Cruel Enchantment Read Online Free Page A

so heartbreakingly beautiful in a savage, brutal way it made her want to cry. Strong, clefted chin; full lips; dark brown eyes. His build peeked out at the collar of the poet’s shirt—strong and muscled from hard work—wide shoulders, narrow hips, the fabric of his pants clinging to the thighs of an athlete.
    Or of a blacksmith.
    The man’s identity slammed into her like a freight train, stealing all the rational thought in her head and transforming it into perfect shock. In some faraway part of her brain, she realized she’d halted on the road, bits of floating pollen and sprae caught in her hair, watching the vision approach her. The sight of him arrested her, made her remember him from so many hundreds of years before. He hadn’t changed.
    Neither had how he made her feel when she looked at him.
    “I know you,” said Aeric Killian Riordan O’Malley. The words came out harsh, angry, lashed with raw power, just the same way his magnificent body moved. His voice was laced with the remnants of an Irish accent that years in Piefferburg hadn’t been able to wash away. “ Emmaline Siobhan Keara Gallagher . The Summer Queen’s assassin. The woman with the crossbow.”
    Danger. There was danger here. He shouldn’t know her. Hell, he shouldn’t even be here .
    How did he know her? She was glamoured.
    Her feet twitched and she glanced at the forest near her. Her survival center—an exceptionally strong part of herself—screamed run . Suddenly she was a mouse to a lion, prey to predator. Her intellect won out and she tamped down the fight-or-flight response, lifting her face to him. Still, the need to lie—to cover her true identity in the face of his brutal wrath—was overwhelming. “I’m not who you think I am.”
    And that was true enough.
    He grabbed her by her collar and shook her like a dog. “I know you.”
    She yelped. “You don’t know me!”
    “I do.” He bared white teeth in a grimace. “I’ve been waiting for you. For hundreds of years, Emmaline Siobhan Keara Gallagher , I have been dreaming of the day you would reenter my life.” By saying her whole name he was reminding her of the power he held over her.
    She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. Let me explain—”
    “Shut up!”
    Her gaze flicked down to his hand. The thing she couldn’t make out from a distance was a burlap bag.
    She knew what that was for. She’d used one just like it more than once.
    Her survival instincts finally cut through the shock. She brought the flat of her hand up, aiming for his nose. She got his chin instead, but it worked. Teeth knocking hard, he grunted and released her, turning away with his hand to his mouth. She was free.
    Pressing her advantage, she whirled on the ball of her foot and kicked up high, catching him in the jaw with her hiking boot. He staggered to the side and she set up for another kick, knowing there was no other way to deal with a man of this size. Fists just wouldn’t do it. Kicks and hits to tender parts of the anatomy just might.
    He blocked her foot and pushed. She staggered to the side, almost landing on her ass in the dirt. He came at her and she whirled to the left, narrowly missing his enraged grasp. She danced away from him, but he was too fast. He grabbed her upper arm and she brought the flat of her palm up again, this time hitting pay dirt. Blood exploded from his nose and he yelped in pain.
    Totally intending to hit a man while he was down, she set up for another kick, this one aimed at his kidney. That would send him down for a while. Midway through her turn, he swept her leg out from under her. She went down hard on her side, her breath oof ing out of her. He was on her in a second, blood dripping into her face. The burlap bag slammed down over her head and he knotted it at her neck.
    A moment of pure panic arrested her breath in her throat. Sharp memories scratched and ripped at her mind.
    She exploded in a frenzied attempt to yank it off, but his arms closed