Read Online Moon Awakening by Lucy Monroe - Free Book Online Page A

words were not in the least welcome. Emily sucked in a breath and tried to calm herself. It didn't work. The boat road a high swell and the bow came out of the water before hitting it again with a jar. She gasped and then bit her lower lip to keep from making another noise.
    Movement behind her rocked the boat from side to side and she wondered who could be so daft that they were moving about at a time like this, but she refused to turn to see. She would rather be surprised by her fate if Lachlan had changed his mind and decided to have her tossed overboard.
    A big hand landed on her shoulder. Lachlan had come for her himself.
    "I don't know how to swim," she blurted out and then practically bit her tongue through, chagrined to have shown such weakness.
    "That would hardly matter if I were the man you believed me to be, would it?"
    He was right and she knew deep inside he would never throw her overboard, or was she only deceiving herself? She refused to face him. "You have aided in the abduction of a woman with the intent to harm her."
    "I have exercised my right as laird to exact justice between the clans."
    "I don't care how you justify it to yourself. What you are doing determines what kind of man you are."
    His sigh was loud and long. "Your opinion of me and my clan does not matter, English."
    "I never thought it would." But his words had hurt her and it was all she could do to keep that out of her voice. Her opinion should matter. His would matter to her.
    Horror filled her at the recognition of that appalling truth. She should not care.
    "Yet you expressed it."
    She shrugged, or tried to with his heavy hand still on her shoulder. "It matters to me."
    "I see."
    "I doubt it."
    "If you are about to insult me again, I warn you… dinna do it." His quiet tone was more lethal than if he had shouted the warning.
    Her mouth snapped shut.
    He growled. "I do not
like talking to your back. Turn
around."
    "No."
    But he
was already
picking
her up to
do
it himself.
    She cried out as she was lifted off her seat completely. "Do not drop me. You shouldn't be moving so much. Don't you notice how rough the sea is? We could capsize." She nodded, wishing she could appeal to a sense of reason she feared he did not have.
    The man thought he was indestructible.
    "The water is near smooth as glass."
    "You jest. I know you do, but this is no laughing matter."
    "I am not jesting." He held her close against his chest, his eyes filled with a dark intensity she could not interpret. "No harm will come to you at my hand, English."
    She wanted to scoff, but she couldn't. Because Heaven help her, she did believe him. What did that say for his plans for Cait then?
    She did not realize she'd asked the question aloud until he answered it.
    "It is Drustan's responsibility to convince Cait she wants to be kept."
    "And if he can't?" Emily asked, trying to read the level of Lachlan's sincerity in his gaze.
    A small smile played at one corner of his mouth. "He can. He is a Balmoral."
    "That doesn't make him a magician," she whispered, once again falling under the spell this man seemed to cast every time he turned his whole attention on her.
    He set her down on the bench beside Cait, but this time so Emily faced where he had taken Ulf's seat at the oars. The other soldier now stood in the bow of the boat, turned away from them all, his body stiff with rage.
    Lachlan took up the oars and began to row in perfect unison with the others. "He is man enough to make his mate want him… to bed her without hurting her or the bairn she carries."
    Emily couldn't believe Lachlan had said such a thing to her and Cait's loud gasp said she didn't appreciate his candidness either. "If he's thinking I'll submit, he's wrong," she said, her tone as mean as any of the warriors had been.
    Drustan gave a low chuckle that sounded diabolical to Emily's ears. "Aye, you'll submit, lass, and like it."
    Cait made a strangled sound and lurched forward. Emily turned her head just in time to