The Captive Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’d taken her too far from home to swim back. She debated leaping into the sea anyhow, but with a whole ship full of men at the oars, she could hardly outpace them.
    “We depart,” he announced in his accented version of her language, then waited.
    “I do not understand.” She shook her head, confused. They had not reached a keep or even an encampment.
    “You and I are remaining here.” He gestured to the sandy cliffs that rose up from the water and ended in patches of thicket and trees. “I will help you ashore.”
    “No.” She edged back, pressing herself against the carved dragonhead at the ship’s bow. The beast’s fierce aspect seemed a fitting figurehead for the sword-wielding heathens who manned the craft.
    He frowned, his thick, dark eyebrows swooping low over azure blue eyes. “How are you called, lady?”
    Did he truly not guess her name? Indeed, she’d hopedthat he had known of her identity prior to arrival at her keep. If he did not know of her and her wealth as an heiress, what reason could he possibly have for taking her? He’d risked his life and his men’s by entering Alchere’s stronghold.
    “I am Gwendolyn of Wessex.”
    “Very well, Gwendolyn of Wessex, if you will not come willingly, I will be forced to carry you again. I would point out there is no sense screaming since this stretch of your coast is uninhabited.”
    “You’re serious.”
    He intended for her to disembark here, in the middle of nowhere. He would allow her to choose whether she wished to be toted around like a bundle of hay by him again, or else swim like a dog through waist-high water.
    Her father’s journal—still tied to her thigh—could be ruined. It had a leather sleeve of sorts, but she did not trust it to keep the water out of the pages. She wasn’t sure why the journal mattered now when she needed to think of her own neck, but she had so little that was hers alone. As a woman, all the properties and wealth she’d inherited would never really belong to her. They went to her husband. Or the sons she might one day bear.
    “I do not wish to depart.” She put the notion out there, hoping perhaps his argumentative friend would use it as a reason to stand up for her. The other man had not seemed pleased that Wulf had taken her.
    Would the man protect her?
    She braved a look in that warrior’s direction, but the man kept his attention on his oars as did the whole cursed ship full of Danes. Was there not a single chivalrous soul among them? Not to mention a nosy one?
    While her head was turned, the Norse leader jumpedoverboard with a splash. On him, the water did not rise much higher than his knees. And once he had his footing, he reached back for her. He swooped close and, like a hawk plucks a field mouse from the ground, he lifted her high in his arms and carried her toward the shore.
    She yelped and flailed in his grasp only a moment before his grip tightened. Fear made her lightheaded.
    “Put me down, you overgrown lout.” She could scarcely move once he determined it necessary to hold her tight. “I cannot breathe.”
    “Talking requires breath,” he assured her, striding through the water and up onto the sandy shore.
    He could have easily set her on her feet then. She would not soak her shoes now that they hit land. But the man built like an oak tree continued to hold her fast, his hands making themselves more familiar with her body than even her husband’s had as the Dane’s fingers cupped the side of her breast beneath one arm.
    Heaven knew her spouse had only been interested in the most rudimentary of rutting, so he had not bothered to touch her anywhere but the most crucial of places. And wasn’t that an absurd thought to have now of all times? Panic must be causing her brain to think strange things.
    “Honestly, I can walk,” she protested, unsettled as much by being left alone on the beach with the Viking leader as she was by her realization that she’d just compared her captor to her