Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?
In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.
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Read Chapter One
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She smiled, and he could see her smile. “Magnus.” She stroked his hair. In this kind semi-dark, oily blackness, he could feel whole again, and then, as she skimmed herself on top of him, he recognized that she made him whole. They could be in bright summer sun in an Eastern pleasure garden and he would feel needed, handsome, desired.
She truly wanted him, he thought in wonder, as she undid his tunic and fumbled with his belt, whispering, “Let me, let me, you are so big, my lovely troll...”
She kissed him on his mouth, jaw, chin, throat, and chest, light, swift embraces that poured heat and honey into him. Her hands trailed up his arms and legs, down his flanks and across his belly.
She was shy and bold together. “Do I do right?” she whispered, and he nodded and caressed her in return, delighting in her sleek, lithe shape, though all too soon, she lifted his hand away.
“Do I do right?” she asked again. “Only, I have not, not...” she paused as if seeking words, and he understood at once.
His bold, shy, loving little witch was a virgin.
And she chose me.
The brutish part of him wanted to holler her name to the rafters and make her his at once, but Elfrida needed more than that, far more. Her first time, he thought tenderly, shaken out of any doubts of her wanting him by her own brave, sweet admission.
“Never fret, my sweet, we shall do well together.” He slowed his caresses, wanting her to delight in them and to take only pleasure, never pain or fear, from their union.
“You are too sweet in your favors,” she breathed as he touched her. “You make me forget and stop—Magnus!”
She shuddered above him as he lightly tongued her breasts, her head falling back as she surrendered to the moment.
His desire was strong, but he told himself to forget it. He knew Denzil was out there in the hall, prying and spying, even if he had a girl of his own, but told himself to forget that, too.
Love Elfrida as she deserves to be loved.
Feeling took the place of thought. He gathered his witch-lass close and turned her to her side, shielding her from greedy eyes with his own rough body.
He nuzzled her breasts and settled her in the crook of his arm, running his fingers slowly down the smooth links of her spine. He heard her swallow and felt about for his flagon, offering it to her.
She gulped a draft and spluttered thanks in her own dialect, her voice strangled into a gasp as he dripped the mead onto her nipples and tenderly licked it off her. She raked at her clothes and his, endearingly clumsy in her need, slipping her hands into the revealed gaps in his tunic and braies to touch and caress him. By the single torchlight he saw her eyes, wide with looking—she could not see enough of him. And she kissed his arms and legs, once even his peg leg, and flicked her hair teasingly across his loins, too diffident to caress him intimately, without invitation.
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