Authors: Sky Winters
ROMANCE: BIKER ROMANCE: Werewolf Rider (MC Shifter Pregnancy Romance) (New Adult Paranormal Romance Short Stories) (37 page)
She gagged at the sight of him, falling forward from the closet and holding on to the wall for balance. Fear immobilized her for quite some time before she could bring herself to make it to the living room. There, she found Luke, lying on the floor. He was naked, covered with blood, bruises and scratches. Tears fell down her face as she knelt over him, crying. Holding him close to her, she could feel him still breathing.
“Hold on, Luke. Don’t leave me,” she cried, reaching into her pocket for her cell phone.
Dixie called the bar and asked them to get anyone that was there from his gang to the phone. She wasn’t sure if they could even comprehend what she was saying due to her near hysteria, but a short time later, bikes arrived in droves. An older man she recognized as a frequent visitor instructed someone to calm her while he tended to Luke. She found herself escorted to the back porch and given a glass of water while one of the other club wives let her lean on her shoulder.
A few days later, Dixie stood looking at the mess that had once been Luke Robert’s house. There was very little in the living room, kitchen or bedroom that hadn’t been shattered or crushed from the fight between the two alpha bears. In the bedroom was a stain where the body of Harlan Simmons had once lay. There was now a missing person’s report for him, but the club assured her he would never be found. She placed her hand on her stomach and smiled at the child the doctor had confirmed she was carrying and walked out of the house with the bags she had brought over days ago.
“You ready?” Luke asked as she stepped out.
“I’m ready,” she replied.
Luke nodded at a few of the club members and tossed Dixie’s bags in her car before kissing her softly on the cheek. She followed him down the road, glancing into her rear view mirror just in time to see the house go up in flames and bikes coming into view behind her. Twenty minutes later, she pressed the button on a garage door opener and watched Luke’s bike disappear inside the opening before pulling in beside him.
“Welcome to your new home,” Luke told her.
“It’s beautiful,” she replied, looking around the refurbished plantation home set far back off the road where no one would bother them.
“I’m glad you like it. I had planned on a much less dramatic transition from the old house to this one, but things didn’t work out quite like I planned them. There is just one thing lacking,” he told her.
“What is that?” she said.
“The other half of my plans when I bought this house for us,” he said.
Dixie watched as he fished something from his pocket and took her hand, slipping an antique black diamond onto her finger. She looked at it in surprise and then back at him.
“That ring has been passed down from generation to generation in my family. Now, it is yours and someday, our son will give it to the woman he loves. Will you marry me, Dixie?” he asked.
“Yes! Yes, I will!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him and kissing him passionately. Luke picked her up and carried her upstairs to their new bedroom. She was amazed at how quickly his body had healed from the fight with Harlan, a fight which she later learned he was ill equipped to fight after having changed so recently before it. At the end of the day, it seemed they had saved one another and could now spend their lives in peace, as could their unborn son. That was all that mattered.
*****
THE END
Chapter One
All Roads
The walk through the stone halls of Castle Glenn never felt so lonely as the day of my betrothal. The air remained damp and chill, far harsher than this time of year should be, and the grey mist that cut off the tops of even the thick pines of the forest seemed to seep inside my very bones.
“Hurry, Milady,” my maidservant, Rebecca, ushered me from behind as she held the short velvet train of my emerald gown to prevent it from picking up the dirt that lay over everything else. She’d dressed me in my finest at my father’s behest, pulling my corset so tight that my eyes nearly bulged out. Now I could barely breathe, but that was apparently acceptable since the tops of my breasts nearly hit my chin when I sat. It was ridiculous, and in my opinion yet one more form of abuse to suffer at the hands of my father. Silly, perhaps as this particular abuse was one shared by other women, but I tended to focus all blame on the man I’d hated since my mother’s death five years earlier.
He’d caused her death with his own jealous hand, so why not blame him for everything? And now that I’d reached my eighteenth birthday, and looked like a mirror image of my dear mother, he focused his rage on me as well.
I should be thrilled. I should be able to look on it as an opportunity to take leave of my father’s Household. But the Duke of Essington would rather die than allow his only daughter peace, so he’d arranged my marriage to the most loathsome man he could find.
Lord Worthby of England had come to take my hand in exchange for both knights and funds to perpetuate his fight against the Highland Rebels, perhaps the only people more deserving of my hate than my father.
The short of it was that I was no more than property to be traded to the highest bidder, never mind what be done with me after that. So I continued my long march from tower to banquet hall as though it were my death march.
Rebecca sighed heavily when we reached the final corridor. “Milady Ceana, you are beautiful, but no amount of dress or rouge can hide the sour look on your face. Please do not anger the Duke further or he may have leave to take it out on you before your trip back to England with Sir Worthby, and how would it look to your new husband to be bruised on your wedding night?”
I opened my mouth to respond that it would matter naught to Sir Worthby, and that he was sure to inflict many bruises himself if the rumors were true, but I held my tongue for once. Rebecca was only worried for my benefit. She’d been the closest thing I’d had to a friend since my mother’s death.
Putting my arms around her, I whispered, “I’ll miss you so much.” Then with a swift kiss on the cheek I smoothed back the thick auburn braid she’d pinned up around my head and proceeded to the banquet hall.
Aside from the servants and the eighteen knights Worthby had promised, the only people there were my father and Sir Worthby himself, both of whom seemed to have occupied the wait with a fair amount of mead.
I cleared my throat and silence fell over the hall. The knights were a rough bunch, unkempt and full of leers as I strode past. Quite the contrast to the noble suits of armor flanking the room behind them. Too bad they were the ones said to have brains.
