by Wyatt, Dani
STOLEN
Royally Hot Book 1
Dani Wyatt
Nikolai Andrew
Copyright © 2020
by Dani Wyatt & Nikolai Andrew
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,
events and incidents are either the products
of the author’s imagination
or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Sara
2. Bors
3. Sara
4. Bors
5. Bors
6. Sara
7. Sara
8. Sara
9. Sara
10. Bors
11. Sara
12. Bors
13. Sara
14. Bors
15. Bors
16. Bors
17. Sara
18. Bors
19. Sara
20. Bors
21. Sara
22. Sara
23. Sara
24. Bors
Coming Soon
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About Dani
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Thank You to Every Reader
Dedicated to
All the girls who are sure they must somehow be royalty.
Grab your crowns ladies,
wear those rhinestones with pride.
Sara
It’s strange how a morning that starts out like every other, can lead to a day that changes everything.
As I made the walk to the market, the spring sunlight glinted on the murky well water sitting in a line of buckets near the stables. The cobblestones clicked under horses hooves. The air smelled of wood smoke and cooked meat, while the chatter of the washerwomen sounded light and friendly.
As I moved among them, looking for the seamstress, Matilda, I smiled and said cheerful hellos to the women who were busy at work.
“Do you know where Matilda is?” I asked Annie Patrick.
“Haven’t seen her yet today.” She nodded to a spot next to her on the edge of a stone wall. “Come, sit with us a while.”
I shook my head. “I wish I could. I have to find Matilda and get back home. My father—”
“Milo works you too hard. He should be grateful you put up with his horseshit.” Annie replied, her work worn face screwing up into a knot.
Laughter rang out from the other women, and I blushed at the colorful language.
“He’s not that bad,” I said, knowing only too well that he was worse than they all thought, but that telling them about it would be as detrimental to my own reputation as his. I knew what they thought of him. A drunkard and a bully. And lazy.
It was my many jobs to collect eggs from the chickens and bring them to town to sell every morning, and that meant rising before any of the rest of the family, my mother included. What no one knew was the way my father spoke to me, , especially in the early mornings when we were alone.
He was becoming more daring, more putrid and this morning he pushed even farther.
“Good morning, father.” I’d kept my voice low as I cleared his bowl and mug.
A caught a glimpse of his yellow teeth as he sucked air through his cracked lips. “Thank you for breakfast, Sara.” Eyes glancing down at my bodice, my hips. “Delicious.”
“I—it was no trouble.” Slipping past him, the scent of his sour breath in my nostrils, the touch of his hands on my waist, sliding lower… “I have to go.”
“Oh, no rush. The eggs can wait. You could sit with me a while, by the fire, let me play with your…hair.”
“No, I—I’ll get the best price for the eggs if I’m early. It’s like you always say, father, the early bird catches the worm.”
“You’ll catch my worm, one of these days, early or no…”
I shivered at the memory, sick to my stomach, knowing if I hadn’t hurried down the path with my basket of eggs things might have gone from bad to worse very quickly.
“I have to go,” I said to the women, glancing around, wondering where I might find Matilda. She’d shown me the bullion knot twice already, but despite my apparent natural talent for embroidery I was still struggling to master it. If I didn’t find her soon though, I’d have to go home and try again tomorrow.
Many more chores awaited me and if I lingered too long, there would be consequences at home.
“You might try her ladyship,” Annie suggested with a grin. “Tilda said she was hassling for new dresses for her daughters.”
I nodded, turning toward the side street that headed up to the jeweler’s shop and wondering if I should go that way or wait to speak to Matilda tomorrow.
Her Ladyship was the nickname they’d given Ginnie Waterford, who’d married well and no longer liked to associate with the poorer residents. She wouldn’t appreciate me sullying her presence, but I couldn’t wait here for Matilda to return.
It was just as I’d decided to leave and head home that I heard the sound of thundering hooves.
Not a particularly unusual sound. Carts and traveling salesmen were a common enough sight in Weschail, and most of the farms and smallholdings around the town, ours included, had a horse or two.
But something tugged me back around, something drew me to the sound. It was like there was a thread connecting me to whoever was riding our way, and it had just been pulled tight. I waited, holding my next breath, staring at the corner of the town square, my heart in my throat as the sound drew nearer.
And once I’d seen him, nothing was the same again. I knew that instant that this morning, was different. Everything was about to change, I just wasn’t sure exactly how.
He was a brawny, dark man, riding a chestnut stallion with the reckless speed of either a gifted horseman or a careless fool, the reins held loosely in one enormous hand with coarse dark hair sprouting from the tanned flesh.
