Taken by the Enemy Read online

  Emmie was vaguely aware of him jerking his arms down just before her world tilted and she flailed at empty air. She landed hard on her back, all of the air rushing out of her as pain stunned her. The canopy spun for a moment, her body screaming as sensation flooded back into each nerve ending. Her head ached enough to urge her to close her eyes, but then his face appeared, the edge of his mouth tilting up as he crouched next to her.

  I have to breathe.

  Air – she needed air. The first breath was painful, but the second was less so, and the third started to abate the fuzzy ringing in her ears. The initial, stunning pain was fading as well.

  Nothing broken.

  His eyes moved over her as she filled her lungs and waited for her head to straighten itself out. Everything was slowly coming back into focus, and she tested the movement of her fingertips against the fallen leaves. The canopy fanned out high above him, gold and green in the early light, as Lucian shook his head slowly. “That could have gone much differently—”

  “No,” she choked out the word, “it couldn’t.” Using every scrap of her strength, she drove her hand towards his nose, and he didn’t move fast enough. His shout filled her ears as he fell back, but she didn’t wait to see the damage. Throwing herself to the side, she scrambled to her feet and forced her legs to carry her again as she took off into the forest.

  “That bird has some bite!” a man’s voice echoed behind her.

  “And wings!” another shouted, and then there was laughter – and the sound of heavy footsteps crushing the underbrush.

  He’s coming after me.

  Fuck.

  Wincing against the twinge in her side, Emmie tore around a tree, trying to backtrack the manic path she had forged while escaping the boar. Nothing seemed familiar until she saw the downed log she had narrowly avoided just minutes before. This time she leapt it, crashing through the leaves on the other side as she ran for her makeshift camp.

  If she could just reach her pack, she could grab it and run. She’d lose the blanket, and she could maybe try to return for it later, but she wouldn’t make it far without the water. Skidding to a stop, she caught herself on the ground to turn into the little hideaway she had found to sleep in. Scrambling across the ground, she grabbed her pack, throwing it over her shoulder as she moved to dart through the close branches on the other side – but she never made it.

  Lucian’s powerful grip caught the other strap on the pack and he jerked her back, sending her to the ground hard. In an instant, he had tossed her bag to the side and his other hand caught the frantic kick she attempted. “Oh no, not this time, little bird.”

  His nose was bloodied, a red smear across his left cheek, and even as he yanked her towards him over the rough earth, she cheered internally that she’d hurt him. With another useless attempt to kick him, she shouted, “Don’t touch me you bastard!”

  “Touch you?” He huffed and stopped another rushed attempt to hit him, catching her wrist in his hand. Lucian flipped her to her stomach easily, pulling her arm sharply up behind her back until her shoulder screamed. Biting her lip, she tried to struggle free, shoving herself forward with the toes of her shoes in the dirt, but his knee landed heavy in the small of her back.

  Trapped.

  “Little bird…” His voice sounded exasperated with her, and she yelled in frustration as she fought him.

  “Stop calling me that!”

  He laughed, a low and surprising sound. “Stop fighting then and tell me what I should call you.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “That’s an odd name.” He wrenched her arm higher onto her back, and tears burned her eyes as she whimpered. “Tell me your name, little bird.”

  “Go to hell.” Emmie pressed her forehead into the leaves, and then she felt his breath against the back of her neck.

  “You’re going to learn that it’s much easier when you obey me, little bird, and that there are consequences for disrespect.” Lucian’s voice had a hard edge to it, and she yelped as he twisted her other wrist up behind her back. The rough texture of rope winding over her skin made her struggle anew, but his weight dropped on her, and it was impossible to breathe. She wanted to curse him, to call him every name she had ever learned – she just didn’t have enough air to do it.

  When he finally lifted his knee from her, she choked in dirt with her first gasp, and he hauled her off the ground by one of her arms. Emmie tried to kick at his ankle, but he was prepared now and avoided it, tightening his other hand in her hair to bend her head back painfully as he shoved her forward.

