The two men continued to ignore her.
The uncle laughed and addressed Griffin. “You’ve been challenged, Shaw. Are you man enough to accept?”
Astrid fiercely shook her head. Lifting her skirts, she stumbled forward gracelessly, gritting her teeth when a wall of men merged to block her. “No,” she cried, trying to shove past. “He cannot! He’s injured. Your men beat him only this day! How can this be a fair contest?”
“Enough, Astrid,” Griffin growled, his eyes glinting furiously at her. “I will fight.”
She stomped a foot. “No, you—”
“Silence!” the old man roared. “Hold your tongue, woman, and learn your place.” He wagged a gnarled finger in her face. “This is men’s business. They’ll fight. Hand to hand. No weapons. And the winner shall claim you. Now sit beside me like a good lass.” He motioned to the chair beside him.
She closed her mouth with a snap, heat flooding her face as long-suppressed emotions bubbled to the surface, dangerously near spilling forth. A set of hands forced her into a chair beside the laird.
Helpless, she watched as tables were pushed aside. Griffin and Lachlan shrugged free of their coats. She studied the strong lines of Griffin’s face, the bruises only heightening his good looks, and feared she would be sick.
Lachlan stretched his arms over his head, the picture of health and vigor. She pressed a hand to her rolling stomach and tried to believe that Griffin knew what he was doing. He had already proven himself strong, following them through mountains and bitter cold, arriving only moments behind them—an occurrence she had not considered even remotely possible.
The old man beside her rubbed his hands together, clearly relishing the upcoming fight.
“What happens if he loses?” she demanded, a desperate fire burning in her chest as her eyes devoured the sight of Griffin.
God, keep him safe. Let him win.
“If?” he snorted. “Hate to tell you, lass, but your lad there doesn’t look too—”
“What happens?” she spit out.
“Och, well, that depends on Lachlan.”
Astrid shook her head, not feeling at all heartened. “Yes, but, in these instances, what’s usual?”
He slid her a bemused glance. “Usual? You’re a strange lass.” He shrugged one beefy shoulder. “His life is forfeit. His fate would be in Lachlan’s hands.”
Bile rose high in her throat. “That’s barbaric!”
If Griffin lost…
Shaking her head, she braced herself for the violence to come, telling herself she had done all she could to stop it. Still, the thought was cold comfort as she watched Griffin prepare to wage his life. For her.
G
riffin stripped down to his vest, deliberately unbuttoning his cuffs so that his sleeves would billow and flutter with his movements—a measure he knew would help distract his opponent. He smiled grimly as the Scot stripped to his trousers, grinning and flexing his bare arms for the crowd.
He deliberately avoided looking at Astrid—sitting so silent and pale beside the clan’s laird—lest his rage return and cloud his focus. He needn’t look her way to remember her lovely face, so calm, so cool, dark eyes infuriatingly detached as she rode off with the Highlander and left him.
Her utter lack of faith in him galled him still. He might be a stranger in these parts, but he knew a damn sight more about survival than some haughty Brit better suited to the pomp of London drawing rooms.
She had made her choice, going with the Highlanders rather than letting him protect her as any man worth his salt would have done. He should have left her to her fate.
Faithless female.
Shrugging past his stinging pride, he reminded himself of what losing would mean to Astrid. Not even a stubborn female lacking the sense to follow his lead deserved to be left to the mercy of these men.
Determination sealing his heart, he ducked Lachlan’s first swing and quickly countered with one of his own, his right fist connecting with his opponent’s jaw in a satisfying crack of bone on bone.
Keeping his left arm close to his side, he pulled back to deliver another jab…only to be swept off his feet from a swift kick to the knee.
He fell to the ground. Lying on his side, he rolled hard and watched as a boot slammed down inches from his nose. He grabbed at the ankle and twisted it savagely, bringing Lachlan down with a howling curse. Before he could rise, Griffin pounced, flinging himself on the other man’s back. Grabbing a hank of his hair, he brought Lachlan’s face crashing into the ground. Again and again.
The cries and jeers of the crowd registered dimly, but adrenaline pumped hotly through him. He didn’t look up, didn’t seek out
her
face through the red haze clouding his eyes even though he knew she was there, watching, her dark eyes no doubt fathomless and unmoved as ever…even as he fought for his life…and hers.
The thought only heightened his rage, sent a burn of aggression rushing through him, firing a path through his veins, fierce and swift as the wind howling outside.
A sharp elbow to the ribs propelled him backward. He grunted from the force. The Highlander broke free and spun around. Rage glowed in his eyes and a wet trickle of crimson streamed from his nose into his mouth. “Bastard,” he hissed, blood spraying from his teeth.
They squared off again, circling each other like two great jungle cats, wary, tense, waiting for the moment to spring at the other.
