Beyond the Highland Mist by Karen Marie Moning Read Free Book Online

cruelly beautiful mouth and said
come
one more time, she might do just that.
    He opened his mouth. She braced herself for the command she knew would follow.
    “Release my wife,” commanded a deep voice behind them.

C HAPTER 6
    S O THIS MAN AT THE FORGE WAS NOT HER HUSBAND . D EAR God in heaven, what was she going to find when she turned around? Dare she?
    She turned slightly, as if a small sidewise peek might be safer. Might minimize the impact. Adrienne soon discovered just how wrong she was.
Nothing
could minimize
that
man’s impact.
    Valhalla on the right. Paradise regained on the left.
    Stuck between a Godiva truffle and a chocolate éclair.
    Between a rock and a very hard place. Two very hard places from the looks of it.
I hate beautiful men
, she mourned soulfully.
Hate them. Hate them. Hate them.
Yet to resist….
    Hands clasped her waist from behind as the smithy pulled her back against his sculpted body.
    “Let go of me!” she cried, the strange fog lifting from her brain.
    The smithy released her.
    And that very big, beautiful man facing her—the legendary Hawk—was glaring like Odin preparing to zap her with a thunderbolt. She snorted.
    “Don’t glare at
me.
You didn’t even bother to show up at our wedding.” Adrienne started pacing. If she really was Janet, how would Janet have felt? How terrible to be wed away like a piece of property and then be treated so shabbily by the new in-laws! “I spend two miserable soggy days on the back of a nag and does it ever stop raining in this godawful place? Two days it took us to get here! Gracious Grimm dumps me the minute we set foot on Dalkeith.
You
don’t even bother to greet me. Nobody shows me to a room. Nobody offers me anything to eat. Or drink for that matter.” She paused in her litany and leaned back against a tree, hands on her hips, one foot tapping. “And then, since I can’t find anyplace to sleep that I’m not afraid doesn’t belong to someone else, I go off wandering until you finally bother yourself enough to show up and now you glare at me? Well, I’ll have you know—”
    “Silence, lass.”
    “That I am
not
the kind of woman that one can push to the side and have her take it docilely. I know when I’m not wanted—”
    “You’re most assuredly wanted,” the smithy purred.
    “I don’t need to be hit over the head with a ton of rocks—”
    “I said be silent.”
    “And I didn’t get even one wedding present!” she added, proud that she had thought of that. Yes, Janet would certainly have been offended.
    “Silence!” Hawk roared.
    “And I don’t take orders! Ummmph!” Adrienne grunted as her husband lunged the distance separating them andtumbled her to the ground. Once she hit the earth with what felt like a small rhinoceros on top of her, he rolled her over several times, locked in the curve of his arm. She could hear the blacksmith cursing softly, then the sound of running feet, as she struggled mightily against his steely embrace.
    “Be still!” Hawk growled, his breath warm against her ear. It took her a few moments to realize that he was holding her almost protectively, as if shielding her with his body. Adrienne raised her head to see his dark eyes scanning the forest’s edge intently.
    “What are you doing?” she whispered, her heart hammering. From being tumbled so roughly, she assured herself, not from being cradled in this man’s powerful arms. She squirmed.
    “Be still, I said.”
    She wriggled, partly to spite him and partly to get his leg out from between her thighs, but she only succeeded in ending up with her tush pressed against his—oh dear—surely he didn’t walk around like
that
all the time! She jerked sharply at the contact and heard a muffled thud, the sound of bone hitting bone when her head struck his jaw with a
thwack.
He cursed softly, then the rumble of his husky baritone laughter vibrated as his arms tightened around her.
    “A wee hellcat, aren’t you?” he said in her ear.
    She