The Barbarian Read Online Free PDF Page B

searched by his gaze, then dropped, discarded.
How dare he treat her this way? At the very least she might have expected a
modicum of respect. She was, after all, a lady of the nobility, not a plowman's
daughter or some hussy he found in a brothel.
    Did he think he
could win her over with a few licks of his wicked tongue? She had not known him
ten minutes and he was ready to use her like a strumpet.
    He had treated her
brutally. Dead leaves were stuck to the back of her mantle and she was still
wet between her thighs. All proof of his manhandling. As for her nipples, they
firmly refused to retreat again, but stood to attention like sentinels.
    Now she was locked
in what appeared to be an empty store shed. A guard was posted outside the door
and she was left to ferment in her own fury. There was some good to it though,
she mused. The shed was dry and the straw warm. After the wretched journey
she'd just endured, it was luxury.
    So she settled
into the straw, determined not to let that beast think he'd won any sort of victory
over her. He wouldn't be the first man to try.
     
    ****
     
    He came back to
look in on her sometime later.   By then
it had begun to get dark, the winter's night drawing in early, and he carried a
rush torch.
    "Well, woman,
are you ready to plead forgiveness?" he demanded through the bars.
    Ami sat in the
straw, hugging her knees. "Forgiveness for what?"
    "Cursing at
me like a scold and using your teeth like a stray bitch."
    "You should
be begging my forgiveness, for
tossing me about like a dead calf, hauling me out of a wagon by my ankles and
exposing my ... nether regions ... to all and sundry." His crimes were far
worse, in her eyes, than anything she'd done.  
    The fact that the
touch of his big rough hands on her body had excited her in what was surely a sinful
way only increased her temper. Ami did not like to feel weakness of any sort
and what this man did to her had a very strange effect on the intimate parts of
her person. It was most disturbing. Her nipples still poked through her shift
and rubbed on the wool of her gown, whenever she thought about the way he'd
enjoyed her pussy. She'd never known men could do things like that. She'd never
thought of men as good for anything much.
    Amber torchlight
flickered between the bars of the window. "I suppose you are hungry,"
he said.
    "No,"
she lied, ignoring her rumbling belly. The scent of roasting pork had made her
mouth water for an hour at least.
    She could just
make out a wry twist of his lips in the guttering light of the flame. "I
don't care for a bride with no flesh on her bones. A wife is meant to keep a
man warm at night." A lump of bread fell through the bars, followed by a
slice of fatty meat.
    Ami was puzzled.
If he wanted her out of that shed, why did he feed her? Was he so stupid?
Earlier the guard had brought her a cup of water from the well. She'd assumed
he did so without his master knowing, but perhaps he'd been instructed to let
her drink. A woolen horse blanket had also been pushed through the bars for her
when the temperature dropped.  
    This was no way to
lay siege. The man must be an idiot.
    She heard his
heavy sigh. "I suggest you think about your position here, woman, and
about the thanks you owe me for taking you in. By dawn I shall expect
contrition."
    "Expectation
is the surest way to disappointment."
    There was a brief
silence and then, "I would eat that food before the rats claim it."
He walked away, taking the torchlight with him.
    Ami drew her
fur-lined mantle tighter around her body and looked anxiously at the straw
surrounding her.
     
    ****
     
    Stryker sprawled
in his chair, boot heels resting on the trestle table, hands cradling the back
of his head. "She'll be on her knees to me by morning," he said
confidently.
    His best friend
Ifyr sat beside him, weary after a long day of hunting and then the rescue.
"I hope she is, or else you can say goodbye to her dowry. I hear you're
not the first man to fall foul of her