Conquer the Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

lady.
    â€œI should spare this fellow? Is he your lover, by chance, milady? A man far more concerned with your welfare than the lord who left you here?”
    The lady went suddenly still, in grave discomfort, so it seemed.
    Curious, Arryn raised his sword again, as if he would thrust it through the fallen man’s heart.
    â€œNo!” the blue-eyed, broad, and timid Lady Kyra managed to cry again.
    â€œWho is he? Let me see.”
    He knelt, wrenching the chain and plate helmet from his fallen enemy.
    And there he froze.
    For no man gazed up at him, but a woman. Eyes of emerald green fire challenged his in a blaze of hate and fury. A wealth of reddish gold hair tangled around her beautifully formed features. She made a man give pause, forced him to catch his breath.
    â€œAh!” he muttered, angrily reminding himself to remember his place. “The only man among these English proves to be a woman.” He leaned toward her. “So who are you?”
    She didn’t reply. She had lost her sword, but he realized that she carried a knife still, and was ready to spring for him, attack him. Cut his throat.
    He caught her wrist and wrenched the weapon from her. “I am Sir Arryn Graham. Do you know me, madam?”
    She didn’t reply, but stared stonily at him. He smiled, having no intention of speaking in anything other than Gaelic at the moment. “You will tell me who you are, or I will slice your ears from your head, then your nose from your face. A little trick learned from Lord Darrow.”
    The woman didn’t reply. He started to twist the knife in his hands.
    â€œShe is the Lady Kyra!” the very broad blond woman suddenly cried out.
    Ahh …
    Was it true? Yes. He could see it in the flashing emerald eyes of the beauty sprawled before him.
    Despite himself, despite hatred, anguish, and revenge, he felt his limbs burn, his blood find fire, his body quicken.
    â€œLady Kyra!” he said softly. Well, she was not broad, and she certainly appeared intelligent, and with a temper—and courage surpassing that of those who would defend her.
    This … this was Darrow’s woman.
    No man of flesh and blood could find the need to place a sack over this damsel’s head.
    â€œAye, indeed!” she spat out, thrusting the knife aside, sitting up, and trying to slide back from him. She smoothed a strand of tangled gold hair from her face. “I am the Lady Kyra. But trust me, sir, I do not know you.”
    For a moment, her complete pride and reckless defiance amused him.
    He rose, reaching for her hand, wrenching her to her feet. “But you will know me, my lady. You will come to know me very well. Indeed, from this moment onward, you will know no one but me.” All humor and amusement left his eyes. “Indeed, lady, in payment for those so woefully misused and abused in your name, you will know me very, very well.”

CHAPTER TWO
    Did she know him? Yes, of course, she did. She had lied.
    Yes, of course she had lied. She knew far too much about him, far more than she wanted to know.
    She stood now, facing him. He was a tall man, broad and powerful in the rough-hewn and battle-weathered chain and leather armor that adorned his frame. If he had worn a helmet into battle, he had cast it aside now, and she could clearly see his features; like his well-worn armor, they were both oddly striking and weathered. He was a young man with a clean, chiseled face; a hard, squared, and unrelenting jaw; wide-set eyes—large, piercing, and a very deep blue. His hair was as dark as ebony, almost blue-black in its darkness, long to his shoulders, wavy, despite the fact that it was unruly and wild as well. He was clean-shaven, which seemed to make the utter ruthlessness in his eyes and the set of his jaw all the more apparent. Rough, crude, coarse, she told herself. Barbaric, as much a berserker as any of the Vikings who were part of his ancestry, or as brutal as the Picts, the