Free A Distant Magic by Mary Jo Putney Page A

missed entirely. You have listened to soldiers, I think."
    "Scotland suffered a bloody civil war a few years ago. I knew many men who participated in it." Changing the subject, she continued,
"Even if my father deliberately abandoned you, which is still hard to believe, you have not done badly." Her gesture included the ship.
"How did you escape slavery and become a pirate captain?"
    "I led a slave rising on a galley," he said coolly. "We killed the
officers and crew, and the ship was ours."
    She thought of the chains that locked galley slaves to their benches and shuddered.
"That was surely more difficult than it sounds."
    His eyes narrowed. "I didn't say it was easy."
    She had another vision, this time of blood and steel as unarmed men tackled their captors in a desperate bid for freedom. That they succeeded, she guessed, was because of the man before her. With his intelligence, ruthlessness, and power, he was a born leader.
"Once more I ask your intentions toward me. I don't suppose you want to kill me,
or I would be dead already."
    "You are correct. Death is far too easy." There was a flash of teeth that could never be called a smile.
"I have not yet decided. Ransom, perhaps?"
    She shrugged. "You may try, but my family is not wealthy by the
standards of the aristocracy. Scotland is a poor country, and whatever the
chieftain of the Macraes possesses is at the service of his people."
    He moved closer still, his energy pressing against hers with the force of a physical shove.
"Perhaps, but taken together, the Guardians control great wealth. Would they
allow one of their own to languish in vile captivity?"
    She shrugged again. "A spinster of no great magic has little value to the community. My own family will care, but they cannot afford to beggar themselves to bring me home. You will not be able to extract a ransom large enough to satisfy your anger." Her statement was less than the whole truth, for the Guardians took care of their own, and as a group they had great resources.
"However, the council might send searchers to find me, and they are not people
you would wish to meet unless you have a dozen powerful mages standing beside
you."
    "Ransom was never my first choice." He reached out and trailed a fingernail around her throat.
"Selling you into slavery is better justice."
    She shivered at his touch, which held both threat and dark promise. This was a man who could destroy her, body and soul, without drawing a deep breath. But his touch made it easier to read him.
"You will sell no one into slavery," she said flatly. "You hate slavery so much
that you would not condemn even your worst enemy to that."
    His hand clamped around her throat so tightly she could scarcely breathe.
"Perhaps you are right," he breathed. "Perhaps it would be better to keep you as my prisoner here on the
Justice
so I can rape you whenever I wish."
    He wanted to do exactly that; she could feel his desire and the rage that demanded vengeance for what he'd suffered. But he prided himself on being a strong man, one who would not yield to raw emotion.
"You will not ravish me, I think. Not today."
    She felt a flicker of surprise, though his expression didn't change.
"What an innocent you are," he snapped. "Why should I not take you right now? If
I'm not going to sell you in Tangier, lost virginity won't affect your value,
and I would find great satisfaction in ruining James Macrae's daughter."
    The same mental link that had told her how he felt about slavery produced more information.
"Because of Ulindi, ravishing helpless women is not to your taste." As she said the name, horrific images surged through her mind. A lithe young woman with cinnamon skin attacked by a hoard of drunken men. The brutal, repeated assaults as she screamed desperately. The kicks and blows that ended the girl's life.
    Gregorio jerked away as if she was poisonous. "You bloody witch!" he snarled.
"You are your father's daughter—innocence disguising evil. Be