Sorceress Read Online Free Page A

out, she would feel the first hint of his punishment when he drew a little blood before he spread her legs and forced himself into her.
    Then there was the rutting. Hard. Fast. As animals. In his mind’s eye he envisioned her backside, moving beneath him, his thumbs nearly touching as his hands spanned her waist, his cock pummeling her hot wetness. And then, that one moment when the Fates crossed paths and he spilled his seed deep into her. He would toss back his head and scream in ecstasy with the effort, claiming her as his.
    Rightfully his.
    But that would not be the end of it. Oh no. He would take her again and again, until she was gasping and spent. And then, by God, he’d take her again. She would learn what it meant to be a slave to unholy desire. Just as he had.
    He smiled a little, the wind cool against his heated flesh as he considered how much she would want him. Again and again she would beg him to mount her. She would hate herself for the wicked, heated need that was powerful enough to make her ache for more. He would do what he wanted to her and would not stop until he’d planted his seed deep within her.
    “M’lord?”
    Startled, he jumped and whirled on the soldier, who apparently had awoken and decided to come prying.
    “ ’Tis sorry I am for bothering you,” Afal said carefully, “but I wondered if something was wrong. ’Tis not like you to be up here at night.”
    “I’m not an old woman,” Hallyd snapped. The nerve of the mongrel!
    “Nay, m’lord, I know, and yet, ’tis not your usual manner to brood in the middle of the night—”
    “Brood?” he repeated, one hand fisting and a tic forming beneath his eye. “Bloody hell, Afal, is this not my keep? Can I not take a walk upon my battlements at my whim?” He should cuff the idiot here and now.
    And the man was lying, for it was always at night when Hallyd was about. Ever since the curse had been cast upon him, daylight burned his eyes and drove him inside. Only on the darkest days of winter did he dare venture from the shadow of the tall walls of the keep before the sun set.
    “Of course you may walk wherever you want, but—”
    “But what ?” Hallyd demanded, irritated that this pathetic excuse for a guard would have the nerve to approach him, even challenge him.
    “Not a thing,” Afal said, realizing belatedly that he’d overstepped his station. He lowered his head and began backing up, like the whipped dog he should be. “I was just inquiring as to your health. And now, I’ll be off to my post.”
    And good riddance, Hallyd thought, eyes narrowing as the beefy soldier hustled back to the bastion and took up his post, ramrod stiff, as if he didn’t doze through the night watch. Hallyd was quite aware of that. He also knew Afal kept a small jug of ale tucked into a spot in the tower where the mortar had broken free and a rock had loosened.
    Fool.
    Hallyd considered pummeling the guard and casting him headfirst over the wall, but he could ill afford to lose another soldier. He also didn’t want to explain the death to the visiting priest, a reverent man who was suspicious enough as it was.
    Gritting his teeth, Hallyd turned in the opposite direction and strode to the south tower, where he hurried down the spiraling stairs amid dusky smoke from the rushlights burning low. His own shadow chased him and a rat scurried away, tiny claws scraping as he reached the ground level and walked into the darkened bailey. Beneath the few scattered stars in the misting heavens he surveyed the darkened huts and steep walls.
    Once this keep had been a magnificent castle, a shining fortress crawling with servants, peasants, freemen, and soldiers. Now ’twas decaying, half dead, the skeleton of a once robust fortress, filled only with the whispering curse that Kambria had laid upon him. Still, after all these years, that wretched curse cut him to the bone and echoed in the parapets.
    He crossed the yellowed grass of the bailey, nearly tripping