Stolen By The Warrior
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STOLEN BY THE WARRIOR
C J Brookes
STOLEN BY THE WARRIOR
Copyright © 2020 by Calle J. Brookes/C.J. Brookes
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS The Warrior’s Woman ©2012
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact:
www.callejayebrookes.com
cjbrookes@mail.com
Book and Cover design by C.J. Brookes
PREVIOUSLY TITLED: The Warrior’s Woman
Copyright ©2012 Calle J. Brookes
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABOUT THE DARDANOS SERIES:
The Dardanos Paranormal series originated in 2012. In 2018, CJ pulled all titles down to revise, update, and expand the original storylines.
The DARDANOS Series of Paranormal Romance
RELAUNCHED:
FATED TO HER VAMPIRE (The Seer’s Strength)
TAKEN BY THE KING (The Blood King)
STOLEN BY THE WARRIOR (The Warrior’s Woman)
RELAUNCHING SOON:
CAPTURED BY THE HUNTER (Live or Die)
BOUND TO THE DEMON(Awakening the Demon’s Queen)
CURSED BY HER BLOOD (The Healer’s Heart)
& Brand-New Title:
FATED TO THE WOLF (Rebecca & Matt’s story)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
About C.J. Brookes
Also by C.J. Brookes
1
Beautiful. Physical perfection. From the hair to the toes. Too bad she was human, this creature.
Her thick red hair hung down her back and curled at the ends. Aodhan’s fingers itched to tangle in it, to see if it was silken fire like it looked. She had a siren’s curves, made to draw a male’s gaze. Muscle tone and definition lurked beneath the loose top and jeans. When she crouched to fight him, he had a nice peek right down that V-neck top.
His fangs extended as lust filled him. Surprise at the intensity had him pausing.
He so rarely lusted for human females. Never had he lusted for a female he had every intention of killing. It was a line he had never thought he, an honorable warrior, would ever cross.
An Adrastos warrior did not spar with those he sexually desired. Nor did he desire those who he had vowed to kill. And he had vowed to kill this female. To drain her so that no drop of Taniss blood remained within her body. Such a shame that she was the one he had found.
Her death would be so needless. So in vain.
This female was in excellent physical shape. He wanted to get his hands on her. To feel that shape beneath his fingers. Every inch of her shape.
Not to kill her, as was the plan. He wanted to touch her, enjoy her, the way a beautiful female should be enjoyed.
The way she held the knife shouted skill to Aodhan. Female warriors had always intrigued him. Heated him.
Pity she was a Taniss. The blood of her grandfather had signed her death warrant. At his hands. He wished it was different; but his law had demanded a blood price. From her.
This beautiful girl would die for someone else’s sins. Ancient Dardaptoan vampire laws demanded that her grandfather pay the price for the atrocities he’d committed against the Dardaptoans. Aodhan was merely an enforcer of that justice.
Her executioner.
He feinted left, then spun in. Made glancing contact with her knee. She’d anticipated his move—and countered. Nice. Only his sister Aureliana could have done such a move. Aureliana had had four hundred years of training in sparring to master it. This girl couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or thirty.
He thought she was Mallory, the third-born grandchild of Leo Taniss. Granddaughter of his Kind’s greatest enemy.
He’d studied the photos of the green-eyed females, but he only remembered one name now.
Mallory.
The blade whizzed by his arm. Sliced his skin. She’d drawn blood. Skilled. He pulled back and reevaluated. Very skilled. More skilled than he would have expected. Especially for a human female. “Bad, little Mallory. That was unkind.”
Aodhan battled her gently, while he thought out what he should do with her. To his surprise, he had to block her from connecting several times. This female was good. Very, very good. With some seasoning, she could give a warrior such as himself some real sport. In battle, anyway.
Though he would far prefer her to battle him in bed.
Some moves she made were the moves of the Lupoiux werewolves his people had been fighting for millennia. A few were the moves of Incubi demons they’d been fighting even longer.
She attempted to sweep his knee from beneath him. He countered. In the nick of time. Yes, that was a Lupoiux move.
