Read a full summary of Daughter of the Pirate King, the first book in this series. This page is full of spoilers, so beware! If you are looking for a spoiler-free review, check our rapid review of Daughter of the Pirate King. If you are wondering what happened in Daughter of the Pirate King, then you are in the right place!
Author
Tricia Levenseller
Ratings
4.4 stars on Amazon
4.01 stars on Goodreads
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The Daughter of the Pirate King Series
#1 Daughter of the Pirate King
#2 Daughter of the Siren Queen
***** Everything below is a SPOILER *****
What happened in Daughter of the Pirate King?
Alosa’s ship is taken captive. After swapping kill for kill with Draxen, the other captain, she negotiates her crew’s life for hers. Draxen lets her crew row away. Alosa acts like a weakling but had this planned. These pirates fell right into her hand.
Draxen’s brother and first mate Riden takes Alosa to the cells below deck, locks her up, and begins to question her. When Draxen joins them, Riden reveals he’s taken many details from Alosa’s answers. She’s shocked at his ability but has figured out a few things, too.
The pirates come and go all day to catch a glimpse of her, the pirate king’s daughter. The last visitor keeps his speech casual but draws a K on his forehead, the signal of men working for her father. She has an ally on the ship.
Alosa secretly snatches the key to her cell from Riden’s ring and replaces it with one from her ship. That night, she sneaks to the deck and into Draxen’s room to search for the map. He’s a deep sleeper and doesn’t wake as she scours the room.
As she heads back to her cell to get a little sleep, Riden’s door pops open. He captures her. He takes her to the cell and searches her for the key. She knees him between the legs and locks him in the cell. It’s pointless, though, so she soon lets him out. She discovers Riden is the one who killed his father.
The next morning, Riden questions Alosa about her relationship with her father. She thinks about the hard times he put her through to train her. She asks why Draxen took over the ship when Riden made the kill. He’s older and was the favorite.
Draxen comes to question her. Riden brings her the requested soap and water to clean up. Then two guards watch over her. A storm brews. The men discuss deadly sirens calling from the ocean. Alosa is the only one calm enough to sleep. She thinks about how the ocean protects its own.
Riden continues to bring Alosa’s meals and question her each day. They actually question each other, neither accomplishing much. The rest of the time, two guards are assigned to her cell. At night, she sneaks out to search the ship for the map. One night, her favorite guards are on duty. While Kearan sleeps, she asks Enwen about Kearan. He has learned through sleep talking that his friend has been all over land and sea as an adventurer and has lost much.
Riden takes Alosa with him to search an abandoned ship they are sailing astride. The crew will follow to collect anything left aboard if all is clear. Three men were left aboard the ship to guard treasure hidden in the walls. They capture Riden while Alosa is on deck giving the all clear to the crew to come over. She rescues him.
Draxen sends her back to her cell once the other pirates begin raiding the ship. Riden is confused and suspicious about why she saved him when he was held at swordpoint. She assures him it’s selfish reasons. Draxen brings two new prisoners over to lock up and places a new guard by Alosa’s cell. The one with the two captives is vicious. The one guarding Alosa watches her with lascivious eyes. Riden switches him out for two new, kinder guards.
Riden tells Alosa they’re going to shore for a bit. She picks the cell lock while the two new guards are playing cards, knocks them unconscious, and heads above deck. Theris catches her and asks what she’s doing. She’s irritated her father asked him to watch over her but is thankful he’s going to distract the two guards for her to lower the boat and row to shore. He thought it might be easier for her to swim it. She wonders how much he knows.
When she makes it to land, she feels like she’s being trailed. It’s three girls from her ship. They’ve been following Draxen’s ship the whole time to make sure she’s safe. She sends them away with a message for her father.
Alosa continues her journey to the rowdy side of town. Sheck finds her. She has to stab him to keep him at bay. Riden appears right after. She fights him next, but just for show because she has to go back on their ship to resume her search for the map. They each cut each other superficially.
Riden takes her back to the ship and her cell. He cleans her wound and then sorts through her things to try to figure out how she escaped. He confiscates many weapons and potions. He stations two guards outside her cell. She easily escapes once again. He’s waiting in the shadows on the deck to grab her. He takes her to his room. He can’t trust her anywhere else, so this is where he’ll hold her now. He tries to seduce her for a just a minute, then she flips it on him. He says she’s as beautiful as one born of the sea. This kicks Alosa out of her stupor. She hears him ask quietly himself what he’s doing before he locks the door and walks away.
