She stumbled a few more times hoping that would help but it didn’t matter. He suddenly yelled for her to stop.
“No doubt the infamous Cree is already on our trail and I’ll not have him catch me. So your time to die has finally come.” He took a drink from a flask he had retrieved from beneath his cleric robe and took several swigs, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I’m going to prick you enough after I tie you to a tree so that the mighty Cree gets here just in time to watch helplessly as you die.”
Dawn held her hands up silently begging him not to do it, tears rushed from her eyes and he stared at her and laughed.
“Damn, but you’re a sight to see begging and crying and not a sound coming from you.”
Dawn collapsed to the ground, her chin near touching her chest and her shoulders heaving.
He walked over to her laughing and when he was near enough; she fisted her hand and swung it up hard to catch him right between his legs. He grasped from the pain and dropped like a dead weight.
She didn’t hesitate; she ran.
“I’m going to kill you, you dumb bitch!” His scream echoed through the woods and Dawn prayed that Cree heard him.
She spotted droplets of blood on the snow—her blood—and followed them knowing they would take her back home, back to Cree. She had no doubt that as soon as the cleric recovered he would be on her trail, so she ran as fast as she could.
It wasn’t long before she heard footfalls behind her. They pounded the earth so hard that she thought she felt the ground tremble. He was furious and when he caught her, he would make her suffer. Fear mingled with determination. She wouldn’t let him catch her, she wouldn’t.
Her knee pained her with every step she took but she refused to give up. She had the babe to think about and Cree and a future waiting for her that she had never thought possible. She would not let a man who cared for naught but himself to rob her of that.
“I see you, bitch, I see you and I’m going to make you suffer.”
Dawn kept going and when she rounded a slight bend an arm snagged her hard around the waist and she found herself slammed against Cree’s hard body. He quickly sequestered them behind a grouping of trees and bushes. She dropped her brow to his shoulder and rested her hand to his chest loving the feel of the leather stretched across his hard muscles. He had come for her and she had not a single doubt that he would. She looked up at him and smiled.
He pressed a finger to his lips warning her to be quiet. He treated her as if she had a voice and she loved him even more for making her feel that she was no different. She listened as the imposter cleric approached, his threats growing more vicious.
“Now I’m really going to cut you and make you suffer, bitch.”
Dawn felt Cree tense and his scowl not only deepened; it grew dangerous. He eased Dawn to the side, once again warning silence and then turned and waited. When the cleric was near upon them Cree stepped out in his path and slammed his fist into the man’s face. The crunch of bone echoed through the woods and before the man dropped to the ground for the second time Cree hit him again.
Cree’s warriors had the culprit tied with rope and alert in no time.
“Are you all right?” Cree asked approaching her.
She nodded and hobbled toward him.
He scowled and she had to smile happy to see his usual scowl and not the murderous one. He wasted no time in hoisting her skirt to have a look at leg. As soon as he saw her wounded knee, he scooped her up in his arms.
“I’m carrying you back to the keep and don’t waste your breath protesting. It is the way it will be.”
She didn’t protest; she enjoyed the comfort and safety of his arms, the beat of his steady heart and listened joyfully to his tirade of how he was going to keep her chained to him forever.
He didn’t have to worry about that; their love already had them chained.
It didn’t take them long to get back to the keep and it was a good thing since it had started snowing. They were just about to step into the keep when the cleric began convulsing and collapsed to the ground, his body writhing. He died before Elsa could be summoned.
Cree’s shouts had his warriors scrambling as he rushed into the keep, holding her tight against him. Once in the Great Hall, he placed her on her feet. “Did he say anything to you?”