Page 95 of Wedded to the Twisted Highlander
“I want ye to ken that I’m goin’ to savor every moment I have wit’ ye. And when ye have satiated me appetite, I will give ye to the beasts for a night. Let them do what they will to ye.”
“Aye, let us get on wit’ it then,” Astrid challenged as she rolled her eyes. Laird Chalium was starting to annoy her. If he was going to do all these horrible things to her, she didn’t want to be told about them. “I’ve got a funeral to get to, and I dinnae want to be late.”
“How I’ve forgotten how lovely ye are,” he purred as he tied her to the dead oak tree and rested his head on her shoulder. “Yer sister could enchant, me wit’ her looks too. It’s one of the many things I told meself I’d be able to resist. But it would seem that even now, ye bewitch me.”
“Then let me go,” Astrid hissed.
She wished she could push him off her.
“Och, if only it were that easy. Ye left me wantin’, and that want has grown into anobsession. Do ye have any idea how I’ve longed to have ye in me arms again? Och, the things I’ve thought of doin’ to ye those many nights I lay in me bed, teeterin’ between life and death. Ye were wit’ me then, as I’ll be wit’ ye now.”
“Ye’re a sick man, Jenson. Ye dinnae deserve yer title. Ye’re nay Laird. Ye’re a rake, a blackguard, a fiend. Ye’re the mire on the bottom of me shoe.”
“I believe yer sister thought otherwise,” Laird Chalium growled.
Astrid tried not to take the bait he was dangling, but she couldn’t help it. It was because of her sister that he had spent so many years hunting her down.
“Me sister isnae here to defend herself, and if she were, I promise that she would have finished what I started,” Astrid sneered. “How is yer stomach, by the way? Still have the swellin’?”
She enjoyed watching his face contort with ire and irritation. He drew his dirk and pressed the cool steel to her throat.
“I never loved yer sister. She was too needy and annoying to ever love. When she told me she was wit’ child, I wanted to run her through and forget her completely.”
“Why didnae ye, then? I ken why—because ye’re a coward. Ye couldnae take her life, so ye manipulated her into doin’ it herself. It’s why ye didnae kill Olivia when ye had the chance and why I ken ye willnae kill me. Ye dinnae have it in ye.”
“Dinnae test me patience,” Laird Chalium hissed, his teeth grazing her earlobe.
Astrid wished her body didn’t betray her, but she trembled against him, coaxing a moan of pleasure from his lips.
“Yer sister used to move like that every time I lay wit’ her. I wonder, would ye tremble like that for me as well?”
Laird Chalium moved around her, a wicked grin spreading across his face. The warmth drained from Astrid’s body as she tried to keep her wits about her.
There was no doubt in her mind what Laird Chalium had in store for her, now that she was at his mercy. She closed her eyes and tried to think of Thomas. She envisioned his features as best as she could, recalling the line of his jaw and the slant of his nose. She let out a heavy sigh as she let go of the hopes and dreams she had secretly harbored since she married him.
“Ye’ll never ken,” she said. “Ye can take me body, but ye’ll never get what I freely give to Thomas. He is arealLaird.”
“If he was so grand, he’d have come. Instead, ye did. I dinnae see that as bein’ very honorable, sendin’ a woman to do a man’s job.”
“He doesnae ken that I’m here,” Astrid confessed. “I’ll be cold and gone before he finds what ye leave of me once ye’re done.”
“I could send ye back in pieces,” Laird Chalium threatened. His eyes gleamed as he twisted the tip of the dirk against his finger. “I could ravage ye until ye’re but a shell of the person ye used to be.”
“I’m done,” Astrid snapped, glaring directly at him. “I’m tired of yer monologue. Do it. If ye have all these plans for me, then get it done and let me reunite wit’ me sister.”
“Och, ye’ll see her again,” Laird Chalium snarled as he unfastened his breeches and let them drop to his ankles. “But I’ll have what I want from ye first. I’ll have ye screamin’ me name by the time I’m finished.”
31
Thomas’s heart pounded like a wild stallion’s hooves against the dry ground as he tore through the misty glen. He rode hard, following the elusive trail he prayed belonged to Astrid.
The heather-strewn hills seemed to mock him as the once-clear signs of her passage grew as faint as whispers that were lost in the Highland breeze. Each breath drew in the damp, earthy scent of the glen that mingled with the wildflowers that bloomed stubbornly among the rocks. Yet, all he could feel was the weight of uncertainty pressing down upon him as he continued on, praying he would find her.
Doubt gnawed at his very soul, as fierce and unrelenting as the legendary Scottish weather.
Had he taken a wrong turn? Was he chasing nothing but shadows and wishful thinking?
The weight of his clan’s expectations and his desperate longing for Astrid threatened to crush his spirit like a cairn of cold, unyielding stone. The thought of losing her filled him with so much dread. Fear gripped his chest with its icy fingers and squeezed.
