Claimed by a Laird (3 page)

A sudden, loud bang echoed through the small chamber and the
light abruptly dimmed. Her spine stiffened in fear and she whirled to find the
door had closed.

She grabbed the heavy iron handle and yanked several times,
straining her elbow. Nothing. Not even a creak to reward her for her efforts.
With her fists, she pounded on the door and shouted for help. Still nothing.
She placed her hands on her hips and studied the frame more closely, wondering
if she had missed some other latch.

A man’s muffled, annoyed words bounced off the walls behind
her and she turned again, carefully surveying the room. The sun dipped behind
the clouds, cutting the little light available from the one window in half.
Cold air slithered around her ankles, crawling up her body, and strange, almost
putrid smells assaulted her nose.

The antique pendant swiftly heated against her chest, the
temperature rising to the point it threatened to sear her skin. Before she
could grab it, her vision blurred and her breath caught in her throat. She
clawed desperately at the door behind her as a wave of dizziness sent her
sprawling to the cold dirt floor.

Everything went black.

Anna groaned and rolled onto her back. The plunking of
dripping water reverberated off the walls. Her eyes quivered open and she
carefully rubbed away the pain in the shoulder. As her eyes adjusted to the dim
light, the individual stones of the floor sharpened in her vision.

She pushed herself up and the color of the sky outside the
window caught her attention. The purples and reds of sunset glowed back at her
and she shook her head in disbelief. She must have been lying there for almost
three hours. The sun wouldn’t be setting unless it was nearly seven o’clock.

She had to get out of here and down to Helena’s before her
family started to worry. Cursing the disinterested tour guide for not checking
his whole group had been accounted for, she grabbed the iron handle of the oak
door and pulled herself to standing.

Dizziness washed over her again and she pressed her cheek
against the cool, wooden surface of the door. Several deep breaths later, the
room finally began to hold still. Anna pushed away from the door and took a
deep breath before using as much of her strength as she could muster to yank it
open.

Pain shot through her shoulder, radiating through her arm
and up her neck.

Rubbing her arm, she furiously kicked the door and then
pounded on it while shouting for help.

A low, throaty voice floated up from somewhere below. The
little hairs on the back of her neck stood and she fell silent. She was not
alone.

She slowly turned toward the dungeon pit, her eyes darting
back and forth across the room. “Hello?” she tentatively called.

Galen whipped his head toward the mouth of the pit.
Pounding…strange shuffling. Something out of the ordinary was definitely
happening. Had his men already raised an army and begun a siege of the castle?

“Is someone up there?” he called.

He waited, his eyes transfixed on the iron grate above.
Silence was the only thing that answered him.

Patience was not one of his virtues, especially since he was
as ravenous and angry as a half-starved wolf. “Show yourself to me!” he
commanded.

“Hello?” came a trembling voice.

The bluster fell out of him and his face cracked in a slow,
confident smile for the first time in days. It was a woman, he was certain.
This might be his chance to escape, if he could only convince the girl to help
him.

“I am down here, lass,” he called, attempting to speak in
the mildest tone he could muster.

The face of his angel suddenly appeared at the grate. He
froze in momentary disbelief until a familiar hunger overtook his body as he
took in her long red curls, creamy skin and the delicate turn of her jaw.
Something glinted in the light spilling into the pit, distracting his attention
from her face. A shiny, honey-hued pendant on a silver chain fell forward from
her neck and dangled through the grate.

He froze as the reality of her presence dawned on him. Had
his visions been true? Had God sent one of his angels to guide him out of the
pit to wreak his revenge? Or was he still asleep and would only awaken when she
moved the grate?

Her sea-blue eyes landed upon his and she gasped, throwing
words at him he did not immediately understand.

“Are you all right?” she repeated, brushing her hair behind
one ear in an ultra feminine gesture.

Galen’s eyebrows arched in surprise and indignation as the
foreignness of her language sunk into his brain. It was, unfortunately, a
language with which he was all too familiar.

He rolled his eyes heavenward and shook his head. The Lord
certainly had a strange sense of humor.

His angel was English.

“Yes, I am all right,” he replied in her language, pushing
aside the urge to spit.

“How on earth did you get stuck down there?” she asked.

