Free Captured by a Laird by Loretta Laird

in a booming voice. “I have much to occupy me.”
    The continuous cries echoed through Lena’s ears as she was pulled to her feet and marched into the quiet, dark corridor beyond the Great Hall. Haigh gripped her arm, digging the tips of his fingers painfully into her flesh. She imagined the knife that was concealed beneath her sleeve digging into his flesh and flashed a brief smile at her latest captor.
    “You will rue the day you mistreated a Rwenorian,” she promised.
    “Oh but I have not mistreated you, yet,” he added with a short laugh. “The night is young—there is still time.”
    Lena took in the details of the face that loomed inches from hers. The cheeks were sallow and gaunt as if the absence of teeth had caused their collapse. His dark, glinting eyes sank into his head and were rimmed with grey shadows. His hair remained vividly black, yet hung in clumps at the sides, leaving an expanse of pale skin between. His scar left one side of his face with a permanent sneer, whilst his nose, reddened by excessive amounts of mead completed the sorry picture. Lena felt sure her skill and speed would far outmatch the pathetic man who tried to intimidate her. His mistake would be to underestimate his prisoner. Haigh had no notion that he faced the legend that was Green Bow—a name that had, this very eve, inspired awe in his own men.
    “My chamber lies at the end of this passage,” Haigh explained.
    Lena nodded and turned to proceed in the direction he had indicated.
    “That’s better!” Haigh positively crowed at her new, compliant attitude.
    He followed behind her, clasping and unclasping his hands in barely suppressed delight. Halfway down the dimly-lit corridor, Lena stopped and turned towards Haigh. She faced him, eye to eye, and dragged her gaze to meet his. A slow smile curved her full lips and she forced her tongue out to moisten her lower lip in an attempt to disarm her opponent.
    Haigh gulped loudly then licked his own lips in a macabre attempt to mirror Lena’s action.
    Swallowing the taste of bile, Lena raised her hand to cup Haigh’s cheeks. “If I am nice to you, will you spare my clan?” she pouted prettily as she had seen the girls in her croft do to persuade the men to dance to their tune.
    “I may be able to be convinced,” he reached out to cup Lena’s breast through the fabric of her tunic. “It may depend if the goods match the packaging.”
    “Oh, they do,” Lena tried to wriggle in a feminine way.
    It worked instantly. Haigh’s eyes darkened with lust and he pulled Lena towards him, pressing his hard groin against her soft core and thrust his hips simulating the sexual act. Haigh’s low growl and heavy panting helped Lena to know that his attention was distracted. She seized the moment of weakness and pulled out the meat knife that she had stolen from the table. In one smooth action, she had it poised at his throat. Haigh’s eyes widened in surprise, the raw desire that lingered there quickly being replaced by surprise then fear.
    “Whore!” he hissed through clenched teeth.
    “The door,” she replied with quiet composure, “if you please.”
    “You won’t get far. I will call for my guards and they will not be as obliging as I.”
    “Not if I slit your throat first, they won’t,” Lena’s words left no doubt as to her willingness to follow through on her threat.
    Lena edged back towards the Great Hall, turning left into a narrower passage when Haigh grunted. A door opened into a kitchen and beyond that daylight streamed through. The sun cast sparkles off the shiny pots that hung from the ceiling, suspended by roughly woven rope. Lena watched as open-mouthed servants stopped to stare at the scene. None tried to help their master despite his desperately shouted orders. At the door, Lena shoved the frail man into a pile of unwashed dishes and ran as fast as she could towards the heavy wooden gate.
    For once in the last few days, fortune favoured Lena. The gates stood