She grabbed the man’s thick, beefy arm and gripped downward with one hand and up with the other, as if trying to rip his skin in half.
“Oy!” he said, annoyed, gripping his arms around her even tighter. “Keep doing that, love, and I’m going to think you’re too impatient to wait for the priest in the morning! Come here and give us a kiss, now!” he leaned forward and she did the only thing she could think of: she spit on him.
Her mother—a woman who surely didn’t even know how to spit—was probably rolling around in her grave right this very moment, but in no worlds would Susanna let her first kiss be given by two lips that looked like two pink slugs. Although she hoped he would be stunned enough to let go of her, all that spitting did was stop his kissing advances. A low, worrisome ‘oooh!’ moaned through the circle as the big man held her by one arm and reached up and wiped the spit out of his eye with the other. He looked at his fingers even as she cried, “Let go of me, you boar!”
“Well, aren’t you the feisty one?” he said, his tone now low and holding no laughter. “I think I need to teach you a lesson in manners, don’t I?”
Her eyes widened. The men around them once again began to hoot and holler with robust laughter, and she was already tired from trying to get off his lap. When he grabbed her with both hands and shoved her down across his large thighs, she had no chance of fighting him off, and she knew it.
The only thing she could do was pray and scream for help that would never come. There wasn’t anyone on her side. Her army had been vanquished and her kin had been conquered and were probably being married off against their will at that very moment.
“Help me! Someone help me!” she cried anyway. It was difficult to tell herself to just accept this immense amount of humiliation and let him spank her, that it couldn’t be that bad, and that she would most definitely have worse done to her sooner than she’d like.
“Shut up, woman! You’re splitting my ears!” he told her, and she felt one of her hands, which she was trying to pinch his skin with, pinned behind the small of her back. He began to pull up her skirts.
“Dooon’t!” she quavered, thrashing her legs, trying to find the ground, or his leg, or anything at all to touch or kick. All she found was air. Air that was very cold on her calves.
No man had ever seen her bare bottom, and she had hoped to keep it that way. She had only two layers on, which wasn’t enough to keep her particularly warm even when she was fully dressed, and as he bunched her linens up over her back, she didn’t know if she was going to burn with shame or die from the cold on parts that had no business being exposed to the elements.
“Rahh!” she growled, sounding like a wild lioness in her own ears and biting the man right on the knee. He yelped, picked her up, and moved her further to the side across his knee so that her head was now hanging by the ground and her ass was very high in the cold night air. Then he proceeded to do exactly what she had been trying to escape in the first place: he spanked her.
At least she imagined that he would have called it a spanking. She probably looked like a chastened toddler to the eyes of all the men surrounding them. She, however, knew better. Children couldn’t bear this sort of pain. She felt like she was getting beaten with a wooden oar, and all she could think about was how completely unfathomable this sort of pain had been just moments ago.
Dots were appearing in her vision, either because her heart was going to beat clear out of her chest, or because she was practically hanging upside down, and all of her screaming—which she couldn’t control, she was certain—was making it very hard to breathe.
Certain that she was going to asphyxiate, she began to cry out for Gerhard.
“Gerhard! Please!” she cried out between the loud, rhythmic ‘slaps’ of the oaf’s immeasurably large hand as he heated her backside with one sharp, resounding blow after another. She could barely believe she was crying out for her own jailer, especially one who had also tried to spank her only mere minutes ago. Even if he’d heard her, he would have been unlikely to rescue her, but there was simply no other person to cry for.
“I’ve never seen a grown woman cry like a little spoiled brat!” one of the oaf’s companions said as her voice began to crack and The Oaf adjusted her once more over his knee since all of her otherwise futile wiggling was finally making her fall off of his lap. “Look at her! Like she’s never been laid a hand on in all her life! Smack her good!”
The Oaf did, renewing his smacks although she could feel him shudder with laughter under her body. She did something then that she hadn’t done for years—something she didn’t even think she could do anymore. She cried. Tears began to stream down her face, unbidden and uncontrolled, and she began to hiccup violently as her screams of pain and agony turned to helpless sobs.
Her audience snickered, and it only made her cry harder until the spanking stopped all of the sudden with the shout of a familiar voice.
“Put her down this instant, soldier, or I swear I will run you through!”
She was literally shoved off of the giant’s lap in a single instant. She hit the ground and rolled in the dirt until she found herself looking up at a shadow that only looked familiar when the firelight flickered on his visage. It was Gerhard, standing tall with a sword in his hand. He glanced in her direction for only a moment before regaining eye contact with Arlo.
“What were you thinking?”
“Well, you said we could have the women around here if we take them to wife! I’m taking her to wife! Looks like the lass was trying to escape from the castle!” Arlo said, standing up. Although he was over a head taller than Gerhard, his tone was obviously defensive.
Gerhard narrowed his eyes even as he slowly crouched down to her level. He grabbed her hand with surprising gentleness and helped her to her feet. “You’re not taking this one to wife. She’s not available,” he told him, although his words were hard to hear as she continued to hiccup.
