By Force Read Online Free PDF Page B

against him came from squirming, which, from his huffing and low growl, seemed to offer him a fair amount of frustration.
    “Please, sir. Please. Let me go! What do you want with me?” I propped my feet up against the muscular quarters of the horse and pushed. The horse neighed and turned his head toward me, annoyed.
    “Knock her out. I have no patience for this,” Nole said with a heavenward roll of his eyes before clucking at his horse. He dropped me to the ground as he inched his horse forward. The others followed the blond’s lead, leaving me alone with the vile savage named Remmie.
    “Help!” My voice echoed through the hills and stung the back of my throat. Remmie’s fingers covered my mouth. I tasted the dirt on his fingers and attempted to bite at his palm. He pushed me away and I stumbled, falling to the ground with a groan. The extent of my injuries became excruciatingly obvious. Searing pain in my right shoulder and lower back overcame me. Tensing my muscles, I raised my hands, waiting for him to strike. The mighty blow never came. Instead, his forehead creased and his lips settled into a frown. He ran his hands over the top of his head, and then he knelt by my side.
    With narrowed eyes and a scowl, he said, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Cooperate and I will not harm you. If you fight me I will have to hurt you. And the others”—he nodded to the other savages in the distance—“will do worse. I can promise you that.”
    It sounded like a plea, like he wanted me to be good so he didn’t have to hurt me. Yet he looked angry and irritated, like he wanted to strike me down, or step on me with his massive boots. I should have listened. I should have done as he said, but I wouldn’t let him have power over me. Instead, I snapped my knee up hip high and kicked him square between the legs with my booted foot.
    He screeched in a pitch-perfect cry that reminded me of a croaker owl. As he dropped to the ground, clutching between his legs, I rolled over and ran, ignoring the pain and sore muscles that begged for rest. I didn’t last long. Chest heaving for air, I tripped and fell. When his boots appeared in my peripheral vision, he knelt down and rolled me over before tying my arms. He looked angry, fiercely so. His face was stiff, his thick brows turned in at the middle, and his stormy eyes blazed like the wicked sky. He looked as if he wanted to kill me, and it probably took every ounce of his self-control to hold back. But instead of beating me senseless, he sighed.
    “Are you going to have your way with me? Is that what you want me for?” I asked him.
    His lips quirked into a shadow of a smile. “Hardly. You’re not at all my type.”
    “And what type is that?”
    “Scrawny.”
    I opened my mouth but said nothing. Scrawny but safe. Maybe. He wouldn’t violate me if he was true to his word, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t hurt me or, worse, kill me, which was really what I should have been concerned about at this point.
    He scooped me up and walked me back to his horse, throwing me over the saddle as easily as he would a sack of feathers. With a slight bend of the knees and then full extension, he gracefully leaped up onto the horse’s back to sit behind me. He grabbed the reins in front of me and rested his hands in several different positions before settling his forearms on my arms. I moved them, not wanting him to touch me, but I could hardly get away from him on the horse.
    “You’re making a mistake,” I told him as he nudged the horse forward. “I’m just a farm girl. I’m nobody.” My words stung harder than I ever thought possible.
    “Then you have nothing to worry about,” he said with a forced smile.
    “I don’t know what you mean by that. Please tell me!”
    I clutched his shirtsleeves. I barely noticed the wet grime that coated it from our tumble in the woods. He looked down at my white-knuckled fists and raised his thick eyebrows as he looked at me from beneath them. I