Page 128 of The Outlaw Viking

“Yes—oh, yes. Can you get me in?”

“Mayhap. I wonder….” he said, eying her oddly. “I wonder if you will pay the price.”

“The pr…price? Oh, yes, of course. I have money with me. How much?”

The gorgeous man waved her concern aside. “We can discuss that later. This is the question—though: Are you willing to pay any price to gain The Outlaw’s release?”

“Yes,” she asserted vehemently. “Any price.”

He smiled then, but Rain shivered. It was not a nice smile.

“Come,” he said, folding her arm in his. “For now, we will visit your lover. He is your lover, is he not?”

Rain nodded, flushing at his intense perusal.

“Good. Yea, ’tis very good.”

The splendidly dressed man led her blithely past the ingratiatingly smiling Herbert and the guards who had previously refused her admittance. They didn’t even question the nobleman.

“What did you say your name was?”

He patted her hand. “Later. We will discuss all that later.”

They arrived at Selik’s cell door. As they stepped inside, she tried to pull her arm from out of the crook of the man’s arm, but he held her fast. Rain started to question his action, but stopped dead when she saw Selik. She was thankful then for the support of the man’s arm.

Selik’s nude body half-lay, half-sat upon the bench. He seemed immune to the cold air. New cuts and bruises marred his beautiful body. His short hair stood out in filthy spikes with the scalp showing through. Ropes bound his hands behind his back, tied to a hook in the wall. And a filthy rag across his mouth prevented any speech.

But his eyes screamed his fury.

He stood abruptly, shaking with rage, and tried to rush toward them, but the short length of rope connecting him to the wall held him back.

Rain was hardly aware that the man had put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her tightly to his chest until she tried to move closer to Selik. She wanted to hug Selik close and assure him that she was trying her best to gain his release.

Selik’s eyes flashed angrily as they darted back and forth between her and the man, and unintelligible grunting noises emanated from behind his gag. Of course, Selik was furious with her. He’d told her to leave Winchester, fearing for her safety.

She pulled against the man’s grasp now and realized suddenly that he prevented her from going to Selik. She raised questioning eyes to him, but before she could speak he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her open mouth passionately.

In a quicksilver movement, with his mouth still covering hers, he whisked her through the door and pinned her against the corridor wall out of Selik’s line of vision, clamping a hand over her mouth. Then, loud enough for Selik to hear through the open doorway, he said, “See, my love, The Outlaw is just a beast. I told you that you need not waste your concern over such filth. Come, let us go back to my chamber, and I will show you once again how a true man cares for his woman’s needs.”

Rain heard a loud, strangled growl of outrage inside the cell. And the man beside her laughed with devilish glee as he pulled her back out to the prison entrance with his hand still clamped over her mouth.

And Rain knew she was in the clutches of the demonic Steven of Gravely.

Chapter Twenty

In the corridor near the outside entry to the prison, Steven stopped abruptly and pinned Rain against the stone wall, still holding a palm over her mouth. Although he was about the same height as Selik, he carried none of the muscle and bulk that honed Selik’s wonderful body.

His leanness was deceptive, however. Steven’s narrow hips slammed against Rain’s stomach and held her against the wall like a battering ram. His wiry left forearm lay across her chest, near her neck, no less impenetrable than a steel bar.

“I am going to release my hand from your mouth, and when I do you will remain silent,” Steven said. “Do you understand?”

She glared up at him. Go ahead, you damn fool. They’ll hear my screams in America.

He laughed low in his throat, an evil sound, and Rain understood why people likened him to Satan. His fingers dug into her left shoulder, so painfully she thought the skin might break.

“Listen well, bitch, I care naught for you—whether you live or die, prosper or perish. But The Outlaw—ah, ’tis another matter. If you do not heed my words—exactly—he will not only die; he will suffer indignities and pains you could never imagine.”

Rain’s heart crashed against her chest wall, and her blood raced with anxiety. She didn’t wonder how he would be able to torture the king’s prisoner. He’d just gained easy access when she’d been unable to get past the guards for days. The sadistic gleam in his pale eyes bespoke his evil intent, and she knew he would take pleasure in enforcing his threats.