Griffin’s fingers flexed at his sides. His senses sharpened, twisting, swinging into razor-sharp pinpricks that gathered along his nerve endings. He honed in on his opponent with the alertness of a stalking wolf, the pain in his body disappearing in a heated rush of warrior instinct.
Lachlan moved first, charging Griffin with a roar.
They came together like two angry rams, careening across the room and crashing into a table. Griffin’s head slammed into the hard surface. His vision blurred for a moment, spots dancing before his eyes at the grinding scald of agony where he’d been struck by the rock days ago.
Reaching out, he fumbled along the top of the table, knocking over dishes until his fingers closed around a goblet. He brought it crashing over the Highlander’s head.
Lachlan released him and staggered sideways, clutching a hand over a bloodied face embedded with glinting glass.
Griffin snatched a pewter platter off the table, sending a leg of lamb flying. With a grunt, he smashed the serving dish against the side of Lachlan’s head, throwing him back onto the table.
Griffin raised his leg and positioned his boot dead center in his chest. With a great shove, he launched the other man off the table and across the room.
A hush fell over the hall as Lachlan swayed drunkenly, arms flailing at his sides before dropping with a heavy thud to the floor.
Blood pumped through him, liquid heat in his veins that numbed him to any pain that his body might be feeling. Griffin brushed pieces of shattered crockery from his clothing. His gaze immediately shot to Astrid. She stared at him with wide eyes, coal dark and unreadable in her ashen face.
Chest rising and falling with great drags of breath, he faced the old man, a despot overlooking his domain. At the moment, his expression looked almost comical with shock.
“I would like food and a bed,” he announced.
The old man snapped his gaping mouth shut and looked from the unmoving Lachlan to him. Clearing his throat, he replied, “Of course.”
Griffin’s gaze moved back to Astrid, her lovely face etched in stone. “And my woman,” he added, hoping to provoke her, to see some change in her calm demeanor.
She stiffened where she sat and that chin of hers went up.
He quirked a brow at her, daring her to object. With the hum of battle still whistling through him like a hot wind, his patience had reached its end.
The need to possess, to dominate, thrummed through him, as blistering and swift as the blood quickening in his veins. He stared at her, ready to claim her in the truest sense.
He watched her mouth open, saw her lips move, her head begin to shake side to side.
Unbelievably, she intended to speak, to refute him. After he had just fought to save her from becoming some Highlander’s plaything. She still could not look at him with gratitude. Could not hold her tongue. The woman possessed the sense of a pea. Instead of biting her tongue and simply feigning submission until they managed to escape their audience, she had to show her shrewish nature and force his hand.
His hands clenched at his sides.
“I’m no man’s—”
“Enough!” he roared, satisfied to see her eyes widen at his shout.
Emotion from her. Finally.
It would not be the last, he vowed. Before this night was finished, he would have more than emotion out of her. He would have it all—nothing less than her total surrender.
Griffin’s vision blurred in a red haze of fury…and something else. Something wild, savage, and hungry.
A hushed silence fell over the hall. He uncurled his fists and took several halting steps toward the table where she sat, watching him with large eyes.
The laird watched him, too, his eyes measuring, assessing, waiting to see if Griffin was the kind of man to let his woman set the rules. He didn’t need to glance around the hall to know that everyone else watched him, too.
Seeing no choice in the matter—these Scotsmen would expect him to teach her proper deference, especially after waging a fight for the right to claim her—he strode forward and pulled her from her chair.
“Woman,” he ground out, the word a scathing drip from his tongue. “I believe it’s time to show you who is master.”
A rumble of agreement broke out in the hall and Griffin knew he had said the proper thing in the eyes of these Highlanders. Crucial if they were to walk away from here.
Astrid’s dark eyes narrowed and flitted about the hall, a hare snared in the watchful gazes of a hungry pack of dogs. He knew she resented their murmurs of accord. Stiffening, she pulled herself to her full height, reminding him every bit of the haughty duchess despite her bedraggled appearance.
Her gaze moved back to his face. “My name is Astrid,” she hissed. “And you’re not my master.”
His anger flared hotter yet at her words. Damn little fool, she didn’t know when to quit.
With a sigh, he bent and tossed her over his shoulder.
He braced himself, expecting her shouts and struggles. Instead she stiffened, rigid as stone over his shoulder.
The hall burst into loud applause and feet stomping.
“Teach her a lesson she won’t forget,” a serving girl shouted.
“Aye, silence that mouth of hers!”
“Ride her good for me!” one of the men shouted crudely.
“Aye, no sparing the rod for that one!”
Loud laughter followed that ribald suggestion. A quiver of indignation coursed her rigid body, passing through her slight frame and into him.
He reacted to the comments as well…felt an answering burn in his blood to show her, in the most basic, primitive way, that she was his, that she belonged to him. At that moment, it had nothing to do with proving his dominance to their audience. He could give a damn about any of them in that moment. He wanted to do it for himself—wanted
her
for himself.
