Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) by Kris Kennedy Read Free Book Online

possession of her castle. The Irishman with eyes of blue ice, who had pressed his neck into a blade with terrifying intensity. Who had run his hot tongue across her ear and dared her to…to…
    To what?
    She stumbled on the stone steps.
    They stepped out on the landing before the lord’s chambers. A crowd of soldiers milled there, as if they’d just left and were about to disperse to the various tasks attendant on conquerors.  
    Bran stepped forward into their midst. Loud conversations and a general sort of self-approving masculine din died down as she passed through, until there was absolute silence as she waded into the thicket of sword-bearing, hard-eyed, long-haired warriors.  
    Her fingertips were so cold, it felt as though they would break off if she were bumped too hard. Every man tilted his head down to peer at her as she passed by. She felt as though she was in a forest of men.  
    Her young guard stopped at the outer chamber door and rapped hard.
    The men stared at her back, and Katarina knew, quite suddenly, what creatures on display must feel like. The giraffes and lions in the queen’s menagerie, the bears muzzled until their fight. They were fodder for food or fight. Entertainment. Not even prey anymore. Simply doomed.
    To the good, doomed things did not need to wrestle with options or consider consequences. The future was laid out rather neatly, if uncomfortably. So she returned a regard as disdainful as the ones fixed on her. She slid her gaze across them all, man by man.
    A few raised their eyebrows, one laughed, and then a low, male murmur rippled through their steely midst.
    “You’re wasting your fight on the wrong mark, my lady,” someone observed drily, nodding toward the chamber behind her. A few rumbles of appreciative laughter followed.
    She returned a cold smile. “I waste nothing. You are all my mark.”
    A surprised hush swept the landing. Then, almost as one, they threw back their shaggy heads and burst into laughter.  
    It shook the room. Or mayhap that was inside her.  
    The young guard at her side spoke quietly. “He’s ready for you, my lady.”  
    She turned, skirts gripped in her fingertips. The door to the outer bedchamber had been pushed open. A pair of boots could be heard moving in the inner chamber.  
    “My lady?” Bran’s voice was quiet at her side. “You may go in.”
    She peered into the antechamber. This was not an insurmountable distance. One simply took the next, natural step.  
    “My lady?”
    She looked down at her feet. They were not moving.  
    Unable to determine a way free from this paralysis except to be dragged, she put her fingertips on Bran’s forearm and said quietly, “Please, escort me in.”
    He stared.
    “Physically,” she explained.
    Understanding flooded his face in the form of a blush. He laid his hand over hers and took a swift, decisive step forward, pulling them into the room.
    The boot steps in the inner chamber stopped.  
    Bran, who now seemed a great friend, gave her hand a faint squeeze.
    “Just go easy, my lady,” he murmured, a quiet warning tossed to the passenger of a sinking ship: Do not fight it; in the end, you will sink. He lowered his arm and stepped back into the throng of men.
    She felt their gazes like the points of a dozen invisible swords, poking at her back.  
    She glanced over her shoulder. They were watching her, grinning. No one said a word, but the energy was voice enough: menagerie girl . She met their gazes, fierce and silent, hands fisted at her sides.
    “That’s enough, lads,” said a low, familiar voice behind her.  
    Like a rumble of thunder, chills skipped across her skin, hot and cold and absolutely everywhere.
    A muscular arm appeared at her side and reached past her to push the door shut. She stared down and her heart skipped a beat.  
    Why, his wrist and hand were painted . Almost engraved. Covered in thick, dark lines, curving and swirling as they roped up his skin, some resembling the