Return of the Warrior Read Free

accusations, he couldn’t imagine. “A tracker? How could a tracker find me when you have no idea who or what I am? For that matter, you had no idea what I looked like.”
    She hesitated, then looked uncertain. “My younger advisor found him for me and the tracker said that he knew who you were and that you should be near the Withernsea Abbey in England this time of year.”
    Adara paused as a bad feeling settled over her. She’d been so focused on finding her wayward spouse that those questions had never entered her mind.
    Indeed, the tracker hadn’t even asked for a description of Christian.
    And before that thought could complete itself, the door to the room crashed open.
    Adara looked past Christian to find five soldiers rushing into the room with swords drawn.

Two
    The men paused in the doorway as they surveyed her in the cloak and Christian in his monk’s black robes.
    Adara felt ill that she had allowed herself to be so easily duped. “Where are my men?” she asked the tracker. Most importantly, where was Lutian?
    “Dead. All of them.” Her tracker laughed as he looked at her and Christian. “An unarmed queen and a monk to kill.” He tsked as he moved closer. “This’ll be the easiest money I’ve ever earned.”
    Adara grabbed her parcel as Christian drew a sword from beneath his monk’s robes. He whirled toward her and handed her their marriage contract.
    “Excuse me,” he said politely before he placed himself between her and their attackers.
    The eyes of the shortest of the men widened as he saw Christian swing his sword to ready it.“Sierus,” he said with a gulp, “I don’t think he’s a monk.”
    Her heart hammering, she watched as Christian engaged the men with a skill that was deadly and precise.
    It was a beautiful, macabre dance as the five men sought to kill Christian and he deflected their blows with a manly grace and ease. She’d never seen anything like it. The sound of steel echoed loudly in her ears while they each fought for their lives.
    Suddenly one of the attackers took notice of her.
    He lunged.
    Adara jumped back an instant before Christian whirled and caught the man with a blow to his back. As the man fell, three more came through the door.
    They were doomed!
    Christian grabbed his bed and flipped it over, toward the men. He whirled around, kicked open the window, threw his sword out, then grabbed her up in his arms.
    “What are you doing?” she asked, clutching her bag even tighter.
    He said nothing.
    Two rapid heartbeats later she found out as he jumped from the window with her firmly cradled in his arms.
    Adara gasped as they fell, then landed in a haystack down below. His weight was crushing, as was the pain of her body from being slammed into the hay.
    It was all she could do to breathe from the agony of it.
    Christian didn’t hesitate before he sheathed his sword, then grabbed her hand and hauled her toward the stable that was just across the way.
    She blushed profusely as she realized what she must look like as her cloak kept parting to expose her naked body.
    Why had she thought to play Cleopatra to his Caesar and meet her husband this way?
    But then how was she to know her hired men would try to kill them? In the future, she would never make either mistake again.
    Provided she had a future, anyway.
    Christian entered the stable, where she saw the bodies of her two guardsmen lying dead in the first stall they reached. Grief tore her heart asunder as Christian moved to the next stall and was confronted by another knight.
    “Lutian?” she called, knowing he, too, must be dead. But without his body being there, she thought mayhap he’d escaped somehow. Her fool could be most wily at times.
    But Lutian didn’t answer her.
    Consumed by guilt and anger over the senselessness of his death, Adara picked up a pitchfork and launched it at the knight, who tried to dodge it while he fought her husband.
    It caught him in the shin. He yelped as Christian parried his sword