She adjusted her dress and then wrapped her arms around herself.
“She looks available to me! Though she’s a brat, for sure! Spit right in my face, she did! Like some sort of alley cat!” Arlo waved a hand toward her with anger, but Gerhard put an arm around her waist and pulled her toward his hard body.
“I’ve become aware of that, Arlo,” Gerhard sighed, and she realized that he was on first-name terms with this ruffian. His arm seemed warm around her as he put his sword back into his scabbard and began to turn her away from the crowd around the fire. “Now carry on.”
They trudged back in the direction Susanna had run from before, and Gerhard held his body closer to hers than any guard. She still couldn’t seem to calm down—it was as if some sort of floodgates had opened and now she was going to have to let the world drown in her dramatic onslaught of tears.
He moved his lips close to her ear. “Are you alright, princess?”
She took a deep breath, but when she opened her mouth to say, ‘Yes, of course I am, you fool!’ a sob rolled off her tongue instead, which she then swallowed down with a gulp before nodding.
“They didn’t recognize you,” he assured her, as if that was supposed to make her feel better. “They were just drunk, playing around.”
“It—it didn’t feel like playing around to me!” she sputtered, suddenly flashing hot with anger. Instead of arguing with her like she expected, he pulled her even closer and gave her upper arm a consoling squeeze.
Suddenly Rennio stumbled in front of them. She could barely make him out in the light, but his silhouette in the moonlight was indistinguishable because of his wild hair and his robes. “Good!” Rennio panted, putting his hands on his sides as he tried to catch his breath and speak at the same time. “You found her safe! Now I hope you can beat her to death! What were you thinking? You are the worst prisoner imaginable! We told you not to leave the pavilion. At least I did. I told you over and over and over. Not because we don’t want to chase you down in the forest, either. You could have been assaulted by any one of these men, y
ou nitwit!”
“Rennio, enough,” Gerhard immediately chided, walking right past the priest and seeming to continue to ignore him even though he trailed behind.
“She saw earlier what sort of men are out there! They’re not as loveable as I am!” Rennio ranted on, beginning to trudge along at her other side, only not nearly as close as Gerhard was. “Idiot females,” he grumbled underneath his breath, none too quietly.
She heard Gerhard snort derisively. Then he said very quietly in her ear, so that she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. I couldn’t see where you’d run off to. I had gone in completely the wrong direction. I am most sorry.” His apologies made her insides twist, mostly with confusion. She wasn’t sure why he was giving them to her, especially since he was probably going to beat her himself, like he had planned to earlier. Another part of her, however, felt glad that he seemed to feel as though he had let her down in some way, as if he actually had some concern over her safety.
She normally could judge people and their intentions very well, but she couldn’t judge Gerhard. She had no idea what his intentions were, and why he would even rescue her at all. His actions couldn’t be more puzzling since he was apparently a man who was paid to deliver her to her executioner. She couldn’t decide whether to fear him, hate him, or trust him.
All she was sure of was how warm his body felt and how much she enjoyed having his arm around her. Enemy or not, she didn’t want him to let her go.
Chapter Three
Gerhard’s heart was still pounding in his ears. He had walked through army encampments on plenty of nights before, but he hadn’t once realized what a labyrinth they were until tonight as he searched for Susanna.
He had felt guilty about pressing her as soon as she left the pavilion. She was afraid and under an enormous amount of pressure. She had lost her world that day—so what if she skipped a meal or two?
He had just been looking forward all day to being able to come home and care for her, spend time with her, and when she refused to accept even the most basic of his gifts, his disappointment turned to fury… just like it had always done. But this time, he was with his lady.
His lady with the coal-black hair… Who was in his arms, invading his senses with the scent of soap and lavender. He had dreamed of being this close to her all year, and finally it was realized.
All he had wanted to do since he saw her was pick her up in his arms, carry her to bed, and bury himself into her. Instead, it seemed like the whole world was between them.
“Thank God they didn’t know you,” he told her again, now more to console himself than to console her. A feeling of dread crossed his thoughts as he said it out loud. They would have had their way with her if they’d known it was their enemy, the same woman they had been bawdily disclaiming while they were getting their blood boiling before the battle. His decree would have meant nothing to a crowd of drunken rogues. Fortunately, perhaps because they were drunk, they hadn’t realized how well she was dressed or how lovely her hair was, still done up and veiled skillfully. It should have given her away.
Arlo, one of the largest brutes he’d ever seen, wasn’t a truly bad man. He was just an idiot. He didn’t even know his own strength; he’d probably thought he was just giving her a couple of chiding pats. Gerhard couldn’t tell if Susanna was crying from the pain or the humiliation of being spanked like a child. Maybe it was a mixture of both that had upset her.
Of course, he’d been of a mind to give Susanna a spanking earlier himself, so he saw the appeal in it. In fact, if he was being honest, he was jealous that Arlo had seen that beautiful, round ass of hers before he’d been able to glimpse it himself.
“Come on, let’s get you indoors,” he said, still feeling her tremble in his arms and knowing that the snow beginning to gently fall from the sky wasn’t helping.
