Never mind. Ye’ll learn soon enough.
When he was done, he released her hair, causing her to fall backward. She landed by her dress, her breasts heaving, her knees attractively apart. It was like she waspresentingherself to him.
“Good,” he said. “It was supposed to hurt. Ye need to learn yer place, Eithne. Else that sister of yers might regret it. Jonah’s a good man, ye ken. Loyal.”
“He wouldnae hurt Myrna,” Eithne insisted.
“Are ye sure?” Rory asked. “He brought ye both here, did he nae? He killed yer lover.”
She looked away.
Rory smiled, straightening up so that he stood proud and tall before her. “I kent ye’d break eventually,” he told her pleasantly as he began to disrobe. “I kent ye’d come to me. I half-expected ye to do it yerself, but I suppose this way works just as well. Are ye ready to be me wife now?”
She mumbled something under her breath.
Rory frowned. “Look at me when I’m talking to ye,” he commanded. She did, just as his shirt fell away and left his chest bare. “Answer me.”
“I am,” she whispered. “Just, please, dinnae hurt anyone else.”
“I’ll hurt ye,” he told her conversationally, loosening the strings on his trews. “Nae because I want to, but because ye’ll need it. I’ll beat ye and starve ye and do whatever it takes to cleanse ye of yer sins, but ye’ll come out of the other end as a good wife. Do ye understand?”
She said nothing.
He stood fully naked now, more rigid than he’d ever been in his life, only just restraining himself from plunging into her right now. “I asked ye a question.”
“Why…do ye want to hurt me?” she asked. Her hand moved back under the abandoned dress on the floor. Maybe she was thinking of trying to cover herself? The thought amused him.
“I dinnae,” he said, almost gently. “But I will anyway, for yer own good. I ken that the mercenary ruined ye. I must make ye worthy of being me wife again.”
Eithne swallowed. Her whole body was shaking.
Fear. I like fear.
“Stand up,” he commanded.
She did, her hands behind her back, her gloriously naked body facing him, his for the taking at last.
“Do ye love me, Eithne?” he asked, taking a step forward. She stepped back as he did. He enjoyed that, so he took another step forward and another, guiding her back toward the bed.
“Nay,” she said, her voice shaking but her eyes boring into his. “Nay, I dinnae love ye.”
“Is it because of what I did to yer parents? To yer brother?” he asked. He enjoyed watching her expression contort as he said this, knowing that all of that pain and anguish would be his in moments. “To yer clan?”
“Aye,” she said. “All of that. And none of it.”
He grinned, grabbing her shoulders and drawing her close, so close that the tips of her breasts brushed his chest. “Why else don’t ye love me?”
Rory pushed her then, sending her stumbling back until she’d fallen over the bed, her back on the mattress and her knees bent over the side. She stared up at him, her innocent eyes fuelling his hardness even more.
“Because ye’re a monster,” she whispered. “A killer. A demon from hell.”
He growled. She had been so obedient a moment before. What had happened? He moved forward, then pounced, kissing her face, her neck, grabbing at her breasts, then lining himself up, ready to enter her at last.
“A monster I might be, Eithne Kinnear,” he hissed. “But ye’ll be me bride.”
Just as he was about to thrust into her, though, something happened. She darted forward, pulling herself upright, curling one arm around his neck. Part of him roared in victory, seeing this as her finally giving in, finally realizing she wanted him—
Then the whole world narrowed to a sharp, screaming pain in his belly.