The woman spoke with a strange accent unlike any English
person he ever had the misfortune to meet. Galen stood and walked to the center
of the dungeon, directly under the grate. “What are you called?” he asked,
careful not to speak too loudly since he was not certain how easily his voice
would carry to anyone who might be listening outside the room.

“Anna,” she replied with a soft grin.

He smiled back, his heart warming at the sight of that
familiar smile from his dreams. “Anna, I need you to move the grate.”

She immediately nodded. “I’ll try, but I can’t make any
promises.”

Anna grasped the bars with both hands and lifted, her
muscles straining to secure even an inch of height. She tilted the grate to
obtain some leverage and heaved it forward, finally getting the edge onto the
stone. Her arms ached and the scraping of metal on stone echoed throughout the
chamber as she threw her weight against the iron bars. Inch by inch the grate
moved until finally the opening was halfway cleared.

“Good, lass!” the man below praised. “Now I believe there is
a rope attached to the floor you can throw down.”

Anna stepped back and quickly spotted an iron loop attached
to the floor and a rope coiled beside her right foot. Funny, she could have
sworn it hadn’t been there when she originally entered the dungeon antechamber.

She dismissed the strange thought from her head and stooped
to retrieve the rope. “Here you go.” She tossed the end over the side of the
stone wall.

Anna marveled as the man jumped to grasp the rope and then
pulled himself up using nothing but his upper body strength to reach the neck
of the opening into the pit. Swinging his legs to the side, he caught the wall
with the soles of his black leather boots and used his feet to climb the rest
of the way up.

Her mouth dropped open as he ascended from the pit. Each of
his muscles strained and rippled beneath his sun-bronzed skin. He must have
been some sort of athlete.

“Do you need any help?” Anna asked, admiring the contours of
his chiseled face as it came into full view. She bit her lower lip to ensure it
wouldn’t drop again. Dark-brown hair nearly the shade of freshly ground coffee
framed his harshly attractive features. He certainly wouldn’t be considered a
pretty boy, especially with the long, jagged scar running from his right cheek
to his jaw, but his high cheekbones, squared-off chin and piercing gray eyes
fairly took her breath away. She always did prefer her men on the rugged side.

Her men.
She stifled a laugh at the thought, barely
able to recall the last time she was asked out on a date, let alone flirted
with a guy.

His eyes caught hers as he hoisted himself up on top of the
stones and over the side. She swallowed hard as an intense surge of wanting
washed over her while her gaze swept over his massive, perfectly wrought form.
Blood flushed through her veins and an ache formed between her thighs. It had
been a long time since she had reacted so physically to the mere sight of a
man.

Especially one who had more than a five o’clock shadow and
needed a bath.

Anna shook her head. She was displaying the classic symptom
of not having gotten laid in far too long. Sure, this guy standing in front of
her was hot, but she did have certain hygienic standards after all.

His medieval-like clothing drew her attention. Perhaps he
was one of the fair characters starting work a bit early. His long, off-white
shirt had billowy sleeves, an open vee at the neckline and was belted around
his trim waist. The tight brown pants under the long hemline of his shirt
seemed to caress every muscled contour in his lusciously roped thighs.

As she dragged her eyes back to his face, he gave her the
same perusal, though his eyes seemed to be raking her form rather than
observing. A shudder of self-consciousness coursed through her, especially when
his stare lingered upon her hips a little too long.

“How did you get down there?” she asked, her throat abruptly
dry. She didn’t much care for the way her voice was shaking either.

“I was thrown,” he replied with a nonchalant shrug.

Horrified anyone would do such a thing, she turned toward
the door. Just as soon as she could alert the authorities about this poor guy,
she was going to find that damn tour guide and give him a piece of her mind.
“Come on, let’s get out of here and call the police.” She reached for the cell
phone in her purse. “People can be such assholes.”

His fingers grabbed her arm and he yanked her backward. She
landed with a jolting thud against him. He wrapped his arm around her chest,
locking her other arm down. A glint of steel blazed before her and a thin,
sharp object was pressed into the tender flesh at the base of her throat.

Her heart seemed to stop mid-beat. This couldn’t be
happening. Was this damn castle cursed?

The man leaned the side of his face against her head and she
bit back a whimper.

“You will not be calling anyone, Anna,” he whispered.

