Lois Greiman by The Princess, Her Pirate Read Free Book Online Page B

on the guard’s shirt-front, careful of his temper. “You took her to Pikeshead?”
    He made certain his tone was neutral, but perhaps there was something frightening in his expression because Peters took a cautious step to the rear. “Aye, my lord.” He swallowed once, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “’Twas where you said to take her.”
    “I said the dungeon.” He articulated precisely and clenched his fist once, lest he reach out and snatch the man up close again.
    “Aye the…” Peters began, but in a moment his gray eyes widened. “You meant here at the castle.”
    “Where is she?”
    Peters looked as pale as a shade when he shook his head. “I but delivered her to the gate master there. I do not know where they placed her.”
    Cairn gritted his teeth, but refrained from reaching out. Bert had assured him that violence was not the answer. But perhaps Bert didn’t know the question. “Fetch me a steed,” he ordered.
    “A—” Shock was stamped on Peters’s freckled features. “A carriage, sir?”
    “A saddle horse, you twit. Get one before I roast you alive!”
     
    Tatiana Octavia sat huddled against the stone wall. The cell was dark, dank, and smelled of things she dare not consider. Her stomach had been unsettled for days, and she had no wish to test its endurance. Instead, she steadied her breathing and glanced stiffly about. She could not tell the dimensions of her cell for she had been delivered after dark. But perhaps darkness forever dwelled in this nightmarish place.
    She shivered once and wrapped her arms more tightly around her knees. A highborn lady was above fear, she told herself. Nay, ’twas the cold that made her quake. The cold and fatigue. She was exhausted, but she dared not close her eyes, for she was not alone. Rats quarreled somewhere in the distant dimness, but it was not those vermin that she feared.
    Her terror was closer to hand and human. At least they were said to be human.
    “Are you asleep yet, lassie?” someone asked. The voice was something between a hiss and a croon. She swallowed the bile in her throat.
    “Nay.” She found her voice with some difficulty, but shedared not remain silent, for only fear kept these particular vermin at bay. “I am awake and vigilant.”
    “Vigilant?” A chuckle issued from the odious darkness. “Don’t she talk pretty, Lute?”
    “Aye. And she wields a rock even better, aye, Reek?”
    Reek cursed vehemently. They had come at her shortly after her arrival, had knocked her down, had planned some evil she refused to contemplate, but she had found a stone in the waiting darkness and fought with a strength born of desperation. The bolder of the two would bear a bruise on his temple for some days. But maybe there were more than two. She had no way of telling for certain.
    “She’ll sleep soon enough,” hissed Reek, and sidled closer. She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but she could hear his shuffling approach and felt her throat close up with fear. “Then we’ll see how feisty she be.”
    “I’m thinkin’ you’ll be needing more than your one arm to tame this ’un,” said the other. “’Praps I’d best take ’er first and—”
    “She’s mine!” Reek hissed. Something struck the wall. “And don’t you be forgettin’ it, you sawed-off little bastard.”
    “Bastard am I?” croaked Lute. There was a scuffling in the straw, accented by heavy breathing and raspy curses.
    “Sod off the two of you afore I call the warden!”
    Tatiana jerked at the sound of another voice. It came from her left, not far away and clear as the day. Perhaps it was a young girl, but her tone suggested experiences Tatiana had not shared.
    “Sod off yourself, you lil’ tart,” Reek said, but the scuffling had ceased.
    “Tart am I, Stinky?”
    “A whore more like.”
    “Leastways I confine me interests to me own species,” she said.
    “When the girl ’ere sleeps I’ll show you where me interests lie,” Reek said, but he came no