Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Author:Cate Tiernan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780316122337
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2010-09-27T23:17:21+00:00

With my next breath, I was inside a small cottage. The walls were made of smoke-blackened boards; the roof beams were carved and painted. Outside I heard screaming, the thundering of horses’ hooves, men shouting. Oh, God, oh, God, I thought wildly. My heart was pounding out of my chest; my breath was caught in my throat. I’d done all I could—there was no preparing for something like this. With a shaking hand, I pinched out the single candle—perhaps the cottage would look empty—and crawled behind the straw-tick bed.

The door crashed open. The screams of pain and panic grew louder. I could hear the horses as they squelched through the icy mud outside. Harsh voices. A man strode through the door, stood inside the cottage, looked around. His long gold hair was caught back in braids and spattered with blood, and drying blood arced across his chain mail. He headed for the hearth with its hanging pot, but the pot was empty, and he threw it across the room with a roar. The pot that I could barely lift myself. Our tankards were empty, and there was only a crust of old bread. In a fury, the marauder kicked over the small table and smashed a chair against the chimney, shattering it.

We’d heard of them, of course, the raiders from the north—every village had horror stories. But no one thought they’d cross the steppes in winter; it would be a death march. We’d been wrong.

The man swung to leave, but something stopped him, a small sound. He spun on his heel, hard eyes raking the darkened room. The chaos outside seemed to dim as I held my breath.

He found me in the next second and hauled me up by one arm. He could kill me if he lopped off my head and sent it flying—but he could also come up with many situations that would have me begging for death, praying for death, knowing my prayers were falling on a deaf God’s ears.

He roared again, like an animal, and threw me across the bed. He was easily twice my size, covered with the stench of war—blood, sweat, other men’s fear—and I covered my face with my hands as he snarled and yanked up my skirt, my tattered underskirt. Just get me through this, get me through this, I repeated over and over in my mind.

He grabbed the front of his pants, and then a small sound again drew his attention. Pinning me down with one hand, he skimmed the room again. We both heard it: a baby’s cry. I grabbed his arm as he headed for the noise, trying to remember any barbarian words I’d ever heard. Leaping after him, I grabbed his arm again, and he shook me off as if I were an autumn leaf.

With his mud- and blood-caked boot, he kicked aside the old washtub I’d leaned in the corner. And found my son.

He looked from me to my son, barely three months old, and his eyes narrowed.

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