  “That’s not going to work anymore, little bird, I know you’re not as harmless as you look.” Lucian’s voice was calm even as he manhandled her through the branches, letting them scrape her arms and stomach where her shirt had lifted in her struggles. Panic filled her as he pushed her farther and farther from her pack.

  “My bag!” It was the first thing she’d managed to choke out since she’d been able to breathe, but he didn’t slow.

  “I know where it is, but you need to learn a lesson first. Kneel.” The toe of his shoe pressed into the back of her knee making her leg buckle under her, and his hand in her hair forced her the rest of the way to her knees.

  “I’ll never kneel for you!” Emmie shouted, stumbling clumsily back to her feet without the use of her hands. Their eyes met, and the dark heather gray of his seemed to grow darker as he towered over her.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, little bird.” His hand moved faster than she could react, not like she could have defended herself with her hands bound, but she quickly found herself draped over the huge log in front of her. Her dark hair dangled towards the earth on the other side, her toes seeking purchase on the ground, and then his hand landed on the middle of her back, effectively pinning her to the ancient, downed tree as his other hand slid under her to the button of her pants.

  “No!” she screamed, but he ignored her. His knuckles had to be scraped raw from the bark by the time the button was free, yet he was undeterred as he yanked her pants down her legs until they gathered like bolos around her ankles. “Don’t touch me, you bastard son of a—”

  The first strike of his palm across her ass silenced her, it stung and she tried her best to arch off the log, but he pressed her back down. He didn’t stop with one, his strong hand landed again and again, turning her skin to fire with each new spank he laid. When he finally paused, her own breath hitched from humiliation and anger, and she was stunned to feel his fingers kneading the soft, warm flesh. “Apologize.”

  “What?” she asked, and his hand answered with another sharp strike, lighting up her skin anew. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” Emmie screamed as loud as she could, jerking at the ropes around her wrists until she felt them rubbing raw.

  A rapid series of hard spanks was her initial answer, they landed one after another, a new fiery pain each time his palm struck her tender skin, and he continued until she was whimpering and limp against the log. Then he paused again, his fingers brushing the hot skin. “I want you to apologize. For hitting me, for being disrespectful, and for being ungrateful that I saved you.”

  “You call this saving me?” Twisting at the waist, she looked up at him through the curtain of her hair and found him sitting beside her on the log with a stern expression.

  “The fact that the boar is the one gutted on the forest floor and not you should speak for itself.”

  “I’d rather deal with the boar.” She spoke through gritted teeth, and then his palm returned harder than before. One, two, three. Her back arched from the pain, the searing ache as her already sore ass screamed under the torment, but she bit back the urge to beg. She wouldn’t beg this raider, this enemy of the city, for anything.

  His hand slid up her back until it tangled into the messy remnants of the braid she’d had it in. In an instant, he snapped her head back, making it difficult to breathe, and then he slid her panties down. The loss of that last barrier, a fragile strip of fabric, somehow brought tears t
o her eyes faster than the pain of the next series of spanks.

  “You’d rather deal with the boar?”

  SPANK.

  “You would rather be gored to death than apologize for hitting the man that saved you?” His voice raised, but she screamed right back.

  “YES!” Her voice hiccupped as he landed a particularly vicious swat at the place where her ass met her thighs, forcing her to squirm against the firm grip he held on her hair. The skin across her backside had to be red by now, because she could feel the intense heat, the tenderness of it as his fingers trailed over the round globes – and then dipped between her thighs.

  She snapped her thighs shut, but he pinched the tender skin and she cried out. His voice was unforgiving. “Open your legs.”

  “Don’t! Please, I’m sorry!”

  “Too late, little bird.” His pinch turned sharper and she eventually spread her knees to try and stop it, pressing her cheek to the rough bark of the log as pain zinged through her like lightning across a night sky. When the pain finally abated, she was so relieved by its absence that she didn’t immediately recognize the presence of his legs between her own – until a finger slid inside her.