Alosa trashes Riden’s perfectly neat room, partly in search of the map (which she doesn’t find) and partly to annoy him. He’s furious. When he tries to sleep, she makes noises to keep him awake. Then she begins to hum, dropping him into a deep sleep. She steals the room key from his pocket and scours the ship since most of the men are still ashore. She comes up empty handed.
Alosa desperately wants to sleep in Riden’s bed after many nights on her cell floor. They wake up side by side the next morning. Riden decides to use her energy to swab the deck. She refuses, so he strings her up by manacles. She shimmies her way up to the top of the mast in front of everyone, but he orders her back down. They make her hang there all day. At one point, Enwen ties a siren bracelet to her ankle. Alosa is in intense pain and nearly passes out.
They cut her down that evening. Riden carries her to his room. He treats her wounds and apologizes. They mouth each other for serving the men they do. He says he has a good reason for serving Draxen as he does. He asks Alosa to not be so stubborn so he can try to protect her. She spends another night sleeping beside him.
They exchange a story for a story. Riden tells of his father’s mistreatment of him, his brother, and all the sons on the ship; how his big brother always protected him, including sword fighting him when his father was going to kill him; and how he picked up his brother’s fallen sword and killed his father with it. Alosa tells of her father’s intense, brutal training and how she got her scars. Then she realizes this was all a ploy to get info from her. He says more of it is real than it should be. She doesn’t care and is furious.
Riden returns later in the day to bring her to Draxen. He questions her about where her father’s keep is. He hits her several times. Riden protests each time. She finally gives up a false location (one she pre-planned with her father).
Riden takes her back to his room to rest. Several hours later, he brings her soup. He begins to clean up the mess she made while she rests. Alosa mouths off about how she’ll just trash the place again. He gets in her face about it. Then he kisses her. She’s surprised but likes it too much to make him stop. Finally she does and pushes him away.
Riden doesn’t return to the room until late, thinking she’s already asleep. He can tell she wants him to go to sleep, which makes him suspicious. She finally has to sing her siren song to make him obey. She learns what he wants in life is love and acceptance. Then she makes him forget it all happened. Alosa feels a burn in her chest and needs to be replenished. Only the ocean can do it. And then it always tries to get her to give in to it, which she can’t risk right now. She’s mostly human, but her mother was a siren.
Riden wakes disoriented. Alosa has recently retired from another night scouting the ship. She didn’t have time to return the key to his pocket, so she gets on his lap and teases him until it’s back in its place. He teases her by trying to change in front of her, but she rolls over.
Days go by with him coming in often to interrogate her and her toying with him a bit. Alosa continues her search for the map each night. She knows they’re getting close to the fake location she gave Draxen. She decides to try to get something from Riden by talking about her father and his hiding places. Riden ends up admitting his father would’ve most likely kept anything of value on his person.
Alosa knows she needs to be alone with Draxen to search him. She asks Riden to let her work on the deck because she’s bored. Alosa switches to her siren persona and enchants all men on deck except Riden and Enwen, who can see through the act. Draxen is especially charmed. He asks Riden to bring her to him and tries to charm her in return. She acts like it’s working. He invites her to his room. They kiss. She knocks him out with the hilt of his sword. She searches all his clothes quickly. No map.
A knock sounds. It’s Riden. She meets him on deck and closes the door. He’s worried something happened between her and Draxen. She says he was getting too handsy so she knocked him out. She convinces Riden to go back to their room. She says she’ll answer any questions there. She tries to distract him with her female charms, too, and even turns the siren on for a second to read his mood. He can sense the change when it turns off and on. She sings a single note while they’re making out to knock him out. She completely searches his clothes for the map and comes up empty handed.
Alosa knows her father will be furious and is worried what her punishment will be. She has now searched the entire ship. Then it it hits her…She hasn’t searched the outside of the ship. She realizes the siren statue at the stern would be an excellent hiding place. She sneaks there and lowers herself down with a rope. She finds the map hidden in a glass eye of the woman.
She’s hoisted to the deck by the rope and is greeted by the whole crew. Riden has known she’s up to something for a long time. He takes the eye from her. They didn’t know where their father hid it and are happy to have it. Draxen wants her transported to his room. Riden whispers to Alosa, making sure she still has her knife. He tells her to use it to escape and get off the ship but asks her to spare his brother’s life.
When she’s alone with Draxen, they fight. She prevails and knocks him out. She wants to kill him but doesn’t do it because of Riden’s request. She leaves the room to find him. He’s lowering a boat for her to escape. He asks her to give them a head start before sending her father after them. She won’t leave without the map.