His brooding eyes connected with mine from under a jutting brow, and while I wanted desperately to turn away, I found I could not. I was held, captive, like a rabbit caught in a snare, waiting for the huntsman to claim me as his own.
I stared, and he stared back, unmoved by my scrutiny as I watched the muscles of his other arm rippling with every step, smoothing his horse’s mane. His face was marked, here and there, old wounds that had healed badly, small scars around his cheeks and a longer one, irregular and thick, that ran from the bridge of his nose, across and beneath his left eye, so close that it could have only been a miracle that saved his sight.
He brought the stallion to a whinnying stop, just short of the well, and dismounted in one fluid motion -- something unusual for a man of his size -- his eyes still fixed on me as he patted his horse’s flank mumbling something calming to the snorting, frothing animal.
His burly frame was surprisingly lithe, thick thighs shifting as he turned back to the well, and finally I was released from that heady stare. He stripped his mud-spattered suede jacket and white shirt, right down to his snug britches, and with his tough skin bare I saw more scars across his back and sides.
The other women around me fell silent as they watch
ed him, and a sudden pang of jealousy shot through me.
Did any of them have a claim on him? I glanced around, embarrassed, shocked at my own reaction, the way my nipples tingled beneath my dress. An odd flipping sensation in my belly. All I saw in their faces was trepidation, respect, perhaps a little fear.
I wanted to go to him, right there and then. I wanted to touch those scars and ask him how he got each one. I wanted to soothe his aching muscles and bathe away the mud and dirt that smeared his flesh.
I wanted to know him.
Still holding the reins in one hand, he grabbed the well bucket with the other and poured it in a single, cold fountain over his face and body. His skin glistened in the sunlight as rivulets of muddy water trickled down between his pectoral muscles.
“Who is that?” I whispered to Annie.
“Bors MacDonald. He comes and goes. See him every few years. Pay him no mind and he’ll be gone before you know it...he’s not the staying kind. Soldier for hire, wayward they say.”
He glanced our way, his dark, unsettling eyes pinning me in place, and whatever the washerwoman’s next words were, they were lost to me, because all I heard was my own heartbeat. The intensity in his gaze caused a quiver to replace the tension down low, and I felt a trickle of wetness seep into my underdressing.
He dropped the bucket and the reins, and took a few long strides in my direction, never once unlocking his eyes from mine. His jawline hardened into a severe angle as the muscle there flexed under the days of unshaven beard.
I glanced around, looking to see who he was approaching, sure that it couldn’t be me but he moved in a straight line, never glancing at anyone else and sweat broke out over my skin as heat rose on my cheeks.
I nearly cowered before him, half expecting to be bawled out for staring, but he stopped just a few inches from where I stood, appearing to battle with himself.
In my mind’s eye I saw him stride over, pin me down and force himself upon me right there and then.
“This time I’m here to stay, Annie,” he muttered.
His eyes stayed upon me, as if he was trying to make some important decision. His brow tightened and I thought he might speak to me.
But before he got a chance, the singing started.
Weschail’s town square was little more than a paved oasis along a dirt path, surrounded by the few solidly-built houses and workshops in the town, and one of its two inns.
The Cock and Bull was known locally for its strong, unwatered ales and reasonably decent rooms, and it was from its door that the five half-dressed men fell, a drinking song still passing from each of them as they headed our way.
The washerwomen tutted and murmured words of disgust, if not surprise, since the singing, uniformed men were clearly soldiers. And everyone had heard the stories of soldiers with free time on their hands.
I’d been distracted by them, the same as everyone else, but when I turned back to Bors I found him staring their way with a look of contempt. His hand, I noted, had gone to the hilt of the sword hanging at his waist, and almost imperceptibly he took a step forward, placing himself in front of Annie and me.
One of the men, the first in the group, ran an assessing eye over the gathered women, but when it settled on me I heard a growl from beside me.
“How much?” he slurred, hiccuping as he laughed.
“I… I don’t…” I stammered, not sure how I should respond. I could smell the drink on him from a dozen paces, but it wouldn’t do to upset a group of drunken soldiers. They weren’t even soldiers of our clan, their uniforms marking them as outsiders. Wars had begun over less.
“Shoo!” Annie shouted. “Be off with you!”
The five of them laughed at her response. “Like ‘em a bit feisty,” one of them said, a shorter man with a straggly beard.
“I said clear off or I’ll be telling your captain.”
“That’d be me,” replied the first one, setting his eyes hard on me. “My cock, your mouth. How much?”
