Claiming the Forbidden Bride by Gayle Wilson Page A

man’s thickset shoulders with both hands. From his limited experience with the kind of bare-knuckle brawler he now knew he faced, he understood that once he went down, the man’s boots would replace his fists.
    Rhys braced for the next blow, knowing that whatever happened, he had to hang onto consciousness so he could get Nadya and Angel away. Motivated by fear, not for his own life, but for theirs, Rhys gathered waning reserves.
    He sagged against his opponent, feigning a greater weakness than he felt. At the same time he brought his knee up and, with every ounce of strength in his lower body, drove it into the vulnerable area between the man’s thighs. His adversary crumbled, slipping from Rhys’s grasp with a drawn-out scream.
    Knowing that one posed no further threat, Rhys turned, looking for the rest of the men who’d surrounded the Gypsy. He realized with a jolt of terror that he and the bare-knuckled bruiser he’d fought, now writhing on the ground, were alone.
    Everyone else, including Nadya and her daughter, had disappeared.

Chapter Seven
    N adya had watched Rhys fight with her heart in her throat. She now realized that with her request she’d put the ex-soldier into an impossible situation. It was unlikely that, recently recovered from a debilitating fever, he could hold his own against such a physically imposing opponent.
    When he fell to his knees, head hanging in exhaustion, she’d set Angel down on the ground, quickly making the sign for ‘stay.’ Then she’d begun to search frantically among Andrash’s scattered belongings for a weapon—any weapon—to use against Rhys’s foe.
    Before she could discover one, she’d watched unbelievingly as Rhys seemed to explode upward, driving the bull-necked man into the blacksmith’s overturned cart. At that point, she had taken her eyes off the fight to check on her daughter, only to find Angel was no longer where she’d put her.
    Nadya turned in a tight circle, desperately searching for a glimpse of her child. First in her immediate vicinity. And then among the shadowed figures rushing through the smoke-filled clearing.
    The encampment was like a scene from a nightmare. And no matter how hard she strained to see through the haze, she could find no trace of her daughter.
    She glanced back at Rhys, who was braced for his opponent’s next assault. Without a weapon, she could be of little help.
    Besides, her greater responsibility was to her daughter. She had to find Angel and get her away from the dangers around them. Dangers that increased by the second.
    The two places the child might consider to be safe havens were Nadya’s caravan and that of her grandmother. The little girl had spent time in both and each was associated in her mind with people who loved her.
    Her own vardo was closer now than Magda’s. With that alone as the deciding factor, Nadya began to run toward it.
    Panicked at the thought of her daughter’s danger, she never considered her own. When they’d set out, she had instinctively led Rhys through the shadows cast by the trees. Now she flew through the centre of the camp, skirting the knots of men engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
    When she reached her wagon, she gathered the skirt of her nightgown in one hand to scramble up its steps. There were half a dozen places inside that might offer concealment. Since Angel was unable to hear or respond to her voice, Nadya would have to search them all. And without light, she decided, which might bring unwanted attention.
    Frantically she ran her hands along shelves, into cupboards and under the narrow beds. As she searched, the cacophony of sounds from outside seemed to grow in volume and hysteria.
    It was somehow more frightening not to be able to see the darting figures, but only to hear the hate-filled shouts andthe occasional scream. And even more terrifying to think Angel might be somewhere in the midst of that