“Bors? What the bloody hell are you doing here? Where is the princess?” Seamus asked.
“She’s upstairs. There’s no time to explain. I heard her from a window up above,” I said, and we took off for a staircase nearby. The four of us rampaged our way through the hallways, flinging open doors as we approached where I thought I’d seen her. Room after room showed us nothing, until finally I heard her scream once more, this time from behind a double-thick door that didn’t budge when I rammed it.
“The queen’s summer day room? What the fuck is going on?” Seamus started ramming the door along with me, putting his shoulder to it.
It took all four of us several tries to break it down, but when we broke it from its hinges, I saw Sara just as she was being seized by the filthy hands of one of the Queen’s guards.
“Stop!” I demanded. “It’s over. This won’t do you any good.”
His lips twisted into a grin. “I know. I’m dead either way.” And with one single, horrible thrust, he plunged his blade into Sara’s side.
I screamed out her name as her blood spilled from her wound and she gasped for air. Once again, my universe turned bright red as everything I’d ever wanted was ripped from me before my eyes.
Blind with rage, I hurled myself at the man who’d stabbed her, savagely ripping through his jugular with my dagger. He fell back with me above him, and I withdrew my blade, only to plunge it again into his chest, and again, and again, venting my sorrow and anger on his now dead corpse.
“Bors! The princess!”
I dragged myself from the object of my rage, and fell to my knees beside her, pulling her into my arms. Her body was limp, her eyes half-closed, and I felt my heart tear asunder. No, no, no, no, fuck no. I couldn’t lose her, not now. Not like this.
My fingers trembled as I placed them against her throat, the blood of her attacker smearing over her pristine flesh. But I felt it. Mercy of God, she had a pulse.
“She needs a doctor. Now!” I yelled, and heard two of my clansmen run to find help, while Seamus guarded us both.
“My beautiful girl,” I whispered against her cheek. “Please. Hang on.”
Fuck, I’d survived so much without knowing that she was my destiny. Now I had found her, and I couldn’t bear the thought that I was about to fucking lose her. I could feel her growing weaker in my arms as her warm blood pooled in my hands. I placed as much pressure on her wound as I could. She looked up at my face sleepily, far away.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
Christ almighty. I couldn’t fucking live without her. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t. “Never apologize to me. Never again.”
She gave no response. She had the look of being in a dream. Or of passing into another world.
I looked up. I hadn’t prayed in decades. But now I did, after a fashion. “Don’t you fucking take her from me,” I warned God, as I held her close. “Don’t you fucking dare, you bastard.”
I embraced her, keeping her safe and close, trying to protect her from a fate bigger than us both. The life that was ripped away from us flashed before my eyes. Our home. Our children. Our love and peace and hope.
A hand on my shoulder shocked me out of my grief, and I looked up to see the royal doctor in his medical robe. “Let me tend to her, sir. Move aside.”
All the warriors in the land couldn’t have made me leave her. Not a fucking chance. “I can’t let her go,” I said, as my tears fell onto her beautiful cheeks. “I can’t watch her die.”
“Let him help her, and hopefully neither of us will have to,” said another voice, this one firm but shaky with emotion. Turning, still clutching Sara to my chest, I found myself looking into the stunned face of King Rowan himself.
Sara
I awoke in a spacious bedroom, in a featherbed surrounded by vases of Lenten roses. At first, I thought I was in heaven, but as I slowly came into consciousness, I realized I was still very much alive.
Thankfully and miraculously alive. The first face I saw was that of my one true love. Bors sat at my bedside, with his head slightly lowered and two fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose in worry.
I was cautious not to move a muscle, lest he realize I was awake, while I savored a few quiet seconds to study him there in the morning light. He looked tired and haggard, like he had been sitting at my bedside for days.
“Hello, my love,” I said finally, and reached out for his hand.
His expression changed instantly, and as he looked up at me his worry melted away. “You’re awake.”
