Page 2 of Hunted by the Headless Horseman (Roars and Romances #5)

HORSEMAN

She’s growing colder.

The air around my home is bitter and chilled from the ghosts haunting it and the corpses buried on its land. My long-lost home is a grim reminder of the bloodshed and death defining my last days walking this earth as a whole man. The air is oppressive with the energies of the dead.

Emerging before me, the manor stands as a haunting relic of a past I can scarcely remember but feel intimately. While I cannot exactly see my former home, I know every stone, every clump of ivy, every shattered window. It is a permanent etching in the forefront of my mind. Anything more, I sense.

I must make haste. I do not know why she collapsed—whether from fatigue, fear, or the touch of some residual curse. The last thing I want is to believe I’ve frightened my summoner to death.

Darkness and decay shroud the grand estate, once a symbol of my triumphs and joys. The crumbling columns and roots growing like a thousand claws whisper of a time long gone—a time when my family and I were whole. If I could feel my heart, it would ache with the weight of those memories.

But I have hope, so long as my summoner’s heart still beats. Unlike mine.

Revy shakes her mane, chomping at the bit as I pull back on her reins, coming to a stop. Much like myself, my horse doesn’t rely on the visceral world for her sustenance. She will tread upon the manor grounds, forbidden to stray without me as dictated by the origins of the soothsayer’s curse—a curse for which I begged.

My arms are honed and strong from years of riding and training to fight in all forms, from brawling to fencing. So, I lift my summoner’s form with ease. Her thick waves are sodden and soiled from her fall, and they weigh down her head, causing it to tumble across my arm, granting me the touch of the curvature of her throat.

Her heartbeat is still steady, conveying she is unconscious but unharmed.

I feel the cold, dampness of her clothes as if they are my own. Every movement is an exercise in restraint, a careful dance between the need to offer comfort and the desire burning in my blood. My able fingers, which once knew the warmth of a fire and the texture of silk, now tremble slightly as they roam the muddy fabric clinging to her.

It’s the first time I’ve felt a woman’s flesh since my blessed wife.

Years of neglect and memories linger in every corner of the house. The scent of decay, old wood, and must fills the air. And forgotten lives. Breath is not necessary for me, but I still taste dust, ancient and persistent. It seems to settle in my very bones.

I have the barest traces of senses. But for once in all my years since the curse, those senses seem stronger—all because of the sweet, daring soul in my arms.

Dry leaves crackle beneath my boots, stirring up silent clouds of soil and dust like ghostly apparitions. My boots echo off the walls of the forgotten remnants of my home. The house seems to breathe, a living entity shaped by the curse that binds me to this place.

I can almost hear the faint voice of my wife, the smoky, low notes singing to our children by the fireplace.

Or the laughter of my daughter as she searches for her little brother until his giggles give away his hiding place.

I remember their glee and mirth whenever I returned from a journey.

A deep pain knifes through my chest at the memory of their little bodies clinging to my legs and begging to know what I brought them. Their pleading eyes at night undid me, begging me to share another story of my travels.

I remember my wife’s tender hands as she undressed my weathered clothes, her fingers curving along my rough hands, rugged jaw, and stalwart arms that would bear her into the bath with me.

The scent of her rose oil soap as she washed me, patient in her torment of my staff, starved for her.

Her ripe body beneath mine as I possessed her on our bed, gripping one thick thigh, and kissing the beautiful marks from her carrying our children before I drove my member into the depths of her wet heat.

Restless spirits haunt these halls. Their cold presence presses in on me, a constant reminder of my eternal curse and the lives lost.

With the unconscious girl in my arms, I ascend with purpose, each step a reminder of my undying existence and the weight of the centuries that have passed.

In the master room belonging to my wife and me, I take a blanket from the bed frame and place it on the bed before resting her on the wool. Removing her clothes is a labor of love, but also of grief. Despair wars with the hope in my chest. Hope is everlasting, but delicate and dangerous. I’ve failed too many times to hope.

Each article of clothing that falls away is like another layer of the life I lost. I sense the shivering chill permeating her body, the dampness seeping into her skin. A strange protectiveness consumes me. I won’t allow something as trite as a cold to harm my summoner.

So, with the tenderest of care, I peel away the clothes, intrigued by the scarce amount of her undergarments. According to the supernatural state of the curse, I maintain a thin amount of knowledge of the era in which I exist. It does not translate to the nature of a woman’s clothing, much less the flimsy fabric I unhook from her breasts.

I touch her pulse, confirming its steady throb. Thankfully, she does not wake, or this would be much more uncouth. Not that I would have any trouble subduing her.

Before my wedding, I spent many years in taverns and call houses under women’s skirts, learning as much as taking. Never in our years did my wife not scream and cry in the throes of bliss when I bedded her.

Fucking is the current preferred word.

