Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

by his disappearance, Scarlett scrambled to the window and looked outside.  The yelling grew louder, sounding as if it was coming from directly below.

The window was sealed shut but Scarlett pressed close to the wavy bullion glass trying to look directly downward but there was nothing to see.

She frowned.

No wait!  There was really nothing to see!

No cobbled drive.  No canopy.  No crowd.  That was odd.  Perhaps she had gotten turned around and that was the rear of the castle?  She had taken quite a blow to her noggin.  Brow still furrowed, she backed away from the window and into a solid object.  Cold metal against her neck sent a chill wracking through her as a hard arm wound around her waist.

“Who are ye, lass?” A rough voice asked in a brogue so deep she could feel the man’s chest rumble against her back. “What are ye doing here?”

Who was he?  A security guard?  She doubted it.  Unfortunately, she’d had a few stalkers in the past who were far more dangerous than Grayson.  “What am I doing here? Just who do you think you are?” Scarlett asked a question of her own with false bravado.  In many cases, stalkers wanted her fear as if seeing her cringe or recoil gave them some power over her, but Scarlett Thomas wasn’t about to cower before this new threat. “Take your hands off of me!  Don’t you know who I am?”

“Nay, that’s what I’m trying to find out so tell me true, lass, who are ye?  What are ye doing in my keep?”  There was a sharp prick at her neck and Scarlett realized that the metal touching her wasn’t a gun barrel but a knife.  He might be nearly unintelligible but he meant business.

“Your keep?  Are you crazy?” she bit out, wrapping her hand tightly around his thick wrist.  Grayson might have gotten the best of her with that one punch but she wasn’t about to become a victim twice this day. “Now take your hands off of me or else!”

“Or else what?” he asked, sounding more confused than challenging with that typical response and the blade at her neck tipped downward as his tight hold slackened.

Scarlett took her chance, throwing back her head and catching him unexpectedly in the chin while at the same time she brought her heel down on his instep.  With a vile curse, her attacker released her and she seized the opportunity to pivot out of his hold while twisting his wrist down with her.  Pain zinged up her arm as the heel of her other hand caught him in the nose but triumph whisked the sting away.

Spinning away, she started to run but he caught her by the wrist and dragged her back.  She was ready for him. With a sharp tug toward his thumb, the weakest point of his grasp, she pulled away and jabbed a kick into the side of his knee.  Cursing with pain, he reached for her again.

Damn, but he was fast!  This time he held her around the neck and pulled her back against him.  Sensing that the same tricks wouldn’t work twice with him, Scarlett caught his hand in hers, and sidestepping, brought her other fisted hand down hard into his groin.  As he doubled over, she used her shoulder and his own momentum to force his arm upward, rotating it behind him.  With one hand, she locked his elbow in place and used the other to force his thumb back to meet his forearm.  Triumphantly, she planted a knee between his shoulder blades to keep him down.

Before she could get too cocky though, he reared up almost knocking her off of him but Scarlett used all her weight to pin him until she was practically kneeling on him, adding pressure to her hold on his thumb, forcing it down. Any attempt on his part to lower his arm would only increase that pressure, bringing him more pain.

She had him… for the moment.

With another pained expletive, her assailant stilled.  His head whipping around, his eyes filled with icy rage before his gaze met hers.   His pale silver eyes widened with surprise.  Then drifted slowly downward.

Her expression as she stared down at him couldn’t have been any less stunned than his.  His appearance was so startling Scarlett almost unwittingly released him to step away.  The man radiated anger and savagery from a face so sublime he must have either had the love of one overly benevolent God or the blessing of one rather diabolical devil.

It was a face designed to captivate, to enthrall.  There was no doubt in Scarlett’s mind that he had used his looks as an effective weapon against women in the past.  What man wouldn’t when he looked like that?

He was the devil’s own with shaggy dark hair framing his carefully hewn features: the square jaw, enviable cheekbones, aquiline nose and smooth broad forehead.  He wore a short, scruffy growth of beard that seemed to enhance rather than hide the hard granite planes of his cheeks and that chiseled jaw.  Beneath low, thick brows, his eyes were by contrast as pale grey as a shark’s underbelly. His expression just as deadly.

Then she realized that it must have been his shock at being conquered more than anything that kept him on his knees and at her mercy because Lord have mercy!  He was huge!  Given the bulging biceps and traps of his arm, the thickness of his neck and shoulders, Scarlett was willing to bet that under that linen shirt and bulky kilt was a body of pure muscle.  Without a doubt, the enormous, scarred hand she held in hers could break her neck easily.

By the look in his eye, he was considering it.

Thinking of the pistol weighing at the bottom of her tote, Scarlett deliberated whether she might manage to retrieve it, release it from the holster and point it at him before he had time to kill her.

Not likely.

A tremor spiraled through her leaving icy terror in its