The blood pumped thickly through him at the thought of stripping her naked and spreading her alabaster thighs before him. Of lodging himself deeply inside her and stroking her flesh with his until her cries filled the air. Of watching her dark eyes glaze over with passion, chasing away the hollow, empty look that he had come to loath. That reminded him of another.
“This has gone far enough,” she whispered near his ear, that soft voice of hers sending sparks through him. “Put me down at once and cease treating me in this humiliating fashion.”
He answered her with a swift slap to the bottom that earned him a gasp. With his hand still on the curve of that rounded bottom, he addressed the clan’s laird. “Our room?”
“Aye,” the old man chuckled, wiping at the corners of his eyes where tears of mirth pooled. “You’ve earned it.” Nodding, he snapped his fingers at one of the serving girls. “Show them to their chamber.”
A flame-haired girl rushed forth and Griffin followed her up a winding set of stairs, the stones slick with condensation and mildew. She sent him several intrigued glances over her shoulder as they progressed down a dimly lit corridor, the lighted sconces along the walls casting eerie shadows before them.
“Here you go, love,” she said, iron hinges creaking as she opened a thick wood door to a large chamber, an impressive four-poster bed positioned in the center.
Furs covered the enormous bed and various areas of the stone floor. A fire burned in a hearth large enough for him to stand in, its pervading warmth flowing throughout the chamber, further warming his desire-heated body.
“This will do nicely. Leave us,” Griffin commanded, his hand still caressing Astrid’s bottom, enjoying the feel of her flesh tightening and contracting beneath his palm.
With a knowing smirk, the maid left, the door thudding shut after her.
He strode farther into the room and dumped his burden unceremoniously on the bed. She vaulted off the mattress as if he had tossed her in a pot of boiling water. Face flushed, eyes glowing dark as lit coals, she squared off in the center of the room, her skirts an angry swirl as she moved.
At first it appeared she would come at him with fists swinging. Then she caught herself. Stopping, she inhaled and straightened, smoothing one hand over her fair hair, gathering her composure in the simple gesture even if it did nothing to tidy the honey strands of hair that haloed her face.
He felt a flicker of annoyance. He would have preferred her mad and fighting. Not this return to the frigid duchess rarely given to emotion. He knew she had it in her. Had seen it only that morning—
tasted
it when she woke so warm and pliant in his arms. As sweet and responsive as any hot-blooded woman could be.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he suffered her chilly gaze, suffered the coldness and aloofness she wore like a shield of armor. He cocked a brow and grinned, mocking her, daring her shell to crack, daring her to let go.
Her eyes narrowed in on his face.
“What’s wrong, Duchess?” Something dark and dangerous unfurled inside him. “Never had a man toss you on your back before?”
The stinging crack of her palm against his cheek sent his head snapping back.
“Christ,” he ground out, fingering his cheek as he dropped his gaze back down to glare at her.
“How dare you!” Her arms dropped to hang straight at her sides, fists so tight that her knuckles went white where the blood ceased to flow. She took several stiff strides back.
“Me?” He shook his head, marveling at her gall. He took a step forward, followed by another and another, intent on closing the distance between them. “If it weren’t for me, you would be on your back servicing some Highland brute right now.”
Her nostrils quivered with anger. “I seriously doubt it would have come to that.”
“No? You were willing to take that risk, were you?” He grasped her arms and gave her a little shake, the burn in his blood heating to dangerous degrees at her foolish words…to say nothing of what the
feel
of her in his hands did to him. “Damn fool, your mistake is not knowing when to hold your tongue.” He shook his head. “Have you never considered you might not know all the answers? That someone else might know more about a situation than you?”
For a moment, he thought something flickered in her eyes. An emotion he couldn’t name. Then the dark veil returned, hiding everything from him, hiding
her
.
Rather than answer, she tugged her arm free, inching back until she bumped into the bed. Which was fine with him. The bed was precisely where he wanted her. Ever since he had carried her from the hall, he’d been consumed with one purpose.
With a hand on her shoulder, he shoved her down, watching in satisfaction as she toppled back in wide-eyed wonder.
“I take that as no,” he growled.
“I don’t claim to know everything—”
“No?”
“It’s not in my nature to let a man I hardly know
lead
me,” she said in that starchy voice of hers. As if she were addressing one of her servants and not an equal, not a man burning with a feverish hunger for her.
A man I hardly know
. Is that all she considered him? A stranger?
She held his gaze.
So proper. So cold
. Her eyes dark and fathomless as the night sea, pretending nothing existed between them.
His eyes dropped to her bodice, to the rise and fall of her breasts beneath—the slight mounds that would fit his hands perfectly, that he had craved to taste and explore for long enough now. But no more.