LITMIR.BIZ

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she’d been rehearsing Swan Lake with the rest of the corps on the stage of a tired but beautiful old theater in Ankara. The next, she’d stepped out a side door for a break, been grabbed and tossed in the back of a stinking van…

      The door swung open. Two enormous men, their hands the size of hams, stepped into the cell. One stabbed his thumb upright in the air and mumbled something she assumed meant she was to go with them.

      She wanted to fall to the floor. She wanted to scream. Instead, she stood tall and glared at her captors. Whatever came next, she’d face it with as much courage as she could manage.

      “Where are you taking me?”

      She could see that she’d surprised them. Why not? She’d surprised herself.

      “You will come.”

      The giant’s English was guttural but clear. Leanna put her hands on her hips.

      “The hell I will!”

      The men lumbered toward her. When they clamped their meaty paws around her arms, she dug her heels into the vermin-infested straw that covered the floor but it didn’t do much good. They simply lifted her to her toes and dragged her between them.

      Still, she fought. They were strong but so was she. Years spent en pointe and at the barre had toughened her muscles. She had a terrific high kick, too. It had once earned her a spot in a Las Vegas chorus line and she put it to good use now.

      She got the Talking Giant right where he lived.

      He doubled over in pain. His partner found that vastly amusing but before Leanna could give him the same treatment, he twisted her arm high behind her back, jammed his ugly face into hers and snarled something she couldn’t understand.

      She didn’t have to. Between the stink of his breath and the spray of his spittle, the message was clear.

      Still, why would that stop her? She knew what came next. Talking Giant had told her this morning, though she’d already suspected. Two other girls from the troupe had been kidnapped with her. One, same as Leanna, had assumed they’d been taken for ransom but the other had quickly eliminated that possibility.

      “They’re slavers,” she’d whispered in horror. “They’re going to sell us.”

      Slave traders? In this century? Leanna would have laughed, but the girl added that she’d seen a news report on the white slave trade on television.

      “But who would they sell us to?” the first girl said.

      “To any son of a bitch who can afford to buy us,” the third girl had answered, her voice trembling. Then she’d added details, enough so the first girl had tossed her cookies.

      Leanna had never been the type to throw up or swoon. Ballerinas looked like fairy-tale princesses on stage but the truth was, dancing was a tough life, especially if you came to it via a publicly funded dance program instead of some expensive Manhattan studio.

      While one girl vomited and the other shivered, she’d fought the ropes that bound her. But their captors burst in, held them down and injected something into their arms. She’d come to in this horrid cell, alone, knowing she’d been sold…

      Knowing it was only a matter of time before her owner claimed her.

      Now, that time had come.

      The giants dragged her down a long corridor that stank of sweat and human misery. They shoved her into a small room with stained concrete walls and a drain in the middle of the floor, and slammed the door behind her. She heard the sound of a bolt sliding into place but she threw herself at the door anyway, pounding it with her fists until her knuckles hurt.

      Then she slumped to the cold floor, looked at the stained walls, at the drain. At the dark, wet stain around it.

      She buried her face in her hands.

      A long time later, she heard the bolt sliding open. Leanna began to tremble.

      “No,” she whispered to herself, “don’t let them see how scared you are.” Somehow, she knew that would only make things worse. Slowly she dragged herself to her feet and lifted her chin.

      A woman entered the room. Leanna sagged with relief. Two men with cold, dead eyes stood behind her but the woman’s bearing made it clear she was in charge.

      “Do you speak English?” Leanna asked. No reply, but that didn’t prove anything. “I hope you do,” she said, trying to sound reasonable instead of terrified, “because there’s been an awful mis—”

      “You will disrobe.”

      “You do speak English! Oh, I’m so—”

      “Leave your clothing on the floor.”

      “Listen, please! I’m a dancer. I don’t know what you think I—”

      “Do it quickly, or these men will do it for you.”

      “Do you hear me? I’m a dancer! And I’m an American citizen. My embassy—”

      “There is no embassy in Baslaam. My lord does not recognize your country.”

      “Well, he’d better. Otherwise—otherwise—” The woman jerked her head toward the men behind her. Leanna shrieked as one of them moved faster than she’d have thought he could and grabbed the neck of her T-shirt. “Stop it! Take your hands off—”

      The shirt tore to the hem. Leanna lashed out but he laughed and caught her wrists in one hand, lifting her off her feet so the other man could yank off her sneakers and her cotton trousers.

      When she was stripped to her bra and panties, they flung her to the floor. Leanna scrambled toward the wall and screwed her eyes shut. Maybe she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.

      This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be real, couldn’t be—

      She shrieked as a gusher of warm water hit her in the face. Her eyes flew open. A scraggly line of serving-women surrounded her. Some held steaming pitchers, some held soap and towels. The men had dragged in an enormous wooden vessel…

      A tub?

      “Take off your undergarments,” the woman in charge snapped. “Bathe yourself well. If you are not clean enough, you will be punished. My lord, the sultan Asaad, will not tolerate filth.”

      Leanna blinked. She was in an improvised bathroom. That was the reason for the drain in the floor.

      A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat.

      The ruler of this godforsaken place had bought her, had her thrown into a vermin-infested hole in the ground. He was going to make her into his newest sex toy.

      But first, she had to scrub behind her ears.

      Suddenly everything that had happened, that was happening, seemed unbelievable. Leanna let the laughter out. Peals of it. The servant women stared at her in disbelief. One giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth, but not quickly enough. The woman in charge slapped the one who’d dared laugh, barked an order, then rounded on Leanna in rage.

      “Perhaps you would like to appear before my lord beaten black and blue!”

      Leanna looked her tormentor in the eye. She was tired of being afraid, tired of behaving like a whipped dog. Besides, all things considered, what could she possibly lose?

      “Perhaps you’d like to appear before him and explain how you managed to damage the merchandise.”

      The woman blanched. Leanna’s heart was racing but she smiled coolly.

      “Tell your goons to get lost and I’ll get into that tub.”

      Stalemate, but only for a few seconds. Then the woman snarled a command and the men marched out of the room.

      Leanna took off her bra and panties, stepped into the tub, eased down in the hot water and let it soothe her body while her brain worked feverishly to come up with an

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