Besieged Read Free Page B

being
held. Her brain had actually awoken a full five minutes ago, but she had yet to
open her eyes. She was afraid to look, afraid to find out if she’d been
dreaming or if she’d really been—
    “Please,” the voice of a female softly
cried from behind her. “Please let me go home.” The voice was frightened,
confused. A knot formed in Peggy’s throat. “I won’t tell anybody,” the female
vowed, her tone desperate. “I swear I—”
    A muffled sound, followed immediately by
silence, filled the dimly lit chamber. Peggy closed her eyes tightly, somehow
realizing the female had been gagged.
    Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.
    “Er dama våken?” a man’s voice inquired in
a language Peggy had never heard before. She stilled her breathing, afraid for
him to know she was awake. “Because I’d like to make it back to the village by
this evening,” he muttered in heavily accented English.
    “I’ll go check,” another man answered, his
words spoken in the same Old World accent. “The woman was still knocked out
last I looked. But I’ll go check the other breeder again now.”
    Breeder? Peggy’s eyes shot open. Her heartbeat accelerated. Am I the breeder they are
discussing? She quickly closed her eyes, hysterically trying to figure out
a way to get away from the men.
    “Her breathing is too still,” the first man
said. His tone was bored. As if he was used to dealing with terrified, captured
females all the time. “She’s awake. Wants us to think she’s asleep—”
Perspiration broke out on Peggy’s forehead. They knew she was awake. Oh god
they knew— “but she’s definitely awake.”
    The second man chuckled. “She wasn’t easy
to capture, that one. Wolf himself almost seized her out on the tundra last
week, but the Barrow boy managed to get her out before his men could surround
her.
    “Wolf?” the first man murmured. “He hunted
her?”
    “Ja.” Yes. “He was very angry when
he lost her.”
    “He wanted her for himself or to sell?”
    “I’ve no notion. It’s not my place to
question a jarl’s son. You know that.”
    Silence.
    “Well then,” the first man murmured. “We
best keep a good eye on her. Just to be safe.”
    Peggy swallowed over the lump in her
throat. That was definitely not what she’d been wanting to hear.
    “Agreed,” the second man rumbled out. “If
Wolf wants her, we’ll be able to barter her for a high sum.”
    The first man grunted. “We must take her
back to our own people first. The men of our village should be able to barter
for her first. If none are willing to pay the price we set, then we will barter
her to the son of the opposing jarl.”
    “Agreed.”
    Peggy gasped when the animal furs that had
been draped over her body were unceremoniously ripped off. Her skin chilled
immediately, for she was wearing nothing but the thin white shift Benjamin’s
mother had hand-stitched together for her. She instinctively curled into a
ball, both out of fright and to shield her body from the strange men.
    “Be still, girl,” one of the men muttered
as he squatted down beside her.
    Her breathing grew labored. Blood pounded
in her ears.
    The tanned, heavily bearded face of a man
in his late forties or early fifties drifted into her line of vision. Viewing
him upside down on her back, all she could make out was clear blue eyes, a
shaggy mane of black hair, and a full salt and pepper beard. “What do you want
from me?” she breathed out.
    He shook his head on a grunt, letting her
know he’d answer no questions so she needn’t ask them. He ignored her after
that, causing her distress to grow more acute. “Hurry up and check her over,
Rolf,” he barked out to a younger blonde man who was squatting down by Peggy’s
feet. “Make sure she’s clean and then let us go.”
    Wide-eyed, Peggy’s already surging heart
rate went wild when Rolf placed a tanned hand on either of her thighs and
forced her legs apart. Oh god—somebody help me! she silently cried