Traitor's Daughter

“…But they are not Heledd Bannawg, ‘ngwraig,” he finished in a low voice.

She gasped at the realization of his meaning. “I am not your woman.” Her chin lifted. “They are whores.”

“Do you think you are better?”

“I have not …” She knew as well as he that there was no substance to her claim. She was what people believed her to be – because of him. “I am not. I will never be, no matter what you do to me.”

“Some women are tricked. Some are forced. Some, like you, are willing.”

“I am not. How can you think I am willing?”

“To know love?”

“That is not love.”

“You will know love, Heledd Bannawg. You will know what it is to tempt a man beyond endurance. And you will know the depth of his love.”

He was laughing at her and every word lashed across her hard-worked, aching back that even the warmth of his hand could not ease. And she was leaning into his embrace, absorbing his scent into her body as though she couldn’t breathe without him.

“As often as I remember your soft hands and the silk of your sun-kissed skin, as much as I dream of your delicate body yielding to mine—.”