Read Online Siege of the Heart (Southern Romance Series, #2) by Lexy Timms - Free Book Online

meanwhile, tried to forge the tide of armed men to reach—
    No. Oh, no.
    The horses weren’t saddled, but they didn’t need to be. Cecelia was struggling wildly, kicking and screaming, but she was slung over the horse’s back like a sack of grain, and the man holding her down as he urged the horse out of the camp was none other than Robert Knox.
    Of all the men he had fought with, Knox was the one Solomon had least hoped to meet here, and from the look in Knox’s eyes, pure fury would spur him to understanding soon enough. How long until he recognized the resemblance between Cecelia and Solomon? Not long enough, Solomon would wager.
    Jasper too was fighting—but towards Cecelia, as if he might knock her from the horse.
    Don’t do anything stupid, Perry. But Solomon understood, with a lump growing in his throat, exactly what was happening here. Jasper did not believe there was any way out of this for him, and he was salvaging all he could.
    The idea of rescue had seemed simpler before Solomon realized his brother-to-be also had a death wish. If he’d been smarter, he would have seen it in the way Jasper had been wandering out into the fields recently when he thought no one was looking.
    Solomon ran, breath bursting in his lungs, and he only vaguely registered a man raising a gun in the corner of his vision. When a figure slammed into him from the side, Solomon swung a punch, almost too tired to do anything else, but the figure covering his was Ambrose’s, the pistol firing once, twice, three times, and leaving the camp empty as the men fled, following Knox.
    Solomon, his cry of anguish dying in his throat, only then realized something odd. For the form on top of him was not so much lanky as lithe, not so much fragile as...oddly rounded. Solomon felt his fingers drift, hardly understanding what he did, feeling the narrowness of a waist, obscured by the loose-cut vest, and the slight curve of hips. His hands drifted up then, and he could make out the faintest hint of softness, tiny breasts nonetheless welcoming against his hands.
    In Ambrose’s face, so close to his, Solomon finally understood the delicacy he had seen from the start. How had he ever mistaken such a pointed chin for a man’s? The fingers were slim, the nose pert, the lips...
    ...eminently kissable. And those eyes. Solomon could have drowned in them, and he found himself enjoyed, if a bit too much, the heaving of Ambrose’s breathe.
    “Who are you?” he whispered, and he could tell that his breath was liquid, low. Did he feel Ambrose shiver against him, or was that only his own desire?
    Tiny white teeth nipped against a lip, and finally the name came with a sweet exhale that was almost too much to resist:
    “I’m Violet.”

Chapter 9
    “J asper! Cecelia! ”
    It was him. It was Solomon. Jasper’s heart leapt and he was screaming Solomon’s name when Robert hauled him toward one of the horses. Cecelia was screaming bloody murder, having realized that none of the men were quite ready to hurt her, and they had not the slightest idea what to do with a tiny beauty shrieking to high heaven and bludgeoning them with her bound fists.
    However, not wanting to harm her did not preclude them continuing to keep her hidden. Knox saw to it that she was thrown over the back of a horse, and he mounted up himself, spurring the horses into the night even as Jasper kicked desperately, trying to push Cecelia free.
    “Ride!” Knox’s roar spurred the few men onward, and they pounded into the woods.
    Solomon! But the name was frozen on his tongue. He could not shape his mouth to the words, or he could easily destroy what chance Solomon had of escape. Had anyone noticed him? Jasper’s heart was pounding. He should not look, he should not let Knox’s memory fix on the sound of the voice screaming for Cecelia.
    It was all confusion and terror, men battling in the darkness and the flashes of gunfire. They did not know how many they were beset by; they were back in