Forever and a Day
Dawné Dominique
Published by Purple Sword Publications, LLC at Smashwords
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.
FOREVER AND A DAY
Copyright © 2009 Dawné Dominique
ISBN 978-1-936165-05-6
Cover Art Designed By Dawné Dominique
Edited By Traci Markou
Chapter One: Crux
Annabella Sarielles ran blinded by hot tears and choking on heart-wrenching grief. Her lungs burned as she struggled for oxygen, but she persevered. The pier isn’t far. I can end this pain now. The morose thought prodded her on, forcing her to forget the agony flaring through her body.
When she stopped at the edge of the last dock bordering her small village of Port Lyonne, a sudden sense of foreboding crept over her. Wispy tendrils of fog slithered across the shore, swirling around her ankles like ghostly snakes and growing thicker with every passing second. Its sinuous, misty touch felt like fingers of death stroking her skin – a long lost lover searching for purchase. The odd, confusing sensations caused Annabella to stop, turn and peer through the murk just in time to see a massive shadow approaching fast on the inky horizon. She knew then that she should not have been there when that mysterious ship pulled in to berth. She’d come to the pier for one reason – to end her life in the same cruel waters that had claimed her young husband a fortnight ago.
In silent fascination and her woes temporarily forgotten, she stared up at the haunting Brigantine as it passed so close she could almost run her hand along its ebony prow. The Lady Bella emblazoned upon its escutcheon made the breath snag in her throat. The salt-stained dock beneath her slippered feet heaved and swayed from the clipping waves the large ship created. She gripped the thin shawl she wore around her shoulders and shivered, but not from cold. Annabella paid little heed to the frigid winds blowing in from the north, her attention riveted on the massive sails waving like waifs against a twilight-drenched sky, and the sweet, putrid smell of death following in its wake.
A spell engulfed her in a curious fog-like stupor, numbing both mind and body, a reprieve she surely would have welcomed hours before, but not now. She could do nothing but watch as mangy men of every ethnicity threw docking ropes down toward the shores. Loud splashes brought cold sprays of seawater to dampen her face and hair as the ship’s two metal anchors crashed into the churning waters. Distant warning bells rang out from the village square, but the din was nothing but dull echoes in her ears. A euphoric haze had taken control of all her sensibility, and that little voice that told her to run and hide had upped and done so.
Although dread filled her to the core, there was something intoxicating about the looming gilded masts. Sanguine sails contrasted like splashes of blood against a navy sky, and the ship’s enormous stippled hull stretched proud toward the heavens, although there was nothing angelic about its arrival.
As if made from granite, Annabella stood riveted to the dock, unable to move or cry out. Screams from the villagers registered in her mind as nothing more than annoying noises, like rebellious sea gulls battling for food. But when large, callused hands grabbed and dragged her up the gangplank only then did the spell release its tenacious hold.
Her feeble struggles brought uncouth snickers and degrading comments from her captors. They tied her hands behind her back, blindfolded her with a foul smelling burlap sack, which they pulled over her head before prodding her forward like a wayward sheep. Two brutes held her shoulders, their thick fingers digging deep into her flesh. “Where are you taking me?” She whimpered, despising the blindness, but worst, her vulnerability. This was not how she wished to die.
One of pirates moved closer, so close she sensed the vulgarity of his leer from behind the burlap sack. The foul stench of garlic, sweat, and ale reached her nose. She flinched, her stomach tumbling.
“No dolly-wallowing, little miss’um. It’s off to the Cap’n with yer.” The repugnant breath wafted around her face like a disease. “Yer a fine morsel, says I. Let’s see if the Cap’n’s fair and will share yer with us lowly sailors. Mayhap I shall be rewarded proper this time.” The raspy timbre hinted of a darker, iniquitous promise, and horrid images came to her unbidden.
While the other men guffawed, the pirate who had spoken grappled with a breast and squeezed her nipple until she cried out in pain and humiliation. He shoved her down a small flight of stairs, and she stumbled on the last step, expecting the worst, but no other hands touched her indecently. Her forehead connected with something solid, and she staggered from the impact. The blindfold suddenly lifted, but before she could turn to see her assailants, they threw her headlong into a cabin and slammed the door shut. The sound of a lock resonated through the gloom as her knees skidded across the wooden planked floor, the thin silk of her petticoats doing little to stop the jarring pain.
The cramped cabin did not mute the terror-filled shrieks she heard in the fading distance. These vicious pirates pillaged her village, but she did not cry for those who suffered. She sobbed at her own frailty – she wept because she was still alive.
* * * *
Annabella roused to the gentle lull of rocking waves and the subtle but sharp tang of salty sea air wafting in her nostrils. Through the wood above her head, the sounds of sails snapped against the winds like whips upon the skin of slaves. Night had fallen, and she discovered that the cramped room was not as small as she’d first thought. The area was as dark as pitch except for a smattering of light offered from the stars shining through one round window framed by thick brocade drapes. As her eyes slowly adjusted, she surveyed her prison. A startled gasp slipped out when the outline of a broad figure came into view.
The stranger sat at a table a few feet away, inert and watching her from beneath dark, hooded eyes. She waited for him to say something, anything, but he remained silent, and so still. He’s only a statue, she mused with relief. Most likely another pilfered treasure. When the legs of the chair he sat on creaked as he shifted in his seat, she jumped, squealing in fright. He was alive, and not a mere sculpture. A sense of calm and realization overcame her then. At last, I will meet my fate. With a defiant rise of her chin, she shook out the tangles of her long auburn hair, glaring at her captor with an icy stare.
Without flint, the wick of a hurricane lantern secured on the center of the table flickered to life illuminating a gold serpentine ring on the stranger’s finger. The meager light revealed a pirate that made her gasp. Men who spent their lives at sea like her husband possessed ruddy, tanned complexions, but this pirate was the color of the finest sand.
“Such fire, my little Bella,” his silken voice drawled.
His tone held an odd timbre, a resonating cadence that caused goosebumps to race across her flesh. She searched the floor for her shawl and finding it, she placed it around her shoulders, gripping the ends with white knuckles. She swallowed down her fear, her hope aflame that he might be the one to end her misery.