Taken by the Enemy
Read Taken by the Enemy Online
Authors: Jennifer Bene
Taken by the Enemy
By
Jennifer Bene
©2016 by Blushing Books® and Jennifer Bene
All rights reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Bene, Jennifer
Taken by the Enemy
eBook ISBN:
978-1-68259-520-6
Cover Design by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book is intended for
adults only
. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the Author's advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.
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Table of Contents:
The decision was made.
It was practically done – but before she could slip out the window, that bright smile caught her eye and guilt twisted in her gut like a knife. With a sigh, Emeline eased back from the windowsill and took the few, short steps to her desk. Bright blue eyes. Always so stunning, always the talk of every party. Nothing like Emmie’s own hazel eyes that couldn’t bother themselves enough to be interesting. The dark hair in the photograph shined, her own barely behaved. There was the beautiful girl in the photograph, and above it in the mirror… the runner-up, the second thought.
She had been a poor replacement anyway
.
Lifting the frame in shaking hands, her thumb traced the face for the last time. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and the splash of a tear across the glass shook her from her trance.
Apologies get you nowhere, action takes you everywhere
.
Emmie brushed the tears from her cheeks and put the picture back down, but the idea of losing it was suddenly intolerable. She could leave everything, she
was
leaving everything, but this piece she would keep. In a clumsy rush, she flipped the frame over and tore the back off, trying her best to stifle the harsh breaths pistoning inside her chest before she second-guessed herself for the millionth time. She folded the picture over once and shoved it into the back of her pants, and then she was back at the window.
This time she didn’t look back. She couldn’t. There was no point.
Turning to her stomach, Emmie slid out of the window slowly until she had the frame under her fingers and her feet sought purchase on the bricks below it. How many times had she done this with effortless confidence in earlier years? Where was that sense of invulnerability when she needed it more than ever?
Rolling her eyes at her own reticence, she took a deep breath – and let go.
The short drop felt much longer than she remembered, and her heart leapt into her throat before her shoes slammed into the small awning above the door on the ground floor. Her landing on the narrow space was messy, and she had to stifle a scream when the weight of her backpack almost sent her tumbling backwards onto the pavestones. Emmie threw her body forward and she pressed herself against the house that had been her home for twenty years. Raising her eyes, she saw the soft gray bricks extending up another two floors, past the room that had been hers since she was a toddler, and above that? Only sky. Dark, inky night speckled with a thousand stars, smudged with random clouds that floated silently across it. Free.
Free like she was about to be.
She swallowed and sat down on the awning, pushing off to land with a huff of breath on the stones below. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, and it left plenty of shadows on the property as she raced towards the wall. An orange tree had always been the easiest route over, and it still was. It was only a matter of moments before she was walking with a forced calm through the narrow streets.
She had a fifteen-minute window. Fifteen minutes for a chance at a real life.
Even though it was important for her not to look hurried, to not draw attention, she picked up the pace. She kept her head down, let her hair fall into her face as she adjusted the pack on her back, and she walked steadily to the outer walls of the city. It was shocking when she found the guard post empty. Some part of her had expected her weeks of reconnaissance to fail her at the last minute, to prevent her escape, but there it was – empty.
The skin across her shoulders prickled with the urge to turn and look back even though she knew the house wouldn’t be visible. She was too far from that area of the city, just like she’d planned, but the need to turn around still rushed her. Instead, she climbed the ladder to the tower, hand over hand, her fingers wrapping around the cool metal until the wind whipped her hair as she reached the top. Removing the rope ladder from the tower’s emergency kit was too easy, as was attaching it to the wall and climbing down. No alarms, no shouts, no one coming to stop her at the last possible moment. When her foot touched the soft earth, a voice inside begged her to climb back up, to rush across the city, to sneak back into bed before dawn – but she had decided.
The decision was made.
And when Emeline Anne Daniau turned around to see the forest laid out before her like some fairy tale landscape, there were no more questions inside her. The forest was lovely, dark, and deep – and she had promises to break.
For another night Emmie dreamed of empty hallways, of someone calling her name in the darkness, too far away to find – but still she hurried around more corners, seeking them, shouting apologies that remained unheard.
Then something jerked her from her fitful sleep and she groaned inwardly as she stretched stiff muscles against the hard ground. She missed her soft bed, her smooth sheets – she missed
baths
. The grunting, snuffling sound that had woken her came again, closer, along with the crunching of leaves and the shifting of a bush. Instinct made her sit up fast as her heart started to pound. As soon as her eyes focused in the early dawn light, she had to clap her hand across her mouth to prevent the scream from escaping, barely succeeding in muffling it into a whimper of sheer panic.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
Barely ten feet away from where she lay was a massive boar, covered in thick, bristly hair. It was rooting around in the ground beneath a bush, its snout pressed to the dirt with long, yellow tusks sticking up on either side. Tusks perfect for killing humans stupid enough to be this close to it. Slipping out from under her blanket, she tried to move silently backward, but her hand landed on a twig and it snapped – and the boar’s snuffling ceased. Dark, shining eyes lifted and a preternatural fear she had never felt before poured like ice down her spine.
