may all be dead. We might find only a ghost ship.”
“Sir.” Ivan, the science officer and youngest of his crew, lifted two fingers. “What if there aren’t enough suitable women aboard for our purpose?”
“If they’re fertile, they’ll suit,” he replied bluntly. “When does our window open?”
Ivan checked his wrist computer. “The asteroid, Cygnet, will block Dominion detector beams beginning in five minutes.”
“Board up.” Adam shouted. He followed his crew into the breaching craft, scratching his beard and wondering if he should have changed his clothing.
*
Before the siren
finished its first warning peal, Cell Block Captain Evena McClure rolled out of her bunk and onto her feet in one fluid movement.
“Damn HS block.” Two nights running, she’d answered alarms in the high-security cell block. Although tired and cranky, she raced from her quarters to the cabinet that housed the behavior modification clubs, the only weapons permitted aboard the prison ship. Slapping her palm to the security reader, she waited impatiently until the door latch popped.
At the sound of the heavy thud of her CB sergeant’s footfalls approaching, she tossed her a weapon, and then shouldered her own club.
“Thought I’d get a decent night’s sleep, for once.” Mary Grogan smiled, a flash of startling white against her dark chocolate face as she fell into step beside Evena. “You wanna bet on who’s raising a ruckus this time?”
Evena shook her head. “No, I won’t take that bet. I’d lose.”
Together, the two women rushed down the corridor leading from the guard quarters directly to the security surveillance room. Entering, Evena noted the two women on night watch standing at the viewing panels. “Calandra, what’s the problem?”
The guard darted a glance over her shoulder. “That damn psychopath Celestine refused to don her uniform, again. I sent a couple of guards to persuade her, but she got the drop on them. Celestine’s fashioned a wire whip.” She moved to the side to allow Evena to see the viewing screen. “One guard’s down. The other’s doing her best to keep out of reach.”
Evena frowned as she watched the battle in the cell. The guards’ uniforms were shredded, and one guard was bleeding heavily. “Dammit. I’m going in.”
“Have a care. She’s slicing ribbons off them.” Calandra released the lock on the security gate to the high-risk cell block, and then offered Evena a disgruntled grin. “Why don’t you just kill her? No one’ll miss that one.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but she’s not worth risking my pardon.” Evena slid back the door and jogged toward Celestine Monteval’s cell, Mary once again at her heels.
The occupants of the other cells didn’t alert their fellow prison mate of their approach, evidence that even the most extreme of the violent offenders weren’t rooting for the bitch.
Grunts and curses sounded from the open cell door.
Evena hefted her club, smacking it against her palm loudly as she stood in the door frame.