The Vampire's Pirate: The Immortal and Illicit Duology, #1

By Liv Rancourt

Is death too great a risk when the reward is freedom?

 

Dáire Malone has been undead for over 200 years when he is summoned to the home of a would-be queen, a vampiress who possesses an unnatural potency. She declares that Malone will not leave without giving her a pledge of loyalty.

 

He's been held in thrall before and would rather face his final death than let another have power over him.

 

Thomas Clifton is a pirate, or rather, a privateer. He too is summoned to the vampiress's home and commanded to pledge his fealty to her. Clifton's allegiance lies only with the man he sees in the mirror, and his first impulse is to run.

 

But Dáire Malone's aura of mystery and his melancholy beauty appeal to Clifton, and Malone won't leave until they destroy the source of the vampiress's magic. Caught between opposing impulses, Clifton must choose.

 

Leave, and lose Malone, or stay and risk his freedom…and his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liv Rancourt
• Release date: Sep 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736852026

Liv Rancourt

An Adams Media author.

Book preview

The Vampire’s Pirate

by

Liv Rancourt

www.livrancourt.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Vampire’s Pirate

© 2021 by Amy Dunn Caldwell

Cover Art: Kanaxa

Editor: Linda Ingmanson

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN-13: 978-1-7368520-2-6

Dedication

This story is dedicated to those of you who just want a little bit of fluff to entertain you for an hour or so. You deserve it!

Chapter One

Dáire

New Orleans, November, 1805

I’d heard it said that pride goeth before a fall. If that were true, I’d long have been in hell. Instead, I was in the earthly equivalent, a swampy, mosquito-infested patch of land that wanted desperately to be a great city.

Someday, New Orleans might be great, but not yet.

I lolled in bed, the last of the sunset fading from my windows. The murmur of soft voices drifted up from the lower level; Dorothea, my vampiric daughter, and her constant companion Elizabeth Leloup, known as Libbie. Some three months ago, we’d set up housekeeping in the Vieux Carré. We’d been warned about the insects and the hurricanes. No one had told us the air was so thick with humidity we could swim in it or that there’d be Africans dancing in Congo Square.

Reluctantly, I rose and attended to my toilette. I had yet to hire a valet, just as my companions had not yet hired a maid. We didn’t want to expose an ordinary human to our peculiarities until we were sure we were going to stay.

It might soon be time to find someone.

My task was made more difficult because I refused to allow a mirror in the house. The spirits of those I’d killed would stare at me from the glass. I never appeared alone.

With my hair in a short queue—the style I’d worn since the year 1598—and my collar and cravat as crisp as the watery air would allow, I went downstairs to join the others.

As expected, they were in the breakfast room, a scene suffused with intimacy and affection. Libbie sat at a small table and Dorothea stood behind her, wrapping a lock of Libbie’s dark hair around heated tongs. My dears, I said, strolling down the winding staircase to the lower level.

We thought you might need one of us to wake you. Dorothea opened the tongs, releasing a single, perfect curl. She wore her own honey-colored hair in a loose chignon, with ringlets framing her face.

You must have risen early. I dropped a kiss on her cheek and gave Libbie’s shoulder a squeeze. Have you fed?

Both women laughed. The sun has only just set, Dorothea said. And even so, we would have waited for you.

We do have news, Libbie said. She was petite and dark, her eyes sparkling with secrets and a distinctive gold wolf’s head ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. We have been summoned.

I moved to one of the front windows. The town house, with its tall windows, courtyard, and galleries overlooking Ursuline Street, was a poor design for those of us who could not stand the touch of the sun. The main qualification had been its relative desertion when we arrived.

Who has summoned us—I peered down the street at the few travelers braving the darkness on horseback and on foot—and why?

One Mlle. Clarice Arsenault. Libbie showed me a cream-colored envelope, its flap embossed with the letter A and a gilded crown.

She’s invited us to her country home on the Bayou St. John. Dorothea kept her attention on Libbie’s curls, though her frown hinted at unhappiness. I’d found Dorothea in a lonely cottage outside Philadelphia some twenty years ago. I’d been near starved and had fallen on her, unaware that she too was close to death. Before I knew it, I’d drained her, and in a panic, I’d made her as I am.

Caring for a vampire child was easier than spending eternity with her shade following behind me.

I wonder what Mlle. Arsenault wants from us. The others overlooked my pretense of ignorance. We’d been warned about her, of course, by others of our kind who traveled to New Orleans—called La Nouvelle-Orléans by the French. Clarice Arsenault was, by all reports, an enormously powerful vampire, her actions ruled by a vile and callow ambition.

I possessed many gifts, but I’d never had patience for persons who imagined themselves to have authority over me.

Libbie gave me a dimpled grin. We won’t have long to wonder. Her expression sobered. Although I feel sure we’re not going to like what we learn.

I disliked Mlle. Arsenault already, and we had yet to meet. Do we know how long it will take us to reach her country home? One didn’t have to travel far from this so-called city to find a number of sprawling plantations, their tree-lined drives putting a beautiful face on scenes of appalling misery.

Dorothea took the invitation from Libbie. Says she’s going to send a carriage for us at midnight.

Presumptuous. I snorted.

Dorothea sighed and rested her hands on Libbie’s shoulders. Apparently, we should pack for a week, at least.

Libbie rested her head against Dorothea’s arm. I say we refuse to go.

If we refuse, we’ll be marked by one who fancies herself our queen, Dorothea murmured.

Agreed. Unless we want to move on, we must present ourselves as she commands. I spoke with a false determination. This situation was unfortunate, and all my own doing. I’d been on this earth some two hundred years, and if I had a weakness, it was a tendency to give in to boredom.

Dorothea and I had been living quietly near Boston for the twenty years since I turned her. We had a comfortable home and we were left alone, except by our friends and acquaintances. Dorothea had even formed a special friendship with Libbie. We’d been happy, at least until I could no longer contain my wanderlust. I offered her our home if she wished to stay behind, but she and Libbie claimed that they too thirsted for adventure.

So here we were, in a house with too many windows, in a town with too many ghosts.

And a vampire queen who desired to make our acquaintance.

"All right, then, we’ll do this, but we won’t go in without