I’m going to die.
The thought crystallized somewhere inside her, but instead of freezing her in place, it was like a giant warning bell – and she ran.
As branches whipped her face and arms, she ran faster than she ever had before, and over the roar of her own breath in her ears she could hear the stampeding rush of hooves crushing the leaves into the forest floor as the beast chased her. She tripped and almost fell, but caught herself against a tree and used it to turn sharply to the left. The boar’s pace barely changed as it shifted directions to continue after her. It made a constant, low, growling grunt as it chased her and Emmie fought to ignore the burning in her lungs as she raced through the forest. Dawn was turning the canopy a verdant green, and the dull brown of the leaves on the ground was a dangerous blanket threatening with every step to hide a hole, or a root, or some other catastrophe that would send her to her knees – and she knew with every fiber of her being that if she fell, the animal would gore her to death for no other reason than she had dared to sleep where it wanted to forage for food.
Just as she was sure she was going to falter, that her body was going to give out, she saw a low hanging branch ahead. Charging straight for it, she reached up and grabbed on, swinging herself up like she had as a child and as she tucked her legs up, she watched the boar race beneath her. It had been mere steps behind her. Nausea swept through her as she let out a shout of effort and threw her leg up and over the branch so she could straddle it and place her back against the trunk of the tree. The beast returned a second later, snuffling and grunting in its frustration at having lost its victim. A terrible noise rose out of it and Emmie finally let the fear take her. Tears filled her eyes, and she brushed them away as the animal stomped circles beneath her, breathing as harshly as she was.
No weapons
.
She had nothing to deter the thing away. As thin as the branch was, there was a chance it may not even hold her for long, it was a blessing it hadn’t snapped when she’d grabbed onto it in the first place. Her pack was somewhere in the forest, filled with the last of the food she had packed, her water, a change of clothes, and the little knife she had stolen from the kitchen. Not like that short blade would do anything against the boar underneath her. It would kill her with those tusks before she got close enough to swing at it. A scream of frustration rose out of her and this time she didn’t stifle it, she let it rip out of her and echo across the forest until she dissolved into pointless tears and hiccups as the sobs took her.
There had been so much planning, so much hurried research to prepare her for her naïve little adventure into the woods surrounding the city. She had memorized the looks and names of plants and berries that were edible, she had even made herself a ‘salad’ just the day before. It had tasted terrible, but she had identified the plants correctly because she wasn’t dead. The wildlife in the forest had been an inconsequential footnote in her mind, things she might observe from a distance and carefully avoid.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Emmie groaned to herself. “Did you really think you’d never run into something, Emmie? Something like a
boar
? Well, you know what?” She leaned forward slightly and screamed, “Fuck you, boar!”
The animal stopped its stamping as she ranted at it, likely as surprised as she was by her outburst.
“That’s right! FUCK YOU. I’ve been out here four days. By myself! There’s not a person that would have believed I was capable of that. I’ve been sleeping in the dirt, fending for myself, and YOU—” She laughed hysterically to herself, letting the laughter erase the tears from her eyes as she slammed her hand against the rough bark of the tree. “YOU WANT TO KILL ME? FOR SLEEPING?”
Emmie wasn’t sure what she expected in response, but it wasn’t the strange whooping sound that suddenly filled the forest. Her rant sputtered to a stop, and then a long spear sprouted from the boar and a terrible squealing noise erupted from it. It writhed and twisted and kicked and turned to face the roughly dressed man who emerged from the trees. Her mouth dropped open as the man grinned wildly at the beast just as it lowered its head to charge, those yellow tusks aimed at his belly. She reached out to warn him, as if she could do anything, but then another spear hit it and it shrieked again, turning in place to face the next man. It charged, but the man leapt out of the way, rolling across the ground and popping up a few feet away. Then there were three more, thrusting spears into the beast as it attempted stumbling charges towards them, but it was waning. It wavered on its hooves; two spears sticking out of it like some grotesque pincushion, as the other spears pierced it again and again.
From above, safely out of its reach, Emmie had to admire its strength, its determination to live, to escape. She had felt that kind of desperation, a suffocation that made one hopeless enough to attempt the impossible – but it eventually stumbled, grunting, down onto one leg, then another, and then fell to its side. The men were all breathing hard beneath her, spears poised to strike, watching as the beast took its last shuddering breath.
Then, as if they were of one mind, their eyes shifted up – to her.
One of the men slapped another on the back, handing him a long, crude knife, before looking up at her again. “Hello there, little bird. Care to come down from your perch?”
Quiet laughs shuffled through the others.
She swallowed, well aware that while they had saved her from the boar, she was still very much in danger. These were the raiders. The banished ones beyond the walls. The enemies of the city. Yes, she knew about
them
too, and she had hoped never to encounter them, which left her just one answer. “Like hell.”
The man’s eyes widened a moment, almost gray in color in the light of dawn, and then the edge of his mouth curled up. “Last chance, little bird. Come down on your own, or I’ll bring you down.”
