Read Never Kiss A Stranger for Free Online Page B

over him to sit on his bicep, and then screaming like the devil, bouncing up and down and flailing at him with her long, surprisingly powerful arms.
    Piers shouted with surprise and, yes, a bit of fear—he didn’t want the fucking thing to bite him again. He threw the beast out of his den with a swipe of his arm that sent the monkey rolling with an outraged shriek and then fought his own way out of the shelter. Better to face the fiery little thing out in the open.
    The monkey, as well.
    When Alys saw Layla streak from beneath the fallen trees, chattering indignantly, she knew her wayward husband was found. She dropped her sack, crossed her arms over her chest, and tapped her foot, waiting for him to emerge from behind his curtain of curses.
    He was still in his monk’s robe, but as he gained his feet in a cloud of crumbling leaves, twigs, and colorfulphrases, Alys noticed that he seemed much larger in the brightness of day. And the dappled sunlight was not kind to his face, bringing out in sharp relief his injuries against his obvious fatigue. His hair was a worse disaster than she’d been able to glimpse in the moonlight—as if he’d fallen into a den of blade wielding badgers. She thought he was older than she’d originally guessed—possibly thirty. And while perhaps in other circumstances he could have been described as pleasant looking, to Alys he looked dirty and hairy and hardened and bitter. And quite possibly very angry.
    But no matter for that—so was Alys.
    “You mean-hearted bastard!” she said to him before he could have chance to speak. Layla ducked her small head under Alys’s veil and into her neck. “I could have been killed following you like that!”
    “I know!” Piers shouted. “That’s why I told you to stay behind!”
    “How could I stay behind not knowing where my husband was going, or when he would be back for me?”
    “I
wouldn’t
have been back for you,” Piers growled.
    “See? And I don’t know where our lands are, or even my family name!”
    “Your name is
Alys Foxe,”
he said very slowly and distinctly, as if speaking to someone not in possession of their right mind. “And I have no lands.” He paused and then muttered, “Yet.”
    “No lands? But”—she broke off, frowned, and then realized what he was saying—“I’ve married a commoner?” Alys howled with laughter and clapped her hands, causing Layla to clutch at her head to keep from being toppled to the ground. “Sybilla will be completely furious!”
    “I fail to see why marriage to a commoner wouldplease you,” Piers said, and then he shook his head and stuttered. “We’re not married!”
    Alys rolled her eyes and sat down, still chuckling. Oh, Sybilla would just turn
blue!
    “We
are
married. Don’t pretend you don’t know the legend of the ring—everyone in the whole of England knows it! Do you have anything to eat?”
    “I do doubt everyone knows it,” Piers sneered. “And didn’t you pack food in your run-away-from-home-sack?”
    Alys wrinkled her nose and felt her cheeks tingle. “Well yes, some biscuits and honey with a bit of milk in a jug. And some chicken and ham. And two boiled eggs. But I’ve already eaten them.”
    He stared at her, a hint of concern creasing his brow. He didn’t look quite as dreadful when he wasn’t shouting or cursing. “How long were you at the ruin?”
    “I don’t know, exactly.” His frown increased while Alys tried to think. “Ah, ‘twas most likely near midnight when I arrived.”
    Piers blinked. “Midnight. Of …
last night?”
    “Yes, that’s right.”
    “And you ate everything before I arrived?”
    Alys felt her cheeks glowing now. “I was arguing with Sybilla and missed my supper. And I didn’t eat
everything,
as you so crudely put it—I have some dried figs and a pomegranate left.”
    “A
pomegranate?”
    Why did it seem like he was mocking her? “Yes. I’m saving it for Layla. I’ve read that monkeys prefer fruit.”
    “You’ve