“What happened?” I whispered. My voice was hoarse and my throat was dry. I instinctively placed my hand on my stomach, where I was met with a thick wrapping of cotton bandages.
Bors didn’t answer me, but instead hurried to the big door on the far side of the room and called for the doctor, who appeared at once.
He was an elderly gentleman, with a long white beard and kind eyes, and a soft smile that calmed me. He took my pulse and placed a cool, soft hand to my forehead. Once he had checked my bandages and assured himself I was well, he stepped aside to let Bors resume his seat beside me again.
He poured me a glass of cool water and held it to my lips. “You almost died,” he said, setting down the glass for me. “Thank God we were in the palace. The doctors were able to get to you right away. They said that if we had been anywhere else, you…” He stammered, and his eyes filled up with tears.
“Shhhh,” I said, and clutched his hand. “I’m sorry I frightened you. Look, I’m better now, you can stop worrying.”
With his thumb and forefinger, he swept his tears away and nodded, smiling. It made me love him all the more, seeing this softness beneath his gruff exterior. Knowing that I was the woman capable of drawing it out of him made me feel like the queen herself.
The queen.
As if I had been thrown into a frigid lake, it all rushed back to me—Queen Beatrice, her guards, the horrible events of my imprisonment. My pulse quickened and I gripped the edge of the embroidered coverlet that was spread across the bed.
Now it was Bors’ turn to soothe me, as he saw me looking with panicked eyes, side to side across the room.
“The queen is in chains, awaiting trial, though I don’t think she’s in any doubt about her fate. She’s in the same dungeon where she tried to keep you, with King’s men guarding the door day and night. It’s all over.”
It was hard for me to sigh with relief, given the pain in my stomach, but at the very least the stress started to lessen in my shoulders. “I’m safe?” I asked, just to be doubly sure.
“You are,” Bors said seriously. “I fucking swear it.”
A soft knock from the door interrupted us. “Come in,” I said with as much strength as I could muster.
The door swung open, and Bors rose immediately, though he did not let go of my hand. “Your Grace,” he said, lowering his head.
There, standing in a patch of sunshine from the open window, stood a man who had to be King Rowan. His hair, though graying now, had clearly been the same color as mine in his youth, and his clothing was the finest I’d ever seen.
His magnificent gold grown emblazoned with emeralds the color of my eyes sat straight and steady on top of his head. His face was the face of a man who led his people from the front, handsome, strong, and weather-worn.
I felt embarrassed by being in such disarray in such lofty company, and tried to smooth my hair in order to look a tiny bit more presentable, but the King raised his hands, kneeling beside my bed. “Please, don’t trouble yourself, my dear. How are you? How is your pain?”
I stared at him in astonishment. My dear. This term of such affection from the most powerful man in the land left me speechless.
“She seems better,” Bors said for me, smiling a little at my embarrassment before he leaned down to my ear. “He’s just your father, you know,” he said sweetly, with a friendly and warm glance at the king. “I’ve spent a lot of time with him. He’s a whole lot like you.”
/> “I am so very sorry for all you have suffered,” the King said. His eyes, shaped like mine, but bronze where mine were green, grew misty with tears as he ran his hand pinched the bridge of his nose in sorrow. “My beautiful daughter. I made so many terrible choices that led to your kidnapping. I was blind to the truth of those around me. And you suffered for my arrogance. Please,” he said lowering his head, as if in shame. “Please forgive me.”
There was not an ounce of bitterness in my heart for all that had happened. “There’s nothing to forgive, father,” I said. “I’m grateful for the life I have had, and I’m grateful to be here with you now.”
“Thank you, my dear,” he said, looking up. “I am so grateful as well.”
