Broken Highlander's Blood Oath Read online

  Chapter Ten

  Cheval jerked awake on her lone cot in one of the Abbey’s novice's cell, when a wide rough hand suddenly covered her mouth. Before she could think clearly, she felt the frightening heat of a large presence behind her and her mind leaped with terror. Red Kife! She tried to scream, grasping her hands frantically around her pregnant belly, thinking with terror about her baby’s life.

  “I’d not harm you. I'm a friend,” the voice hissed near Cheval’s ear.

  It caused her to cry out at its sudden existence, but also because of the husky masculine voice accented with a Scottish brogue. It wasn’t Red Kife, she thought, trying with shaking limbs, to understanding the apparition’s presence, which was harder to do because of the spike of terror running through her.

  She whimpered with fear and pleading sounds, while feeling the crushing heat of a large shape bent over her small cot.

  “Och, lass, I’ve no desire to scare you as badly as this, but I couldn't wait for daylight. Not after seeing that great red brute on the ride here. We’ve no time!”

  Cheval did scream then, behind the man’s strong hand, because there was no terror greater to her than the horror of Red Kife!

  “Lass-lass, please,” Shancy pleaded, as he tried to still the thrashing bundle of woman beneath him without harming her.

  Bloody hell, he shouldn't have mentioned that red beast to the wee lass. Where was his gilded tongue when he needed it the most? Then, he finally got some sense, but not before he’d had to lay his entire body over the struggling and frightened woman. What must she think now? He was afraid to imagine, as he fairly bellowed, “Analise!”

  Cheval’s body stilled beneath him with a quiver. Lord, she must have the most generous bosom he’d ever—

  “I know you’re not, Analise,” he said quickly, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. “But she sent me, lass. She is very worried about you, and I’m to take you to where she is.”

  Shancy could feel warm tears on his hand and he berated himself seven ways to heaven for handling it so badly. The poor woman was pregnant, by God, and he could feel how fragilely built she was. Petite, yes, but with lush curves. She must fairly resemble Analise.

  “You’ll not scream, if I take my hand away?” he asked finally.

  He was tensely aware of how little time they had; he’d been not but a mile or two ahead of Red Kife and his company of men coming down the main road leading to the Abbey.

  The small head beneath his hand jerked a nod, which he took to mean yes, so he gratefully lifted his hand.

  Cheval screamed and brought her hands swinging up with the intent of scratching her assailant, instantly hearing the surprised grunt of pain when she made scraping contact. Quickly, she tried to roll to the other side of the pallet, but a large hand tangled in the sleeve of her nightshift. She wrenched free, hearing her nightshift ripping, and then felt it falling off her shoulder.

  “Balls!” the brute man cursed at her attack.

  “Oh lord,” Cheval sobbed, clasping both hands with splayed fingers over her mouth as she tried to find the entryway. She could hear her assailant muttering between a few inhaling grunts, and she could actually see a dim outline of his tall shape in the dark

  Suddenly, she bumped into the door and she jerked around to push on it, expecting it to give with her frantic heaving. But it was bolted. From the outside!

  “No,” she whimpered, wildly tugging on it, as her heartbeat pounded in her chest.

  “No, Cheval, dinna alert them!”

  Shancy raced toward the bewitching fall of blond hair he could just make out by the door. Saints be damned, he had no choice but to use a wee bit of force. Cheval struggled against it, for one so petite, but she had no hope of winning against his strength. It was a sorry bit of work he knew, imprisoning her with his greater strength, but when he heard the distant clumping of many heavy feet, he knew he’d been left no choice.

  “Och, nightingale, if you ever had just a glimmer of trust in anything I’ve said. Hold on to it now!” Shancy exclaimed, swinging Cheval up into his arms as he went to the window.

  He used one hand to lift the bar, and then he flung open the wooden-planked shutters. Swiftly, he leaped to the ledge, and then he jumped to the ground a short distance on the other side.

  “Put your arms around my neck now, lass,” he ordered gruffly, looking down at Cheval, knowing she could see him more clearly now as he could see her. “I’d not hurt the babe by carrying you over my shoulder, so you must hold onto me.”

