Dreamspell Read Online Free Page A

did she follow his gaze to her bloodied skirt than he lunged, seized hold of the branch, and used it to haul her toward him.
    Kennedy let go, but not before he caught her arm. Handling her as if she were a child rather than a woman who topped out at five foot eight, Wynland lifted her off her feet and deposited her on his saddle between his thighs.
    She reached for his face. Unlike her hair, she hadn’t dreamed herself a set of long nails, and she fell short by the split second it took him to capture her wrist and grip it with the other.
    “Calm yourself!”
    She strained, kicked, bit—and got a mouthful of metal links that made her teeth peal with pain.
    “Cease, else I shall bind you hand and foot!”
    Before or after he killed her? She threw her head back and got a closer look at her version of Fulke Wynland. Not model material after all. As blue as his eyes were, his face was flawed. A scar split his left eyebrow, nose had a slight bend, and the jaw visible beneath his beard was mildly pocked as if from adolescent acne or a childhood illness. Handsome? Definitely not. Rugged? Beyond. Deadly? Ever so.
    Realizing her best hope was to catch him off guard, she forced herself to relax.
    Wynland gave a grunt of satisfaction, reached down, and yanked up her skirt.
    Horrified that her dream was taking a more lurid turn, she renewed her struggle.
    The horse snorted and danced around, but neither Kennedy nor the skittish animal turned Wynland from his intent. His large hand slid from her ankle to her calf to her knee.
    It was then she felt the draft and realized that, somewhere between reality and dream, she had lost her underwear.
    When his hand spanned her thigh, she opened her mouth to scream, but just as quickly as the assault began, it ended. He thrust her skirt down and smiled—if that wicked twist of his lips could be called a smile. “Worry not, my lady, I place too high a value on my health to risk it with you.”
    What, exactly, did he mean? That she was promiscuous? Diseased? Of course, she did portray a king’s mistress. . .
    “Whose blood if not yours?” Wynland asked.
    That was why he had touched her? She didn’t know the man’s name, only that he had rejected her as being his lady. She frowned. How was that? If she was Lady Lark, why had one of the players in this dream not recognized her?
    “Whose?” he growled.
    She shifted around to fully face Wynland. “What does it matter?”
    His lids narrowed. “A soldier—nay, a dozen—bled their last to defend you. What does it matter who they were? Who their wives and children are?”
    When he put it that way. . . But she wasn’t the villain, he was. Those men were dead because he had ordered it. Or done it himself. “Put me down.”
    “What befell your escort?”
    Why the pretense when he meant to kill her? Or did he? According to Mac’s book, no trace of Lady Lark was ever found. Had Wynland allowed her to live—for a while, at least?
    It’s a dream!
    Though she knew he was only smoke floating about her mind, she detested him for the sins of the man after whom she had fashioned him. “Why don’t you tell me what happened to my escort?” She was bold, and it felt good, so like her old self before this thing in her head pulled the life out from under her.
    Wynland’s face darkened. “You think I am responsible?”
    “If the shoe fits. . .”
    Confusion slipped through his anger. “What shoe?”
    One would think she had truly hopped back in time. If this was anything like what Mac experienced, no wonder he thought it was real. She only hoped that when she awakened she would remember the outlandish dream long enough to record it. “You don’t want me at Burnwood.”
    “ Brynwood, and, nay, I do not. But I assure you, had I wished you dead, we would not be having this conversation.”
    Nothing came between him and what he wanted, including his nephews. The deaths those little boys had suffered incited Kennedy further. “Just goes to show that