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  On the High Seas

  Copyright © 2020 Aliyah Burke 2nd Edition

  Cover Art Copyright © Covers by K

  Publishing logo copyright © MMJDesigns

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web-without permission in writing from the publisher or author. The unauthorized replication or allocation of any copyrighted work is illegal. File sharing is an international crime, prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Border Patrol, Division of Cyber Crimes, in partnership with Interpol. Copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by up to five years in federal prison, a fine of $250,000 per reported instance, and seizure of computers.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is coincidental. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only.

  Published by: Sensual Romance Publishing

  On the High Seas

  By

  Aliyah Burke

  Blurb

  Danger reunites them, but will it be enough?

  Captured by pirates, Taryn Jeffers doesn't know if she will survive, much less make it home, until the night everything changes. Galen Maxwell operates mechanically, until they rescue a woman who makes him face the darkest parts of his past. The ones he’s spent years burying so deep they would never again see the light of day. These two have a past but can they have a future? Will Galen show her she is what he desires?

  Dedication

  To the first loves, reuniting, and discovering that you do deserve your very own happily ever after!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Additional Books by Aliyah Burke

  Chapter One

  Somewhere in the Gulf of Aden

  The moonless night without the aid of celestial bodies remained as a black pearl, smooth and fathomless. Although no wind blew, the water lapped rhythmically along the hull of the drifting vessel. No lights splintered the ink-like darkness. Almost as if, it was unmoored or even a ghost ship. To Taryn Jeffers it was more than that. A ship of death. Most likely hers if things didn’t change in the near future. Her steps were tiny and difficult with the ropes binding them, but she was above deck so it didn’t matter.

  The water hit with a near hypnotic beat and it soothed her despite the precarious situation she was in. For a flash, she got to see the darkness, when they changed out the sack over her head. If not for the cloth blanketing her head and the too tight bindings which were coated in blood—her blood—she may actually have enjoyed the trek over the open deck. She did regardless, because she was able to inhale fresh air instead of the dank stale kind where they kept her.

  Not that complaining has done me a bit of good. Then there was the gag. Hard to yell through anything with one of those shoved into her mouth.

  Time had long since lost all meaning she had no clue how long she’d been here. The rare occasions she got fresh air, it always occurred under the cloak of darkness. She shifted feebly and thought about the others who had been with her when pirates had set upon them. Wondered how they fared. Were they alive?

  Amazing how such things seemed so farfetched when not presented with them. Then comes the moment when you’re looking up the barrel of an automatic weapon held by a pirate and your life changes.

  She sniffed but no tears fell, there were none left to escape.

  Lap. Lap. Lap.

  Back to the water. She wondered if they would rape her then throw her overboard. She’d been left alone in that way so far, thankfully. Apparently, it made no sense to waste a bullet when the creatures of the deep could do the job for them. Being sold into slavery also crossed her mind numerous times while she stayed in her new hovel.

  Lap. Lap. Lap.

  Then it came. A new sound. Just an out of place one and only briefly but she heard it. Almost like a thud. She held her breath, straining to hear another, desperation making her long to cry out or bang against the sides. She sighed. All that would do would bring more beatings. The familiar sound of the water returned her to a state of calm.

  The door opened and she fought her automatic flinch. She despised being unable to see. Not that being at the whims of pirates put her situation any better. Deep guttural voices spoke but she just sat there, waiting for either the strike which would end her life or whatever they chose to do to her. She heard a familiar phrase that over the recent timeline, she had come to understand to mean “get up” and so she did. Using the cool, rough metal of the wall, she struggled to push to her feet.

  A massive hand grabbed her arm and practically dragged her along, causing her to stumble after him. More conversation passed around her as they headed to an unknown destination. She fell more than a few times, the metal steps he hauled her over tearing through both filthy pants and skin. Unable to scream, she struggled to keep up with her captor.

  They paused and she picked up on the stench of more sweaty and unwashed bodies—which said a lot given it had to permeate through the musty bag over her face—while her ears deciphered the sound of a door opening. The shove in her back, powerful and sharp, sent her sprawling forward over the knee-knocker in her way. Unable to stop herself from falling she did her best to twist and land on her side. Pain ricocheted through her, rattling her teeth and shoving breath from her lungs.

  Through the bag over her head, she picked up on crying. They’re alive! At least one was, it sounded like Martha. That knowledge lifted her spirits however briefly. She coughed and struggled against the person who dragged her over the floor. Lifted unceremoniously to her knees, Taryn rolled the nasty gag in her mouth, trying to work up some moisture.

  Suddenly the bag got jerked off and she blinked hard, rapidly, momentarily blinded by the room’s fluorescent lights. After so long of being sequestered in darkness the sudden exposure to such brilliance sent shafts of pain splintering through her skull. Squeezing her eyes shut she cracked them open, bit by bit. Fuzzy images came into focus and she recognized three of the people she’d been in Djibouti alongside. The ones she’d been captured with. Thankfully, all were still alive. Rough looking but they were alive.

