Claimed by the Barbarian
Samantha Madisen
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Afterword
More Stormy Night Books by Samantha Madisen
Copyright © 2021 by Stormy Night Publications and Samantha Madisen
All rights reserved. No part of this 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.
Published by Stormy Night Publications and Design, LLC.
www.StormyNightPublications.com
Madisen, Samantha
Claimed by the Barbarian
Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson
Images by VJ Dunraven Productions and iStock/Filograph
This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.
Chapter 1
She woke to sniffling. Not hers. Someone else’s. Someone else was in the chamber. A panic gripped her as she bolted up and peered over the covers. The hearth extinguished, the only light came from the crack between closed shutters at the window. “Who goes there?” she whispered, her body trembling.
“It is I, Lady Leola. Datharia,” came the quiet reply.
Her pulse slowed as she breathed deep. Datharia was good. Datharia was safe. Strange that she would choose this time of night to visit. But hardly dangerous. “What brings you at this time of night?” Leola asked.
Datharia clutched at her dress and shuffled toward the bed.
Leola braved the cold air in the chamber to look at her more closely. She was crying. Or had been. “What troubles you?” Leola asked, her concern genuine.
Datharia pressed a finger to her trembling lips and shook her head. “My lady,” she whispered.
“Speak, Datharia. Tell me. Have you been hurt?”
“No, m’lady,” she replied. She turned and stared at the closed shutters. “The men are marching up the valley.”
Leola’s eyes went wide, the cloud of sleep lifting from her mind. “They are back?”
Datharia gave a single nod in reply.
“But that is good news, isn’t it?” She couldn’t imagine why the army’s return would make the chambermaid weep.
Datharia pursed her lips and swallowed back more tears. “They are… routed, m’lady,” she said.
An unfamiliar discomfort formed in the pit of Leola’s stomach at the admission. “Routed?” she echoed, her voice soft and full of disbelief.
“Routed and…” Datharia’s voice caught in her throat. She pressed a fist against her mouth, speaking from behind her flesh as though she wished to keep the words inside. “They come to us in chains. Barbarian hordes drive them forward with whips like cattle.”
Leola sat staring at the cold stone wall ahead of her. Routed? Routed? Surely it was impossible. But why would Datharia make up such a thing? “How… how can you be sure of this?” she asked.
Datharia walked to the window and pressed a shutter open. The frigid night air rolled in. “See for yourself, m’lady,” she said, voice shaking.
Leola poked a toe out from the pile of furs. Drawing the heaviest one around herself she stepped gingerly to the window, narrowed her eyes, and peered through the black night into the distance.
There, lit by a line of unfamiliar torches, marched a string of men. Heads bowed, stripped of armor and weapons, they trudged toward the castle walls. Every so often a whip would crack above them, urging them to keep a steady pace.
Leola’s jaw fell at the sight. This was… impossible. Or so it had seemed until she saw it. Ryken, for all his failings, did not lead his army to defeat. Ryken the Conqueror knew only victory in battle. Seeing him at the front of the line marching, instead of seated proudly on his horse, made her stomach turn with sickness. She turned to Datharia, forming a question she already knew the answer to. “They are marching them here?” she asked.
Datharia’s shoulders rose, and then slumped with a shrug of resignation. “It is as much a mystery to me as it is to you, m’lady.” She stepped closer to the window and peered out next to Leola. “It is a miracle they are alive at all.”
“Who is this horde you speak of?”
Datharia shook her head. “The messenger only brought news of their approach. He conveyed nothing about who they were, nor where they were from.”
As the line of prisoners moved closer, Leola gasped. Her eyes fixed on the sight of the man who seemed to be their leader. Sitting astride a lumbering, furry four-legged creature as tall as two horses, his menacing gaze sent a shiver racing down her back.
The two women watched in silence as the convoy weaved its way through the defensive boulders on the other side of the moat. A glance at the sentries standing on the walls revealed they seemed as panicked as Leola felt.
She turned to Datharia. “What do we do?” she whispered.
Datharia’s eyes darted to the floor. She shook her head. “You remember Lord Ryken’s words before his departure?” she asked softly.
Leola’s stomach hollowed even more. She did her best to stay out of Ryken’s way when he was there. His departure had been one of the few occasions she had been forced to listen to his droning speech about the glory of battle and the spoils of victory that lay waiting for his men.
It was the end of that speech that caused her blood to run cold just then.
And in my absence the Lady Leola will be the castle’s keeper.
He had spoken it in jest; knowing there would be no situation which his second, Trydar, couldn’t handle, the comment had been a tease. A way to underline her inadequacy in all matters related to the kingdom.
The memory of her own humiliation at hearing the soldiers’ laughter when he said it was still fresh.
“Send for Trydar,” she said, courage rising in her at the comfort of knowing he would know what to do.
“I have, m’lady,” Datharia whispered.
“And?”
“He is nowhere to be seen. We have searched the courtyards and his chambers and the stables.
