Blackheart by Raelle Logan Read Free Book Online

tugged on the chicken’s meat. “Who knows what you’re capable of inflicting. I’ll not willingly be ravished.”
    Lochlanaire vaulted onto his feet, tossed the trencher, and throttled the throat of her shirt. “If I wanted rape, Your Highness, I’d have done so long ago. You’re powerless to forbid me.”
    Siren recoiled, for the glint tincturing his eyes altered to a yearning she did not wish to witness.
    His glance crept to her lips, for she licked their lushness. Lochlanaire’s heart pounded. His mouth ensnared hers in a venomous kiss.
    Siren shoved against his chest but she couldn’t break the kiss, and then she itched for his touch. She tugged him closer.
    Sensing her ignited passion, Lochlanaire cupped her unbound breast, flicking the nipple to peak.
    Siren moaned.
    By witchery most foul, mist smothered his fragile mind. Lochlanaire tore his lips away and broke Siren’s embrace. He staggered to the cave’s mouth, for he was webbed under another vision. This phantom revealed him lying on a bed, his anguished eyes stumbling to the bloodied hole, which speared his left side. Grayson impaled a knife within oozing flesh -- screams violated Lochlanaire’s throat. Savagely yanked into the present, Lochlanaire scorned the hallucination.
    The reaper haunting him so perplexed Siren that she denied her thirst for her persecutor. “Devils belittle you.”
    “No,” muttered Lochlanaire, “I am the Devil.” He absconded amidst moon lit darkness.
    Siren pondered what he said, cradling her legs under her chin. The fire snapped and danced. She remembered her hunger for the brigand who had abducted her from her kidnapper. Was she so weakened by malice that she couldn’t restrain her emotions? Why did she feel anything for this blackguard who said he was the king’s huntsman?
    Her dreamy eyes slid to the boulder encaging her. Siren yanked on the chain. It held true, but suddenly, she flopped backward and her foot unearthed a rock. A scheme arose. Siren stretched her chained arm as far as it could reach, and jolting her foot outward, she unburied the rock. Closer, closer the rock journeyed, ‘til Siren gripped it tight. She poised the rock above her head and bashed the chain. The mashed links began to give. Peering toward the cave mouth, Siren beat the rock harder. A corrupted link split. Dropping the boulder, she eased the broken link from the others and liberated the chain, granting her freedom. Siren ran to the cave entry. She couldn’t see the assassin anywhere. Convinced he could be close, she tiptoed in the direction of the opposite way by which he’d journeyed. Siren raced into the gnarled foliage to her left. Tree limbs tore her shirt. Rocks pricked her feet. She scurried along a hill’s incline, looking backward to see if she was pursued.
    Siren heard another waterfall’s rush. Lured in its direction, she crushed blooming wild flowers. Her heart pounded. Uncertain of where her captor hovered in wait, Siren pushed herself, aware that this battle for escape was feeble, but perhaps she could hide somewhere until her guards went in search. Possibly, she might sneak to a longboat, rowing into the sea without these brigands ever realizing her deceit. Siren concluded that she must make the attempt. She shoved apart gnarled tree limbs. Upon the crown of the waterfall, she faltered to a standstill. Powerless to catch her balance in mossy-slick water, Siren took a disastrous tumble over the cliff and barely strangled a tree branch. Water showered her body and there she hung. Siren screeched for Lochlanaire.
    Lochlanaire returned to the cave only to discover his captive’s mutiny. He pondered the blanched rock she’d applied by which to free herself. Nearby, he found Siren’s sunken steps and trailed her, engaging his sword to severe tree limbs and overgrown flowers from his strides. He hurried up a hill. Close to the crest, he heard a shriek, recognizing it as belonging to Siren. The moon splashed a ghostly