Free The Falcon's Bride by Dawn Thompson

snow-clad hills gleaming in the distance like spangles on a length of white cloth stretched out as far as the eye could see. His scent wafted past her on the breeze. He smelled clean and very male, darkly mysterious, of the earth and the forest, of musk and tanned leather and the ghost of some anonymous brew. She breathed him in deeply.
    A furtive glance in his direction revealed that he had been studying her. His shuttered eyes had sunk underneath the broad ledge of his brow, and a muscle in his angular jaw had begun to tick. She quickly looked away. The look in those eyes chilled her to the marrow.
    “Do not think to escape me,” he murmured in her ear, meanwhile tightening his hold upon her—pulling her hard against the bulk of his turgid sex. It was a sinister warning, the words dripping menace. And yet there was a tremor—the faintest glimmer of vulnerability humming under the surface of those words. They triggered new waves of gooseflesh along her stiffened spine.
    “Now, why would I want to do that?” she snapped haughtily.
    He tightened his hold. “Aye, why, indeed?” he asked, the words dripping sarcasm. “You are a strange one, fair lady. Much about you is . . . different. You beg for your freedom, but I have not heard you beg to be reunited with your lover since you’ve come among us. Why is that, I wonder?”
    How could she answer? What would he believe?
    “He is not my lover, you insufferable clod,” she flung at him. “We have not even met.” That was certainly the truth. Did he believe her? Another sideways glance showed her that, at the very least, she’d given him pause for thought. She went on quickly, “We were on our way to the castle when your minions laid hands upon me.”
    “ We , you say?” he said. I know of no others. Where are they, then?”
    “How should I know?” she snapped. “Ask your men. I was unconscious.”
    “How many in your party?”
    “Just myself and my brother,” she said. “Judging from the treatment I have received at your hands, sir, I can only hope that he has escaped your hospitality.” It was half truth, but he couldn’t know that, and it sounded credible enough. Let him wear himself out over that on the animals who had laid hands upon her, and good riddance! It was no less than they deserved.
    “I saw no one but you,” he said, frowning, his eyes lost beneath the jutting ledge of his brow.
    “Praise God!”
    He tightened his grip upon her again. “My men have been well chastised for their rough handling of you, my lady,” he said.
    “Rough handling?” she blurted. “They nearly raped me! If you hadn’t come in when you did . . .”
    “Ahhh, but I did return,” he pointed out. “And you came to no real harm, nor will you in my keeping so long as you do exactly as I say.”
    “Ha! Chastised!” she said, still dwelling upon that. “And who is to chastise you , sir? You are savages—barbarians—the lot of you! You are no better than they, dragging me out in the bitter cold half dressed, with no boots on my feet. Who but a savage would treat a lady so?” It was a dangerous outburst, and his posture clenched against her. He tightened his hold with a vicious wrench. How strong he was. She had no doubt that he could snap her spine like a twig. Perhaps she’d gone too far.
    “I have my reasons for that,” he said.
    “What reasons could you possibly have for such treatment?”
    “Patience, my lady,” he said, in that maddening baritone rumble that seemed to penetrate the very marrow of her bones. “You will see soon enough.” He pointed. “Cashel Drumcondra!” And it was—oh, it was —on a distant hill rising black into the night, silhouetted against the stars in the moonlight.
    But there was no comfort for her in the sight. How could there be when she felt nothing but dread of the place since she’d first set foot inside those cold stone walls? What did Drumcondra mean to do? Certainly not ride right up the steep approach and storm