Alosa turns on her siren ability to sense his emotions as she searches the ship. He senses the change in her, something no one else can do. He follows and questions her as she searches. He learns about her mother and her abilities. He’s afraid she’s messed with his head and made him feel things he’s never felt before. She hasn’t at all except to put him to sleep twice. He doesn’t know whether to believe her.
Someone comes up from behind and knocks Alosa out. It’s Vordan Serdan, from the third main pirate family with a piece of the treasure map. He kidnaps Alosa and Riden. Theris is Vordan’s man, not her father’s. He tells them of her manipulations. When she takes Vordan’s offer to betray her father and join him, Theris says she’s lying.
Vordan is going to experiment on her to learn about sirens. He wants her to demonstrate her abilities on Riden. When she doesn’t cooperate, he’s cut or stabbed. It happens multiple times. Vordan learns about her power of song, her power to read emotions, and her power as a seductress. Vordan takes notes as she works through each phase so he can learn as much as possible about sirens before he gets to the island with the treasure which they guard.
Vordan says these tests will go on for weeks. Alosa is devastated and vows to attempt to escape. The next morning Riden arrives with a plan. He gets shot twice executing it, but he gets some seawater to Alosa before the men get their ears plugged. She takes control of several of the men. She steals a gun and shoots Vordan in the back.
Alosa’s song runs out. She and Riden run. She has to fight their way out since Riden is injured. They make it to the ocean. There’s no boat to steal. She’ll fully become a siren if she stays submerged in water for long. But they have to swim back to the Nightfarer. She almost loses touch with reality and nearly drowns Riden by staying underwater too long. She sings instructions to the crew as they near it. They’re hoisted up on a rope. Riden stops breathing. Alosa magically pulls the water from his lungs and saves him. She’s taken to the brig once again.
Alosa is freezing in her wet clothes in the cell. Eventually, she hears fighting above deck. Her crew has come for her. Her guards went on deck to fight, so she finds her still-hidden lock picks and opens her cell. Three of her girls appear, bringing Alosa’s cutlass with them. They head to the deck to join the fray.
Tylon followed them there, too, and has his men in the fight. He wants a relationship with Alosa. Her father likes this idea. Tylon is ready to battle Draxen when the pirate king boards the ship. All fighting halts. Alosa can’t believe he’s there. He asks for the map and asks why she had to signal her crew for help. She explains about her kidnapping. He’s glad she killed Vordan but disappointed she didn’t take more time to search for the map on him, even though her life was in danger. When Alosa describes Vordan, her father realizes he’s an imposter. He mentions Vordan’s average appearance. His only identifying quality is how he flips a coin over his knuckles. It’s Theris!
Draxen drops down in front of them. They are going to duel. As much as Alosa hates Draxen, she can’t help thinking of Riden. She asks her dad to let her take Draxen and the rest of his men captive so she can treat them like they treated her. She considers singing to him, but her powers have never worked on her father. She’s not sure why. He actually looks proud about her request and allows it.
How did Daughter of the Pirate King end?
Alosa takes Riden, Draxen, Kearan, Enwen, and a few young ones captive. She orders the rest murdered and dumped overboard. She asks Niridia to set their course and goes below deck to see Kearan. She offers him a position on her crew because her navigator died in the fray. He accepts. She tries to recruit Enwen to be a thief. He accepts the position. Draxen asks about Riden before she leaves the brig. Her best healer is tending to him.
On deck, Kearan points out Sorinda (Alosa’s assassin) and asks for her to be his guard. Alosa agrees. She goes to see Riden next. The bullets have been removed. He’s asleep when she arrives. When he wakes, he asks about Draxen and thanks her for saving them both. He asks if she’ll tell him the story if her unique birth and heritage. She was conceived on land instead of underwater, so that’s why she has siren abilities but is mostly human.
Riden says he now believes she never controlled him on the ship because he felt actual control when they were kidnapped by Vordan. He knows his feelings are real. He falls back asleep. Alosa thinks about what a strange man he is as far as how he accepts her and how kind he has been. She decides she has plenty of time to get to know him better as they search for the final one-third of the map.
There you go! That’s what happened in Daughter of the Pirate King, the first book in this series. Book 2, Daughter of the Siren Queen, comes out February 27, 2018.
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Thanks for the recap; it’s much appreciated!!
You’re welcome, Stephanie! Enjoy book 2! I’m excited to read it! 🙂
Thanks for the recap; it’s much appreciated!!
Can you summary the second book, please😊