  “Stop!” Emmie cried out, but he ignored her. His finger slid easily in and out, and shame turned her cheeks crimson.

  “You’re soaked, little bird, I think you want this as much as I do.” Lucian’s voice was a growl as he forced a second finger inside her and she whimpered.

  Everything in her body was at war. There was pain from the onslaught of the spanking, and an uncomfortable stretching as he forced his fingers inside her, exploring and rubbing, but underneath it all she was astonished at her own response. No boy she’d ever clumsily kissed in the darkened corners of a ballroom had incited a reaction like this, not even when they had groped at her, guiding her hand to the hardness in their pants. Not even the ones who she had slipped away with. “Please,” she whimpered.

  “You had to know what was waiting for you when they kicked you out.” His fingers withdrew, and for a moment, she was able to breathe, able to absorb the pulse in her skin from his swats. “Out here, you either earn your place with us – or die.”

  He thrust his cock inside her in one brutal thrust, and she screamed over the low moan that reverberated behind her. For a moment, she only knew pain, her body shivering as the size of him stretched her viciously, and then he withdrew slowly only to thrust forward again. Emmie whimpered, clenching her hands into fists as he rocked her hard against the bark of the tree, thrusting again and again until the stunning pain started to abate.

  Lucian’s fist tightened in her hair, dragging her back slightly across the log until her body was angled just right for him to fuck her hard. She braced her thighs against the bark, trying to breathe, but then his other hand slid around her hip and between her thighs to rub against the apex. She bucked as he deftly found her clit, hating herself as a moan escaped her lips, but his low growl affirmed he’d heard her.

  It felt impossible that he would so quickly identify how to touch her, when none of the clumsy, fumbling boys she’d snuck off with before had come close – she’d been the only one to discover the right pressure, the right tempo to send her to the glorious edge that was quite suddenly lurking before her.

  “Stop…” she begged, not wanting to come apart beneath him, but he didn’t cease, and soon even his thrusts were adding to that golden haze inside her mind. It was cruel and taunting as pleasure overrode the situation she found herself in, and she shattered. Pleasure rushing in to blur the lingering aches. A half-hearted scream escaped her as he growled, his cock driving deep inside her.

  Then he was still, and the only sound came from their harried breathing and her sniffling as she went limp across the log. His weight pressed her hard against it for a moment, and she just wanted to be away from him, wanted the scent of his warm skin off of her. Lucian lifted away from her then, as if her silent thoughts had reached him, and then she heard him curse. “– the fuck?”

  He had completely released her and she dragged herself off the log, the bark scratching at her belly as it lifted her shirt until she sat on the ground, bound and unable to move with her pants around her ankles and the rope around her wrists. She saw the faint blur of red between her legs and then closed her eyes to it.

  “You’re a fucking virgin?” he shouted at her, but she just leaned against the log, burying her face in the veil of her loose hair. Lucian didn’t stop though, he grabbed her arm and shook her until she lifted her head. “You’re a virgin?”

  “Not anymore.” The words fell flat as they moved past her lips, but he turned away from her with a stream of expletives that likely curled the unfallen leaves above them. Stomping away into the underbrush, she pondered the ache between her thighs and wondered why she had waited. Had she really been saving herself for some advantageous marriage? Some ridiculous rite amidst the people she despised?

  What had been the point?

  “Get up.” Her pack landed to her left, thrown by the log he had just – he had just fucked her against. She didn’t move until his sharp grip on her upper arm hauled her to her feet, and she almost stumbled as her pants tangled her feet. “Shit,” he muttered as he steadied her and then pulled her panties up her thighs, followed by her pants, which he delicately buttoned into place.