  Hell, if she looked like they did it wasn’t a pretty sight. She glanced around and noticed they were in a grain storage room. To one side of her sat a camera on a tripod. Next to it a chair which held a machete.

  Her stomach rolled at the realization the lethal looking blade was coated by dark stains. Dried blood. Or rust. Maybe it was rust. Keep dreaming, her brain advised.

  Part of her wanted the hood back on so she didn’t have to see any of what she knew, in her gut, wouldn’t be pleasant things to come.

  One of the pirates grabbed a man, John Platter, by his thinning hair and shouted in his face. The panic on John’s face tore through her like a blade, sharper than any machete they could do. Another picked up the camera while yet another passed along the wicked blade to the man behind John.

  She tried to control the heaves which came nigh unstoppable
. God, how had it come to this? Missionary work to watching murder. True, she didn’t know much about John but it didn’t matter. She knew he had a family. A wife and three kids. Everyone had people waiting back in the States for them. Everyone but her.

  With strength and determination from somewhere deep inside, she lurched to her feet and screaming herself raw behind the gag tried to make it to John’s side.

  A man pulled a gun and pointed it at her head. Taryn paused then moved with dogged determination until she stood positioned between John and the cameraman, holding the cold stare of the unknown pirate with a gun. He backhanded her, the butt of the gun cracking into her jaw and sent her weakened body to the floor while male laughter filled the air. Blood pooled in her mouth and she fought off the approaching darkness. She had no family. Take me, her mind screamed while she bumbled back at least to her knees. Take me and leave them alone!

  She caught the glint of the overhead lights as they reflected off the few inches of unstained metal of the machete. Bullet, machete, how it would end was beyond her. The figure gripping the blade stepped closer, but all her attention remained on the man holding the gun. The machete may frighten her but not even close to the fear instilled into her by the gun.

  Excruciating pain filled her. In her peripheral, she saw the tip of the machete, covered in fresh blood. Her blood. It made her woozy and she had nothing left to rail against them with. Slumping over the last thing she saw was the man who’d held the gun on her sink to the ground as she did. The only difference, a thick trail of liquid trailed down from under his shemagh, or whatever he would have referred to his headscarf as. The reddish line slid down over the bridge of his nose then toward his eye as his head hit the floor. Brown eyes stared sightlessly ahead.

  She had a final thought before she succumbed to the darkness. Guess we die together. Wonder if anyone will care he’s gone? She knew no one would care she was.

  αβ

  Galen Maxwell dropped the dry magazine and loaded another with thirty rounds into his MP-5 with its attached laser optical sight and integral silencer before zipping down the rope which had been tossed over the upper rail to land on soundless feet. The room had become nearly silent, now the gunfire had ceased, except for the gasping breaths of one woman. She huddled with two men who had the expression they weren’t sure if their situation had improved or not.

  He didn’t give a damn about their feelings. His job, and he’d done it, was to rescue them. Not offer comfort. There were others in the group who could fill that need.

  Six pirates lay dead in this room alone. More bodies littered the rest of the large cargo ship. A few men joined him and he knew two others continued a sweep of the vessel as well as strategically placing explosives to sink the ship. He had his own destination, the woman who’d been stabbed in the shoulder with a machete.

  A wry smile lifted the side of his normally stern countenance. He’d been drawn to her ever since she got shoved into the area. Beaten and bruised she never cowed. In fact, he had been surprised when she’d forced her way to the man about to be killed, drawing all attention to herself. Surprised but impressed. She got knocked down only to get up again.

  A fighter. A warrior.

  Damn woman barely flinched when the blade skewered her shoulder but the sight of her own blood­—he knew that’s what pushed her over—she fainted dead away. He continued on his way to where she laid, the machete’s point still embedded in her shoulder. His tentative smile fading with the raised eyebrow of another team member, Axel “Razor” Vilena.

  He squatted beside her. “I need a med kit,” he said into the mic against his larynx, well aware his own wouldn’t be enough. Still he ripped it off his combat vest and got ready to work.

  “Comin’,” Osten “Baby Boy” Scoleri responded. He had been a medic as a US Navy SEAL and still served that purpose as an active member of Tungsten Protective Services.

  A quick scan showed the other hostages being freed. They all huddled together. Away from him and subsequently the unconscious woman by him. A fact, which greatly disturbed him. She’d tried to sacrifice herself for them and they couldn’t even come see how she was doing.

  “Get them out of here,” he muttered, his eyes drifting back down. She lay still as death, her chest barely rising and falling with her shallow breaths.

  Another affirmed his order while Osten hunkered down beside him, olive skin agleam in the lights. “Damn. All the way through.”