Emmie’s stomach dropped and she pressed herself harder back against the trunk as the man stepped closer, raising an arm to wrap one hand around the branch she straddled. The shirt he wore was thin and she could see the outline of a strong body beneath it, the muscles in his chest and arms stretching with each breath he took. The grin that had lit his face with such a ferocious glee when he’d first rushed out of the forest was gone, and what was left was an overly serious expression. His gray eyes were intense as they met hers, and on some level she was surprised by how handsome he was. She had always imagined the raiders to be filthy, scarred, deformed. Starving mad men. He looked healthy, light hair falling to his temples, with only a thin shadow of a beard across his cheeks, highlighting high cheekbones that drew her attention back to his gaze.
His head tilted and then his grip on the branch tightened and he shook it hard. She yelped as the movement almost unseated her.
“I don’t think
that
bird is going to come down, Lucian.” One of the men spoke up, crossing his arms across a broad chest as a younger man knelt to start the bloody work of gutting the boar. The copper smell of death rose up and she fought the urge to gag.
“I think you’re right.” Lucian glanced back at the men for an instant, then those eyes were back on hers, and he wrapped his other hand around the branch.
CRACK.
Emmie was vaguely aware of him jerking his arms down just before her world tilted and she flailed at empty air. She landed hard on her back, all of the air rushing out of her as pain stunned her. The canopy spun for a moment, her body screaming as sensation flooded back into each nerve ending. Her head ached enough to urge her to close her eyes, but then his face appeared, the edge of his mouth tilting up as he crouched next to her.
I have to breathe
.
Air – she needed air. The first breath was painful, but the second was less so, and the third started to abate the fuzzy ringing in her ears. The initial, stunning pain was fading as well.
Nothing broken
.
His eyes moved over her as she filled her lungs and waited for her head to straighten itself out. Everything was slowly coming back into focus, and she tested the movement of her fingertips against the fallen leaves. The canopy fanned out high above him, gold and green in the early light, as Lucian shook his head slowly. “That could have gone much differently—”
“No,” she choked out the word, “it couldn’t.” Using every scrap of her strength, she drove her hand towards his nose, and he didn’t move fast enough. His shout filled her ears as he fell back, but she didn’t wait to see the damage. Throwing herself to the side, she scrambled to her feet and forced her legs to carry her again as she took off into the forest.
“That bird has some bite!” a man’s voice echoed behind her.
“And wings!” another shouted, and then there was laughter – and the sound of heavy footsteps crushing the underbrush.
He’s coming after me
.
Fuck.
Wincing against the twinge in her side, Emmie tore around a tree, trying to backtrack the manic path she had forged while escaping the boar. Nothing seemed familiar until she saw the downed log she had narrowly avoided just minutes before. This time she leapt it, crashing through the leaves on the other side as she ran for her makeshift camp.
If she could just reach her pack, she could grab it and run. She’d lose the blanket, and she could maybe try to return for it later, but she wouldn’t make it far without the water. Skidding to a stop, she caught herself on the ground to turn into the little hideaway she had found to sleep in. Scrambling across the ground, she grabbed her pack, throwing it over her shoulder as she moved to dart through the close branches on the other side – but she never made it.
Lucian’s powerful grip caught the other strap on the pack and he jerked her back, sending her to the ground hard. In an instant, he had tossed her bag to the side and his other hand caught the frantic kick she attempted. “Oh no, not this time, little bird.”
His nose was bloodied, a red smear across his left cheek, and even as he yanked her towards him over the rough earth, she cheered internally that she’d hurt him. With another useless attempt to kick him, she shouted, “Don’t touch me you bastard!”
“Touch
you?
” He huffed and stopped another rushed attempt to hit him, catching her wrist in his hand. Lucian flipped her to her stomach easily, pulling her arm sharply up behind her back until her shoulder screamed. Biting her lip, she tried to struggle free, shoving herself forward with the toes of her shoes in the dirt, but his knee landed heavy in the small of her back.
Trapped
.
“Little bird…” His voice sounded exasperated with her, and she yelled in frustration as she fought him.
“Stop calling me that!”
He laughed, a low and surprising sound. “Stop fighting then and tell me what I
should
call you.”
“Fuck off.”
“That’s an odd name.” He wrenched her arm higher onto her back, and tears burned her eyes as she whimpered. “Tell me your name, little bird.”
“Go to hell.” Emmie pressed her forehead into the leaves, and then she felt his breath against the back of her neck.
“You’re going to learn that it’s much easier when you obey me,
little bird
, and that there are consequences for disrespect.” Lucian’s voice had a hard edge to it, and she yelped as he twisted her other wrist up behind her back. The rough texture of rope winding over her skin made her struggle anew, but his weight dropped on her, and it was impossible to breathe. She wanted to curse him, to call him every name she had ever learned – she just didn’t have enough air to do it.
When he finally lifted his knee from her, she choked in dirt with her first gasp, and he hauled her off the ground by one of her arms. Emmie tried to kick at his ankle, but he was prepared now and avoided it, tightening his other hand in her hair to bend her head back painfully as he shoved her forward.