His lips brushed her ear as he spoke, unleashing a strange
mixture of fear and electricity through her veins. Her breath caught in her
throat and her heart threatened to pound out of her rib cage.

“You are coming with me, lass. I cannot take the risk you
will alert someone to my escape.”

She gulped, desperately attempting to pull together some
coherent thoughts to get her out of this mess. “Just let me go. I swear I won’t
tell anyone,” she pleaded in a hoarse whisper.

A disturbing heat emanated from his body and her muscles
automatically relaxed, threatening to send her deeper into his arms. Shame and
anger welled within her at her inexplicable reaction to this man holding her
hostage. “Just let me leave and I’ll forget I ever saw you.”

“No.” He shoved her none-too-gently toward the door with his
body. “You are not leaving my side until I have reached the safety of my
holding.”

Anna’s mind whirled in angry confusion. This guy obviously
deserved to be thrown in that damn pit. If only she could get his blade away
from her neck, then maybe she could get away from him long enough to attract
someone’s attention.

His fingertips dug painfully into her throat as he
forcefully twisted her neck around until his face loomed over hers. His
eyebrows lifted as he stared at her, evidently waiting for her agreement.

“Fine,” she spat, glaring at him through narrowed eyes.
“Just get that damn blade away from me.”

A brief flash of amusement sparked in the man’s gray,
foreboding eyes and the skin crinkled slightly at the corners. Her neck
prickled with goose bumps. If he would just open the damn door then maybe, just
maybe, someone might see them or she would, at least, get a chance to escape.

He dropped the knife from her neck, securing the hilt in his
palm as he grabbed the iron handle of the door and effortlessly pulled it open.

All thoughts of escape vanished the moment she was
confronted with stone walls. A long, torch-lined corridor with a small window
at the end lay before her, looking like something straight out of
Braveheart
.
No grass. No sunlight. No river. Nothing she had expected lay anywhere in
sight.

Where the hell am I?

“I would hate to mar that lovely neck of yours,” the man
stated, his voice deep and resonant as his thumb lightly caressed the sensitive
skin of her throat, sending thrilling shivers through her. “But one sound out
of you and I will slit it. Is that understood?”

Anna nodded dumbly, only half hearing his threat. One thing
was for certain. She had to find a way out of this place…wherever and whatever
it was. And, as frightening as it was to admit, this half-crazed, dangerously
hot man might be her only ticket to the outside world.

He released her neck and then squeezed her hand. When she
turned her eyes up to him, she was taken aback by the change in his demeanor.
Kindness radiated from his eyes, glowing brilliant silver in the torchlight.

“All you have to do is follow me and remain silent,” he
whispered with all the authority of a five-star general. “As long as you obey
my commands, you will not be harmed.”

She slowly nodded again. Dark smudges beneath his eyes
called attention to the pallor of his skin and the weariness etched across his
brow. An unexpected surge of sympathy welled within her. His horrid threat to
kill her was nothing but a bluff to gain her cooperation in aiding his escape.

The nurse in her took over, but she resisted the urge to
feel his forehead for a fever just in case the sudden move might set him off.
“Are you all right?” she whispered, gently pressing her fingers into his hand
to gauge how cold or clammy it was.

He jumped back, ripping his hand from hers as if she were on
fire. “I am well enough. Now which way is best?” he snapped, strength quickly
returning to his features.

“Hell if I know,” she replied, her ego bruised.

“Are you not a guest of the Graham?” His eyes darted up and
down the corridor.

“The who?”

Footsteps echoed through the hall and the man grabbed Anna
by the elbow, yanking her back into the dungeon antechamber. He shoved her
against the wall and silently closed the door. Putting a finger to his lips, he
moved in front of her, plastering his back against her chest. Every muscle in
his body tensed against her like a wolf preparing to defend his pack from intruders.

Silence pounded in Anna’s ears as she stiffly clung to the
wall, barely daring to breathe. Her shoulder blades burned where they had
scraped against the roughly hewn stones. She silently cursed him. Her chances
of pushing him away to get the attention of whoever was outside without him
slicing her throat first were nearly zero.

But if she were very careful, she just might be able to
reach her cell phone. If she were lucky, the voice of the emergency operator
might take him by surprise and give her just enough time to get out of his
reach and through the door. With her eyes carefully trained on the side of the
man’s face, she slowly inched her hand into her bag.