Though I meant what I had said to my father, I said in part because I felt so embarrassed by the king weeping over such a simple, insignificant girl. It was all so incredibly overwhelming. In a matter of days, my life had been turned upside down in every which way. I had fallen in love, I had seen the death of the man I had thought was my father, I’d almost met my own end, and now here I was, in the company of King Rowan, surrounded by such riches and extravagance that I felt unworthy to even look upon it all, never mind touch or enjoy it.
All I had known was gone, replaced by a world in which I felt I did not belong. I felt like I was standing on the shore while the sand was swept out from under my feet. I held onto Bors’ hand and locked eyes with him. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, but somehow, he knew it all without my uttering a word.
He pressed my fingers to his lips, never looking away from me. In his eyes, I saw light and fire, love and adoration: all the things I had never imagined I would have—all the things I now knew I could never live without. He took time with the kiss and said finally, “I love you. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be with you always.”
With all my heart, I hoped that could be true. But looking at him here, this scarred clan warrior in a place of such luxury and finery, I wasn’t sure what would happen to our love. And right then, I wasn’t strong enough to do more than simply pray that we could find a way.
I regained my strength quickly and the doctors were pleased at how well I was healing. Although the knife wound did much damage, they assured me I was young and recovering well. They said I would not suffer any lasting consequences for the attempt on my life. I was relieved to hear it, but still had one important question that I was unsure how to ask. When I was left alone with my nursemaid, I finally asked her what was on my mind. “But tell me truly. Will I still be able to bear children?”
She turned to face me over her shoulder, her eyes soft and warm. She was kindly and aged, like the grandmother I had never known. “Yes, you will, child. And I hope you bless our kingdom with dozens of daughters and sons just as lovely as you.”
The next few days passed dreamily and happily. I spent long hours with Bors and my father; we enjoyed all of our meals together and talked for many, many hours. My father and I especially had much to catch up on.
He wanted to know the details of everything I could remember, about my childhood, my upbringing, the man I had known as my father and many other things. What I did not know from my own experience, Bors was able to fill in for me, about Bardo and the Queen’s Guard, sharing what he knew or gathering information from contacts he made in the castle.
“I’m very grateful to you for returning her to me,” my father said to Bors, one afternoon at my bedside.
Bors glanced at me and then at my father. “Then now is as good a time as any to formally ask you for her hand in marriage.”
Bors looked at me and lifted his eyebrows in anticipation. I was so startled by the question that I stumbled over my words. “I…I’ve…” But with my hand clasped in his, I told him with my tightest squeeze what I felt in my heart: yes. A thousand times, yes.
“Is that what you want, my dear?” Asked my father, looking uncertain.
Finally, I found my voice. “Yes, more than anything. I love him and I never want to be apart from him.”
But my father’s brow furrowed, and his jaw jutted forward slightly. His was a noble, commanding presence, and it was intimidating to a girl like me. No matter how many times I reassured myself he was my father, he was also my king. It was plain even to me that Bors’ proposal was not entirely to his liking.
“He is the man who returned you to me, and in truth it does my old heart good to see the two of you so deeply in love,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is, no daughter of mine can be allowed to marry a commoner.”
Sir Bors of Mackay was knighted that afternoon, in a ceremony in the royal gardens, beneath my bedroom balcony. I was strong enough to stand and watch the ceremony, with all its ritual and seriousness. When Bors and my father had sworn fealty to one another, my father granted him permission to marry me. And once the ceremony ended, Bors made his way down the garden path and knelt below my balcony, sword planted into the ground before him
“Marry me, Sara. Please.”
“Look at me, knight,” I told him. He raised his face and I was met with a beaming smile. When our eyes locked, I nodded and told him it would be my honor to call myself his wife.
He wasted no time getting back to me in my chambers. His heavy footfalls echoed through the stone hallway outside my room. Once he arrived, I heard my guards step aside with an armored salute.
Finally, we were alone together, at long last.
“Get back in bed,” he said, with a lift of his chin.
