Seize The Dawn Read Online Free PDF

recognize her, though why, he could not now understand. Her blue-gray eyes were unique, as tempestuous as the threat of the storm now rising. Yet why not? He had etched her features into his memory. And still, he had never really expected to see her again. He had fought on, because the concept of surrender was not an option. She was English, lived on land fully controlled by the English king, far beyond his reach.
    Yet ... Here she was. A gift. On a platter. Now casting her fate to the depths! He leaped to the rail, plunging in after her. The Irish Sea was cold, bone-chillingly cold. The water hit him like a blow, an icy strike of lightning. The waves sucked at him, tossed him, made light of him as a man, powerless against this kind of force. Yet she had come here; she too, was rocked and tossed, with the air all but stolen from her lungs, arms flailing in an attempt to control her fate in the waves. He broke the surface and looked around, blinking the cold salt water from his eyes, using precious breath to curse her. Amazingly, she was ahead. He dived below the surface once again, warming himself with powerful strokes against the cold force of the sea. He broke the surface; still, she was ahead. He dived again. Thank God that she could swim, that she had not already been dragged downward into a spiral that would end in the darkness of the depths . . .
    He broke, treading water. He was gaining on her. Gaining, he thought, only because of the cumbersome clothing she wore, the long gown tangling around her legs ...She went under. He swam harder, swearing again, feeling a sudden desperation. A moment later, his hand touched fabric. He almost had her. Below the surface, she turned to stare at him. Her hair trailed out behind her like a golden banner, caught by sunlight, even while the gray of the coming storm threatened all illumination from above. She stared at him, at his hand where he gripped her gown. She had a knife, he realized suddenly! A knife. The blade was flashing through the water, and he might be taken completely unaware again. But the knife didn't strike him. Either by accident or intent, it slashed through the fabric of her dress. She was free, and swimming hard again. Now the length of a long, slim, perfectly formed leg flashed before him; she was escaping again.
    Yet... Escaping where? Just how far did she think she could get before she tired and perished? He pursued her again with a new burst of speed, surfacing to gasp air, plunging below again for the speed of movement he could achieve below the waves. A second later, he grasped flesh. His fingers curled around her ankle, and he jerked her back. She faced him in the water, golden hair streaming around her like the halo on a water-angel. She waved her arms through the water; he saw the knife still in her hand, and quickly grasped her wrist, vising with such force that she had no choice but to release her hold. The knife glittered briefly in the water, then drifted to the depths below. He maintained his grip upon her wrist, drawing her to the surface. Rain began to pelt them, and the light that had remained in the sky was gone as the last of the clouds covered the remnants of the day's sun.
    He slicked his hair back from his forehead, freeing her to tread the water. Behind him, he saw they had launched a small boat from the Wasp, and soon, it would be upon them. "You incredibly stupid woman!" he charged her. "You could have killed yourself." "Better to die by my own hand than yours," she told him. "A suicide, my lady? A sin, by any judgment of God." "Perhaps I didn't intend death," she told him. "You'd never have reached the shore," he told her. She smoothed back her long, tangled, water-darkened hair, still meeting his eyes. ' 'Perhaps you 'd have never reached the shore," she told him. "I fully intended to do so." "It seems you are more impressed with your abilities than reason would allow." "Really? And that from a Scot, a nation of mountain men always far