well see the benefit to some form of dicipline,” he murmured. “But M’sieur D’Aeth’s methods are rather harsh, and I would have her able to walk and talk awhile longer yet. At least until after we are wed. After that”—his gaze slid down her body with indifference—“we shall see how penitent she can be before we decide her punishment.”
“I have no intention of marrying you,” Servanne declared quietly. “Not now. Not ever.”
The Dragon smiled. “Not ever is rather too conclusive a statement, my sweet. It allows little room for taking into consideration the amount of pain a human body can endure for its stubbornness.”
“I will not marry you,” she said evenly.
The Dragon clucked his tongue softly to express his sad displeasure. A moment later his hand was lashing upward, the blow catching her cheek and snapping her head sideways in a froth of flying yellow hair. She staggered to one side, but did not fall. The pain exploded in her skull and temporarily blinded her, but even before she could shake the tears free, she saw Eduard leap forward, his hands clawing around the Dragon’s throat.
With hardly more effort than it took to swat a fly, Etienne Wardieu sent his fist plowing into the vulnerable hollow just below the young man’s rib cage. Eduard’s face registered the shocked agony as every last gasp of air was violently expunged from his lungs. He doubled over and staggered back, his legs folding beneath him like crumpled sticks.
The Dragon turned to Servanne. She was leaning against the wall, her face partially blurred by a cloud of hair. He reached out and grasped her by a fistful of the slippery, silken stuff and, with Nicolaa watching on with silent glee, he struck her again, this time bracing her to take the full impact.
“You will marry me, my dear. You will stand before the bishop and repeat your vows like the dutiful, humble bride for whom I contracted. And when the ceremony is over, you will crawl to me on your hands and knees and beg to service me.
“No,” Servanne gasped. “Never!”
“There is that annoying word again,” he mused. He tightened his fist around her hair, nearly tearing the roots from her scalp.
“You will obey me, madam,” he spat, his mouth and breath rasping hotly against the curve of her throat. “You will obey me humbly and willingly, or by the Christ, you will do it broken and bleeding. The choice is yours.”
“N-no,” she sobbed weakly. “No!”
Wardieu jerked her head back against the stone wall, and when she would have sagged down from the pain and the swirling threat of faintness, he propped her up with the crushing force of his knee, driving it hard and high between her thighs.
Her scream caused Edward to surge forward, ignoring his own pain, but a snakelike hiss of steel marked Nicolaa’s shortsword leaving her scabbard and slicing through the air to seek the exposed length of Eduard’s neck.
“This is none of your affair, boy,” she snarled. “Watch closely and you may learn something about survival.”
Servanne was struggling, flaying her hands ineffectually against the looming breadth of Wardieu’s chest. He was too strong and wore too many layers of rich, quilted velvet for her to provoke more than a chastising smile. Conversely, Servanne’s gown was sheer and delicate, offering little protection from the thigh he ground brutally against her softness, or the hand he insinuated beneath the collar, tearing it down, baring her flesh all the way to the tops of her breasts.
“You used a strong perfume in your bath, my dear, but I can still smell my brother’s lust on you. You stink of it!”
Servanne brought her nails up to claw his face, but he caught her wrists and twisted them painfully up and over her head. He crushed her lips beneath his, the kiss brutal, wet, and cruel. Gagging, choking on the sour taste of his rage, Servanne tore her lips free, but he only laughed.
“You will find, my dear, the harder you fight me, the more I want what I am denied. It has always given me the greatest pleasure to succeed where my brother has failed, to take what he cannot have, to know that I possess something he holds dear above all else.”
“No,” she gasped. “No! You will never have me. My heart will always belong to Lucien!”
Wardieu gouged his hands into her wrists. “But I still have your body, my pet, and in a few short hours, I shall have his too. Perhaps