I don’t know about you, but for me, the hero makes the book. At the start of Ravished, we get a first glimpse of Dagr, the clan-lord of the Wolfskins, from the eyes of a secondary character. You can read that first full impression, and all of chapter one, if you click on this link. But I wanted to show you another first impression—the one from our heroine’s point of view with the hero acting the barbarian.
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Before the siren finished its first warning peal, Honora Turgay rolled to her feet from her bunk and slammed the comm switch on the wall with her palm. “Turk, tell me what’s happening.”
“Captain, we’ve been boarded by Vikings!”
“Pirates?” Her heart stuttered, then pounded hard against her chest. Norse pirates were a scourge on civilian vessels, but hadn’t dared threaten Consortium ships. Her ship couldn’t be the first. She could already hear the scornful whispers: What more would you expect from the daughter of Ahn Turgay?
“Not sure,” Turk said, his voice tight with excitement. “They entered through the hold. No other ships appear in our quadrant.”
“How many?” she bit out, pulling up her deep-space skin-suit and locking the tab at her neck.
“A dozen, no, two! More coming! They’re huge!”
She ignored the edge of awe in his voice. “Keep them from the controls. I’m on my way.” Touching the comm-patch on her collar to activate it, she decided against the additional seconds needed to don the outer layers of her uniform, opting to add only her boots. Time was of the essence. She had to get to the deck.
She slipped a stunner from its wall-mounted holster, then eased open her cabin door and glanced up and down the small private corridor in the left wing of the ship, leading from the officers’ quarters to the bridge.
Finding it empty, she hurried down the corridor to the end and up a narrow, ringed ladder to the hatch that opened directly onto the command deck.
“This can’t be happening,” she muttered under her breath. First the Viking cargo the bounty hunters had gathered, and now Vikings attacking her ship. Definitely not a coincidence.
A bad, bad feeling sat like a lump of the cook’s oatmeal at the bottom of her stomach. I am not my father. This moment will not define me.
Even before she shoved the door upward, she could hear angry shouts and the dull clang of metal. What the fuck kind of weapons were the pirates using?
Honora gripped her stunner tighter, slammed open the small round door, and climbed quickly through the hatch. All around her a pitched battle raged, and no one noticed her. She crouched behind the metal railing dividing the captain’s dais from the rest of the bridge, and edged toward her chair. If only she could get a message out to her command . . .
But then she got a good look at the invaders, and her stomach dropped to her toes.
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