The Lethal Flame (Flame Series) Read Online Free PDF

moved up his body to the wound in his stomach, and then her eyes fell on his neck.
    “Who did this?” she asked standing on her wobbling legs.  She pointed a bloody, shaking finger at the horridness of a dying man having his throat cut.  Had he pleaded for his life?  Of course Alec hadn’t.  He had been brave, defending Keri time and again against those people who hated and feared her.  She had loved him once, before Bryson had turned any love for men into a repulsive memory. 
    “I did,” The-man-on-the-gray-horse responded without hesitation.  “My horse,” he called to a young squire waiting nearby.  She stared at him while he looked at her calmly.  She wanted to rip his eyes from his head, to see his throat slit as he had done to Alec.  When her fists began to ache she was shocked to find herself beating on his killer’s chest, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks and he had let her.
    When his horse was brought to him he plucked her from himself and settled her on the front of the saddle.  With a quick volt he was behind her.  She could feel his thighs flex as he controlled the horse with his legs.  He pulled her onto them, in his lap and she could feel every muscle movement underneath the cloak he secured around her before he pulled the horse toward the gate.  Her back was braced by one arm as he cradled her in his lap.  Her legs draped over one side of him so she felt surrounded by him.
    “Burn it!” his deep voice rumbled overtop her head.  She wanted to look back, to see Alec, to see all those other men who had stood by her over the years.  But mostly she wanted to turn back time, back before Bryson had come into her life destroying it.  To the time she practiced the art of war with her friends and she foolishly thought that one day she would marry the great knight Alec and they would live happily ever after.  But if she looked back she would only see the bodies of her friends lying in the dirt.  Instead she turned her head into The-man-on-the-gray-horse’s massive chest and cried.

Chapter 2
    The lady slept in his arms until dawn.  The sleep was disturbed often by nightmares but it took little to quiet her without waking her.  As soon as Phantom came to a halt overlooking Staward she was immediately awake, looking about herself.  Her gaze fell on the walls some distance away then looked up at Damien. 
    Her appearance was far worse in the bright light of day than it had been in the torchlight of the dungeon.  Her rich locks of hair were in bad need of washing with dirt and blood clinging to them.  The cuts across her shoulder and chest were turning an angry red while her fingers and wrists were beginning to swell.  Her light brown eyes looked up at him accusingly, knowing he would do here what he did at Langley. 
    He glanced away from her gaze and at the keep that would soon be under their attack.  It was not as well fortified as Langley.  He guessed he could be inside the walls before dark.  The woman shifted in his lap and his arm clamped a little tighter around her but he did not look down at her preferring to stay focused on the task at hand.
    Damien kicked Phantom into a run.  The big horse charged forward and a battle cry came up from the men around him.  Artillery was in position and he ordered the barrage that began against the walls and the people who took cover behind them. 
    “Stand together!” he ordered his men as the foot soldiers prepared to attack the walls and attempt to scale them.  “Victory will be ours as it has been this entire journey.  Fight hard, die well, but stand together and we will win!”
    He felt the woman in his arms shudder as he carried his speech.  He raised his sword, Phantom half reared beneath him as he pivoted and charged toward the walls of the castle.  With an arm clamped across her thigh he kept her from falling from the saddle as he leaned over her, protecting her from the arrows raining down on them from above.