All were moves she should not know.
That was worth keeping her alive long enough to find out why. Someone with knowledge they shouldn’t have had had taught this female.
He knew he would win; no human female, regardless of fighting ability, could win against a Dardaptoan male. Especially one of his size and skill. Very few Lupoiux could, for that matter.
Poor little kitten. She didn’t stand a chance. And if she did manage to get away from him, his wolf Tajic waited outside her front door to prevent an escape. Tajic knew what was expected.
The girl would not escape tonight.
He had come there on orders from his king, to extract blood vengeance against the Taniss family for the crimes this girl’s grandfather had committed against his Kind.
As the enforcer of his people’s laws, it was his dut
y to his people and his goddess to see this to the end. Regardless of how he found her intriguing, Dardaptoan law demanded she be killed for her grandfather’s sins. Almost two thousand Dardaptoans had died because of this girl’s grandfather. That would be avenged.
“Mallory, don’t fight me.” He said it with resignation. He did not want to do this.
This girl—she did not deserve to suffer for the elder Taniss’s sins. He would honor her by making her death as quick and painless as possible. When he finished, he would put her in her bed, her final resting place. She would die with dignity. Be found by her loved ones with dignity. As much as possible, anyway.
This female did not deserve this fate.
He wished he could make this right with the goddess, with his people, some other way. Grief struck him, hard.
Any other way than this.
He was an Adrastos—Adrastos did not target the weak. The innocent.
He was an Adrastos warrior, and his people were at war with hers. Whether the girl knew it or not. Innocents died in war all the damned time. Even young females.
She struck, but he’d anticipated. He’d been fighting Lupoiux wolves and Incubi demons for five-hundred-plus years now. Nothing she knew was new to him. Nothing.
His fingers wrapped around her wrist and squeezed. She would either drop the blade or risk him breaking the bones beneath his fingers. And it would be so easy for him to do just that—to crush the bone beneath her soft, soft skin.
It was no less than any of the Taniss line deserved. That had been what the council had decided. Originally, all Tanisses were to die. Some of the males had been marked for public deaths. Even the youth, once they came of age. So many in the council had argued for that.
Aodhan and their king had argued them down from all Tanisses to just four. One for each decade their grandfather had hunted Dardaptoans.
The first four found. That had been the ruling.
He wished he had found any other Taniss tonight. The idea of this girl suffering grieved him. That it would be at his hand sickened him.
The girl didn’t drop the knife. Her knee bounced off his abdomen.
This kitten was such a fighter, but she would lose. Simple as that.
It was best if he was swift about it. Not give her time to suffer, for her fear to build to unbearable heights. He should just do it, get it over with. For both of them.
It would be over for both of them soon.
Aodhan almost… almost wished that he could follow her into death somehow. That this was what he had become—a killer of innocents. He deserved death far more certainly than this girl did.
He doubted Mallory had ever harmed anyone.
He used the wrist he still held to swing her to him.
She cried out as the move bent her arm at an unnatural angle. He stopped just short of breaking the bone. He’d intended to do just that, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. Not to her.
She may have been the granddaughter of his enemy—and he planned on killing her within the next few hours—but a warrior female such as she did not deserve unnecessary suffering or pain. There was little honor in harming an enemy—especially a weaker one—just because you could.
He would not cause her pain if he did not have to.
Her grip on the knife loosened. He grabbed the blade and released her wrist at the same time. She countered, used her elbow to strike at his face.
He stopped her, wrapped one hand in the soft red hair hanging down her back. He had her in his arms with a single jerk on the hair. Her back pressed against him. Intimately. He groaned.
She froze.
Her curved rear pressed into his groin, and her hair wrapped around his forearm. The scent of flowers and warm female hit him. His body tightened with a different kind of bloodlust.
He was to drain the blood from her body. That had been the high court’s decree. Not a drop of Taniss blood was to remain in her body.
It was best to just get it over with. And then… then he would follow her into the next life.
That would be his penance for daring to harm this innocent creature. His life would follow hers.
