The Captive - By Joanne Rock Page 0,4

stretched over muscular thighs, while their light tunics snapped in the breeze against massive chests. This race that had conquered half of Britain was every bit as fearsome as she’d imagined.

Holding down her veils to keep them from flapping in the wind, she tried to staunch the panic rising up in her throat. She could not afford to be taken by these men. Not as a pawn in some misguided bartering by Alchere, and not as a battle prize by marauding brutes. These men would hurt her as Gerald had hurt her. Or worse.

Panic bloomed in her belly. She spied her overlord riding out to meet the assembled throng of warriors. Wasn’t that the action of a man prepared to negotiate peace instead of fight for it?

By God, she would not serve as a peace offering to some lustful Dane.

Backing away from the edge of the wall, heart hammering her chest, she thought about where to hide. Bits of stone broke beneath her feet and skittered down the wall. Nowhere was safe. She needed to—

Her veil caught on the rocks in the wind, the fine silk snagging. Hands shaking, she reached to untwine it. She’d been foolish to wear it. She should have tied it about her waist, but it had not occurred to her she might really need to leave—

“Ow!” She winced as she yanked her hair in her haste and still did not free the veil. Stepping closer to the edge of the wall, she lifted the fabric straight up to dislodge the snag. Just as the material came loose, a few rocks gave way beneath her feet.

Her foot slipped. She gasped, her arms wheeling round, but finding naught but air to steady herself. In one gut-wrenching moment of clarity, she knew she would fall and break her neck on the rocks below.

But at the last moment, strong arms belted about her waist, snatching her back from the edge as she pitched forward.

Impossible. A miracle! Her brain could not comprehend what happened as limbs thick as tree trunks wrapped about her and hauled backward on her rump, dragging her to safety on the parapet wall.

Relief burst through her like giddy laughter. She’d been saved from certain death.

Turning toward her savior, her veil ripped and hanging limply to one side, she discovered a sight that led her to wish she’d flung herself to the beach below. Because the man who had saved her was no proud Saxon warrior, but the most terrifying enemy she could imagine.

She’d been rescued by 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 of muscle, 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