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Yes, she must focus on her getaway.  At the very least it would
distract her from the feel of his hard, warm body behind her.  She tried to
form a brilliant plan whilst listening to the rolling, content sound he made. 
It reminded her of an approaching sea storm, the heavy and expectant stillness
in the air broken by a distant rumble.  She had never slept so well as in a
thunderstorm.
    ***
    Connor always thought that women
talked too much.  It seemed they were bred with the need to discuss their every
thought, desire, action and emotion.  In the past, he found it irritating and
would make a hasty escape when a gaggle of twittering ladies would cross his
path.  Now he’d give anything for a word from the lass who currently rode
secured between his thighs.  But, she’d clenched her pretty lips and refused to
speak to him all morning.
    He’d never been more disconcerted
then the moment he’d awoken in the cave, her sleeping form curled against him. 
His blood had pulsed with awareness, with need.  As had other parts of him. 
Though what astounded him most was the comforting familiarity of her proximity
to him.  He’d never be able to sleep again.  Not without her beside him.
    Dammit.
    “We’re close to Castle Lachlan.”  He
gestured to the top of the gentle emerald hill they climbed.  “It’s just over
that rise.”
    “What are you going to do with me
once we arrive?  Lock me in the tower until our wedding day?”  Aye, her voice
lashed with barbs, but at least she was speaking to him.
    “Nay,” he answered carefully,
unsure of whether he headed into a trap of feminine designs.  “Ye’ll be allowed
free range of the castle and the MacLauchlan grounds.  My clan will welcome ye
as one of their own.”
    “Really?  Do they extend that
courtesy to all the women whom you’ve captured and nearly raped, or do I get a
special honor because you’ve arbitrarily decided to make me your demon bride?”
    Her words should have angered him,
but Connor felt startled amusement.  A bark of laughter escaped him at the same
time his blood heated at the memory of her responsive body in the mist. 
    “How many times do I have to tell ye
that I’m not a demon?”
    “Until Lucifer, himself, verifies
the claim.” She gave a saucy flick of her hair.  “Or, until you tell me what
you really are.” 
    “I’m a Berserker.”
    “A Berserk—no, those are stories
told by ancient bards and fishwives.  There are no such things.  Besides,
Berserkers have to kill anything they come across, and you let me live.”
    “That I did.”  He smiled, if a bit
smugly, very glad, indeed, that she lived.  “’Tis why I have to marry ye.  And,
ye werena almost raped.  Ye desired me in that coach.”
    She twisted in the saddle to pin
him with an incredulous glare.  “You’re really so self-important to think I wanted that?  You, sir, are sorely mistaken.”
    Of this, he could be certain. 
“Aye, lass, ye wanted it.  For, a Berserker canna bring harm to his mate, he
canna lay claim to her body unless she wants him to.”  He understood this
painful fact all too well.
     

Chapter
Eight
     
    “Connor Douglas Gerard MacLaughlan!” 
    Lindsay watched with astounded
fascination as a wide-eyed Evelyn MacLauchlan dropped her bandaged wrists and
charged her captor with the incensed fury of a mother bear.  “ You.  Tied. 
Her.  Up? ”  She punctuated each word with a sharp swat on the arm with a
wooden spoon she’d swiped from her apothecary table. 
    “Wha—she was goin’ta get away.”  He
ducked her barrage, attempting an unsuccessful retreat around the large, round
table. 
    So, his name was Connor.  Lindsay
never thought to ask.  A name made him seem more real, somehow.  More—human.  It
was a good name, too.  Fitting, somehow, to the brutal handsome face.
    “Out!”  The woman pointed to the
doorway, currently filled with the bulk of her husband, Roderick. 
    Connor rubbed at his abused