The Knight's Scarred Maiden - Nicole Locke

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It wasn’t the delay of departing the village, though by the time they strapped Helissent’s few possessions to the horses, and sat her atop his own, the rain had begun to fall in earnest.

      The sky was darkening in every direction. The storm was coming and soon even a modicum of comfort, of carrying on a conversation, would be denied them.

      Even that he could ignore. He couldn’t ignore the woman bundled until he shouldn’t feel her and yet her trembles became his. He didn’t know why she trembled, it could be the cold. It could be fear. Over Rudd and leaving her home? Or did she fear them? If she did fear his band of mercenaries, it wasn’t enough to make her stay away.

      It didn’t matter he and Nicholas came from nobility. Their lineage was in the past. They were no more or less than what they made of themselves now, which were killers for a price.

      Yet this woman had begged to travel with them. He didn’t need to guess why and anyone who had suffered as she had would have to be stubborn and brave.

      But his admiration for her or her stubbornness wasn’t why she rode with him, why he felt her trembles. Why he hadn’t kept his hood up for her last night.

      For he hadn’t.

      And she hadn’t done what every other woman had ever done. He’d expected it, had taken advantage of it at one point of his life. His face had simply been his reality.

      She’d stared and then averted her eyes. It had been almost amusing, if not for the disconcerting fact he actually wanted her eyes on him.

      He didn’t recognize what it was about her, but he had felt it the moment he entered the inn and it raged like an inferno through him when he realized those men meant to harm her.

      Then in the quiet of her home, she’d allowed his touch. She had braced herself, hid her gasps, but she still let him close enough to feel her.

      He hadn’t thought to brace himself as he touched her. He’d been intent only to see if she’d fractured a rib, only wanted to relieve her pain with the ointment. So he hadn’t been ready for how his own body reacted.

      The soft heat of her skin, the way she smelled. The feel and textures of her underneath his fingertips. All of it should have made him only think of her injuries, but that wasn’t what he had felt at first.

      First he felt her as a man would a woman and desire recklessly arced through him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak because he had to choke the sounds of need clamoring suddenly inside him.

      Unexpected, and all because of her. Only her. His reaction had nothing to do with his lack of female companionship. Over the years more women than he could count had bent over him or abruptly sat in his lap. Trailed their hands and fingers along any part of him they could reach and he’d felt nothing.

      All of that dead to him because he had to make it so. Because when he’d learned the truth of his lineage, he could never take matters further with a woman.

      So he hadn’t been prepared he’d feel anything when he touched her. He shouldn’t have felt anything when she was hurting.

      All of it was made worse when she took his frozen state as revulsion because she spoke those broken words about her scars. Only then did he realize too late what else he felt.

      The roughness warring with the softness of her skin underneath his fingers. That was enough to jar him, to remind him she was injured, and he needed to check for broken bones and apply the ointment.

      But it didn’t stop his desire for her, not when she inspected herself and he’d wished it could be his fingers trailing along the front of her ribcage and the gentle swells hinted there.

      Desire, which was all the more torturous when he yanked off his tunic and watched her eyes widen, her lips part.

      Felt the echoing of his desire from the air on his bared skin and the tightening of his body. As he stood half-naked in the dark intimate quiet of the room, she was suddenly someone he needed. His mind and body in complete conflict with each other, he’d viciously stripped his tunic and tied the ends.

      All to bind her and unerringly tighten his need as he walked slowly around and watched what the tight binding revealed, what the thin chemise did not.

      Her slender shape, the curves of her breasts, the indentation of her waist, the breadth of her collarbones, the curve of her jaw. Her long, long legs. Another circle and he knew exactly the height of those legs, the width and shape of her hips, the location of each jutting bone and all her womanly softness.

      All of her, every inch of her in proportion to him. Just a few inches shorter, just enough so when he pressed and lifted her against him, she’d fit. They’d fit.

      He couldn’t leave her home quick enough. To get out into the cool night air. To Nicholas’s sharp wit and even sharper watchful eyes.

      But not fast enough. He’d heard her thank him and felt the visceral regret, the frustrating anger that his life wasn’t different and could never be. Then he’d closed the door and left her behind.

      Except she didn’t stay behind. He did what he could to separate from her on this journey. Kept his own conflicted counsel, allowed her to find her own way when they stopped to rest. The men, at least, fed her and shared their water.

      It did no good, he still felt her trembles and he bundled her as much as he could against the cold. It wasn’t her fault he didn’t have enough sense to get out of the rain.

      * * *

      The day was ending and Helissent could barely acknowledge her surroundings. Hours like this in the downpour. They didn’t even try to stay dry. There was no point. The wind would merely sweep away capes and blankets and hoods.

      Maybe it was the rain, but there was no rest. Allowing everyone to relieve themselves only once, Rhain kept the slow but unrelenting pace.

      And the almost brutal silence. It was as if he said what he needed to and then refused to say any more. She thought at first it was the rain, but the others talked though they sputtered and shouted to be heard.

      No, it was only for her he kept the quiet. Kept his anger. He had not wanted her on this trip and let her know his displeasure. Which made his reason for making her ride with him all the more confusing.

      As did him swiftly pulling his cloak over him and her, and yanking her blanket to cover her. All of it seemed to cushion them from the driving rain, but didn’t soften his utter silence. Subsequently, she was left with only her thoughts, only what she could observe. Both were like a downpour on her senses.

      She’d left her home. Her village. A place where people knew who she was, who knew what happened to her and allowed her still in their presence.

      She hadn’t thought of that when she decided to leave. She had only been thinking it wasn’t safe any more. But was she any safer outside her village, and from the villagers, who knew her home had burned to the ground with her family in it? Who knew she survived when she shouldn’t have, when she tried not to because she failed to save her sister as she had promised?

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