They’d left a couple of dirty blankets, not fitting for my goddess, but for the moment that couldn't be helped. Carefully, I sat the woman down on one of them. She moaned quietly, her long black eyelashes fluttering behind the ridiculous veil covering her face. What kind of custom was this? My hands reached for the ends of it just as her eyes opened. I pulled it back.
Her intense blue, nearly violet eyes found mine, and there was a moment, a short moment, where she almost seemed to recognize me. But it passed quickly, and her expression changed to fear. Her lips opened to scream, and I did what I had to do to keep her quiet. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers.
They were just as soft as I remembered, intoxicatingly so. My arms moved around her as I pulled her closer. She was wet like a cat, and cold, but my body heat would remedy that quickly.
I pressed my tongue against her closed mouth, willing her to open. I felt like the conqueror I was, battering against her gates.Slowly she opened, and my tongue dashed forward in search of hers. That's when she bit down.
"Wildcat," I chuckled as I drew back.
Her hand flew forward and slapped my face. I didn't feel any pain, a mortal could not inflict pain on me, and that was what she had become for whatever reason. It surprised me though, enough to loosen my grip on her.
She scrambled to her feet, grabbed the folds of her skirt, exposing some torturous-looking shoes, and began to run. Another chuckle escaped me as I rose from my seated position. She wanted a chase? That promised to be fun.
The scent of mold, fire, and wetness roused me. I was cold, so cold. My beautiful wedding dress clung to me like a second skin, and I was soaked to the bones. Disoriented, I tried to focus on my surroundings. Wild ivy grew over old walls, crumbled pillars littered the ground. In the flickering light from the fire and torch I made out something dark blue between the ivy leaves, parts of a mosaic. Brittle, dull, and long forgotten.
I had no idea where I was or who the man who had taken me was. But I wasn't going to sit by and let him manhandle me. Not while there was an ounce of fight in me. I was disoriented when I came to, but one look at his face brought it all back to me. He looked so fearsome, like one of those barbarians of old who had ransacked cities and violated their women.
The hair plastered wet to his skull was just as black as his eyes. His deep olive-brown skin hinted at a different ancestry than mine. His face was square, all hard edges and angles, except for his crooked nose and arched eyebrows. His neck was as thick as my thigh, maybe thicker. Broad shoulders made an impenetrable wall. He was bare-chested like a barbarian, too, with incredible muscles that scared the soul out of my body. He was everything I had always feared in a man: hard, brutal, unyielding.
Scars ran up and down his arms and torso, making me shiver at the thought of how he had gotten them. Where did he come from? Had he escaped a circus? Or maybe he belonged to the gypsy bands roaming the streets of London? I had never seen anybody like him before.
Dirty bandages were wrapped around his upper arms. They looked like... no, that couldn't be, my imagination was running wild with me, but for one moment I could have sworn the bindings around his arm looked just like the linen that had been wrapped around the mummy.
The ring on my finger warmed and pulsed strangely, but that was the least of my worries, because my abductor was leaning forward, holding me, and... his lips pressed on mine.
Stunned, I didn't move. I froze. His tongue pushed against my teeth. The revulsion that should have run through me was absent. Instead it felt... nice? No, nice wasn't even close to describing the myriad of sensations he aroused in me. Where there should have been fear, there was only longing. Where there should have been resistance, there was only surrender. Where there should have been rage, there was only the torment of a desire I refused to name.
That frightened me more than the man himself. I needed to get away from him. Now! Before I... before I... before I what? I had no idea, but I opened my lips on instinct, parted my teeth, and when his tongue entered my mouth, I bit down. Hard. When he reared back, chuckling, I slapped him. Not giving him or me time to process what I had done, I rose, grabbed the hem of my dress, and ran. I ran as fast as I could.Out. Away. These were the only thoughts on my mind.
I nearly slipped over all the debris littering the ground, not only rocks, but bottles, mostly broken, moldy wrappers, a torn, long forgotten shoe, and—I shrieked—a nest of rats.
The further away I got, the darker it became. Blindly, I stumbled forward, sensing more than hearing his heavy footfalls behind me. His steps were measured, not done in blind fear like mine. He would grab me at any moment, and that realization made me sob.
This was supposed to have been the happiest day of my life. Right now, I was supposed to be sitting at a high table with Thomas, eating roast beef or maybe cutting the cake. Instead, I was running for my life through what I now recognized as the ruins of an ancient Roman villa or temple.
My dress clung to me, heavy from the rain, and hindered every step I took. I wished I could rip it off. My corset was so tight, it was hard to breathe.
Finally, ahead of me, I glimpsed a trace of light. Suppressing another sob, I called up the last of my strength and dashed forward, right into a large opening that must have been the Roman garden a long time ago. Some sculptures were still intact, as was the large fountain in the center, but it had been changed into a firepit around which sat six men. They were laughing rowdily and passing a bottle of cheap liquor between each other.
"Well mate, what do you know?" One exclaimed as I dove through the opening. I was going too fast to stop, even when I realized what I was running into.
"If you wish it, you shall receive," another laughed.
"A bride! Bloody hell, come here, my beauty!" A hand grabbed me roughly, pulling me forward.
The men laughed, and one pulled on what was left of my veil, ripping it off. "Such finery."
"A lady!" Foul breath hit me, made me nauseous.
"Fuck me, I've never seen the tits of a lady before," another grabbed my bodice. I tried to lash out, but my arms were grabbed from behind.
A loud roar froze all of us. The barbarian thundered into the circle like a god of war. He grabbed the first man who had the misfortune of being too close to him, took his head in his hand, and twisted it. A sickening, cracking sound echoed like the beat of a drum through the night, raising vomit in my throat that spilled over when he dropped the lifeless body like a discarded, broken toy.
Mercilessly, he grabbed a second man and rammed his head into the unforgiving wall of the fountain/fire pit. The hands that had been holding me let go, and I stumbled back. Three of the remaining four pulled long, wicked-looking knives out. As one, they advanced on the barbarian. My heart thundered inside my chest, and my hand flew up to cover it while my other swiped the vomit off my mouth, ruining my dress even further.
I should have taken this moment to run, but I was frozen with fear. Besides, if these men were any indication of the kind of people who dwelled here, there was nowhere for me to run to.
One man lunged forward, knife out. My abductor stepped to the side, quick as lightning. Reaching out, he latched onto the arm holding the knife, grabbed it with both hands, and brought it down over his knee, breaking it. The man screamed, and the rest rushed forward as one. The barbarian kicked the first so hard in the chest that he flew straight into the fire, screaming as his hair and clothes began to burn. The acrid smell of it permeated the air, making me gag once more.
