Surrender to Me (The Derrings #4)(33)

Griffin’s fingers flexed at his sides. His senses sharpened, twisting, swinging into razor-sharp pinpricks that gathered along his nerve endings. He honed in on his opponent with the alertness of a stalking wolf, the pain in his body disappearing in a heated rush of warrior instinct.

Lachlan moved first, charging Griffin with a roar.

They came together like two angry rams, careening across the room and crashing into a table. Griffin’s head slammed into the hard surface. His vision blurred for a moment, spots dancing before his eyes at the grinding scald of agony where he’d been struck by the rock days ago.

Reaching out, he fumbled along the top of the table, knocking over dishes until his fingers closed around a goblet. He brought it crashing over the Highlander’s head.

Lachlan released him and staggered sideways, clutching a hand over a bloodied face embedded with glinting glass.

Griffin snatched a pewter platter off the table, sending a leg of lamb flying. With a grunt, he smashed the serving dish against the side of Lachlan’s head, throwing him back onto the table.

Griffin raised his leg and positioned his boot dead center in his chest. With a great shove, he launched the other man off the table and across the room.

A hush fell over the hall as Lachlan swayed drunkenly, arms flailing at his sides before dropping with a heavy thud to the floor.

Blood pumped through him, liquid heat in his veins that numbed him to any pain that his body might be feeling. Griffin brushed pieces of shattered crockery from his clothing. His gaze immediately shot to Astrid. She stared at him with wide eyes, coal dark and unreadable in her ashen face.

Chest rising and falling with great drags of breath, he faced the old man, a despot overlooking his domain. At the moment, his expression looked almost comical with shock.

“I would like food and a bed,” he announced.

The old man snapped his gaping mouth shut and looked from the unmoving Lachlan to him. Clearing his throat, he replied, “Of course.”

Griffin’s gaze moved back to Astrid, her lovely face etched in stone. “And my woman,” he added, hoping to provoke her, to see some change in her calm demeanor.

She stiffened where she sat and that chin of hers went up.

He quirked a brow at her, daring her to object. With the hum of battle still whistling through him like a hot wind, his patience had reached its end.

The need to possess, to dominate, thrummed through him, as blistering and swift as the blood quickening in his veins. He stared at her, ready to claim her in the truest sense.

He watched her mouth open, saw her lips move, her head begin to shake side to side.

Unbelievably, she intended to speak, to refute him. After he had just fought to save her from becoming some Highlander’s plaything. She still could not look at him with gratitude. Could not hold her tongue. The woman possessed the sense of a pea. Instead of biting her tongue and simply feigning submission until they managed to escape their audience, she had to show her shrewish nature and force his hand.

His hands clenched at his sides.

“I’m no man’s—”

“Enough!” he roared, satisfied to see her eyes widen at his shout. Emotion from her. Finally. It would not be the last, he vowed. Before this night was finished, he would have more than emotion out of her. He would have it all—nothing less than her total surrender.

Griffin’s vision blurred in a red haze of fury…and something else. Something wild, savage, and hungry.

A hushed silence fell over the hall. He uncurled his fists and took several halting steps toward the table where she sat, watching him with large eyes.

The laird watched him, too, his eyes measuring, assessing, waiting to see if Griffin was the kind of man to let his woman set the rules. He didn’t need to glance around the hall to know that everyone else watched him, too.

Seeing no choice in the matter—these Scotsmen would expect him to teach her proper deference, especially after waging a fight for the right to claim her—he strode forward and pulled her from her chair.

“Woman,” he ground out, the word a scathing drip from his tongue. “I believe it’s time to show you who is master.”

A rumble of agreement broke out in the hall and Griffin knew he had said the proper thing in the eyes of these Highlanders. Crucial if they were to walk away from here.

Astrid’s dark eyes narrowed and flitted about the hall, a hare snared in the watchful gazes of a hungry pack of dogs. He knew she resented their murmurs of accord. Stiffening, she pulled herself to her full height, reminding him every bit of the haughty duchess despite her bedraggled appearance.

Her gaze moved back to his face. “My name is Astrid,” she hissed. “And you’re not my master.”

His anger flared hotter yet at her words. Damn little fool, she didn’t know when to quit.

With a sigh, he bent and tossed her over his shoulder.

He braced himself, expecting her shouts and struggles. Instead she stiffened, rigid as stone over his shoulder.

The hall burst into loud applause and feet stomping.

“Teach her a lesson she won’t forget,” a serving girl shouted.

“Aye, silence that mouth of hers!”

“Ride her good for me!” one of the men shouted crudely.

“Aye, no sparing the rod for that one!”

Loud laughter followed that ribald suggestion. A quiver of indignation coursed her rigid body, passing through her slight frame and into him.