  Shancy heard the oak door, inside the Abbey room they had just left, crash open behind them, and he turned his head at the sound.

  “Bloody hell, I’ll not let that beast have you. I swear it! Hold tight, lass.”

  Out of the pitch-black and rain swollen night a harsh male voice bellowed from the Abbey window they were racing away from. “Where’s me slut! Cheval!”

  Cheval nearly strangled him then, and Shancy could only hope the red bastard had not left many of his knights outside.

  “Tis night, lass, and we will lose them quickly once I reach my mare,” Shancy exclaimed, through labored breaths.

  The rain started pounding heavily several minutes later, beneath Shancy’s steady curses because Cheval only wore a thin shift, which was drenched in moments and clinging to her skin. However, when he reached his mare and he set her astride its back, he thought better of his cursing, because the rain would aid their escape.

  Then when he swung up behind Cheval and reached around her to grasp the reins.

  They both heard Red Kife bellowing in the distance.—“Find my slut, now!”

  “Mercy!” Cheval cried, just as Shancy kicked his mare into a forward gallop.

  Just minutes later, Shancy turned his mare into a burn, and then he brought the animal up shortly.

  “Whoa, lass,” he warned, quickly grasping Cheval above her pregnant waist, before she could stumble down off the mare's back and attempt to flee. “You have trusted me this far, colleen, just trust me a bit further,” Shancy implored into Cheval’s ear, while holding her tight to his chest.

  “But they will catch us!” she cried, clutching at his forearm.

  “It is a moonless night and raining, my lady. If we’re quiet enough, they will pass us by,” he said, speaking lowly.

  Shancy wouldn't tell Lady Cheval they would have no hope to outrun the advancing men riding double as they were. It would only frighten her further for no use. He just prayed his gamble would work. The red knight was brash, and he would not think they’d try to hide as quickly into the chase.

  It was at that moment the sound of their pursuers was carried to them on the cold night air, causing Cheval to cry out in fear, turning to clutch her slender arms around his neck. Shancy quickly wrapped her beneath the folds of his woolen tartan, making what he hoped was soothing sounds deep in his throat.

  Her lips were pouted and dry where they touched his neck as she breathed sharply in and out, while he scrubbed her scalp, trying to calm her. The pounding hoofs of the stallions drew abreast of their hiding place, and Shancy held his breathing steady.

  He already knew he would fight to his death, for the wee lass he held onto so tightly. Without realizing he’d done it, he released a harsh breath he'd been holding at the last moment when he heard the stallions continue to pass them by.

  He didn't know how long it was before he’d realized that Lady Cheval was kissing his neck, then his jaw, and next she urgently clasped his face to pull his lips down over hers.

  Och Sainted Mary, then he became quickly aware at the stunning turn of events. Instinct drove his lips around Cheval’s frantically searching mouth, and he used the force of his mouth to slow her urgency and kiss her more slowly.

  “You saved me!” she cried against his lips. “Please I beg you, do not let them take me.”

  “Never,” he hissed, releasing her lips.

  But imprudently she rose and caught his mouth again. It was the last thing he expecte
d, but her desires were tangible, and even the strength of his honor couldn’t make him release the passion of her persistent lips, which were so soft and tantalizing against his mouth.

  She kissed him as her savior. She was willing and open to his rising desire, and when her nimble tongue stroked along his tongue, a groan escaped from deep in his chest.

  Savior, master, mine: those were the desirous and fragmented thoughts that swept through Cheval, as the warrior lord who had saved her, took her tongue deep into his tantalizing mouth. It was oblivion, the sweetest and most heavenly distraction from fear that she could imagine. She squirmed closer to him ... wanting—needing more—so much more of the heady oblivion he offered.

  She never wanted him to stop. His broad hands began touching her, stroking down her spine, and then over her hips to hold them tightly as he lifted her up against him. She clutched the tangled mane of his hair between her fingers and she rose against his strong muscular chest. Her breasts pressed flat into the tight brawny expanse, while he suckled her tongue ever more slowly and deeply into his hot mouth.

