Page 34 of The Stag & The Owl
Etain came up to her stall’s gate andwhinnied and Alina stroked the elegant mare’s forehead.“You’resuch a beauty, my faerie girl.I wish I could take you when I gohome.”
“You’re not going home, you Northern bitch,”Leif said from the open doorway.“You’re not going anywhere, otherthan on your back, knees up.”
He closed the door behind him, blocking herway out, his intent as clear on his face as his words had been.Alina glanced around, frantically searching for something,anything, to use as a weapon.She grabbed a bucket of oats andswung it at him as he closed in on her.
“This is going to be fun,” he said, jumpingback as she swung the bucket again.
Still swinging, Alina backed up to thebrooding stall, where she spied the mucking rake leaning againstthe inside wall.Grabbing the bucket with both hands, she swung itwith all her might and heaved it at Leif’s head, throwing the pen’sgate open as he ducked.Slamming the gate shut behind her, shegrabbed for the rake.Leif vaulted over the gate and landed on topof her, crushing her to the ground with his weight as Ash andSmokey bolted to the far corner of the pen, bleating andwhinnying.
“You can’t get away from me, Princess,” Leifrasped as Alina clawed at the ground, trying desperately to gainsome traction.He sat on her back and grabbed her wrists, pinningthem to the ground.“You may as well give up and give in.Whoknows, you might even like it.”He flipped her over onto her backand sat pelvis to pelvis on her, holding her wrists above her headand grinning salaciously at her breasts as she squirmed beneathhim.“That a girl,” he said with a lecherous grin, his breathreeking of beer.“Keep moving like that for me.”
Alina froze.She was hopelessly, helplesslyoutweighed and outmuscled.She had to think, and think fast.Shewiggled a little beneath him and smiled as suggestively as possiblewithout spewing bile.
“That a girl,” he said roughly.“That’s how Ilike it.”Holding her wrists with one hand, he groped her breastwith his other, mauling and pinching her flesh.He leaned down andbit her on the shoulder and Alina bucked up against him.“Oh yeah,”he groaned into her neck.“Do that again.”
Twisting her head toward his, Alina took holdof his earlobe with her teeth and clamped down, hard.
“You bitch.”Leif jerked his head back,leaving the tip of his lobe in Alina’s bloody mouth.“You fuckingwhore.”He slapped her across the cheek, knocking the piece of hisear from her mouth.Repositioning his hold of her wrists, he sat upand thrust a knee into her belly, settling all his weight onit.
Her vision hazy, Alina grunted and groanedand fought for enough air to breathe, much less scream, as heuntied the stays to his breeches and freed his engorged cock.Alinagasped for air and sanity as he lifted his knee from her belly andstraddled her, his cock waving in the air as he pulled her skirt upher legs.
She screamed what little air she’d managed tosuck into her lungs out.
***
Roark jumped off Artur and hit the groundrunning, throwing the stable door open and following the echo ofAlina’s scream to the brooding pen, the sight of Leif pinning herdown, shoving a knee between her exposed legs, sending him into amurderous rage.
“Get off her, you son of a bitch,” Roarkroared as he jumped over the gate, grabbed Leif by the hair, andyanked his head back.He slammed his fist into Leif’s nose,growling with satisfaction at the crunch of cartilage beneath hisknuckles.
“Wha da fug,” Leif yelled as he pinched hisnostrils to stop the gush of blood.
“What the fuck?”Roark thundered back,followed by his right fist into Leif’s jaw.“You’re trying to rapeher,” he raged, throwing his left fist into the other side ofLeif’s jaw.“Her,” he growled, throwing an uppercut to Leif’s chin,his rage barely abating as Leif slumped back on his knees, his faceslack, his flaccid cock sagging against his thigh.“And you ask mewhat the fuck?”
Grabbing the unconscious sack of shit by histunic, he dragged him off Alina, who lay shaking on the ground, hereyes wild and unfocused.Slamming the back of Leif’s head on theground for good measure, Roark knelt beside her and scooped herinto his arms, holding her tight and whispering into her ear.“It’sall right, Ali.You’re safe now.I have you.I have you, Aligirl.”
She leaned back in his arms, her gaze slowlyfocusing on his.“Roark?”she whispered hoarsely.
“Aye, my lady owl.I have you.Leif can’thurt you anymore.”
She turned her head and eyed the pulpy massof Leif’s face with a shudder, licked the blood on her lips, andthrew her arms around Roark’s neck.“Thank you,” she rasped asanother shudder racked her.“Thank you for being here, forstopping…”
“Shhh.”Roark stroked her hair and held herclose.“It’s all right now.Everything’s all right.”
“No.”She rolled her forehead against hisshoulder.“No, it’s not.”She lifted her head and met his worriedgaze.“I have to leave here.Now.”
She dropped her arms from around him andtried to stand, but only made it to her knees.Roark stood andpulled her up with him.“You’re right,” he said, supporting her bythe elbows as she grasped his upper arms.“You do need to leavehere, now.We both do.”
“But—”
“I’m not letting you go alone.”
They gagged the still-unconscious Leif andtied him to a gate post, leaving his breeches open and his cockflagging.Bruised and bloody, his nose broken and the tip of hisear missing, he’d have a lot of explaining to do.Roark would betcoin on him lying about who attacked who, and why.
“I should slit his throat and be done withthe cur,” he said, giving Leif’s leg a kick.
“No,” Alina told him.“Helping me escape isone thing.Killing Leif would be another altogether.They’d hangyou for his murder.”
She was right.Yet it didn’t mean Roark likedletting the rapist bastard live.“What if I cut his stonesoff?”
