Lord Of The Isle
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Captain James Kelly’s mouth twisted cruelly as he straightened. “Save your witch’s curses, and your breath, Lady Morgan. You’ll come with us quietly now. No more of your games and escapades.”
A cold laugh slipped from Morgana’s throat as she brandished her blade. “Don’t count on it.”
“Ah, Morgan, Morgan, don’t tempt me to teach you the lesson I’ve got in mind. Lord Grey cares little about what condition you arrive in when I return you to Dublin.” Kelly wagged his exceedingly dark eyebrows, which stood out in stark contrast against his distinguished head of silver. “Fight me, Morgan O’Malley, and I’ll allow my men to take their pleasure of you, after I’ve taught you a woman’s proper submission to English authority. Now, give me that damned knife. Prove that you’ve had some upbringing, by bending your knee properly to me.”
“I’d kiss the devil’s arse first, you whoreson. We’re in Ulster now. I have it on good authority that the only law here is that enforced by the man called the O’Neill. Begone, John Kelly.”
“Nice try.” He sneered. “But wrong, very, very wrong. There is no man called the O’Neill these days, my dear.”
At Morgana’s look of suspicion, he continued, relishing taunting her in return for her stinging insults. “I personally saw to the destruction of Shane O’Neill several years back. Believe me, clan O’Neill rues the day James Kelly came home to Ireland for good.”
“No.” Morgana shook her head, refusing to believe him.
“Why, my dear Morgan, who do you think it was that severed Shane O’Neill’s head from his body? Or presented it to Lord Grey to display on a stake outside Dublin’s castle walls?”
“Truly—” Morgana shuddered “—I have no interest in knowing the answer to that question.”
“Ah…” Kelly sighed elaborately. “So you would profess no interest in politics beyond the Pale, hmm? But we both know differently, don’t we? I’m the only man alive with the balls to confront an O’Neill. Just as I’m the one who will bring you to heel.” His head twisted on bull-like shoulders, and his eyes beaded inside narrowed lids.
He spun around so quickly for such a big and heavy man that Morgana failed to see the blow coming. His fist struck her in the face, knocking her to the ground. Her head reeled with a vile explosion of pain. Blood filled her nose and mouth.
While she was down, Kelly stamped his left boot at her right arm, trying to kick her knife from her hand.
But she was faster than him, and trained well enough in hand-to-hand combat to wield a knife with either hand. He jumped clumsily back, not quick enough to avoid the cutting path of her blade. She cut his red coat to the hem and gouged a cut in his thigh before he stumbled out of her range. Morgana bounded back to her feet, dazed but in control of her knife.
One of his men came at her from behind. A pair of crushing, heavy arms swept around her waist, dragging her off her feet. That man, too, paid the price of getting too close.
The soldier screamed as he clutched at his face, his eye bloody and bulging from its socket. Kelly kicked at her again. Morgana caught his heel and jerked his foot with all the force she had, toppling him onto his backside in the mud.
“Bitch!” Kelly shouted, grabbing her skirts. “I’ll teach you to raise your filthy Irish hands against an Englishman!”
“Bugger yourself. I’m more English than you’ll ever be. My Norman ancestors conquered Ireland while yours were filthy, naked Celtic peasants rutting in peat bogs.”
“Augh!” Kelly grunted as he got back on his clumsy feet. He charged her like a raging bull, then caught himself up short, dodging another vicious swipe from her dagger. Morgana swept the blade back and forth with both hands, daring any of them to come close again.
Kelly caught the hem of his coat, briefly examining the gash underneath it and the trickle of blood running down to his knee. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that, bitch.”
“Come, you murdering whoreson,” Morgana taunted him. “Come, let my steel kiss you again.”
He motioned to the other men to get closer to her, but none seemed inclined to be cut. The fool who had lost his eye shouted like a castrated bull and charged her. She slapped her wet cloak into his injured face and let him go rushing past. Wet wool shrouded and blinded him as he slipped and crashed to the muddy ground.
Morgana saw her chance to escape then, and bolted for the bridge. She hiked her skirts clear of her strong feet. She slashed the hand of a soldier trying to catch her, and leaped over the man struggling to unwind his head from her cloak.
Despite Morgana’s deep-seated fear of water, she ran for the bridge, praying the water rushing over its sunken planks wasn’t as deep and treacherous as it looked.
At the brink of the raging flood, she choked, unable to plunge into what her mind perceived as certain death—water, deep and bottomlessly malevolent water. Morgana’s terror at being captured by Kelly paled against her fear of drowning.
A third blow drove Morgana to her knees. Kelly hammered the hilt of his drawn sword into her neck. He fell upon her, flattening her, wrenching her blade from her fist.
She fought to breathe, crushed by Kelly’s weight. Cruel fingers dug into her hair, lifting her face from the mud, bending her neck against the agonizing pains still rippling across her shoulders. Astraddle her back, he stuck her own blade against her throat and rubbed the knuckle of his thumb against the soft flesh under her jaw.
His breath fanned her ear as he clucked his tongue. “Now then, my little fighting Amazon, I have you at my mercy.”
A large knuckle raked across the path the blade would take slitting her throat. He thrust his wet tongue inside her ear and ground his hips suggestively across her bottom. His fingers tightened on her hair, pulling harder to make her bow up from the ground. He laughed cruelly as he licked the sensitive flesh behind her ear. Then he slowly brought the point of the blade against her throat and turned it down. The dagger slipped between her breasts, severing the lacing of the embroidered stomacher covering her gown.
Taut linen was no match for well-honed steel. Powerless, Morgana pressed her hands into the mud, arched way back by his painful pull on her hair. She grit her teeth as he cut her gown and kirtle down to where her belly made contact with the earth.
“Well, well, well, boys, look at this,” Kelly called. “Who would think an Amazon would have such big and pretty titties? Look at them well now, my good.men, because they’re going to get all soiled and dirty. Are you listening, Lady Morgan? I’m going to take you first on your face. An animal like you will probably like that.”