Betrayed Read Online Free PDF Page B

gently, wrapping the torn gown about her. It was then he saw the dried blood on her fingers.
    “Find Mungo and have a fresh bath brought ta my chamber,” he roared to Brayan and stormed up the kitchen steps with Amber held tightly to his chest. He stopped in the great hall and confronted Duncan. “What in Christ’s name did ye do?”
    “Nothin’. I didna touch her.” Duncan paled when he saw the lifeless body. “Is—is she—”
    “Starved fer air, but not dead.” Krayne’s glare softened when he saw the worry on his brother’s face.
    Amber had caused plenty of trouble for one day. He wouldn’t condone deliberate cruelty, but he wasn’t about to join Stivin and blindly rush to her defence. He was her captor, not her protector. And she was far from the innocent victim.
    “I don’t want ta start a war,” he warned Duncan, no longer angry but still sensible. “The lass must be returned unharmed.”
    He carried Amber up the steps to his chamber. While the steward organised the bath to be emptied and fresh water brought up, Krayne slid the gown from Amber’s shoulders and laid her carefully upon his bed in the inner chamber. His large hands could almost encircle her tiny waist. One slender leg was displayed where her shift had caught and, before he could stop himself, his finger trailed the satin-soft skin, up and up, lifting the shift higher as he worked toward the juncture of her thighs. His shaft filled and he pulled back, acutely aware that his sudden hunger could never be satisfied.
    But, God’s truth, had he ever seen a maiden so perfectly formed? Even the mess of knotted black hair clouded about her face tempted the devil’s heat inside him. He had to get away. Before she opened her eyes and sucked his will dry with the green fire that seemed to burn from deep within.
    He moved to the doorway, saw fresh water steaming in the tub and the men gone. His eyes went back to the bed.
    The sleeping beauty could hardly bathe on her own, now could she?
    He took a step closer, then another, all the while cursing himself for a fool. She’d bewitched him, he decided.
    He’d never been short of a pretty face and willing body to warm his bed. He didn’t need this one. He’d go downstairs now and spend his lust. Gayle always welcomed him, no matter the hour of day.
    And yet, he took the last step and stood beside the bed. His gaze was transfixed, feasting on his prize. Desire slaked his shaft. He was no longer just swollen, but aching with need. The meagre shift enhanced more than it hid. He shook his head roughly. Not his.
    And no prize, to be sure. She was a baggage of pure trouble. The kind of woman he galloped a mile from. Still, his pulse raced, carrying crazy messages to his head. She’s too much woman for Stivin. She’ll destroy the lad.
    A determined resolve glinted in his eyes as he rose to wet a strip of linen in the bath water and came back to cleanse the dried blood from her fingers. However tempting she might be, she was Stivin’s whore. Until he could box some sense between the boy’s ears, that was. Then she’d belong to no one, and most of all not to him.
    Krayne threw a fur rug across her and built a fire in the hearth. When he turned back, Amber was just starting to stir. Soft groans quivered the fullness of her lower lip, a taste of what he could arouse her to. The long black lashes sweeping below her eyes fluttered. Krayne held his breath, anticipating the emerald depths that would pull him in.
    He wanted it.
    Desire pulsed a feverish need in his blood.
    He wanted her to force the black and white of wrong, right and duty from his head, wanted to forget why he preferred lasses without a complex bone in their body, wanted her to render him so powerless that no argument could forestall his complete surrender, a willing fool with no regrets.
    It would be so easy.
    If he were a weaker man.
    Krayne allowed himself one last moment of fantasy, sliding his gaze from raven hair to sculptured toes.