Worthby was the worst of the lot, twenty years my senior with pheasant Greece smeared across his mouth, a blackened tooth that showed when he grinned, and a crooked nose. He licked his lips at the sight of me, and didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was staring at my chest.
My father’s face filled with satisfaction as the Lord circled me, prying open my mouth like I was some sort of cattle and squeezing my behind.
“Do you mind, Sir Worthby?” I asked, backing away.
“Just checking to make sure it’s real,” he winked. “Can’t be too careful when dealing with a man like your father. Call me Harold, dear. We ought to be more familiar if we’re to be married.”
My father guffawed, which seemed to encourage the brute.
“It’d be odd to hear ‘er call out ‘Lord Worthby’ in the bed, eh?” Harold smacked my father on the back as they joined together at my expense. “Why don’t you come over ‘ere, love and join us for a drink?”
Harold held out an arm, beckoning me. My father narrowed his eyes at me and the message was clear. Do it or there’ll be hell to pay in lashes later.
I nodded and moved to sit beside my future husband at the table when he grabbed me around the waist, and tugged me onto his lap. I coughed, nearly gagging on his stench. He lifted a stein full of mead and toasted the air, sloshing a bit up and over the edge onto my beautiful dress, Rebecca had so carefully arranged.
My father toasted back and raucous laughter broke out amongst the knights. As Harold drank his hand traveled up my side until he was groping my breast. I shoved him hard, managing nothing but an offer to share his beverage.
When he drained the glass, he let out a belch and whispered over my ear. “I don’t trust your father, so I think I’ll just test out the wares tonight. Make sure we’re… compatible.”
Before I could respond, Harold lifted me up, and grasping me roughly by the arm, said, “My betrothed and I want a bit of privacy so we can get to know each other better.”
“Stop!” I yelled, but it barely registered over the din from all the men. My father may have heard, and turned a deaf ear to my distress.
Harold dragged me toward the steps, but thought better of the climb with a struggling maiden and hurried his way to a deserted sitting room down the hall where he threw me onto the fainting couch with the down cushions my mother had so favored. Tears formed in my anger that this horrid man would soil my few good memories stored in this place.
I tried to right myself, but the infuriating corset prevented it before Harold was on top of me, rotten stench and all. My screams seemed to encourage rather than bring him to halt.
“Fun and games, that’s how I like it, love.” He pulled at my skirt only to find a proper pair of bloomers beneath. “Shite,” he swore. “You’ve got more wrappers than a damned taffy, Ceana. Give a man a hand and take it all off will you? When we’re properly married, you won’t have need of all those silly underthings the women wear. No one will know and we can sneak off for a romp anytime I feel like it.”
This time he actually assisted me in standing, so I did the only proper thing I could think of. I pretended to undress by drawing off my boots, which pinched my feet something terrible anyhow, and I threw them at his head, cracking him against the skull.
“You little whore! You’ll wish you hadn’t done that!” he called after me as I gathered up my skirts and ran, but it only made me go faster. He continued swearing at me as he gave chase down the hall, but he was old and drunk and out of breath and I heard him whistle for the knights in the banquet hall just as I reached the front gates.
I spared only a moment to glance back at the stables, wishing I had time to saddle my horse, but knew my best chance was to make it to the woods just beyond the hill. They wouldn’t dare fire arrows at me as I was the duke’s daughter and I’d do Harold little good as a dead wife. So I ran, panting and dizzy, wishing I could somehow stop to loosen my corset.
The calls of the men nipped at my heels, keeping me going until I reached the edge of the woods. The mist had fallen since I’d seen it earlier and now coiled between the tree trunks and slithered over the ground at my feet. It was difficult to see and growing darker by the moment, the full moon of little aid as it hid behind the thick clouds. I had to take care not to trip, despite the sound of hoof beats pounding the ground just beyond.
They couldn’t possibly fit between the trees this deep inside. The walk was treacherous though, especially barefoot as I was, and after half an hour of stumbling over roots and tearing the skirt and sleeves of my beautiful gown, I lay against a rock to rest myself, clutching at my abdomen, where a bramble had caught the velvet and created a hole, revealing the bones of my corset.
“Damn it all!” I cursed under my breath. The bruise on my side from my latest argument with father was directly under the spot and while I’d run, it hadn’t hurt. Probably due to my fear and necessity, but now it throbbed so badly I felt ill.
What was I thinking? I had no provisions, not even water and these woods belonged to both beasts and Rebels, which had made up many a nightmarish tale by the fire. As if to prove my point a wolf howled in the distance and I cringed against the rock, unsure about the origin of the many shadows surrounding me. A twig cracked to the right and I startled. That was nothing friendly I was sure. I struggled to my aching feet and grasping my side, backed slowly toward the tree behind me with gnarled and twisted branches and roots. From the left came sounds of men’s voices, calling for me in anger and annoyance. The knights had ventured into the woods and it was only a matter of time before they found me.
Which was a worse fate? The unknown beasts? Starvation? Or being beaten within an inch of my life and Harold forcing himself on me for the next twenty years?
I crept farther into the woods, toward the sound of the cracked twig. My chest rose and fell in exaggerated heaves and my heart pounded so loud I was certain the knights would hear it.
“Here, little chickie. Here little princess. This is no place for a tender little girl. Come back with me before the wolves eat you for dinner.”
The voice was so close. Too close. I sucked in a breath and crept away from the better path off toward the highland. The ground angled upward and I ended up clawing my way forward on hand and knee. My braid had long been yanked loose by a branch and my stubborn hair had fought free enough to swing in my face, obscuring what little vision I had.
“Come on, girl. It’s dark and cold and I was promised a fire tonight.”
He was still on my trail. But what could I do about footprints? Very little. Just hope they’d be covered in darkness and flora.