The Captive Read Free Page A

Viking.

2
    A SCREAM ROSE TO HER LIPS.
    Somehow, with the same lightning-fast reflexes that had saved her from falling off the wall, the invader guessed her intent and clapped a mighty hand over her mouth to stifle it.
    “Quiet.” Speaking a halting Saxon tongue, he growled the word low into her ear as he tugged her back against his chest and drew her to her feet in front of him. “You do not want your men to fire upon you in their haste to kill me, do you?”
    Her heart pounded so hard she felt dizzy and lightheaded with it. She would have fallen to her knees if not for one thick arm pressed to her waist and the other pinning her shoulders. Her impressions of him were disjointed, it had all happened so fast. He was big even for a barbarian. Broad in the chest, thick in the arms. But his hair was dark like a Saxon’s. It was his size and blue eyes that marked him for a Dane. That and his absurd manner of dress—the cross-gartered braies and the cut of the heavy fur cloak that swung carelessly down his back.
    He moved with her now, this nameless wall ofmuscle, pushing her toward the most remote stretch of the parapets.
    Unbidden, her hands reached to pull his fingers off her mouth. She dragged her feet and scratched him, desperate to be free. He would take her captive. Abuse her. Pass her along to his men. Her belly clenched and she thought she would be sick.
    “Be still,” he commanded softly, swinging one leg over the castle wall as if he would kill them both by jumping to the beach. However, he paid no heed to her efforts to free herself. She would have never guessed he even noticed them if not for the quiet order in her ear.
    Now, he lifted her in his arms to cradle her like a child while he clambered down a crumbled staircase that led to an outer bailey. She’d forgotten this passage off the wall even existed, but then it had been in disrepair ever since she’d arrived here as a girl. The Dane must be mad to tread his heavy foot upon such faulty stonework.
    Praying fervently someone would notice them before he escaped the keep all together, Gwendolyn rubbed the back of her head along his arm while he climbed, hoping she could free some of her veil to float in the breeze like a silken flag. Perhaps the jewels and the color would catch someone’s attention as they descended onto the ground floor of the castle.
    When that did not work, she twisted her head hard to one side. Escaping his confining hand, she screamed. Far better to risk one of Alchere’s archers shooting her in the leg than to submit peacefully to a heathen who would brutalize her.
    “Son of a swine!” she shouted, her mind blank of better insults in the face of her fear. “Rot in Hades, you sheep-loving maggot!”
    Too soon, he replaced his hand over her mouth and bent low to speak in her ear.
    “There is no one.” The heavy accent of his homeland made his words difficult to distinguish even though he spoke a Saxon language for her sake. “The lord of the keep is too busy flexing his might on the southern side to spare a man for the north. He is a strong fighter and a stupid tactician.”
    Was it true?
    Sweet, merciful heaven, it must be. How else would this iron-fisted demon be able to breach the fortifications? Why did no one come when she’d called? The heathen moved quiet as a cat, even with her in his arms. Panic bubbled higher.
    This time, she bit his hand to free her mouth.
    “Danes within the walls!” she shrieked, her sole outburst before he wrenched her tighter, his fingers digging into her cheek as he clamped her lips once again. She tasted his blood on her tongue, and this time she could not move.
    As he neared a small gate intended for wood carts and other supplies, Gwendolyn realized the watchtower was empty and other Danes were slipping in and out the entrance, shouldering expensive pieces of the chapel altar and heavy chests that spilled coins on the courtyard stones.
    The heathen and his men robbed Alchere blind while her