CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
P aige tossed all night long.
Even with the bed being one of the most comfortable she had ever touched and the window open to allow a breeze in to cool the room—she was uneasy.
Her mind would not settle despite how weary she was both physically and emotionally. She wished she could go back in time and stop herself from approaching Norah and telling her about her almost abduction.
Her mind kept replaying the events of the previous day. Her helpful impulse, her protective moment—and the way Norah had splintered apart. More than twice she had woken up in the dead of night, frantic to reach out and help, but Norah was not there.
“I cannae help her now,” she rubbed at sleepy eyes. “I hope the healers will let me come by on the morrow. I have a lot to apologize for, to her and Ruben.”
By the third time she woke from a fright, she sat up in bed and hugged her knees to her chest. Watching for daylight was a slow and steady trickle of time that made her drowsy. Eventually, she sunk back to sleep and did not wake again until almost noon.
After a bath and a meal, she asked Maisie. “Do ye ken where is his lairdship is at the moment?”
“If he stays true to pattern, I think he will be in the trainin’ grounds, while most of the men are out in the wilderness trainin’ .”
“Thank ye.” Paige left for the training field and found Ruben there, training by himself.
This time, she approached with caution and called out for Ruben, announcing her arrival. After a moment, he sheathed the sword then came forward.
“What are ye doin’ here?” he asked, his tone flat and his eyes guarded.
The apology was on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it back. “Ye said ye would teach me how to defend meself usin’ daggers—” her lashes swept up. “I wanted to ken if ye would like to start now?”
Instead of replying right away, Ruben gazed at her. Paige remembered the moment when she had first seen him as he entered the room where they were to be married.
He had seemed like such a hulking figure, his face a slab of stone, his eyes harder than obsidian and soulless. Now, she realized it was not a beast but a red-blooded, passionate man who took her breath away. That was a side of him that she believed he only showed to her.
He looked over his shoulder. The sweat from his exercise made his hair cling to his neck and her fingertips itched to lift it away. “Yer cousin hasnae made the daggers for ye yet so ye’ll have to use some of mine. Come with me.”
Ruben led her to what she could only assume was a weapons shed and there, he pulled out what looked like a scarecrow. The shirt and breeches were stuffed with straw, and he drove the scarecrow’s pointed pole into the ground.
“We use these to train the archers when they move from circular targets,” he said.
After another dip into the shed, he took out two daggers and handed her one.
“Imagine this is a man who is tryin’ to grab ye,” Ruben said while working a circle around her. “How many places on this body do ye think ye can stab to disable him?”
Observing the dummy, Paige said. “His heart… and his neck?”
“The obvious answers,” he said, while slapping the torso with his dagger. “In the upper body, male or woman, there are eleven places ye can stab to make sure the person is incapacitated enough for ye ta have a good chance to flee.”
“The side of the neck and throat are just about even with the Adam’s apple. It has a main artery and the jugular. If either is cut the attacker will bleed to death very rapidly—” he placed the point of his dagger to a point where the shoulder met the arm.
“Here, a powerful cut to the outer side of this muscle can potentially sever another vein which will bleed him dry.”
He told her more places, the inside of the elbow joint, the horizontal cut across the neck and even a powerful vertical slash, leading to the penetration of the abdominal wall will result in loss of motion, and possible disembowelment.
“Here too,” he said, pointing to right in the underarm. “The artery runs along the inside of your arms. It’s deep but severin’ it will have him groggy in a few moments and dead a few after that.”
Paige swallowed. “These…these sound like huntin’ techniques.”
“Some of them are,” he said. “If ye slit the throat of any livin’ thing, they will die but if ye cannae, these techniques are yer best bet. Now—” he took her hand and firmed her grip over the dagger. “Strike.”
When she did, Ruben grunted. “Lass, are ye tryin’ to escape death or are ye tryin’ to irritate the captor for him to kill ye? Strike it like ye mean it because with some men, ye only get one chance to survive. Again!”
Gripping the blade, she struck the points he ordered to, memorizing half of them as she went.
Here and there, Ruben would grab her hand to fix her grip or turn her hips for a better stance.
Even though his touch was cursory, his warm grip and rough fingers, coasting over her neck and hands, made her shiver.
By the end of her training session with the makeshift man, the scarecrow looked like a pincushion.
“In yer spare time, ye will practice with this scarecrow,” Ruben ordered her. “Ye did fine for now, but I think at one point I’ll have ye train with one of me men.”
A brisk wind rustled the trees around them when Ruben said, “I need to teach ye more than how to use daggers.” He circled her again; a dark emotion flickered in his eyes. “Suppose ye have nay weapons with ye and someone is attackin’ ye, what will ye do?”
“I’d scream for help,” she answered promptly.
“What if there is nay one to hear ye?” Ruben demanded.
“I’d…” she paused. “…look for any weapon around, a rock maybe, even a branch.”
“And what if—” in a flash Ruben wrapped his arms around her, and Paige found herself caged, her back against his hard chest, his arm hooked around her waist and neck. “—he held ye this way, blockin’ ye from runnin’ and screamin’?”
Instinctively, she tried to get away, twisting in his arms and hooking her hands around his arm, trying to pull him away. He would not budge, and a streak of panic began to set in. It was trying to pry a strip of iron free from a stone wall—impossible.
Trapped by his greater strength, she could do nothing but try to wiggle away, which gained her nowhere. “First lesson of defense, ye cannae fight an attacker by tryin’ to match strength for strength.
