Abducting the Princess Read Online Free Page A

shifted uncomfortably on their horses, some exchanging affronted looks.
    Too bad. She’d never asked to be taken from her home, her people. She’d devoted her life for the greater good. And this was how they repaid her?
    Deakes allowed his stallion to take a half dozen, jigging steps closer to them, before he dismounted and handed the reins to Mahaya with evident relief. “Jax is all yours.”
    Mahaya nodded, launching himself into the saddle without need of the stirrup irons. He held out his uninjured hand to her.
    She stepped back and said the words no well-bred princess should. “Fuck. You.”
    He raised a brow even with his men’s background mutters of disbelief. “Don’t mind if you do.”
    Anything scathing she might have said in return was lost to his men’s laughter, then to the distinct thud of approaching horses’ hooves that vibrated the firm-packed sand.
    Glee tore through her at the latter. The soldiers had heard her scream after all!

     

Chapter Three
     
    No sooner had the thought formed that Mahaya’s hard hands enclosed her forearms and she was lifted bodily onto the stallion. He pulled her against his chest, holding her immobile.
    Stunned, she didn’t have any time to protest or even fight. Her peripheral vision noted Deakes throwing himself onto the back of the nearest mounted horse, evidently trusting the animal had the strength and stamina to carry two men.
    Then Mahaya and his men wheeled their mounts around and pushed them into a full blown gallop.
    Oh, gods.
    The brilliant-white of the sand beneath them became a blur. Yet the tough shift and flex of the stallion’s muscles were so powerful she couldn’t help but think the animal was a perfect match for Mahaya.
    The stallion easily outpaced the other horses and she wondered if even her father’s soldiers’ war mounts would be able to keep pace. The horses these men rode weren’t of pure bloodstock. But they’d evidently been bred for stamina, toughness and speed.
    The stallion abruptly launched into the air, sailing over some jagged rocks that’d appeared seemingly from nowhere, no doubt uncovered by a past sandstorm. She’d never been much of a horsewoman and right then she could only be thankful for Mahaya’s strength that held her tight against him.
    Long minutes passed—hours?—where she wondered if even his strong arms would keep her from slipping off his horse. Her legs and butt were numb. Her throat was parched from the hot wind, it only reinforced how tough the men and their mounts were to endure this kind of hardship.
    The stallion’s breath was sawing in and out of its lungs by the time Mahaya finally slowed enough for the rest of his men to catch him. He thrust an arm forward even as he nodded to his right. The men appeared to understand. He pulled Jax into a sharp turn. As his horse maneuvered down a slight embankment of sand, the others galloped onward, no doubt expecting the soldiers to follow them.
    Mahaya coaxed Jax through a shallow opening of rock, which opened into yet another cave. Except this one had no escape route should her father’s soldiers find them. The sandstone interior was just barely big enough to contain them.
    She could have sung for joy when he dismounted and opened his arms to her. She might hate this man her body was attracted to, but she wasn’t about to pretend she didn’t want to get off his horse. As the stallion got its breath back and picked halfheartedly at a small pocket of straggly grass, she all but fell into Mahaya’s embrace, weak kneed and trembling after the hellish ride.
    So why did she not protest when his hands—unscathed now by her teeth marks—moved to her waist, when his too-astute gaze seemingly read her every reaction?
    Probably because there were just some things she couldn’t pretend.
    The soldiers thundered past on their horses, breaking the moment. And taking with them her one brief chance of possible escape.
    Fool. She closed her eyes for a moment. She’d