Barbarian Prince by Kaitlyn O'Connor Read Free Book Online Page A

up to keep her from sliding down his form and puddling at his feet. She was so limp as he tossed her across one shoulder, retrieved his sword, and jogged back to the ship that he was beginning to worry that something had gone horribly wrong by the time he got to his cabin on the ship.
    Had he crushed something vital in her fragile little body when he had leapt upon her to capture her?
    Had he snapped her tiny neck when he had grabbed her to force his will upon her with the mating kiss?
    It did occur to him that she might be feigning, plotting to catch him off guard and fight her way free, but he took no chances there. He didn’t release her until he had bolted the cabin door behind him.
    Her knees were as limp as putty when he set her on her feet and she wilted. Catching her before she could crumple to the floor, he settled her on the bed and, against his better judgment, leaned over her to examine her face.
    She blinked owlishly several times, staring back at him, but the blinks were enough to assure him she was still alive.
    And, fortunately for him, she didn’t seem to have a knife to slip between his ribs.
    He leaned back, studying her thoughtfully.
    It flickered through his mind that he should leave her and oversee the raid, but he was reluctant to leave his pretty prize so quickly.
    And she was pretty.
    Besides, he needed to make sure she wasn’t armed since she seemed to consider herself to be a warrior.
    More than half expecting her to come around from a feigned half-faint the moment he grasped the hem of her shift, she surprised him and concerned him more when she merely lay limply and allowed him to remove it without any attempt to guard herself from him.
    Those thoughts emptied from his mind, however, once he had disrobed her and got an unobstructed view of her nude form because his cocks instantly sprang to attention and impeded the blood flow above that point.
    She was beautifully made. Her pale skin almost seemed to glow in the dim light of the cabin.
    He had no idea how long he simply stood like a statue staring at her before he was finally drawn by the blood pounding in his ears to the fact that he was beginning to feel downright faint from the restricted blood flow in his body. Sucking in a sustaining breath, he dragged his gaze from her body to her face, met her gaze for a long moment and then abruptly turned and stalked out of the cabin. His hand was shaking when he had locked the door behind him.
    It annoyed him.
    He almost felt as if the mating kiss had bewitched him rather than the other way around!
    Trying to shake the images from his mind, he crossed the main cabin of the ship and paused at the top of the gangplank, abruptly extremely reluctant to leave since it occurred to him that she might only have been pretending to be subdued and be awaiting the opportunity to escape him. It occurred to him, briefly, to wonder if he might be better off if the strange, almost magical seeming creature did manage to escape him. He was enthralled with her already and he had done nothing more than bestow the mating kiss upon her!
    That thought brought with it a crushing since of loss, however, and sparked a possessive anger that seemed as alien to him as she did.
    Mayhap she was one of the tiny magical people the old ones wove tales about?
    He shook that thought. She was undoubtedly a rare find, but he had never been a superstitious man and he was not going to allow fanciful thoughts to fill his mind now!
    She might try to weave a spell around him! But she was flesh and blood woman, not a mythical creature, and he would have her and he would not release her until he had had his fill!
    He paused again at the foot of the gangplank and looked around for his men. He spied one of the younger men in the group heading back, his head bloodied and a thin stream running down the side of his face.
    The woman he had flung over one shoulder was steadily trying to kick him in the groin—and had succeeded at least once if the