EXTRACT FOR
Collared
(Fiaine Cluiun)

Lady Anthea Morningschild whimpered as she slept, hands bound at the wrist above her head. Pain had long since seeped into her dreams and settled into her muscles. Her shoulders, neck and upper back tormented with a constant dull ache. Images plagued her through the night. Touches she both wanted and hated, each new stroke of fingers awakened her body in a way she cursed despite the hungry demands of a body she no longer had control over.

How many times had Mary woken her with a pluck of nipples, a light twist, a nip of teeth or the feel of her nether lips being parted by insistent fingers. Almost worse than the deliberate attempts to arouse her were the light strokes between her breasts or over the soft curve of her belly, where Mary avoided the more delicate parts of her body. Those touches not designed to tease her to further heights, but the gentle, tender caresses she might associate with a lover.

Her body nothing more than a playground to those with the power to take her.

Use her.

Keep her in bonds.

Free women weren't supposed to be treated like this, were they? She'd been sheltered far too long, left to try and learn what she needed to know without having willing teachers. The priests, oh, the blessed and hateful priests, denied access to her due to her sensibilities. Her rank. Or so her father had told her.

Now she suffered for that lack of information and the freedom to speak as she wished that had been in place since her mother's death. Protected, cared for, with only the past few years offering problems in the form of the unwanted Helena taking her father's attention. Whatever Helena wanted she'd been given.

Wyatt won't make the same mistake.

But what if he did. Helena was beautiful, arrogant, willing to slip into her father's bed at the first opportunity. With Piotr's death the woman would be looking for another source of protection. Not only that, but a man she could wrap around her fingers, giving in to her every desire, but did she have what it would take to seduce Wyatt?

Why does it matter. If I only have to deal with the man when he's trying to get me with child, then won't my life be easier? He won't try and torment me, he'll have Helena, or someone else to occupy his time.

She moaned, hips rolling as she sought the invisible fingers stroking her flesh. Nipples hard and aching the small buds reacted to each tiny movement of cloth over her body. Mary hadn't been kind in her selection of nightgown. The blend of silk and angora tormented her already heated flesh, granting no mercy as each breath added to the friction of garb against skin.

Unseen hands parted her thighs, easing her legs wide until a weight settled between them. 

A man's presence.

Except it wasn't possible. Mary wouldn't allow a man in.

Unless it was Wyatt.

Pain lanced through her shoulders as she rolled in her tormented sleep, yanking her awake without mercy. 

"My lady?" A voice in the dark.

"I need to get up," she licked her lips, fighting the dry cracking that had formed. "And water."

A scuffle of footsteps followed by a swell of light as a candle was lit from a shuttered lamp confirmed Mary was awake. 

Wyatt wasn't here. 

Only a dream.