Page 25 of Taken By the Exiled Laird

The threat of the soldiers flew out of his mind, and indeed so did everything else. All that mattered now was the way she sighed when he gave in and his lips crashed against hers, his fingers tightening around her thigh. She pulled him closer, yielding to him, her lips and tongue welcoming him, and he responded in kind, growling low in his throat as he pressed harder against her, his whole body on fire.

He was dimly aware of the soldiers retreating, but he did not care. What did they matter when she moaned against his mouth and her breasts heaved against his chest? What did he care for anything else when her skin was so soft beneath his fingers and her hands were tangling in his hair with the same desperation that had been torturing him all this time?

Something primal and feral overwhelmed him, and he no longer knew nor cared what was right or wrong. As he kissed her, and, God, she kissed him back, Theon was neither the exiled heir nor the Broken Blade. He was just a man, lost and found all at once, overwhelmed by her taste and her scent and her touch. He wanted, needed, more. He needed her, and the way she writhed against him told him she needed him too. He growled again and she sighed in response. His fingers, achingly slowly, crept up her leg, pushing aside the ruined fabric. She shifted, allowing him, urging him to continue. He eagerly obeyed, trailing along her skin, until⁠—

He froze. Her smooth skin gave way to sharp ridges he knew too well, raised, uneven slashes that could only be thick scars. He pulled back just enough to see, and there they were, shining pink and white and angry, poorly healed knife wounds that decorated her skin where nobody could see. Nobody, that was, until him. The heat vanished, replaced by an icy coldness that wrapped around his heart and his soul.

"Who did this tae ye?"

She blinked out of her daze, a slight confusion on her features until she looked down and saw what he had discovered. Her expression changed and she turned red before shoving him away from her.

"Get off me!" she snapped. "That's none of yer business." She pulled at her ruined skirt, arranging it as best she could to cover her scars and keep herself decent.

"Dinnae—"

She gave him a look that brought reality crashing back down around him, one of resentment and loathing that reminded him who he was—and who she was. "None of yer damned business, Theon," she repeated with an unmistakable cold fury. "Never ask me again. Never touch me again."

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as though disgusted, then shoved past him, storming back up the alley and toward the entrance of the inn. Theon let her go, his body tense, the taste of her still on his lips.

He had forgotten himself. He could not allow that to happen again.

But he raised his hand and stared at those fingers that had brushed her thigh as though he could still see the imprint of her scars against them.

Theon knew how to control himself. But how could he control her when she was clearly a very different person from the girl he thought he knew? What secrets hid behind her anger?

It should not matter to him. She should be nothing more than a means to an end. And yet, as he finally followed her out of the alley, he burned with the need for answers that might never come.

Chapter Eleven

Briana paced back and forth in front of the inn's entrance, her skin tingling all over from Theon's touch, her lips pressed together as she tried to remove the imprint of his against them. She wanted to cry, to laugh, to scream, to hit something—to do anything to get the tangled web of her feelings out. She could not even be truly angry, because she understood why he had done it. It hadn't been a demanding claim, but a kiss to avoid danger, a distraction and nothing more. She knew that. She understood that.

But had he had to kiss her with such passion?

Had it truly been necessary to hold her so close and to touch her as she had never been held before?

To Theon, her lips were probably the latest in an endless line and the kiss had likely meant less than any of them. It had just been a tactic, another cold, efficient plan by the de facto leader of the Broken Blades. But to her—to the young, idealistic woman who still lived in her heart despite everything her life had done to quash her—it had been the first kiss she had dreamed of for so long with the first love she had only dared dream of.

And it had been all wrong.

In her dreams, he had wanted her, loved her. In reality, she was nothing to him but a tool—and he was nothing but her captor. At least, that was what she must tell herself. She would not let her heart get carried away.

The way he had looked at her when he had discovered her scars! She could not bear it, but it was stuck in her memory forever; half-shock, half-pity, nothing like the cold confidence he'd worn so carefully since they had met again. It shamed her, infuriated her, and made her want nothing more than to run as far away from him as she could and never see his face or those eyes ever again. Even surrounded by MacFarlane soldiers…

She stopped pacing as the realization struck like lightning. The MacFarlane soldiers were his enemy, but they were not hers, were they? They were loyal men sworn to her betrothed, or at least to his father. They were not a threat to her. They were her way out. Excitement leapt within her, but it was tempered with dread that she impatiently shoved aside. She did not have time to overthink her plan. Theon would follow her out of the alley any moment, and she must be gone when he did. She turned to run down the path, but she couldn't keep herself from glancing at the alleyway one last time.

Briana took a breath and started down the path in the opposite direction from where they'd come, toward a small encampment at the edge of the village. She resisted the urge to run, but she did walk quickly, putting a decent distance between herself and the inn in a very short time. Just as she reached the end of the path, she caught sight of a pair of shabbily dressed children. One of them was struggling with the creaky handle on an old well while the other sat with his arms around his knees, his back resting against the stone and his eyes hollow.

She knew she had to keep going, but when the small girl slipped and fell and the handle spun, crashing the bucket back down into the well, she knew she couldn't simply walk by. The girl swore in language far beyond her years and stamped her foot in fury, tears pouring down her face. Briana's heart clenched, and she stepped off the path and hurried toward the children.

The girl shrank back at the sight of her. She was about ten or eleven, her once-blonde hair caked with dirt, her dress little more than a rag. Though the girl didn't run, she stared distrustfully as Briana approached. The boy was younger, perhaps six, maybe seven, with gaunt cheeks and thin arms. His blue eyes brightened at the sight of her. He stumbled to his feet, but his sister snapped at him to sit.

"We dinnae need strangers, Jock. We can manage," the girl said sternly. "Come away from her."

Jock ignored his sister and hurried over to Briana, grabbing at her skirt. "Please, miss lady, can ye help? Rosie cannae get the water. Can we get some coin? Some food?"

Briana stared down at him, words failing her. "I… Where are yer parents?"

"Where are yers?" Rosie snapped back. "Jock, come away."