  The whimpers that fled from her were exciting, and she’d never thought to feel such a fever of longing rush through her veins. This is what she sought; safety, rightness, desire, and oblivion from the fear she’d lived with so long.

  “Please,” she pleaded into his hot mouth, while her fingers roamed over the back of his neck, over his scalp, then the side of his jaw, and she felt the strong clean lines of him. Her fingers stroked and caressed his heated strength with urgency and desires unknown to her.

  His answer to her advancing impulses moved his lips from her mouth to her jaw line, and then down to the column of her arching throat. The branding heat of his lips on her flesh cast a whimper from her throat and a growl of male desire from his. Then her stroking fingers found the bare heat of his skin between the slashed openings on the front of his tunic.

  “Brave, strong knight,” she moaned, against the burn of his tongue on the soft flesh of her throat.

  “Shancy,” he pressed in a rumble that curled her fingertips into the hardened sinew across his chest.

  His name rang divine sounds in her mind. “Shancy.”

  Her voice found the ember-low sounds of never before known whimpers of desire, as Shancy’s mouth plunged deep into the cleft of her breasts. His fingers brushed aside the meager barrier of her torn night shift and the cold night air flashed across her bareness.

  Quickly, and so irresistibly the cold was replaced by the heat of Shancy’s hands cupping and lifting her plentiful breasts into his palms. The points of her nipples were pinched spokes that were tight and thrusting.

  She gasped at the grazing of Shancy’s palm along the very tips. That sensitivity was so surprising and overpowering. It threw pleasure from the jutting points of her nipples and swept like a storm through her breasts, then it twirled down into her belly, to collide inside her sex with a burst of rapture.

  “Lady Soft,” he rumbled, like the deepest beat of a drum in her ears, while his hands shaped desire over her body, and she moaned with need.

  “Please, yes.”

  Cheval couldn’t find thoughts for her words, only urgency, as Shancy kneaded and plumped her breasts in his large hands. Impulse flowed to her fingertips, and she bared his chest, tugging open his tunic roughly to do it. Then the tempest that drove her commanded her lips to his nipples. Mindless and consumed by the arousal flowing through her eager body, she attempted to mimic the action she fiercely needed to feel, by sucking the nubs.

  “Ah, Holy Christ,” Shancy expelled, roughly.

  Then his face lowered between her bare breasts and she felt the unshaven whiskers on his chin chafe the rounded flesh in her cleavage. The pleasures this poured through her body brought a gasp to her lips. But she was totally unprepared for the next nipping sensation on the tip of her nipple, and the pleasure it tightened deep in her heated core.

  “Oh!”

  Her head fell backward against the intense nips of arousal thrashing deep and torridly inside her. Shancy’s strong arms caught her, but he didn’t lift her back to him, instead he laid her over the neck of the mare shifting beneath them. His lips followed closely, latching onto her nipple again, while she scraped her fingers down his muscular arms. Her head thrashed from side to side as her mind found the frantic blankness of mindless pleasure.

  Savior, master, mine.

  Shancy knew somewhere within the burning edges of his lust that he needed to stop. How he'd gone so far was incomprehensible, yet his body was rigid and tight with demanding arousal. Even as he licked Cheval’s tender nipple, which was twisted tight and poking his tongue, he willed control over himself. But the urgency was nearly irresistible. He was not a ram just to fuck any lass without a thought or care, but he'd never felt such zealous need before— desire that came on so quickly and so strongly.

  He struggled to control it, but the woman beneath his roaming mouth and hands was pure passion and desire. He could feel it on her quivering and eager flesh. He could sense it in the heat of her arousal, and he could hear it in the whimpers of lust curling from her lips.

  Such feminine and enthralling sounds he'd never heard before. They filled him, and then throbbed heavily in his prick, while urging him onto wild and lusty quests.

  Holy Christ, what was he going to do? He growled deeply in his throat, trying valiantly to win the battle. He was there to save the precious lass. Not to fuck her, silly.

