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LADY OF THE SEALS

An Ellora’s Cave publication written by

ELIZABETH JEWELL

MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-540-6Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML© Copyright Elizabeth Jewell, 2003.All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave.Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc. USAEllora's Cave Ltd, UKEdited by

Ann Richardson

Cover Art by

Scott Carpenter

Chapter 1

Seven days. Seven days alone at sea in a lifeboat and still no sign of land.He was nearly out of water. The food had been gone for two days. He hadbeen hungry so long he couldn’t feel it anymore. Only the tarp from the bottomof the boat had kept him sheltered from the relentless sun. Still, his back wastight and painful from sunburn, his lips cracked and dry.He hunched in the bottom of the boat, aching with hunger, with thirst, withthe sun. The drinking water was almost gone.He had a knife. He could slit his throat, bleed himself out into the water. Itwould be better than this. Or he could cut himself and go overboard. The sharkswould come. Painful, perhaps, but it would be quick.Picking up the knife, he turned it in his hand, watching the glint of the sunoff the blade. Then he looked up, into the sky, the sea.A dark streak on the horizon.

Land. Finally, land.He picked up an oar and began to paddle. Just past noon, the clouds came. The dark hump of land was no closer.As the clouds lowered, panic set in. This was no light rain shower coming in.He could tell by the smell and the way the wind felt on his face. And the darkridge of land was still far away. Too far away. The hope it had brought himfaded.Rage flared, hot in his chest, and he flung the oar, watching it sail throughthe air, into the rising waves. He flung himself to the bottom of the boat andwept.The rain came. The wind came. The waves lifted the tiny boat, flung it with asickening crack down against the ocean’s surface. His mouth filled with water.He was too tired now even to weep.Another wave took the boat, higher this time, and there was nothing hecould do as it cracked open under him and delivered him to the ocean. Nothinghe could do as the waves broke over his wearied body.And as the ocean took him, he could think only,

Thank God there is no pain.

* * * * *

She loved storms. The smell, the wind, the movement of the ocean. She hadwatched this one as it came, and had slipped off into the water to ride theglorious tumult.She didn’t dare go too far from the shore. In calm water, she could swim forhours, but in the storm she had to stay within sight of land or risk drowning. Butthe sheer beauty of the gale lured her. A little farther. A little more…Something brushed against her lower body. Startled, she dove under, fast.