Take Me: Taken in the Dark (The Complete 4-Part Erotic Romance Series)

By Emma Rose

This 4-Pack includes the entire TAKEN IN THE DARK series by Emma Rose, formatted as a full-length novel.

Sarah wakes up to find herself bound on a ship to be sold by an eastern European crime ring. Sarah begins to lose hope when she sees the other women bruised and bloodied after being taken by the guards.

Sarah didn’t expect to be protected in this place. Nor did she expect to find love. But when she discovers that one of the guards is secretly working to free the girls, her dim light of hope begins to burn again...

But this mysterious stranger wants to bring down the entire operation, even if it means placing the women under his care at risk. When he falls for Sarah, his ability to keep away the suspicious eyes of the other members of the operation comes under attack...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emma Rose
• Release date: Sep 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310108112

Emma Rose

As a full-time independent author, Emma Rose delights in giving you stories that draw you in and characters who captivate your imagination.

Book preview

Take Me: Taken in the Dark

By

Emma Rose

Copyright © 2014 by Emma Rose

Smashwords Edition

*****

PUBLISHED BY:

Crave Romance

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All characters in this book are eighteen years or older.

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 any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

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Take Me: Taken in the Dark

Chapter 1

Sarah pressed her hands tightly over her ears, trying to block out the sounds of crying. It never seemed to stop. She’d been one of them for the first couple of days, sobbing and screaming. Now she just wished they would shut up. Despite the number of women crammed into the tiny room, it was freezing. She shivered in her dirty but still warm sweater, having given her heavier jacket to one of the girls that had only a t-shirt. She wished now she had kept it, because it had only gotten colder.

There were no windows in the tiny place they were kept, the ceiling not high enough to allow them to stand, but Sarah was fairly certain they were on a ship. The constant thrum of the engines had become white noise to here after the first week or so, and now she had to concentrate to hear it. The only time they had any light was when someone lifted the hatch and dropped food down to them, or shoved another young woman in even though there was hardly room for the ones that were already there. There was no room to lie down, so what sleep she had gotten had been curled up leaning against the cold steel wall.

The tiny hold they were in stank of unwashed bodies and filth- they were let out once in a while, taken one at a time to a tiny bathroom, but some girls just hadn’t been able to hold it long enough. Some of them stank of even worse things, and occasionally a girl came back bruised or bloodied, her clothes torn or rumpled. After the second time, Sarah couldn’t even pretend not to know what was going on. She’d started to notice a pattern in the men who brought back girls looking like that, and so far she’d been lucky- the guards that had escorted her had done nothing worse than grope and slap and make what she could only assume to be lewd comments in whatever language they were speaking.

She blinked and shielded her eyes against the dim light that suddenly broke into their dark hole as the hatch was lifted up. She was crushed into the wall as everyone scrambled away from the light and the hard thud of boots hitting the steel floor. The man crouched and as her eyes adjusted Sarah recognized him as one of the guards who brought back more girls bloodied than not. She cringed back, trying to make herself as small a target as possible amongst the other girls. As much as she longed for a chance to get a few breaths of fresher air and to stretch her legs, she didn’t want to go with him.

Luck was not with her now though. His eyes, hard and gray, settled on her and lit with a sick kind of glee. She was sure he knew that she’d been trying to avoid him. He crooked a finger at her and she reluctantly crawled past the girls who parted around her as though she had the plague. Better her than them, the silence screamed. When she came within arm’s reach, he grabbed a fistful of her wavy brown hair, lank and greasy from too long between washings. She bit back a yelp of pain as he dragged her towards him, shoving her up through the hatch and then hoisting himself up afterward.

She struggled to stand as his rough hand grabbed her elbow and hauled her up, her legs buckling under her own weight from being cramped and bent for too long. Sarah didn’t make a sound though, determined not to give him that satisfaction. The walk down the short haul seemed to take forever, but by the time he pushed her into the tiny bathroom her legs, though shaky, could support her. She closed the door out of habit even though she knew it had no lock and he could open it any time. She grabbed a handful of paper towels, wetting them in the trickle of water she could coax out of the tap so she could wipe some of the grime from her skin. It wasn’t perfect, but it made her feel a little more human. In this place, she clung to any small comfort she could.

It was too short a time before he pounded on the door, jolting it open with a leer as though he expected to find her still half naked. She was relieved she’d managed to pull her clothes into place, a small part of her smug at denying him that small thing. Her pleasure was short lived though as he grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back out into the hallway. He shoved her up against the wall, letting go of her wrist to push her sweater up.

