|
An Excerpt From: DRAKON’S TREASURE
Copyright © N.J. WALTERS, 2006
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
Arrik
was spellbound by the beauty seated next to him. Her face was heart-shaped
and her skin was pale, almost translucent. Her eyes were huge, slightly
slanted at the corners, and the same colour as the
violets that grew wild in the mountain meadows near his home. Her nose
tilted upward slightly, but had a small bump in the center. He wondered how
she’d broken it.
Reaching
out a hand, he cupped her fragile jaw, tracing the curve of her full bottom
lip with his thumb. She gasped slightly and her mouth parted to reveal
straight white teeth. With her hood still covering her, he couldn’t tell if
her hair was long or short, but it was black as a raven’s wing. She
swallowed hard and he watched her throat move convulsively. Her chest rose
and fell as her breathing grew more rapid.
She
licked her lips, her tongue accidentally licking his thumb. Desire, strong
and potent, ripped through his veins. His cock swelled, pushing hard
against the opening of his leather pants. It had been decades since he’d
wanted a woman, longer since he’d actually had one. Neither the beast nor
the man in him had been interested. Until now.
But
he’d observed the world enough to know how the games of man were played.
“How much?” His whispered words were almost a growl, as the lustful beast
growing within him demanded he take her no matter the cost. The man was
smarter and waited.
“I am
no whore!” She was shaking now, more in anger than fear. Her response
confused him.
“Then
why did you offer yourself to me?”
He
could see the confusion in her eyes as she struggled to regain control of
her emotions. “I…” She shook her head and sighed.
The
door of the tavern banged off the wall as several well-armed men, obviously
elite guardsmen, surged through. The woman next to him gasped and
practically threw herself into his arms, clinging to his side as she tugged
the hood more firmly around her face. “Please.” She grabbed the front of
his cloak, twisting the fabric in her fingers. “I’ll do anything you want.
Just tell them I’m with you.”
He
sensed just how much it cost her to speak those words and it angered him
that she felt she had to plead. “They will not take you,” he heard himself
promise her. And the moment he spoke the words, he knew that they were
true. He would not let her go until he’d discovered all her secrets, until
the lust that she fired in his belly had been slaked.
The
armed men tore through the tavern pushing aside patrons and shoving tables
out of their way. “Anybody seen a lone woman come
in here?”
“We
don’t want any trouble.” The barkeep hefted a cudgel from behind the
counter.
|