Ensnared by the Dream Lord (Dark Lords) Read Free Page B

desire to do so had not been spawned by the intention of despoiling her purity to free himself from her demands.  And even so, he should have felt no compunction about doing so, not on her account.
     
    While he stood pondering the curious, unnerving situation, he sensed the rising sun threatening to crest the horizon, signaling that it was time to leave.
     
    He would leave her to her dreams for now, he decided.  If she summoned him again, he would return on the morrow to finish what he had begun.  Seductress or not, she was still an innocent.  Perhaps that would be enough to convince her to plague him no more.  If not, he would unleash his full wrath upon her and she would come to rue the day she’d learned to summon the Lord of the Night.
     

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    Adriana awoke exhausted.  Snatches of her dreams from the night before teased her memory, yet remained intangible, just out of reach.  Her stomach felt cramped, her sex achy, as if she’d been aroused and left unfulfilled.
     
    She knew the sensation.  She’d experienced it before she’d discovered how to pleasure herself and find relief.  Yet what relief she found felt miserable to her now.  She longed to be filled with a man’s length, to have his weight on top of her, his hands touching and arousing her in ways she hadn’t yet imagined.  She longed for love eternal.
     
    Adriana sat up in bed, surprised to see she hadn’t changed from her gown into a nightdress.  The book of legends lay open atop her bedside table.  Outside she could hear the sounds that signaled her father’s castle coming to life with the beginning of the day’s chores: the squawking of hens, chopping wood, greetings of good morrow, and a hundred other sounds.
     
    Adriana missed her morning walks.  She was rarely allowed outside, even under escort, for fear some lusty man—of the unnatural world—would cart her off.  As if one of the dark creatures who dwelt in Hellsing wood would leave it only to whisk her away! 
     
    She found little amusement in the thought.  It was unfair and unjust that she should have to pay for her sisters’ choices in men.  They had ventured into that dark place of the unnatural.  She would be content enough if her father would only allow her the run of the castle and bailey. 
     
    She wondered if perhaps today her father would regain his sanity and her imprisonment would end. 
     
    She had wondered that for more days than she could count, though, and he had shown no signs of relenting.  Yawning, she dropped her feet off the side of the bed and discovered tracks on the rug.
     
    Alarm assailed her.  Someone had been in her room, watching her sleep.  Her first thought was to alert her father, but she quashed the impulse.  She was alone in the room now—there was no immediate danger.
     
    Kneeling on the floor, she traced the faint outline of boots with one finger.  The tracks were large.  The man who’d left them had to be at least a head taller than any man in the castle—nearly high enough for his head to almost brush against the top of the doorframe.  She knew of no man of this height in the castle. 
     
    Her sisters had found husbands of this ilk—tall, forbidding men of unnatural height and build.  Their height had seemed to grow from their strength and will.
     
    The thought shot her into breathless excitement.  Her door was locked and heavily barred from the inside and outside.  Her father would never allow any man entry into her room, least of all while she slept.  Had she managed to conjure forth the sweet demon of her fervent dreams?
     
    However unlikely it seemed, she couldn’t help but hope it was true. 
     
    Why could she not remember it, though?  She could remember nothing of the night before save her prayers for him to come to her.
     
    The only explanation was that he wished to remain unknown to her.
     
    Certain now that she’d not descended into madness, Adriana cleaned the tracks from