“I-it was awful,” she quavered. She looked like she was trying to stop crying in the same way he’d seen a fish swim against the current; she was trying so hard that it seemed like she was only making it worse.
“I know,” he told her, with another squeeze. “I know it was awful. I would rather you not have had that experience, Susanna, and certainly not in front of all those people. Please don’t run from me again.”
“And now you’re going to beat me, too,” she sniffled.
He brushed his thumb over the velvet covering her arm. “No. I will not punish you—I think you’ve been punished enough for the night,” he told her, although he had promised himself when he was mad with worry looking for her that he would throttle her when he found her.
Gerhard was glad when they finally reached his pavilion, where one of his guards was already sleeping outside with ale in his hands, worn out by the celebrations around them. He tilted his shoulders back and raised the tent flap before guiding the princess into the tent by the small of her back, not liking the space it left between them. The space where he had held her to him felt cold and incomplete.
Rennio was about to walk right in after them, and Gerhard put his hand out to stop him. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“To get warm and go to sleep,” Rennio replied in an exasperated tone normally saved for dealing with snotty children. “Where else?”
Gerhard wasn’t particularly zealous about the idea of having another person in the tent. The reason why Rennio was such a good guard for the princess was because he was an excellent soldier, could think for himself, and most importantly, he’d had an injury when he was younger than prevented him from advancing on Susanna himself.
That being said, he certainly didn’t want him being any sort of distraction for either the princess or himself this evening. He wanted to be alone with her; he had waited so bloody long to be with her that he didn’t want his oldest friend fucking that up for him, especially because he feared that he wouldn’t have long with her.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so, Rennio.”
Rennio shot him a bewildered look. “What do you mean ‘you don’t think so’? I’ve been running through the camp looking for her, just because you couldn’t keep her in the tent! Now you won’t even let me in?” He pulled his head back and then crossed his arms, studying Gerhard with a knowing glance. “Oh. Oh. I hadn’t seen it before.”
“What?” he demanded, figuring that Rennio knew absolutely nothing. Rennio knew as much about women as a pine tree knew of poetry. Women were completely outside of Rennio’s realm of experience or knowledge.
“If you want a night of making love, just go ahead and tell me. Might do her good, since she only has about a week left before she’s given over to the emperor,” he added, sarcasm rolling off his tongue. “I think she has enough to worry about without your attentions, my friend.” Rennio leaned forward, then clapped his hand around Gerhard’s arm. His brown eyes glanced toward the castle as he added, “Go pick yourself out a good wife. Have some children. You’re close enough to retirement, and you’ve lived through your youth. You’ve waited long enough to start breeding.”
He hated when Rennio called it ‘breeding’. It made him sound as if Rennio viewed himself somehow apart from the human race. As if his horrible manners alone didn’t make that impression strongly enough… “Please do not call it breeding. I’m not a Viking,” he begged dryly, knowing that the women in that castle held absolutely nothing for him. He wanted Susanna. He wanted her all to himself, every part of her, and he wanted her now and forever.
He had waited all year, then all day knowing she was in his tent, waiting for him. All he wanted to do was go in there and soothe her pain and run his fingers through her hair and torture himself by not having his way with her. “I think she’s done with company for today, that is all.”
“It’s cold out here!” Rennio reminded stubbornly.
Gerhard walked inside the tent, grabbed a fur, and then threw it outside. “Goodnight, Rennio.”
“I’ll remember this injustice
!” Rennio warned, but Gerhard knew that he wouldn’t. This was not the first time he had been kept out of the pavilion, and neither Gerhard nor Rennio were strangers to sleeping on the ground without anything to keep them warm. A fur, a warm fire, and a jug of ale would suit all his needs, and he could get that anywhere. “I’m not a dog you can order about!” he cried, but then he wandered off grumbling and scratching himself.
When Gerhard came inside he was treated to a vision, for Susanna was untying her lace veil, which had become askew during her spanking. He watched her, wordlessly, as she fixed her hair, black and beautiful. “Take down your hair,” he asked her, his throat feeling dry.
She looked up, her eyes round and her cheeks flushing. “Pardon?”
“I want to see your hair,” he repeated. Part of him wanted to cringe at his boldness, and beat around the bush for months or years in a long courtship, but he didn’t have that sort of time, and he didn’t live that sort of life.
Her brows flickered a little before she dropped her shoulders and asked, “Why?”
“Because you’re beautiful,” he replied, stepping forward, feeling nearly like he had fallen into a trance. “And because I’ve been dreaming of you with your hair down.”
He froze; he might have gone too far with that one.
She was still, like a deer being hunted in the wood, and he was certain that he had frightened her, put her guard up.
Instead, a smile broke out across her face. It was the warmest smile he had seen in an age, accompanied by white teeth and twinkling eyes. Her tear-stained cheeks was suddenly the only trace left that she had ever been crying at all. “You are too bold, sir,” she told him in a chuckle, then tisked. “What about my hair is so important?”
The Conquered Brides Collection Page 4