Wild Roses Read Online Free PDF

attacked them?
    More memories assaulted her, making her begin to
tremble, making her remember the horror of being pursued, of lying helpless
upon the ground, of a cool hand gliding like a mythic serpent across the side
of her head. Words came to her, too, in a foreign tongue known to her only
because Ronan had insisted his people learn well the language of their hated
enemies, yet in her mind they were more sounds than sense. She had been in such
fierce pain . . .
    Maire slowly, cautiously, lifted shaking fingers to
just above her left temple, wincing at the sizable lump that ached dreadfully
at her touch. She wondered then if she could sit up, even walk, for the wave of
dizziness that assailed her when she lifted her head slightly and lowered the
blanket to her chin, noticing out of the corner of her eye a low flicker of
flames.
    Relief swept her, dulling some of her fear. She wasn't
completely in the dark. Yet the next moment she was stricken by confusion at
her surroundings when she dared once more to lift her head.
    She had never seen such a place before, the dying fire
in the hearth revealing a room of massive proportions enclosed by somber stone
walls, a high, timbered ceiling, and a trio of narrow, arched windows. The
furnishings puzzled her, too, sparse but heavy and richly carved, and the bed
in which she lay with its vermilion canopy was as large as any she'd ever—
    Saints preserve her, a bed? She almost laughed
nervously at herself in the next instant, though her heart had begun to pound.
Of course she lay in a bed if she were smothered in blankets, her head upon a
soft pillow, a sturdy mattress beneath her—oh, God, where was she?
    Panic clawing at her, Maire gave no heed to her
dizziness and lifted herself onto her elbow, her hair falling across her bare
breasts. Bare . . . ? Incredulous, she stared at her
nakedness, her heart nearly leaping from her chest at the sudden shifting
beside her.
    "Dammit, Flanna, lie down. Go back to sleep."
    Maire froze, a heavy masculine hand covering her
shoulder.
    "Anything that's troubling you, we'll talk of
tomorrow. Now lie down."
    She couldn't blink, couldn't breathe, crying out when
she was pushed gently but insistently back onto the pillow.
    "Woman, it's too late for tears— Ah, God's teeth,
come here."
    Maire was enveloped so suddenly in a powerful embrace,
hard, muscular arms drawing her close, that she had no
chance to fend off her captor. Stricken, she felt a warm nuzzling at her neck.
Her heart pounded furiously as a callused palm covered a breast and squeezed
gently, arousing shivers unlike anything she'd known. Yet when she felt his
other splayed hand glide down her belly, his fingers slipping into the softness
between her thighs while something rigid and wholly foreign to her nudged
between her bottom —
    Maire's shriek filled the air, her elbow grinding into
her captor's ribs with all her might as he swore in surprise and released her. Her only thought to flee, she lunged from the bed with such
desperation that she forgot wholly her dizziness, forgot the limitations of her
legs and went tumbling to the floor, tears of fright burning her eyes.
    "By the blood of God, what in blazes—?"
    Through her tangled hair she saw him come around the
bed toward her, the Norman a hulking silhouette in the faint light and, Jesu
help her, as naked as she! For she knew him to be an enemy, his marked accent
one she could not forget.
    Terror filling her, she scooted away from him across
the cold stone floor, knowing in her heart there was no escape, sobbing
wretchedly that she had not legs with which to run, to save herself . . .
    Maire shrieked again when he caught her, fighting him
and screeching as she'd never done before in her life as she was lifted into
the air and carried back to the bed. But to her surprise the Norman merely
wrenched a blanket from the mattress and then strode with her still struggling
and flailing her arms to a chair in front of the hearth, where he