The Hellion (The Lady Knights of Barony Book One ) (6 page)

“Now that you are well rested, we will continue on our journey,” he said. “I will remove the gag so that you can eat and the bonds long enough for you to relieve yourself. I’ll not tolerate any insubordination from you either, so don’t even think of trying to escape. You won’t get far, I can assure you. If you agree to my terms, I’ll unbind you now.”

Ava’s pride held her silent for only a few seconds. Her aching stomach and tingling bladder eradicated it fully, though and she nodded her consent.

“Good girl,” he replied with a smirk that said he didn’t believe her for one second. Nevertheless, he reached behind her to remove the gag. Ava gasped and filled her mouth with the taste of clean morning air once the rough fabric was gone from her mouth. Her bone-dry tongue felt like tree bark in her mouth.

“Water,” she croaked. Her own voice sounded foreign to her ears, her throat was so parched.

A wineskin materialized in her captor’s hand that was thankfully filled with cool water. He lifted it to her lips—her hands remained tied behind her back—and allowed her to drink her fill. Water rolled down her chin and neck, but Ava didn’t care. The water was entirely too satisfying for her to worry about how she appeared to her kidnapper.

“What’ll it be now, hellcat?
Breakfast? A few moments of privacy behind a tree?”

Ava detested his referring to her as ‘hellcat,’ but she wanted relief from the swelling pain in her bladder and the gnawing of hunger in her stomach.

“The tree, please,” she answered.

After fumbling with the rope around her ankles for a few moments, he pulled her to her feet with a rough yank. Ava glowered at him as he freed her wrists. As she turned to walk toward the trees, Julian’s hand clamped down tightly on her arm.

“Not so fast,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll need some assurance that you won’t go wandering off.”

“My word wouldn’t suffice?”

This chuckle was a sarcastic snort. “No.”

A new length of rope, a longer one, appeared between his large hands. He knotted it around her waist so tightly Ava could never hope to pull it loose. Still holding the other end of the rope, Julian waved her off with an imperious motion.

“Off you go,” he said lazily, resting his back against a nearby tree. “If you’re not back in five minutes I’m yanking on this rope until you appear.”

Ava bit back her retort and retreated into the woods, grateful that he had at least given her enough rope to disappear from his sight. She felt like a new woman after coming out, the swelling sensation in her stomach now gone. Of course, hunger was gnawing at her now more than ever.

When she reached the campsite, Julian was waiting for her with the wineskin and a dry-looking oatcake. Ava accepted the cake reluctantly and frowned.

“I apologize of the fare isn’t up to your standards,” he said. His amusement was infuriating. “However, if you don’t want to pass out in the saddle I suggest you eat it.”

Ava took a large, un-ladylike bite and chewed noisily, her narrowed eyes fixed on his twinkling black ones. A smirk pulled at the corners of his firm mouth, emphasizing the small scar on the upper lip. Ava choked down the mealy, flavorless cake quickly and washed it down with more water from Julian’s offered wineskin.

Just as she finished, Julian’s partner approached, leading two horses by the reigns.

“Ah, Simon.” Julian said. “Just in time! Our companion has awakened and is ready for travel.”

Simon’s cheeks and neck flamed red as he nodded at her. His embarrassment over their first encounter was evident. Refusing to relieve his discomfort by releasing his gaze, she lifted her chin a few inches and stared back, the challenge in her expression clear.

“Well then,” said Julian after the silence had grown beyond uncomfortable. “Shall we go now?”

Ava eyed the two animals patiently pawing the ground behind Simon. “There are only two,” she argued.

Julian’s smirk became a grin and he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Ah, that my dear, is because I wouldn’t trust you on a horse farther than I could throw you. You’ll be sharing my mount.”

Ava’s eyes widened and she felt her heart kick into double-time at the thought of riding in the saddle with this man. Would he make her sit behind him with her front pressed so intimately against the rippling back she’d noticed the night before? Or would he place her in front of him and…dear God, her face was hot!

“Absolutely not,” she said, her chin reaching new and undiscovered heights as she squared her shoulders. Julian’s left eyebrow shot up and Simon’s mouth dropped open.

“I beg your pardon?” Julian questioned.

“I said no,” Ava replied, staring up at the man that made her feel small, which was hard to do given that she was taller than most. She craned her neck up to stare into his fathomless eyes and her hands found her hips. “Have I not suffered enough indignity at your hands? Kidnapped from my own home, bound and gagged and forced to sleep that way, made to relieve myself while attached to a rope and now this! I refuse to be subjected to your shabby treatment any longer.”

Ava regretted her words the instant they’d left her mouth. Within seconds, the humor had faded from his eyes and was replaced with fury. The black gleam was now dangerous, filled with the promise of what he was capable of doing to her. His jaw hardened impressively and his lips tightened at the corners.

“You are a bold little thing, aren’t you? Either that or incredibly dense. Have you not enough sense not to speak this way to someone in control of your fate, hellcat?”

“Ava!” she spat, her regret now replaced with annoyance. “My name is Ava or Lady Longley if you prefer. I have a name. Use it!”

“Well then
my lady
,” the last two words rolled off his tongue like a curse, “I shall allow you the courtesy of choosing your method of transportation. Either you ride with me, free from your bonds until we make camp, or I will bind you, gag you and toss you over the back of the saddle.”

Ava knew then that she’d been beaten. Her tongue protested mightily at the thought of being gagged again. Her sore muscles reminded her of the uncomfortable position in which she’d spent the night. Inwardly she crumbled, but outwardly her shoulders had never been straighter and her chin had never been higher. She walked toward the inky black mare with a stunning white star between its eyes. Somehow, she knew it was his.

