“A chance to what?”
“The sultan gave me away
before I even met him. So I am not haraam and I am not a whore. And
I have never f-”
Before she could say it again,
Jamie clamped down on her mouth. “Don’t say it again or
I’ll fetch lye to wash out your mouth."
"Why not just use your
tongue again?" she said coldly.
Jamie’s voice was stone.
"You remember who you're speaking to. And that goes especially
in front of others. And you are my woman. Am I clear?"
“Completely clear. Public
acts but private words then?” she asked coldly.
He stopped her dead. “Are
you ready to explain what exactly you mean by that and all of your
other insinuations? Are you ready to have that discussion with me?”
“Nay, I am not,” she
said, finding her meekness.
“Then I suggest you stop.”
“I am not ready to discuss
anything with you,” she pleaded.
He chuckled and stroked her
hair. “Yes you are.” He pulled her close to him.
Aziza felt like she was drunk.
He had her tossed between the emotions and the yearning she felt for
him so intensely. She danced with unattended to passion. She wanted
to lay her proverbial weapons down and give herself to him. Jamie
pulled her into him and she relaxed against him as he stroked her
back. "Finally,” he said with praise.
“With all do respect, I am
not feeling well. I would like to go home, please.”
“I’m taking you
home.”
“I am not ready to be in
your house yet, please. I would prefer - ”
Jamie pulled her into him firmly
but not harshly. He kissed the top of her head. Strand of his long
rusted gold hair tickled her face as he leaned over her. “Better
start preferring what I prefer. You are not going back to a house
where a married man talks about mating around my woman. Not a married
man who has been hitting my woman. “I am not understanding why
you didn’t tell me the truth about them this morning.”
Aziza closed her eyes.
His
woman
. She couldn’t go through with it no matter how
encouraging or reassuring he was. There was no way she was going to
let him take her the way his brother had taken his bride. Even with
the attraction she felt for him, Aziza wasn’t sure she liked
Jamie any better than the Gregors, at least not enough to be his
haraam. She wanted real love, not to be exploited by Scottish
savages who bite their mates and rut at gatherings. Besides anything
he felt for her was strictly due to the magic she cast during the
horrific ceremony. The only thing she could do at this point, was run
and hide. “I will go get my things,” she said.
“I will walk you.”
Aziza feared he would say that.
She pretended to say to acquiesce, to turn to him to thank him, but
she pivoted on her toes and dashed into the shrubs of the black
forest, and just as she had said, blended to invisibility between the
trees.
***********
As dark as it was, Aziza knew
she was heading for the Gregors’ barn. The Gregors were passed
out, she was sure. She could slip into the shelter of the barn
without detection and hide in the hay covered loft. Even if Jamie
came after her, in the pitch black night, he would never find her.
No one would until it was light. She could sleep.
Or so she thought.
Just as she was caving to the
heavy call of exhaustion, the barn door opened. She fought to stay
as perfectly still.
Jamie?
It was not Laird MacDunna,
though she was found in the pitch blackness all the same. Before she
could defend herself, Andrew Gregor, rose from the dead of drink, was
covering her entire body, smothering her mouth with his foul one in
some replication of a kiss. He gripped the neckline of her shift and
of her undergarments, and with a swift yank, tattering her clothes.
The fabric was pulled with such force, it cut into her flesh. Aziza
yelped.
If Jamie found her now, he would
kill them both. All her denial to him that she hadn’t been out
doing what she wasn’t supposed to would be rendered to lies.
He would think she ran home to Gregor to do what they were about to
do, and that she had been doing that all along. In her country, that
would mean death and Jamie already said it would be here as well.
Her only asset had been incredible, rare beauty and youth and the
rage and anger and abuse that Andrew Gregor and his wife heaped on
her were robbing those of her fast. Even if she wanted to submit to
Jamie now, she couldn’t. Gregor was about to seal her fate.
There was no magic here and hers was evolving to worse and worse
luck.
Gregor beat her face with the
solid back of his hand. Aziza never got used to that. She lay in
the hay, reeling, trying to outwait the stars the spun her head as
Gregor slobbered at her breasts. She cuffed his head in protest and
he chomped in response. Aziza gave up body, mind and spirit as her
attacker shoved the mangled fabric of her clothing to her hips. With
his two bare powerful hands, he tore the remainder of her under
things to shreds. There was no fragment left to shield her.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard herself screaming, begging as
Gregor spread her legs grotesquely and pressed himself against her.
She may have bit him, she didn’t know; her mouth was full of
blood. He landed her with a powerful punch to the eye that had her
shrieking with pain as he groped the front and the back of her.
Aziza wailed into the hollow black night and resolved to lay as still
as possible until one man or the other freed her soul so it could
back to Egypt.
The barn door opened a second
time and through it came brilliant, white moon light.
As fast as her attacker was on
her, a gigantic, swift demon with a spectacular muscled-form and the
sweeping wings of an angel that nearly filled the barn, flew up to
the loft and pulled Gregor off of her, pinning him to the hay.
Jamie.
Aziza fluttered in and out of consciousness. She
could not recoil as he reached over and stroked her leg reassuringly.
His touch was amazingly calming in the midst of total hell. She
watched him clamp his huge demon hands to Gregor’s jaw and lock
mouths with him. The demon Laird MacDunna was kissing him, full on
the lips like he had kissed her. Aziza seized with utter confusion,
fumbling for something to cover herself with as Jamie broke apart
from her abuser.
"How does it feel to be
forced to kiss someone you're not meant to kiss? How does it feel,"
he shouted, "to have someone bigger stronger, more powerful
force himself on you?” The rafters of the barn shook with his
thunderous bellows.