Sarah knew that she should just let it happen. She had heard the whispers from the other girls, the more you fought the more they enjoyed it and the worse you ended up being. It just wasn’t in her to be passive. Wriggling underneath him, she managed to bring her knee up into his groin as hard as she could. He staggered back a step with a string of words that could only have been profanity and she ran. She wasn’t sure where she was going, anywhere to get away. She didn’t get more than a few strides down the hallway though when a heavy body slammed into her, crushing her to the floor. She desperately tried to kick and shove him off, distantly aware of her own screaming and sobbing. It died to a whimper as his hand fisted in her hair and slammed her head into the steel floor.

As she drifted on the edge of consciousness, she wondered if he would keep going even after she passed out. Between the pain in her head and his weight crushing the air from her lungs, her vision was beginning to blur. She fought the urge to close her eyes and let the darkness wash over her, afraid of what would happen. She would rather be awake, rather know than wonder.

Abruptly the weight was lifted off of her and she dragged in a grateful, sobbing breath. She rolled onto her back, trying to ignore the dizziness so she could see what was going on. She saw the dark outline of a stranger standing in the hallway, the man who had been on top of her now crumpled at his feet. He delivered another swift kick to the fallen man, who just grunted and curled up tighter. He spat a few words in whatever rough language they spoke, Russian she thought, and turned towards her. She shrank back, wondering what he had saved her for. It certainly wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart, because she hadn’t seen any of that in this hell hole. Distantly, she realized the thrum of the engines had stopped.

Come. He offered her his hand. She stared at him, wondering at the harshly accented English. It took her a moment to understand the meaning and she carefully took his hand. He pulled her to her feet almost gently, his other hand taking hold of his chin as he examined where her head had hit the floor. Apparently satisfied her let her chin go and led her down the hallway. She didn’t dare ask where they were going, simply following him. She noticed that he seemed cleaner than the men who had been guarding them, and something about the way he carried himself screamed authority. She squished the tiny flame of hope that maybe he was going to help them.

He delivered her into a larger room, with a muttered command to ‘stay’. Moments later the rest of the girls, looking as bewildered as she felt, filed into the room. She tried to still the knot of panic in her stomach when she looked around the room. One by one more men she’d never seen before moved through the group, binding their hands together and then tying them to a guide rope like a string of cattle. It wasn’t until they started blindfolding them that Sarah allowed herself to panic. She wasn’t the only one. Several girls dissolved into hysterics, most solved by a hard slap from their captors that reduced them to soft whimpering. Sarah swallowed her own screams, simply bowing her head as the blindfold was tied into place.

They were led away in a slow, shuffling line. She could hear the heavy boot tread of the guards around them. She smelled it first, salt and diesel fuel on a soft breeze. They were leaving the boat she realized. The line shuffled to a halt, then began to move again one jerking step at a time. She realized why when her shins bumped up against the edge of what must have been the door to the outside. Warm, surprisingly gentle hands lifted her over it and kept hold of her afterwards for just a moment as if to stead her. Hot breath brushed against her ear.

Have hope. The words made her jerk in surprise before the hands were gently pushing her away. She stumbled down the ramp, trying to wrap her mind around the distinctly American accent that had whispered those words. Her thoughts whirled with wild speculation, but every thought simply threw more fire on the burning hope in her chest that the mysterious man’s voice has inspired. There was one of her own in the guards, and he was going to try and help them. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite so alone.

The group wasn’t walking for very long before they were loaded into a vehicle. It was cramped and close, but not as bad as the hold. Not nearly. The blindfolds weren’t taken off during the drive and when Sarah tried to lift her hands to push it up they were roughly slapped away. Time seemed to drag on forever, until finally she heard the distinct crunch of tires of gravel. A moment later they slowed, and then stopped.

They were unloaded and led into a room that felt and echoed as though it were cavernous. She got the distinct feeling they were walking on hardwood the way the steps echoed, and then on carpet. It seemed like forever since she had been on carpet, and she consider stooping to touch it and see if it was real and as soft as her imagination suggested. They were jerked along too quickly for her to give in though. Finally they came to a stop and a heavy door closed behind them. They were on the ground floor then, she surmised since they hadn’t gone down any stairs or ramps that she had noticed.

You may take your blindfolds off. A distinctly cultured voice spoke, feminine with a faint accent that Sarah couldn’t place. She reached up and quickly pushed the blindfold out of her eyes, automatically seeking out the source of the voice. A tall woman stood at the head of the dormitory style room they were in, dressed neatly in grey slacks and a soft white blouse.

Welcome. I am your warden. You may call me Warden or Ma’am. The rules here are simple, and if you obey then you will eat and be given clothing and comforts. If you disobey or try to escape, or cause trouble, you will be given to the guards to use. I understand some of you may have experienced this already. She paused, sweeping her gaze over them. Good, because you should get used to not owning yourselves. Untie their hands.

The guards stationed around the room moved to obey, untying the girls in turn. Sarah scrutinized each face she could see, trying to figure out if any of them were the owner of the voice. She recognized the man who had saved her standing behind