“The chances are the man is going to be stronger than ye and ye tryin’ to match him in brute strength will only waste yers. Ye have to be smarter about it.”
Ruben’s hot breath coasted over the sensitive curve of her ear, and despite the situation, sensual awareness shivered over her. Or perhaps—because of it.
“Keep strugglin’ against me and see how fast yer strength wanes,” he told her. “Go on, struggle.”
Doing as he said, she did struggle but soon she found Ruben’s words to be true. The more she struggled, the more her strength drained from her. Tired, she sagged against Ruben, her bosom raising and falling with her frantic pants.
“And ye can still nae move me arm, can ye?”
Paige shook her head. “Nay.”
“Which leads to what ye need to do when ye cannae outmatch his strength, ye need to use his weak points to yer advantage,” he said.
Moving his arm from around her neck, he slid his hand down to her arm. His rough touch made her skin pebble with gooseflesh.
He bowed her arm and cocked her elbow, “Bring yer left elbow up as back as hard as ye can straight into his face or into his belly,” Ruben said, “If ye reach his face, it will take him by surprise and if ye get to his belly, if will make him double over. Now, try it.”
Paige was briefly distracted by his touch and the closeness of his body to her before she responded. “Are ye sure? W—won’t I hurt ye?”
Ruben snorted, “I am a battle honed warrior, lass. As ye are now, nothin’ ye can do will hurt me.”
She swallowed and flung her elbow up again and jabbed it into his jaw, and to her surprise, Ruben hissed. “Do ye have blades in yer elbows, lass? That one is sharp,” he teased her.
“I take it that is a good thing,” Paige replied before slamming her elbow into his gut.
She did not get a reaction from him, but he did grunt in approval.
“That’s good. Now, the next thing ye need to do is quick succession with striking his face and his gut is to stomp yer heel into his foot and grind it in.
That way, ye’ll maximize his pain and throw him off beat enough that ye can run away. ”
Paige attempted to do it twice before he egged her on to put more force into her stomp. “Think about the man who grabbed ye and almost shoved ye over that horse. Would ye be so delicate with him?”
A fire flared in her belly and recalling the fright and fear of that moment, she lifted her arm, snapped into Ruben’s middle. She lifted her leg and stomped hard, forcing him to stagger away.
“That what I am taking about,” Ruben’s approval made her heart warm. “Now that ye are away from him, ye have two choices, ye can run and flee or ye can stay and fight.”
“With the daggers?”
“Aye,” he said. “And ye have an opportunity to disable yer attacked even more. Ye should knee him in the groin.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What? Ye cannae be serious.”
“I am as serious as death,” he said.
Paige’s mind spun at his words. It went against every ladylike behavior that she’d ever been taught. But then, what was more important? Being ladylike or surviving an enemy attack?
“Ye can run or spin around and knee him in the groin.”
Paige reviewed the steps in her head. “It seems simple enough.”
“Try it.”
“But I daenae want to hurt ye,” she protested.
Ruben rolled his eye and before she could respond, both his arms slid under hers and he dragged her back, almost lifting her in the air as well.
In a swift movement, she brought her elbow down instead of up against his face and jabbed it into his middle just as she stomped on his foot with all her might.
His grip loosened enough for her to whirl around, snap her knee into his groin. Quickly, he deflected her attack with both his hand and stood facing each other, both panting with the sudden rush.
“I am glad that ye are a quick study,” he said while rubbing his belly.
His praise made her feel amazingly strong and powerful. “Show me more,” she said.
“Just when I though ye would beg off to go and rest. I am so glad ye asked,” he said. “Now ye’re being a responsible woman.”
Through the next few hours, he took her down a list of defensive exercises that showed her how to not only defend against an attacker’s strength but how to use it against him.
Even though I am smaller and softer, with the right leverage and maneuvers, I can defend meself against a larger, stronger opponent.
As the sun began to dip Ruben came at her, she ducked and instead of using her elbow as he’d taught her. Confidently, she tried to kick his knee out from under him as she had managed to best him three times before—but he jumped over her strike and caught her.
“Here’s a final lesson, lass.” His lips pressed against her left ear. “Being overconfident can backfire on ye. Ye may give yer attacker a way in and land ye in trouble.”
“Trouble?” she squawked, “Like wh?—?”
Ruben threw her over his shoulder and while the world spun for her, she was barely able to orient herself when he dropped her on her feet again.
Paige found herself against a wall, her hands pinned above her head, Ruben’s muscled length crushing her into the hard wall.
She stared dazedly up into his face. “What are ye?—"
As the blood rushed from her head, she became aware of the heavy weight of his manhood against her thigh… and the sudden spike of heat rushing beneath the surface of her own skin.
As his eyes raked her body in a prosperity sweep, his voice was little more than a growl. “Ye’re a temptation.”
The heat of his gaze made her skin prickle and flush. His nostrils flared. “And I have ye right where I want ye.”
“Is that so?” Paige whispered, as she twisted her wrists.
With her hands trapped above her head, she could not use them to touch him. So instead of trying, she allowed her body to go lax beneath his hold, welcoming his weight, cradling his body with hers.
His response to her surrender was instant: the dark pupils were enlarged, his length a thick iron bar pressing through the layers of her skirts. “Daenae ye move,” he said. “Keep yer hands where they are.”
She stilled, the erotic command in his tone causing her temperature to soar.
“What are ye going to do with me?” she whispered.