About six men approached them as Beck brought his horse to a stop.

“You got her,” one said in surprise.

“You doubted I would, Rob?” Beck shot back.

“No, it’s the consequences we talked about that worries me.”

“As it should all of us,” another man said.

A third man joined in. “Lord Ruddock is not one you want as a foe.”

“Worry not, it will go as planned. Take her, Geary,” Beck said.

Geary reached up and grabbed her at the waist to pull her off the horse and settle her on the ground. “Where do you want her?”

“In the hole with the other one,” Beck ordered.

“You’re going to put her in there with him?” Rob asked startled.

“Isn’t that what I just ordered you to do?’ Beck said, sending Rob a nasty glare.

Willow listened, her fear growing with each word.

“Help him, Geary,” Beck ordered. “Coyle, you come with me. We have things to discuss.”

Willow was taken to a spot on the side of the longhouse. Night was falling rapidly, but she could make out three wooden grates laying on the ground a few feet from each other.

Seeing them, she knew what Beck intended. She would be placed in one of the holes and from what they had said, she wouldn’t be alone. She’d be with a man. Fear gripped her stomach, roiling it, the thought frightening her senseless.

She was familiar with such punishments or keeping a prisoner confined like that, having seen it once when she had gone with her father to a neighboring clan. A hole was dug only deep and wide enough for a person to stand in.

One person.

How she would fit with another person in there, she didn’t know, and she would rather not find out.

Rob moved the wooden grate aside. “You got a guest,” he yelled down into the dark hole.

No response was heard.

“It’s a woman,” Rob said and waved to Geary to bring Willow to the hole.

“Best grab her legs as she comes down or she might make it uncomfortable for the both of you,” Geary warned.

Willow wanted to scream out and beg them not to put her in the dark hole with a strange man. But if she did that, she would show her fear and weakness to the man in the hole. The man she would be stuck with for who knew how long. She had to swallow her fear, tamp it down, let no one know she was frightened more than she had ever been in her life. And for the first time in her life, she couldn’t make sense, see reason, for what was about to happen. Reason had always helped her deal with things, but when reason was lost what did one do?

Rob grabbed her under one arm and Geary the other, then they held her over the hole and began to lower her down into the dark pit.

Chapter 2

Willow shut her eyes. She didn’t know why, instinct probably. She tensed when hands caught at her ankles and thought she would scream when they slid slowly up under her garments along her bare legs almost as if the hand was caressing them. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter when his hands went to her bare bottom, roaming over her cheeks to settle a squeeze on them before holding her there in place.