“Well what are you waiting for?” she asked in her most superior tone.

It was fortunate for Julian that he knew his chosen route between Barony and Cardenas well. His thoughts were flying in so many
directions, he could barely focus on the path ahead of him. The little hellcat had sat stiffly before him for the first few hours of their journey, refusing to allow her body to touch his anymore than was necessary.

Eventually, though, she’d fallen asleep. Her head lolled back against his shoulder and her back rested comfortably against his chest. With his arms on either side of her holding the reigns, her thighs resting along his and her bottom resting up against his crotch, they were about as close as they could be.

Her figure wasn’t as unappealing as it appeared beneath her shapeless dress. Both soft with femininity and hard with muscularity, her body was a finely tuned work of art, worthy of a Greek sculptor. He could imagine the stretches of lean muscle beneath sun-kissed skin as if she were standing naked in front of him. The thought caused a surge of blood away from his brain and toward the baser parts of his anatomy.

A soft sound, one that sounded dangerously like a
moan, escaped her lips as she shifted against him, turning her head to the left and nestling closer to him in her sleep. He glanced down at a soot and grime covered face framed by chin length, raven black hair that was now a mass of tangles. Incredibly unappealing.

So what was it about this woman that caused his body to react so strongly?
It’s been too long since you’ve had a woman
. He told himself to make bedding a tavern wench his first priority after this job was done. A lusty working girl with large breasts and waist-length blonde hair, he decided, the exact opposite of the hellion now sleeping against him.

Yes. That would do the trick.

Having made that decision, he turned his thoughts from Ava, praying that the throbbing erection in his trousers went down before she awakened to feel it pressed, hard and thick, against her bottom. He forced his mind away from her body and considered her bold declaration that morning.
Lady
Ava Longley. She certainly wasn’t like any of the ladies he’d ever known, and he’d known plenty of them. They were always quick to snub him once they realized his blood was only half as blue as theirs was. Their maidenly pretenses bored him and the games they played while using lies and feminine wiles infuriated him. Give him a common girl any day.

What sort of lady was Ava, he wondered? What sort of lady walked around wearing a dirty, shapeless bag of a dress covered in soot? What sort of lady wielded an axe and a dagger like a man? What sort of lady lived in a compound with a group of other women, with nary a man in sight to tempt with her fluttering eyelashes and swaying hips? If she indeed was a noblewoman, then she was definitely one of a kind.

His next thought caused Julian to stiffen in the saddle. If she was a lady, then he and Simon could be in danger of royal intervention. He had never encountered the King of Barony, but he’d heard of the man’s skill on the battlefield. Julian had also heard of the king’s temper and intolerance when it came to people operating outside of the law. He would not stand by and allow the man who’d kidnapped a member of his court to escape. This made their assignment all the more dangerous.

Don’t get cold feet now,
he told himself. He had almost earned enough money to buy the property he wanted in Rinland, the smaller province that sandwiched Barony between it and Cardenas. A few more jobs and he might even be able to afford a full staff. The farmland was prime and he couldn’t wait to start working it. He was ready to finally make an honest living. It wouldn’t be the life of luxury he’d have had if his father had claimed him, but it would be home. A place of his own.

With that in mind, Julian forgot all thoughts of King Serge and his certain arrest if they were caught. If this woman was the fierce fighter he’d been told she was, she would be more than capable of freeing herself from Blake’s clutches. All that mattered to him was the prize to be won in the end. Once out of his custody, Ava Longley was
on her own.

Ava glanced up at Julian as he passed her the wineskin and felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. After waking up nestled so closely to him in the saddle, she couldn’t quite look him in the eye without remembering the feel of his rock hard torso pressed up against her back and his powerful thighs on either side of her. He had donned a knee-length black coat over his white shirt and brown trousers, but where his shirt was left halfway unbuttoned she could clearly see the wide, smooth expanse of his tanned chest. A silver medallion hung from a strand of black leather around his neck. The gleaming talisman rested against his skin, glinting brightly in the afternoon sun.

You will stay awake for the rest of the day,
she chastised herself. She couldn’t very well succumb to the comfort of leaning back into Julian’s finely-tuned body again. Ava hadn’t even realized how tired she was, even after a full night’s rest. She supposed she had Julian and whatever he’d drugged her with to blame for that. The thought caused her eyes to narrow and she  gave her thoughts over to anger in order to keep from dwelling on Julian’s chiseled body any longer. 

He looked up and caught her staring at him. His slow smile in response was infuriating. Ava scowled.

“Do you intend to let me run about covered in soot for the duration of our trip, or do you possess enough decency to allow a lady to bathe?” she asked as she took a large bite of the dry oatcake given to her by Simon. They’d stopped for lunch and still had half a day’s ride ahead of them before nightfall. Ava felt positively disgusting covered in a thick layer of grime and soot. It mingled with the sweat caused by the heat of midday. She couldn’t see herself, but her hair felt like a bird’s nest on top of her head.

“I know that you may not care if I go on smelling like the inside of a chimney, but I do,” she continued when he didn’t respond. “And when will there be something to eat besides these oatcakes? They’re dreadful.”

Julian’s shoulders shook with laughter. Simon frowned.

“I made those,” he muttered as he took a bite of his own cake.
“Damned ungrateful female.”

“Oh, come Simon,” Julian gasped out between barks of laughter, “you and I know those cakes are horse food.”

He turned to Ava with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “But they’ll do for now,” he continued, reclining back against a hollow log, “at least until we make camp again. If we’re lucky we’ll come across a hare or two. Will that be enough to satisfy you, my lady?”

Ava felt a chill running down her spine. She didn’t like the way he said ‘my lady’. It sounded entirely too possessive.

My
lady.