Unwilling (Highland Historical #2)

the door exploded open.  To her utter surprise, the scrawny
soldier lunged in.  His wild eyes bulged from a face drenched in blood.  His
horrific mouth opened in a primal scream of terror. 
    “It’s the very reaper come for our
souls!” he wailed, gripping at her skirts with his dirty hands.  “We’re damned
for our crimes!”
    “What do you mea—” Lindsay’s very
breath abandoned her when she saw him framed in the door. 
    When priests read the bible at Mass,
they would tell that Lucifer was once the fairest and most beautiful of all the
angels.  They would say not all his minions looked like satyrs and fiends. 
Some of them, the most dangerous of them, bore the visage of pure temptation. 
They were fallen Seraphim and Incubus.  You would worship them and beg for
pleasure as they dragged you to hell.  You would writhe in ecstasy as they
damned your soul. 
    He was surely such a
creature. 
    Though he had the body of a man, it
was like no man she’d ever seen.  A veritable leviathan, he had to turn his
immense shoulders to fit through the door.  He’d been the monstrous black shadow
she’d seen in the fog.  Everything about the man was black.  His armor, his
shorn hair.
    His eyes. 
    Lindsay cringed from him with a
horrified grasp.  Where his eyes were supposed to be, an abysmal miasma of darkness
swirled about like the fog.  The mist followed him in, and she absolutely
believed he’d been the one to conjure it. 
    In one silent and fluid motion, he
raised his broadsword and brought it down upon the scrawny highlander at the
very place where his neck met his shoulder.  The sword didn’t embed in the man.
It cleaved him in two, covering Lindsay in a warm spray of blood.  Then, he
grabbed the pieces of the dead man and hurled them out of the cabin.
    She screamed then—dignity be
damned—but regretted it instantly.  She’d drawn the creature’s notice. 
    Once, she’d watched a man on his
death march to the gallows.  His feet planted and his eyes had pleaded into
everyone’s they met.  It was as though he couldn’t believe there was no mercy
left in anyone’s heart for him.  No compassion.  That his life meant so little
and everyone would just go about their business after he was gone.  The moment
he accepted this, realized his insignificance in the wide world, had been
painfully apparent.  His shoulders had slumped, his eyes dulled, and he’d
merely trembled as the soldiers dragged him to his fate.
    Lindsay had never forgotten that
man.  And in this moment, she understood exactly how he’d felt.  She’d remembered him always.  Perhaps because maybe no one else would.  And she
thought of him now, as the beautiful monstrosity before her let a primal roar
and his sword arced toward her trembling body.

Chapter
Three
     
    The slice through the front of her
didn’t cause any pain.  The terrible sound of her kirtle and shift flaying open
reached her ears and she wondered if flesh didn’t sound the same.  Perhaps
shock delayed the pain?  Or, if your organs were spilling out of you, you
didn’t feel them anymore? 
    That would be a mercy, at least.
    Lindsay couldn’t bring herself to
look down at the damage.  So, she glared at the demon, feeling her chest still
rise and fall in rapid succession.  It was getting harder to breathe.  A
band encircled her lungs, threatening to stop their movement altogether.  This
could be the end.
    He blinked those soulless, onyx
eyes at her and cocked his head to the side.  Funny, he resembled a bewildered
dog when he did that.  More like a hell hound.  A half-hearted growl emitted
from his throat as he stalked closer.
    Oh God.   She cringed.  At
least it would be over soon.  There was nothing more he could do to her now. 
She would bleed out any minute. 
    His sword clattered to the floor. 
His breath came in deep pants, flaring his nostrils with every exhale.  No
threats uttered from him as he bent over her.  A deep rumble built from low in
his chest and gained strength as their eyes locked.
    Lindsay stared into the abyss,
quite transfixed.  The strange, ticking rumble reminded her of the purr of a
cat.  Louder, deeper, but somehow just as satisfying.  She closed her eyes.  If
this was going to be the last sound she heard on this earth, she’d pretend it
transmitted from some other source to lull her to the afterlife.
    The devil was moving, but she
didn’t open her eyes to see what he was about.  Perhaps he was