  He didn’t respond well aware that Osten’s statement qualified as rhetorical. “We need to pull it out now, while she’s out. Do a temp patch and fix it better onboard.”

  With a concurring nod, they got to work and soon had it packed and wrapped. It wouldn’t win any pretty awards, but it would suffice for the time. He fought off the urge to brush back dirty hair from her face.

  “You want—”

  “I’ll carry her.” He stopped the offer Osten began.

  Brown eyes studied him before the man shrugged with ease and set about gathering up unused med supplies. Galen took a deep breath and slid his arms under her, lifting her. The first thing he noticed that holding her felt right.

  He refused to watch her as he maneuvered them to the now open hatch she’d been brought in via. He moved them with precision through the narrow halls, readjusting his hold on her every now and again. Two others offered to relieve him of the woman and twice more refusals left his mouth.

  Once they made it back on their ship, he carried her to their infirmary and placed her on one of the two tables. He refused to leave her alone he just couldn’t bring himself to do so. He waited along a wall as Baby Boy fixed her injuries.

  “Man, I’ve got this. Go get cleaned up.” Baby Boy’s voice broke the silence.

  Galen hesitated until Baby Boy glared at him.

  “Go.”

  So he went. Reluctantly. But not to get cleaned up. He headed toward another room, which had the rescued trio in it. The first man looked undernourished and had some cuts, which had already been attended to. The woman pretty much the same, while the third man lay in a rack, asleep.

  “Oh, God, thank you so much for saving us,” the man said.

  “Who is she?” Galen demanded.

  “Taryn.” He didn’t tarry with his answer and apparently knew exactly who the question referred to.

  Long dead memories flickered in the deep buried recesses of his mind. But, the door closed on them as quick as it had opened. The man continued to spout their names, gratitude, and more but it fell on deaf ears. He left and headed to his room. He washed his face and had begun to pat it dry when Baby Boy’s voice came over the air.

  “Give me some help down here!”

  Galen sprinted back through the door and the ship to burst into the medical room, ready for anything. His warrior woman had woken and had managed to back herself into a corner where she waved a scalpel.

  One eye sealed shut and the other not much better. Baby Boy tried to calm her but to no avail. Galen could see her fear behind the bravado act.

  “Clear the room.” Galen ordered his voice calm.

  “What?” Baby Boy and Ryder asked simultaneously, shock apparent.

  “Do it now,” he bit off. “And close the hatch behind you.”

  Galen never took his eyes off the petrified woman. Her dark hair fell in a ratty mess past her shoulders. Her brown skin seemed pale, from lack of sun he bet. She wasn’t rail thin but a woman with curves. One which would mold perfectly to a man while in his arms. He would be more than happy to play the man part in that scenario.

  With a sharp mental reprimand, he focused on the matter before him.

  “You sure about this, man?” Ryder asked. “Maybe I—”

  “Go.”

  Galen knew why Ryder tried to offer to do this, gentleness not a word most people used for him. Normally he would have not put up an argument but this little woman made him acquire the gut reaction of possessiveness. Moreover, he wanted none of the men near her.

>   The door latched and he knew they were alone. He moved slowly toward her. She adjusted her stance and tightened her grip on the razor sharp blade. A crude and overall ineffective grip, one he could disarm in mere seconds, but what she lacked in knowledgeable talent she made up in determination.

  “You’re safe, Taryn,” he said removing his tactical vest and lying it on the table she’d once occupied. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Stay back,” she rasped.

  “I can’t. You need an IV and to let Baby Boy finishing checking you over.”

  She shook her head. “No.” Her free hand groped along the wall as if seeking support and stability. He knew it hurt her given it happened to be the same side as her shoulder injury.

  “Yes. Come on.” Another step towards her brought the scalpel up another notch. “You’re safe, Taryn. No one is going to hurt you.”

  “My name...”

  “Yes.” He scrambled to recall one of the men’s names. “Geoff said your name was Taryn.”

  The hand gripping her impromptu weapon wobbled. “Are...are they okay?”

  Her concern for them impressed him. “Yes.” Another step and she shook but neither the fear nor determination wavered. “I’m going to help you to the table, Taryn. You keep the scalpel and stab me if you have to. I won’t hurt you, but sweetheart, you’re about to collapse.”

  “Don’t...call me sweetheart,” she said.

  He did smile then before he positioned himself by her injured side giving her an unobstructed line of attack if she wanted to. Dangerous, yes, but he had to assure her he would not harm her. Sure, he could disarm her but somewhere beyond the wall of ice around his heart, he wanted her to trust him. Like a young girl from long ago did.

  What is wrong with me?

  She stiffened at his touch but didn’t pull away. As before, she felt right against him. He assisted her to the table and on to it, sliding his tactical vest toward the end. The bruising on her face broke his heart.

  “I need to get you on an IV. I’ll get Baby Boy.”

  “No. You.”