Forever Her Champion Read Online Free PDF Page A

was answered when blood began to ooze from the nose of one of the three men.
    After much grunting, kicking, and well-chosen blows, the blonde man’s head fell back into the mud with a thud. A long moment passed while the three men slowly let loose their holds on the young man. His chest heaved mightily, his body limp, bloody and covered in mud.
    Unable to resist the urge to take a step closer, Rianna gazed down at the drunkard. Mud-caked blonde hair stuck to the left side of his face. A trail of blood streamed from his mouth and nose, blending with the sweat and mud. He looked a horrible sight.
    The last of the three men stood and shook the cobwebs from his head. “Ye bloody bastard,” he mumbled right before kicking the man in the thigh. “Ye’ll rot in the goal fer this.”
    A nagging sensation built in the back of her mind. There was something familiar about the man lying on the ground. Mayhap she had served him once, in another tavern in another town.
    As the three men pulled him to his feet, his head lolled from side to side. ’Twas then she saw something that stole her breath away in one moment, only to have her heart begin a rapid tattoo the next.
    Along the right side of his neck, just under his chin, was a crescent shaped scar. Nay, it could not be him.
    How many blonde men possessed such a scar? Stepping closer, with mouth agape, she studied his face as best she could. ’Twas too difficult to tell, what with all the mud and blood.
    But then he opened his eyes. Indigo blue eyes, as dark as the night sky in mid winter.
    Aiden Macgullane.

    * * *
    L ong forgotten memories bubbled to the surface, taking her back to her childhood.
    She was six years old again. A lonely little girl with a mother who paid little attention to her, for she was too wrapped up in her own misery. They’d been living in Ardanaiseig — a little fishing village on the western cost of Scotia. They’d been there less than a fortnight. Rianna had tried making friends with the other children, but to no avail. They’d have nothing to do with her. She was as poor as the day was long and illegitimate to boot, so the parents of these children had forewarned them not to play with her.
    Left out once again from the games children played, Rianna sat on the ground near the loch, wiping tears from her eyes. Miserable and missing her father — the father she could now barely remember and was never allowed to talk about in front of her mother — she cried quietly.
    ’Twas then she met him. A boy of eleven, with hair the color of sun-bleached linen and the darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
    “What be the matter, lassie?” he asked as he plopped down beside her.
    Embarrassed and not wanting to sound like a bairn, she chose not to answer.
    “I be Aiden Macgullane,” he told her as he grabbed a pebble and tossed it into the water. “What be yers?”
    “Rianna,” she told him as she gave him a sideways glance. ’Twas an easier question than his first.
    “That be a right pretty name for a right pretty girl.”
    Trust had never been easy for Rianna. Not since the night her father had sent her away and broken his promise to come for her soon. In the two years after that terrifying night, she had learned more cold hard truths than any six-year-old little girl ought to know. People would pretend to be your friends, only to turn their backs on you when you needed them most.
    “Now, wee one, tell me why ye’re cryin’.”
    “I was nae cryin’,” she argued.
    Aiden tossed another pebble into the loch. “I ken how unkind the children here can be,” he told her. “I have pet badgers that be friendlier.”
    Her eyes grew wide with astonished curiosity. “Badgers?” she asked. “Ye jest.”
    “Nae, I’ve befriended badgers,” he told her. “An entire family of them. I’ve even named them.”
    “Ye have?”
    With a nod, he said, “Aye. I named them after all the past kings of Scotland. I call the ugliest one James the Third.”
    As a