  Yet when he finally managed to raise his head with a jerking force of will, his gaze collided with Cheval’s, and he knew he'd gone too far to retreat. Cruel would be the man that left a woman in such need. Yet he could not—would not take his cock to her tender pregnancy. He knew she'd been raped, and that thought managed to bring him under some semblance of control, as he stared into the dark pool of her aroused gaze.

  To have a woman looking at him so—it curled tightly in his chest. With her gaze of imploring need on him, he was able to thrust his selfish lust to the side. And what he wouldn't give to fulfill her every desire, he thought, as he brought his arm around her side to hold her firmly against his mare’s stout neck, while his mouth dipped to her soft lips.

  Then when he’d captured Cheval’s frantic kisses solidly beneath his pressing lips, he snuck his free hand like a slippery midnight thief to the bottom hem of her night shift. Her bottom was settled sideways between the V of his thighs as he straddled his horse. He leaned over Cheval, raising the hem of her clinging shift, and he couldn’t stop the press of his stiff cock against the upturned globes of her buttocks.

  But he did keep his mind focused on his fingers explorations, determined to control the hot-blooded demand of his cock. Cheval’s flesh was warm and soft, trembling under the stroking of his fingers as he caressed her calf, knee, and then he petted bravely to her inner thighs.

  The lass was without drawers, in her nighttime attire, and the discovery of that launched his tongue into sweeping boldness inside her mouth. She tasted of feminine nectar, wild and needy, as his tongue leaped against her tongue, until he willed her tongue beneath his so he could suck on it.

  She moaned with the humming sounds of desire, yet what deepened his lust was the way she lifted her upper thigh and opened her heated core to his fingers. He'd never had a woman of more passion beneath him. Cheval’s entire body spoke of wanting him with such urgency that it nearly slayed him, as his fingers found the lips of her soft pussy.

  He traced her delicate hot folds of flesh that were wet and sultry with arousal and need. It was as if an ember, for him and him alone, smoldered there. It was a fire ember that he needed to stroke into flames.

  Cheval felt the draw of Shancy’s mouth deep on her tongue. The force and pumping rhythm of it rolled her hips with increasing fever. The demand to open her thighs overpowered her as her sex puffed outward greedy and wet.

  Oh lord in heaven above, she needed something so desperately. If only she could name it. The frantic demand for it scorched through
her body and her fingers sought desperately to find it. Then within the driving, searching, and needy passion, she touched its heated length, but at the same moment he touched her core.

  “Shancy!” she cried, feeling the intense aching in her slit centering on Shancy’s fingers.

  His fingers stroking her and petting her burst fire over a nub buried inside her cleft, while her fingers curled over the shaft of Shancy’s manhood beneath his braes.

  “Lass,” he groaned harshly over her mouth, while she ground her slit faster against his fingers. Then, she knew what the demand was. She knew the need and the only rhythm that would fulfill her. Tightly she grasped what she could of Shancy’s thick manhood, and she tightly stroked it to the undulating pace of her body.

  “Do not stop. I beg you!” she cried.

  “Never,” he growled, while his fingers drummed over the engorged nub burning in her sex.

  “Faster,” she pleaded, as her fingers drew more rapidly on his throbbing shaft.

  “Ah Christ, Cheval,” Shancy groaned. “Dinna stop.”

  “Never,” she cried, and he lifted her calf over the crook of his neck, spreading the lips of her sex wider to his finger that was rubbing desperate pleasure over the nub deep within.

  “Oh,” she moaned, as the pleasure tightened, twisted, burning higher, while Shancy’s shaft twitch and grew thicker beneath her pumping hand. She could feel the drumbeat of him in her hand echoing the pounding in her sex.

  “Savior. Master,” she cried, as the fire inside her erupted, quaking through her with rapture.

  At the same moment, Shancy groaned with a suppressed roar and his shaft beat hard, beat again, then again. Shancy’s mouth crashed over her lips, swallowing her cries of pleasure deep into his mouth, while the storm on the burn crashed around them, drowning out the sounds of their entangled passion.

  Slowly, Cheval came back to herself with an odd mixture of confusion and a laxness to her limbs that was difficult to overcome, and then suddenly she felt alarmed.