“A modest house full of laughter and warmth. Freshly baked bread,” she said, beaming. “A farmyard with a miniature donkey. No, two miniature donkeys and goats for milking, a flock of bantam chickens like my own at home…” Her wistful look turned excited. “Oh! And a garden. With every kind of flower in the land.”
“And a man? What about that?”
She gasped a little, looking up at me. Pressing her hand to her collarbone, she said, “Oh yes, a husband. And children.”
“How many children?” I asked, and watched her cheeks flush crimson at the thought. I found myself biting my lip as I watched her. I’d be lying if I wasn’t already thinking of putting a baby inside her belly; her hips made it hard to think about anything else.
“Lots and lots and lots,” she said. “As many as possible.”
Shit. She’s going to kill me before I even get her home.
As the old forge came into view, I looked down the road and my chest tightened and my fists balled at my sides. The bastard who’d ambushed Sara at Angelica’s was closing the front gate of the house close to the now derelict forge.
With his back to us, I still knew him straight off by his gait and the pig shit all over him. My guess was that he’d gone directly here from Angelica’s, to tell some bullshit tale about what Sara had been doing there.
“Oh no,” Sara said her eyes down the way seeing the man as well she squeezed my arm. The tension I felt did not feel like affection. It felt like fear. “I thought he’d been familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He must have recognized me. Known my father.”
Seems she was right to bring me along. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Not now, not ever.”
The shit covered man took a quarter turn, looked at me and made the wise decision to turn back the other direction and even with his wobbling run, he took a turn through the woods on the other side of the road and disappeared.
Sara drew a jagged breath through her nose. “My father, he will be so angry.”
Her words shook and my heart thumped vowing somehow, to have her never be fearful again. I did my best to soothe her. “I’m here. No one will harm you. Ever.”
“You don’t know him.”
“It’ll be fine. I fucking swear.”
But it wasn’t. As we came upon the small, ill kept stone house, I unlatched the gate for Sara and held it open as a man I presumed to be her father burst through the front door with rage in his eyes.
“You little slut,” he snarled. “So that’s how you’ve been earning your extra coin, is it? Opening your legs?” Before I could stop him, he grabbed her hard by the face and began to unbuckle his belt for a whipping. “I’ll show you a lesson, you little whore-in-training. I’ll teach you to…”
Motherfucker was too stupid to live.
Red mist enveloped the world. I launched myself at him without a second thought. I was an animal protecting his mate—nothing more, nothing less. I felt my knuckle connect with something that crunched under the force of my blow, and felt the familiar heat of blood on my hands, the scent of iron and salt barely cutting through my rage-fueled haze.
I heard Sara’s yelp. Her pleading voice but some things are between men.
I had come to know the fury of battle to be impenetrable, but as soon as Sara touched my shoulder, I opened my fists, as if by magic. “Bors, stop. Stop it.” Her calm yet firm voice stalled me. Her delicate touch and gentle words had more power than my long-honed instincts as a fighter, living to protect and defend. Her word was my law, and I obeyed without protest.
Regaining my senses, I saw what I’d done. Her father lay at my feet, his nose bloodied and crooked. But he was a scrappy old fighter and he was on his feet and spitting out a tooth the next instant. “Who the hell do you think you are? She’s my daughter.” He spat the words at me with blood dripping over his lips, cracking his knuckles ready for more. “She’s my property. And I’ll do with her as I please.”
He hit the ground two body lengths away with a thud and a grunt after my fist connected with a right hook to his left cheek. “The fuck you will,” I spat back then grabbed Sara by the hand and turned us back in the direction of town. It would take God and the King’s guard to make me leave her in that awful place.
With that lecherous, waste of a father.
And even then, if he made the mistake of trying to take her, it would be a battle I wouldn’t lose.