“I still outrank you, Sir Bors,” I teased. I took a hellebore from a nearby vase and buried my nose in it as I watched him. “If I am to submit to you, it is on condition that Lenten roses will be our flower, for now and always, to the end of time.”
“Deal. Now into bed,” he said again, even more firmly. So firm and so commanding that it made my thighs tremble.
The flower fell from my fingers as I obeyed his command. He unbuckled his sword belt and removed his dagger from its sheath, placing his weapons on the ground, then he leaned down over me, meeting my lips with his. The kiss was luxurious and unhurried. My clit began pulsing as I tasted his mouth on my lips
I pulled back from the kiss just long enough to say, “I want you inside me.”
I felt him smile as he kissed me again, and he shook his head. Now it was his turn to pull away. “You’re not strong enough. You’re still hurt”
Gazing up at him, I felt warm and safe and protected. “But you are my strength,” I said. One tug on the tie of his britches was enough to make them loosen… and make him groan. “I’m only whole if you’re inside me,” I told him, tugging on his lip with my thumb. I pulled back the comforter and lifted up my skirt. “Make me whole.”
“Fuck,” he growled. Without taking his eyes off of mine, he stroked his cock against my bare leg. I parted my thighs for him and lay back with his help on the soft down pillows.
His thrusts were slow and careful, and with each one I was reminded of his staggering masculine power. He positioned his hips so that as he drove into me, his lower abdomen met with my clit, increasing the overpowering waves of pleasure. As he slid his massive hands behind my body, he held on tight to my hips, taking me again and again and again.
As he made love to me, one orgasm slid through into the next so that I didn’t know where one ended and the other began. Some of my orgasms were explosions that made me dig my teeth into his flesh. Others were like shooting stars in an asteroid shower, or like ripples on a still lake—whispers of bliss in a sea of ecstasy.
“If you weren’t hurt,” he growled against my ear, “I’d fuck you straight through until dawn.”
“We can always try,” I whispered as my body rolled with yet another orgasm and my walls tightened again around the stiff thickness of his cock.
As I did, I felt his hips hitch and his balls tighten. I might have been the most powerful woman in the land, it was true. But nothing, nothing, made me feel as powerful as the way he groaned when I overpowered this beast
of a man with my own inner strength.
“You’re going to make me come, princess.”
“So then do it,” I said, with another squeeze.
Another primal growl. “I never want to stop fucking you.”
I liked the sound of that, but not as much as I liked the sound of his pleasure. “Breed me, Sir Bors. Breed me right now.”
And with that, he released his seed deep into my womb and claimed me as his once again.
Sara
Epilogue
Our wedding was on the first day of summer that year. The afternoon was warm and sunny and it seemed as though every flower in the land came into bloom to celebrate with us. The week before the wedding there was a festival of feasts and games, bringing together all the clans and regions of the kingdom for the first time in a generation.
Beneath my dress that day, with its layers of handmade lace and exquisite needlework, hidden from the prying eyes of the massive celebrating crowds, I had just begun to show with the baby that Bors had put inside me. As I said my vows to him and he to me, we both glanced down more than once at our baby, both of us giddy with dreams of the future.
And that future didn’t disappoint. On our wedding day I was carrying what would be our first child of three—two princes and then a princess. Bors doted on all of them, but our little girl, Angelica, perhaps most of all. Lately, his favorite thing to do has been having the boys hang from his biceps while rides on his shoulders.
Each Saturday, we load the children onto Bors favorite old Percheron and take them to the river for a picnic. Every week, the children fall sound asleep after a day of playing in the water and eating too many sugared orange peels. And every week, Bors and I steal away into the high grass to make love again and again. Every time is like the first time; every time, he gives me more of his heart and I give him more of mine.
He is happier now than I have ever seen him. The royal stables have the finest breeding stock in the kingdom, and kings and queens from far across the seas come to visit, to see the special royal stock of studs and mares and marvel at the brilliance of their master.
The Stolen Princess (Fated Royals Book 1) Page 12
