Read Online Sylvia Day - [Georgian 01] by Ask For It - Free Book Online

trees, the specified location made surveillance frustratingly difficult. There were too many places to hide. Avery and the outriders, who stood nearby watching the worn paths that led to the meeting place, were completely undetectable to him. He couldn’t signal them, nor they him, and he felt helpless. Waiting patiently was not in his nature and he gripped the hilt of his small sword with barely restrained ferocity. What in hell was taking so damn long?
    This mission was the most important of any he’d previously been assigned to; it required the presence of mind and unflappable calm that marked all of his dealings. But to his dismay, he was as far from level-headedness as he’d ever been in his life. Failure was never an option, but this . . . this was Elizabeth.
    As if she sensed his turmoil, she glanced around furtively, searching for him. She chewed her bottom lip between her teeth and his breath caught in his throat as he watched her. It had been so long since he’d had the opportunity to study her at his leisure. He drank her in, every detail, from the uplifted chin that defied the world, to the restless way she shifted the journal. A slight breeze ruffled the curls at her nape, revealing the slender white column of her throat. Distracted momentarily by her courage and the fierce protectiveness it engendered, Marcus failed to see the dark-clad body dropping from the tree until it was too late. He leapt to his feet as the realization hit, his blood roaring so loudly he could scarcely hear past it.
    Elizabeth was knocked to the ground, the book flying from her hands to land a few feet away. She cried out, the startled sound cut short by the crushing weight of the man atop her.
    With a low growl of fury, Marcus lunged over the bushes and tackled the assailant away from her, his fists striking before they rolled to a halt. A quick blow to the man’s masked face subdued him and Marcus continued pummeling him with punishing blows, his rage such that he couldn’t think beyond the instinct to kill anyone who threatened Elizabeth. He fought like a man possessed, snarling with the need to ease the fear that gripped him.
    Elizabeth lay immobile, her mouth agape. She’d known Marcus was a physically powerful man, but he had always controlled himself with a confident air of self-mastery. She had romanticized him in her thoughts, imagining the self-assured rogue brandishing a sword or a pistol with careless arrogance, taunting his opponents with a few cutting remarks before making quick work of the matter with nary a bead of sweat on him. Her imagination had not pictured the Marcus before her—a vengeful beast, easily able to kill a man with his bare hands and at this moment quite willing to do so.
    She scrambled to her feet, eyes wide, as he wrapped his hands around the man’s throat, a man who was their only clue to the importance of Nigel’s book. “ No! Don’t kill him!”
     
    Marcus loosened his grip at the sound of Elizabeth’s voice, the haze of bloodlust retreating. With amazing strength after such a beating, the assailant bucked upward, effectively garnering his release by throwing Marcus to his back.
    Rolling quickly to his stomach, Marcus pushed himself up, prepared to fight, but the attacker scooped up the book and fled.
    There was the barest glint of sunlight off the muzzle of a gun as the fleeing man turned and took aim, but it was warning enough. Marcus rose from the ground, his only goal to reach Elizabeth and shield her from harm. But he couldn’t move fast enough. The report of the pistol bounced off the trees around them. He yelled a warning and turned, his heart stopping at the sight that greeted him.
    Elizabeth stood by her mount, her hair in disarray about her shoulders. In her outstretched hands was the smoking muzzle of a gun.
    Realizing where the shot originated, he turned his head and watched in confounded wonder as the assailant stumbled to his feet from where he’d fallen, his dropped gun