After that, everything seemed to happen at once. I felt more than saw Bors move beside me as the soldier reached out, trying to touch my breast. Before I could shrink back from the disgusting creature, Bors’ huge frame blocked out the sun as his sword cut the air, drawing an involuntary yelp from my lips. I didn’t want to be caught up in the middle of whatever this was between them. I should have left when I had the chance, before any of these men turned up.
The soldier seethed and drew back, clutching his wrist as the sword struck him, but I didn’t see any blood.
“Are you mad? You could have taken my hand off!”
Bors spat out a humorless chuckle. “Ye big baby. That was just a warning. Now do as Annie said and clear off. And you try anything with her again, you’ll be learning to jerk off with the other hand.”
The soldier gaped, eyes wide with rage. “We’re warriors of Clan Johnston!”
“And you’re standing on Clan Mackay land.”
“Clan Mackay!” he scoffed. “Nothing but a backwater of lowlifes and thugs. No discipline. You think you can take on six trained soldiers?”
“Try it and we’ll find out. But I count five. Or do they do numbers differently in the lowlands?”
The washerwomen snickered.
“Five? What are you talking about? We’re—” He glanced around, his face reddening as he cast his eyes over his men. “Where’s Iain?”
Bors stepped forward, pressing his advantage and at the same time shielding me completely from any attack. With him standing in their midst, it was clear that he had about six inches on even the tallest of them, and his body was wide enough that they could have come at him two abreast and still been completely eclipsed.
“Who’s first?” he asked, glancing around, and they drew back. “Come on, let’s see your fucking discipline.”
The soldiers stepped away from their captain, and he gulped as he looked up at Bors.
“This isn’t over,” he hissed as he stumbled back. His hand groped for his sword, but in his drunken state all it found was air. “You’ll regret… Fuck!” He turned and ran as Bors stamped the ground, following his men who were already fleeing the town square ahead of him.
Bors grunted, putting away his sword, then turned and cast his eye over me once more. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, then clamped his jaw closed with a snap, a low growl audible as he headed for his horse. He grabbed his shirt and jacket, dressing in haste then mounted up in one swift movement, and tugged at the reins, shouting an encouragement as his stallion broke into a run.
Nobody spoke for a long moment after he was gone. The washerwomen went back to their tasks, muttering and mumbling, and when I was finally able, I took a few deep breaths to settle the violent longing that was beating like a drum inside of me.
“Who is he?” I asked Annie when I’d gathered my senses, then clarified, “What is he?”
She narrowed her eyes, as if reluctant to talk about him, then said, “A warrior. A hired killer. A dangerous man. You’ll keep away from him if you know what’s good for you.”
One of the other women laughed. “Though I’m sure he’s a devil under the sheets.”
“Aye, and what would you know about it, Maggie Fitzroy?” She said, turning back to me, a pointed finger at my nose. “You keep away from him, I mean it, you’re far too young and sweet to go near a brute like that. He’d gobble you up and spit you out on the side of the King’s Highway.”
A brute like that.
The words rang in my mind as I made my way out of the town center and onto the path for home. I wondered with uncontrollable jealousy exactly how much Maggie Fitzroy did know about it, I wondered what a brute like that would do to a young and sweet girl like me.
The thought of him pinning me down, tearing my dress with his rough fingers, holding me steady with those strong thighs made me tremble. I should have been terrified, instead I was on edge with thoughts and feelings foreign to me.
I walked in a kind of daydream, following th
e road I knew so well, but when I came to myself, I found I was standing at the crossroads, where the King’s Highway cut across my intended route. Muddy hoofprints turned aside from my own path and headed west along the highway, and I hesitated.
Something had changed. Something within me. And try as I might to shrug it off, I could not.
My mother and father had always forbidden any mention of men as it related to me. Marriage and love and all it entailed were a distraction from my duties around the house. My sisters could marry but I, apparently, could not.
But a man like that, I thought to myself, swallowing hard and feeling my cheeks flush. A man with such strength, such passion, such intensity. My family would be powerless to stop a man like that from taking me as his own.
Wouldn’t they?
And I liked the thought of that very, very much.
Being taken.
There would be a beating in it for me, I was sure, but instead of taking the path toward home, I turned in the direction of the hoofprints.
Bors
She’s mine.
The thought pounded in my head with every jolt of the horse’s back as I rode up the King’s Highway. Any other time, a good hard ride would have cleared my mind. But this time was fucking different.
She was fucking different.
All my thoughts were for her. Those eyes, that face, that body. Her scent. She was perfection itself.
I’d never much considered my ideal woman. Never cared enough.
Now? I’d seen her in the flesh. Been close enough to touch her. And I couldn’t fucking get her out of my mind.