  There was an uncomfortable silence between them for a moment, and then he muttered something unintelligible and snagged her pack from the ground in one hand, pulling her forward with the other. Emmie stumbled through the leaves after him, a numbness bleeding into her from the sore place between her thighs and the ache across her ass.

  “Tell me your name.” His voice was strained as they grew closer to the sound of the men he had arrived with. When she didn’t respond, he stopped, still hidden in the trees away from the sounds of laughter and joking. Heather gray eyes met hers as he lifted her chin. “Name.”

  For a moment, she wanted to tell him her entire name, the name that would draw down the anger of an entire city upon him. She wanted to rain down fire, she wanted vengeance – but there was so much more than revenge waiting on the other side of the name Emeline Anne Daniau, so she didn’t. It took a hard swallow to clear her throat, a cough and a deep breath, but she finally whispered, “Emmie.”

  “What?” he asked and leaned closer, and she thought for a moment about head butting him. The thought almost made her smile, but it would have been useless.

  “Emmie,” she said, more clearly this time, and he nodded.

  “Emmie,” he repeated, his grip relaxing on her chin. “Okay, little bird. Time to go home.”

  Chapter Three

  There was nothing comforting about the cruel words shouted over her head by the men as they marched back towards what Lucian had called home. He had her pack over his shoulder, the youngest among them had her blanket, and she stumbled after him unbalanced with her hands still bound behind her back.

  This was not what she had imagined.

  At no point in her preparations had she even thought she would encounter the raiders, the exiles of the city, but here they were. A group of wild men in old clothing, carting a boar and a woman back to their camp as if it were a normal day.

  What day was it anyway?

  Emmie counted in her head – it was Friday. If she were still at home, there would be coffee, and sweet cakes. A story read aloud while she lounged across a couch, her head dangling towards the floor as she imagined herself as the heroine being swept up by some glorious hero. Girlish dreams. A dream that had been ridiculous from the moment she thought of it. Lucian was her reality, these men were her reality, and a shudder moved through her as she tried not to think of what awaited her.

  As they crested a rise in the forest, her mouth dropped open at the small village laid out before her. Well worn paths crossed between small shelters that nestled themselves into copses of trees before winding off into the woods. There were women sitting on the ground together, a few small children
chasing each other through the trees, squealing and giggling. Other men walked in pairs, or alone, some carting wood, baskets, or tools. The sheer normalcy of it all made it all the more ridiculous. A laugh burbled up inside her and escaped in a hysterical sound that made the closest group of women snap into silence.

  “Jean!” one of the women shouted, her voice tense, and a little boy froze in the middle of the pathway. The other children froze too, and suddenly there were too many eyes on her. Silence spread through them until there was only the sound of the wind in the trees, the crackle and pop of small fires, and distant bird calls.

  Lucian’s hand dropped onto the back of her neck, squeezing tight as he pushed her into motion again. The group moved forward as well, and it made Emmie’s stomach turn as people lined the path to stare openly at her, a few of them whispering to each other. Crimson heat took up residence in her cheeks and she leaned her head down, trying to hide between the loose strands of hair.

  “Phillipe!” A woman’s voice broke the silence with shrill glee, and the thin blonde launched herself full force into one of the men with her. He caught her in his arms with a loud laugh, and she wrapped her legs around his hips and kissed him the way Emmie had imagined people did in the stories she used to read in the dark of night.

  The act seemed to turn the sound back on in the small village, and suddenly there were too many voices. Names being called, the laughter of men and women, and Emmie had never felt more like an outsider as she stood under Lucian’s strong grip.

  “Henri, Paul, take the boar to the fire pit so they can start preparations.” He was smiling when he turned back to the gathered audience, his face completely transformed into that wild beauty she had first seen breaking through the brush. Taking a deep breath, he roared, “Tonight, we feast!”

  A cheer rose up, and he was clapped on the back as he pushed her through the group. Most of them followed the boar, the children rapidly firing questions at the adults, and while numerous eyes landed on her, they rolled off like water to look at something else.