Lords of Darkness and Shadow Read Online Free Page A

fighting off the grin that he had struggled with for the past few minutes. He crossed his massive arms calmly.
    “Is it not exhausting being so aggressive all of the time?” he asked.
    The comment only seemed to inflame her. “Beast! Monster! Son of a…!”
    He cut her off, casually, losing the battle against the grin. “Are you finished?”
    Ellowyn scowled. “Not by any stretch of the imagination,” she jabbed a finger at him. “I have met my share of infuriating and callous men, but you are the worst of the lot. What possessed you to do what you just did?”
    “Do what?”
    She threw up her hands. “Throw me over your shoulder like a... a....”
    “Common wench?”
    Now her eyebrows flew up in outrage. “Common?” she was turning red in the face; he could see it even in the moonlight. “Now I am common ?”
    “Given the behavior I have seen from you since the onset of our association, you have given me little else to go on,” he replied steadily. “Therefore, in response to your demands earlier today, I have delivered your father’s men as ordered.  You will find all of them over there to the left, by the livery stables, and none of them have been fed since earlier today.  I hope you have made arrangements to feed and shelter them until the morrow, because they are very weary and will not be able to make the trek back to Erith Castle in their present condition. They need food and rest, which you will now provide. Good evening to you, Lady Ellowyn.”
    Ellowyn’s outrage fled in favor of genuine surprise and, if she were to admit it, apprehension.  She should have been wildly furious at his insult, but she could only seem to focus on the fact that he was literally dumping almost six hundred weary soldiers on her doorstep. 
    “Wait,” she stopped him as he turned away from her. All of the agitation had disappeared from her tone. “I have no means with which to house and feed over five hundred men tonight. You were supposed to bring them to me tomorrow.”
    “You were not clear on what time of day to return them to you,” he said. “I assumed you wanted them as soon as possible. Now you have them. Good eve to you.”
    Ellowyn’s mouth popped open as she watched the enormous man turn on his heel and walk away from her. She was stunned but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. He had made it clear he wanted nothing more to do with her so to seek assistance from him was out of the question. 
    She’s already made a fool out of herself in front of the man, and he had duly insulted her. Perhaps rightly so. She’d always had a temper, and a bit of a mouth as well, so mayhap he was entirely correct.
    Certainly, they had gotten off to a very bad start.  He had ignored and then insulted her, and she had taken his head off for it.  If she thought very hard about it, he’d tried to apologize but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d been too angry at the time. Damn her temper!
    Exhausted, and now faced with a very large and unexpected problem that she had more or less brought down on herself, she couldn’t help the tears of exhaustion and despair that sprang to her eyes. 
    Wearily, she planted her bottom on the edge of a stone watering trough, trying to figure out what she was going to do next.  It was growing late and she had no idea how she was going to feed and shelter all of those men.   She looked over to the inn, looking for a sign of her escort but noting instead that de Russe and another big knight were mounting their chargers.  So he really was leaving her with all of those exhausted men. Maybe she deserved it.
    As Ellowyn floundered in self-pity, Brandt mounted his snappish charger and turned the beast around to return to the docks near the Thames where he had left the bulk of his army.  As he put his helm back on dark and sweaty head, he couldn’t help but noticed that Ellowyn hadn’t moved from where he’d dropped her.  In fact, she was sitting on the edge of