Needing to protect the girl from the elements, I carry her into the bathroom and turn the knob, prompting warm water into the claw-foot tub.

According to the nature of the curse, some things remain suspended in time, such as food and water. It mocks my inability to enjoy its sustenance, denying me the normal pleasures of life, yet forcing me to maintain a semblance of it in my eternal existence. The magic offers the promise of how I could, but it is ever out of reach. Hopeless. Until now…

The marble tub is a relic of my past comforts. As I lower her into the bath, my blood quickens, my senses a battle of relief and sorrow. The contrast between the warmth of the water and the cold of the night is nothing compared to the soft skin and heated flesh of the young woman in my arms.

Both sorrow and affection fill my hands as I wash her, stroking the rose oil soap into a healthy lather, beginning with her hair. By God, her hair is long, thick, and full—an abundance of curls. I’ve never felt such profound curls, not simply waves. What color are they? Blonde as silver or gold? Dark as a midnight raven? Or a rich, blood-red?

This small, intimate gesture of cleansing her of the dirt and grime bridges the chasm between my tortured existence and the past life I tried so hard to protect. And failed. My family paid the price for my crimes.

The affliction and woe in my soul fade for the first time as I caress her with the soap, memorizing the lines, cheekbones, and contours of her face. I do not need to see her to know she is lovely. Full lips, sensual as the bow of Cupid. Skin as soft as cream. Is she pale? Golden? Bronze? Or dark as an autumn night?

How I would love to know and pray she will tell me.

I am grateful she does not wake as this process is beyond the definition of uncivilized. Conflict wars within me at the impropriety of this act, but I’ll not allow the first being in centuries, who has summoned me from my endless torment, to succumb to frostbite.

In any case, it was the knavish rogue in me that wooed my wife to a courtship, then an engagement, and at last…to my bed. What little romance I have learned of the era in which I now exist is a strange juxtaposition. As if the traditional gestures of flowers and gallantry are still in want, but more secretly or not so secretly, cater to the darker nature of the heart and soul and the wanton desires of the flesh.

Regardless, I know how to capture a woman in more ways than one, how to possess her, and conquer her. I wonder what desires this daring girl has. The latter or the former.

I feel a profound connection with her, though I cannot see her face. Her presence is a beacon of warmth in my eternal bitterness.

I draw a solitary finger along the delicate curvature of her throat, admiring her bone structure. I continue, slowly roaming the soap bar lower and lower and—bloody Christ! My hand freezes upon her breast. I hadn’t…When I cut her undergarments away, I hadn’t, but now—holy bleeding ghosts!

The bar slips from my hand into the water.

“Confound it all…”

I don’t release my hold upon her, but I can’t bring my hand to forsake her generous tit. Generous is too weak a word for the firm but silky flesh. A pox on me for my hardening manhood!—my hand does not even span such beauty. Her bud pebbles beneath my palm, and it takes all my reserve not to give it a little pinch.

Whoever she is, she could feed an army with those breasts—and probably had every lad within a mile of her summoned by such a bosom. The most abundant I’ve ever felt, especially for her more slender arms. But as I snatch the soap bar and drag it along her belly, I approve of the natural, supple curves that confirm her femininity, not flat but perfect in its simplicity.

Her hips are round and ripe, lush and bountiful. By the devil’s balls! How was this beautiful specimen left in the woods without the escort of a man? Any man, if granted the privilege of wooing her, would need to be an utter fool, a weakling of the lowest order, to leave her alone.

If she were mine, I’d never leave her side. Such a woman requires the utmost protection…and possession. I’d stake my life on her never knowing such a man to provide her with thus.

Before I run the risk of her waking while I hold her in this naked state, I finish washing the mud and grime from the remainder of her form, finding smooth, ripe, but toned flesh for her thighs with strong calves.

I dry her, hold her close, listening to the rhythm of her heartbeat, daring to hope she could end my suffering. I wrap her in a towel before fetching one of my wife’s nightgowns. The sheer one I loved, soft pleats at the hem. Short sleeves with a slight puff. And a low scoop neckline that falls beneath her shoulders, curving along the upper slopes of her bountiful breasts.

I brush my knuckles along her delicate clavicle, adjusting my breeches from my thickening hardness. Next, I take a few moments to comb her lavish, damp curls, praying through each stroke. A silent, desperate plea that she might be the one to break my chains.

As I lay her on the antique bed, I imagine how lovely and seductive she must look with her curls spread upon the pillow, fanning all around her head. I run my fingers along the velvet coverlet, the faded grandeur of my most intimate of spaces.

Turning, I collect the padded chair from the corner of the room and sit near her, needing to be close to her sensual warmth. Despite the profound silence of the room, melancholy thoughts do not invade. For I hear her even breaths…and the beating of her heart.

As I watch over her, the ghosts of my past threaten to haunt me, but the faintest hope glimmers in my soul, willing her to be the key to my long-lost heart.