A Dark Champion by Kinley MacGregor Read Free Book Online Page B

me?”
    “Aye, I did. But you know, milady, you could have said thank you to him. He did rid you of Cyril and save me from being hit. Otherwise you would even now be with the oaf and I would be bleeding on the floor.”
    Maybe there was some truth to that.
    Maybe.
    “Rowena?”
    She looked past Kit to see her uncle drawing near.
    Kit excused himself and left them alone.
    “Are you all right?” Lionel asked again.
    “I shall survive it, no doubt. But I wish a plague of locusts would descend on Lord Stryder and follow him all the days of his life.”
    Her uncle stiffened. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
    “Why?”
    “Because at the end of the month, you shall marry him.”

Chapter 4
    S tryder had retired to his tent. Alone. After the confrontation in the hall with Rowena and Cyril, the last thing he wanted was anyone near him.
    All he could do was hear Rowena’s voice as she denounced his occupation. See the contempt in her eyes.
    To the devil with her anyway. He had plenty of women who wanted him.
    As for Cyril…
    He’d never cared for the man. Even though Cyril was technically considered a member of the Brotherhood, he had never been one of them. In the hole that had been their home, more times than not they had been forced to fight him off their weaker members as he preyed on them for food and other things best not thought of.
    Stryder had hated him from the moment they had first laid eyes on each other.
    The world would be better off if men such as he were no longer in it.
    Stryder pushed those thoughts away too. If he had to choose between people who rankled him, better he think of Rowena than Cyril.
    At least she was fair and buxom. In a most irritating way. The kind that tended to haunt a man long after she was gone and make him wonder what her lips would taste like.
    What her body would feel as he took her slowly and easily…
    Stryder pushed those thoughts away as well. The last thing he needed was a woman who had no use for him when every other female in Christendom was doing everything she could to get into his bed.
    He had stripped himself to his waist and was in the process of downing his tankard of ale when he heard the flap of his tent open.
    Acting on instinct, he unsheathed his dagger and rose to face his intruder.
    It was the devil herself.
    Rowena gasped as soon as she came into the tent to find Lord Stryder virtually naked, holding a dagger in his hand as if ready to let it fly at her head.
    “You can see every part of his muscles flex.”
    Elizabeth hadn’t lied. Rowena really could. In fact, every muscle of that gorgeously virile body was plainly evident.
    He was coiled to strike. Lethal.
    She stiffened at the thought and cast him a chiding glare. “Put your weapon away.”
    He arched a daring brow at that. “Why should I when I have half a mind to make good use of it on you?”
    “So you admit to having only half a mind, then?”
    His eyes narrowed.
    “I am but teasing, milord,” she said, gentling her voice. “Put away your weapon, for I have serious business here with you.”
    “You have no business here with me, lady. None. Now hie yourself—”
    “Nay,” she said stubbornly. “I have just been told that the only chance I have for freedom is in your hands and by all that is holy, you will deliver me my freedom or I shall see to it that you live out the rest of your life in merciless misery.”
    He gaped at her. On any other man such an expression would have looked foolish, but to credit Lord Stryder, even when taken by surprise, he still managed to carry off an air of supreme authority and handsomeness. “I beg your pardon? Have you gone completely mad?”
    “Not I, but rather the king you love so well. It appears he would see us marry.”
    “My hairy arse.”
    She gave him a droll stare. “That is much more information about your person, Lord Stryder, than I care to know.”
    He tossed the dagger with deadly precision into the table next to her. Thudding with its