The Warrior and the Dove - A Short Novel (Medieval Chronicles) by Julia Byrne Read Free Book Online Page A

the forest as far as I could go.”
    She looked at
each of them in turn. “That’s all I know,” she said with devastating
simplicity, “until I woke up here.”
    Hugh couldn’t be
still a moment longer. Every possible disaster that could have befallen her was
running through his mind in hideous detail. He was never going to forget her
story as long as he lived. She could have been killed.
    Unclenching his
hands from the table, he strode around to the other side, seized Annith by the
wrist and hauled her off her stool.
    “We’ll be back
in a minute,” he said to Martin and Herleve. And towed her after him into the
shop.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    Annith only had
time for a small startled squeak, before the door closed behind them and she
was in his arms.
    “Don’t be
afraid,” he said, when she stiffened instinctively, her hands braced against his
chest. “I need to hold you. When I think about what might have happened—” He
broke off, pulling her closer. “I need to know that you’re safe, that you’re
here, warm and alive, mine .”
    She barely heard
him in her struggle to control her reeling senses. She had never been held by a
man before in her life. She certainly didn’t remember this feeling of being
uncomfortably crushed.
    And if she had
ever imagined such an embrace, she didn’t think this was what she’d had in
mind.
    She tried an
experimental wriggle.
    Hugh raised his
head and looked down at her. “What—?”
    “I can’t move .”
    To her relief,
some of the tension left his face and he smiled. His hold loosened a little.
“Put your arms around my neck.”
    “Oh.” Carefully
she shifted her hands to his shoulders. The power she felt there had her
fingers flexing in tentative, delighted discovery, before she wound her arms
about his neck. She had to stand on tiptoe to do it. The position immediately
brought her body against his.
    Her lips parted
on a sigh of pure pleasure and her eyes half-closed as she savored the male
heat and strength that supported her.
    “You, sweet
innocent, are going to drive me right over the edge,” he muttered.
    “’Twas you who
seized me,” she protested, looking up at him. Then sighed. “But embracing like
this feels far too pleasurable to be permitted, so you’d better let me go. The
nuns were forever telling us that we must stay untouched, and we seem to be
touching in a lot of places.”
    “You can rid
your mind of what the nuns said,” he ordered, but now his voice was
unbelievably tender. “Between husband and wife anything that gives pleasure is
allowed.”
    “But we’re not—”
    “Not yet, but we
will be husband and wife. You have to marry me, or I’ll never have a moment’s
peace wondering whether you’re running about the country getting into God knows
what sort of trouble.”
    She narrowed her
eyes at him. “That, my lord, is not fair.”
    “I know, but
right now I can’t think of anything else to convince you.”
    She laughed a
little at that, although it was a struggle to keep a wistful note out of the
small sound. “But I haven’t remembered everything. I still don’t know who I am
or where I came from. Or if I’m already married,” she finished forlornly,
letting her brow rest against his shoulder.
    “If you aren’t a
virgin, little maid, I swear I will change my sword for a monk’s habit.”
    “And if I am not
a maid, I will don a nun’s robe,” she murmured.
    She didn’t have
time to realize the meaning behind those unguarded words. Hugh tilted her face
up to his with one hand and brought his mouth down on hers.
    All the strength
left her legs. A tide of sweet hot pleasure took its place. His mouth was hard
and demanding, his arms iron bands holding her locked against him. She felt the
touch of his tongue and parted her lips without thought. And with a low growl
deep in his throat that set every nerve quivering, he was tasting her, enticing
her to respond with gentle forays of his tongue, and all she could do was