His one regret was leaving his sister alone.
He jerked her head to one side, exposing Mallory’s neck. He lifted the knife to her silky flesh. She froze, and for the first time, her fear was stronger than her fight. The tremors started then. The blade pricked her skin in a half-inch-long slice. The smell of blood filled his lungs. Her blood.
To the goddess, he had to taste this female.
He pressed his lips to her throat as he threw the knife across the room. Her taste filled him. Like he had just come home.
His home was with her. His heart. Home. Perfection. Everything that was right.
He sank his fangs deep into her skin without thinking that he had not numbed her mind. She would remember all of this, all he was doing to her. But that did not matter to him now. He had to taste her again. And again.
Her blood was not the normal bitter human blood that he had expected. The taste was so infinitely sweeter.
As he swallowed his first taste of her, it sank in why he was so willing to follow her to the next life.
His mate. His Rajni.
The one female in the universe, in all the realms that existed, chosen for him by the Dardaptoan goddess who had created his Kind thousands of years ago.
If Mallory died, he died. He would cease to breathe the instant she left this world. And he would want it no other way. Realization of what he had found slammed into him, almost sending him to his knees.
Aodhan’s plans changed in an instant; screw the orders from the Dhar of his people, the ancient laws of the goddess, or anyone else who tried to tell him differently. He had found her. After five hundred ninety-eight years, he had found her. His.
She was never getting away from him now. And no one would ever seek to harm her again. Not while he lived.
“Mallory… I have finally found you.”
2
The female shook against him, her fear and confusion palpable on the air. He gentled his hands, his teeth. The strength of the emotions pouring through him threatened to send him to the ground. He pulled away slightly. “Do not fear me, Mallory. Do not fear me. I’m not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you.”
Her.
He’d found his Rajni. His mate. He’d found her, and she was beautiful.
And a damned Taniss. That posed a possible problem. His curse was loud in the room, and the girl flinched. “Let me go.”
“Not going to happen.” Aodhan tightened his hold on her when she started to fight him again. He needed to think. And he wouldn’t be fighting her again.
Not physically.
His female was a fighter. That was good. He was a warrior; fighting was in his DNA.
It would be in his children’s as well.
Her nails raked across his cheek; her hand headed for his eyes. He grabbed her wrist, pleased to feel the muscle beneath her skin. His female was sleek and toned. Beautiful. Perfect. She kicked at him, almost catching him by surprise. “No! Hold still! Do not force me to subdue you further.”
“What do you want?” She turned to him, and he saw the green of her eyes. Green, just like her grandfather’s.
On her, they were beautiful.
On her grandfather, they were evil.
She resembled her grandfather strongly. Aodhan didn’t give a damn. The girl was glorious. Perfection.
His.
“You.” As simple as that. His female. He was taking her. They’d work out the details later.
She jerked away from him. Aodhan grabbed her. He wrestled her to the ground in spite of how she fought. He needed his hands free to deal with her.
He tied her hands with the silk hasha scarf of his House that he’d worn around his waist. He tied the fabric as tightly as possible, knowing his female could slip free.
“Why?” She twisted and fought against his hold, but he was the strongest of the Dardaptoans
in this part of the world. She could not defeat him.
Except if she smiled at him. That would bring him to his knees.
Aodhan knew his own weaknesses. A sweet-smelling female chosen just for him was going to be a big vulnerability. One he would have to protect. She would have enemies among his Kind, still.
A female warrior like her would respect a strong mate. He would prove that he was exactly that. Strong enough to handle her.
“Because you are mine.”
She was his. They would figure out the details later.
She struggled when he tried to pull her from her home, something he had expected. He solved that problem by hefting her over one shoulder. His woman was heavier than she looked. Muscled and strong, healthy. He patted her ass lightly, thrilled with her physically. Once she finally gave in to the bonds that would grow between them, he would enjoy her immensely.
Theodoric, the near-blind Prognosticator, met them outside after a few moments. It took Aodhan’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim night light; but once he did, his honed sense of sight allowed him to study his friend.