Aziza’s hands slipped in
the blood on her face as she sought to hide any way she could. She
peeked through her fingers. Jamie lit in Andrew Gregor as she was
never able to. He roared with teeth baring to finish his victim. He
clamped on his flesh with mortal finality. Andrew Gregor was still
alive enough to whimper like a new born kid in the hay.
Aziza's eyes darted around
avoiding all possible eye contact. Jamie's brother was there,
standing on the barn floor. He winked at her reassuringly as he
handed her up a horse blanket to cover up with. In her battered,
fatigued state, Aziza was unnerved by his affectionate gesture.
Jamie tossed Gregor's body to his brother, who had Mrs. Gregor’s
corpse at his feet.
Aziza glanced at the dead bodies
and felt her head being turned away from them. She scuttled away
from Jamie, reverting back from his altered state, as he sought to
lift her. He closed in on her anyway. “No!” she ranted
as she kicked at him. “Don’t bite me! No!” But
Jamie caught her ankles and swung them to the side. He swaddled her
securely in the horse blanket and leapt the loft to the barn floor
with her in his arms. Aziza’s stomach climbed her chest as
they flew. She huddled into the safety of the hard surface of his
powerful body. He carried her into the house and set her down.
"No I say! And not here! I
hate it here!" she protested. "I hate it here and I hate
you! I want to go home. I demand to go home!"
“Soon enough," Jamie
promised as easily disregarding her resistance to corral her to the
bedroom. He eased her back to the bed. She fought to get up but he
held her down.
“Get me off this! How dare
you!” She was hysterical, fully blown.
“Not many people would
take that tone with me after they witnessed what you just did,”
he said lightly.
Aziza threw a curse she heard
the Scots say often, “Drop dead.”
He said tersely, pinning her
with a masterful stare. “I just want to see your wounds.”
Aziza clutched the blanket close
to her and kicked at him. “Well you can’t. I won’t
let you.” She was hoarse and completely frustrated that her
hollering was muted. Jamie tisked her until she released a kick just
missed his face.
Jamie gave the door a quick
shove, closing them into the room together. He harnessed her legs
together, still, with a powerful arm. “Stop now. I’m
not going to bite you.” He showed his teeth to assure her.
“It’s just me. I’m not going to harm you. You are
safe. Let me have a look.”
Despite his grip on her, Aziza
sat up completely possessed by her anger and hissed, “I want
you to know that I despise you. I’ve despised you since I came
here and every time we have spoken I have hated you.”
Jamie was unmoved by her
confession. He simply took hold of her ankles and yanked her into
place. “Thank you for letting me know,” he responded.
Aziza refused to give in and
tossed her body atop the mattress in a self-imposed seizure. She
kicked her legs within his hold. Jamie bared his teeth and gave a
quick roar. Aziza shriek and was stilled. She trembled as she
regarded him normalize. A faint smile washed over his face for her.
“That’s not fair,” she barely managed.
“It did the trick,”
he smiled.
“I hate you,” she
said, turning her head away from him, submitting.
“Close your eyes and
breathe,” he ordered softly.
Aziza sucked in her tears as she
felt his fingers trail her injuries and his eyes beheld her naked.
He delicately examined her face where she was struck, where her neck
was burned by the fabric, the bite mark at her breast. He pressed a
corner of the bed linen to it and guided her hand to press against
it. He gently scooped the backs of her knees until they were up and
her feet were flat against the bed. He pushed them slightly apart,
briefly, tracing the seam of her body much to her mortification. He
rolled her onto her stomach and surreptitiously parted her flesh
before covering her with the bedding. “Do you hurt anywhere
else?” he asked gently.
Emotion warbled her voice.
Aziza shook her head into the mattress. “Then hold still for
me once more,” his voice was but a whisper. He was above,
opened his mouth to which she shut her eyes in her only defense of
what he have in mind. She felt the hot wet, softness of his mouth as
he washed the blood from her face and body and licked her wounds
clean. He was not feasting on her like a beast devouring a meal but
healing her, for she felt her injuries lessen as he attended to them.
She writhed this time with erotic pleasure, that pulled with in her,
tortured by his sweet, teasing tongue that baptized all the private
spaces Andrew Gregor abused.
He washed her face, lathed her
breasts and belly, and hiked her hips. “He didn’t get
inside me,” Aziza said quickly as though praying to him not to
do what she thought he was going to do. She was nervous not
terrified as she had been with Gregor. She was not afraid of him.
In fact, she felt herself connecting to him with a tenderness that
she could not have imagined or would have expected.
“I know,” Jamie
responded and lowered his mouth to her in delectable play reminiscent
of the water fall. She came hard against him in soothing, healing
ripples, but took herself back from him as soon as the last wave
ebbed.
“May I please go to the
barn now?”
“No,” he answered
bluntly.
“I don’t want to go
home with you,” she turned to him tearfully.
“You are not. You are
staying here until the morning and then you are coming with me. You
will be here with my brother’s wife on a comfortable mattress.”
“I hate this house.”
“You can’t like it
in the barn any better, now can you?” he brushed the hair from
her face.
“As a matter of fact I
do.”
Jamie raised an eyebrow. “We
aren’t having this conversation. I need some time to prepare
for us, make things nice for you. I don’t want to take you
tonight but if you force my hand, I will.” Aziza started to
protest but Jamie flashed his teeth again.
“Stop that!”
He laughed. “Then behave.
It’s time you learn to sleep in a proper bedroom.”
“
Why? Do you people keep
your haraam in proper bedrooms?”
“
You’re not my
haraam. You’re going to be my wife.”
Aziza shook her head. “You
said you weren’t going to marry me. You can’t. You said
I was going to be your whore.”