"I have often thought women should not be allowed entry into the horse sales. If Medea and Anya had not come, I’d have been one hundred gold pieces richer!" Shaz laughed.
Gerren nodded in complete agreement with his friend. He asked, "Does Anya ride as well as her mother, Shaz?"
"Considering Medea taught her, I would say so, yes."
Conar could hear the words the men said, but they made no sense to him. His ears were beginning to ring with an odd, high-pitched trill that was most unpleasant. A strange, queasy feeling had invaded his belly and he could barely swallow the spit in his mouth. He shook his head, felt a slight throbbing under his right eye and shook his head again to clear his ears of the ringing that had now grown louder, drowning out Shaz’s laughter.
"Are you not well, Highness?" Tohre called to him.
Conar could not stop himself from turning to the priest. Looking directly into those dark blue eyes always made Conar ill, but the sickness boiling in his gut was beyond anything he had ever felt. He shifted his gaze to Teal, then Legion, then Shaz and finally his father. None of them appeared to have heard Tohre speak to him, question his health. They were speaking, their mouths moving, but Conar couldn’t hear their words. The ringing was a clanging agony inside his head and he put his hands over his ears to blot out the pain.
"Do you wish to leave us, sweet Prince?" Kaileel inquired and his smile was evil as Conar’s head jerked toward him.
Kaileel Tohre was the only man Conar McGregor had ever truly hated. Or feared. He had more than his share of reasons to hate Tohre; even more reason to fear him. He avoided the man as he would any deadly animal. When near the priest Conar knew a terror so intense it was like suffocating.
His hatred for the man was like an unquenchable thirst: never satisfied. Not only because the priest was the Abbot of the Order where Conar had began his training as a boy in the Wind Warrior Society, but also because the man was second highest in position of importance in the Brotherhood of the Domination, the malignant sect that Conar had vowed to destroy.
Tohre was the Cardinal of Ordination, a man to be greatly feared, for he was in charge of the sacrifices and sinister ceremonies upon which the Domination thrived. Yet the hatred Conar bore the man went far deeper than Conar’s own sense of morality concerning the practice of human sacrifice and murder. It went far deeper than his breaking away from the Temple before being ordained as a priest into the Wind Warrior Society where Tohre had been his sponsor.
"You look uncomfortable, my Prince," Kaileel whispered, and Conar heard the caress of the man’s voice inside his head. "Perhaps you should go to your bed and let the wine soothe you."
King Gerren glanced at his son’s sweat-slick face and could have thrashed the boy then and there. Had his son been able to snitch more wine while he had not been looking? He frowned, keeping a close watch on his son.
Conar’s mind was cotton-numb and he could taste a strange metallic tang on his tongue. He swallowed and bile rose with lightning speed to gag him. He jerked up his napkin and quickly covered his mouth.
"Would you like to be excused, Conar?" his father snarled.
Conar didn’t hear his father. He was trying hard to swallow the bitter vetch in his throat. The banging gongs were an agony that ripped at his skull and set his entire body to trembling.
"Your father is speaking to you," Tohre purred.
Conar turned his head, glanced at Tohre’s leering face, and thought he would pass out. His breathing was coming in quick, painful, ragged gasps and his vision was blurring a bright shade of red. His hatred went farther than his own personal animosity toward Kaileel Tohre, Conar thought with dismay. Only he and Tohre knew why. His thoughts went back to a time, long ago, best forgotten, when he had felt similar to the way he was feeling now. He had tasted this same acrid flavor in his mouth and his forehead wrinkled as he tried to remember exactly when and where he had experienced it. Tohre had been responsible for whatever he had undergone then and, with a lurch of his soul, he knew he was responsible now. He locked his gaze with Tohre’s.
"It is good to remember the past, little Prince," Kaileel cooed though his lips never moved. "It is the wise man who never forgets."
The king stood. "Conar! Are you listening to me?"
Conar shook his head, unaware his father was striding down the table toward him. His attention was on Tohre, his mind somehow linked to the bastards. It was Kaileel who was making him so ill; it was Kaileel now and it had been Kaileel then. Kaileel, who had always been his waking nightmare; Kaileel, his worst fear. Kaileel, who had turned his normal life into an evil horror that had nearly driven him insane and who had been the cause of him trying to take his own life. Kaileel, who had laughed at his weaknesses and played on them, turning a little boy’s fears into something even more terrible. It had been Kaileel, then a Proctor in the Wind Warrior Society, who had been Conar’s patron, his mentor, and ultimately his…
"Conar!" King Gerren’s voice was loud and booming, chasing away the banging gongs inside Conar’s head as he gripped his son’s shoulder in a cruel grasp. He shook Conar hard. "Damn it, boy! Where is your mind that you do not pay attention when I speak to you?"
Conar gasped, jerked back from his memories. Confusion and dismay filled his young face and he involuntarily returned his eyes to Tohre, looking at the man with fear.
"Conar, I am speaking to you!" His father shook him again, very hard.
It was all he could do to look away from Kaileel Tohre’s smirking face. He looked up at his father. "What was it you asked me, Papa?"
"Do you wish to remain at my table?" Gerren asked through clenched teeth. "Or do you wish to be excused?"
"No," Conar said, shaking his head, only to make the nausea worse. "I would like to stay, Papa." He found he couldn’t swallow past the constriction in his throat.
He knew what was causing it. He knew Kaileel Tohre knew, as well. He took up his freshly filled wineglass and brought it to his dry lips. The wine tasted so odd, but he drained the glass, glancing up at his father’s set face.
King Gerren took the glass from his son’s trembling fingers and purposefully set it down on the table with a snap.
"That will be all for you this eve," Gerren snarled and spun on his heels to go back to his chair, fixing the wine steward with a level beam of command.
Shaz realized something was bothering the boy, but he had no right to intervene. Instead, he decided to draw everyone’s attention away from the scene.
"I had hoped my sons would be attending the wedding but matters of the crown have kept them at home, although three of my daughters came with us. Our fourth girl, Laura, she is eight years younger than Anya Elizabeth, stayed at home. She’s still nursing a broken ankle. Helen, Francis, and Ann wouldn’t have missed their sister’s wedding for anything." He smiled. "Helen Louise gazes up at Conar’s portrait and sighs like a moonstruck ninny. I fear she has a schoolgirl’s crush on you, son."
"Women find Conar most appealing, don’t they, Your Grace?" Kaileel laughed. "He has that same effect on many a man, as well."
Conar slowly looked at his tormentor without speaking. His temples throbbed with a vicious headache and he felt as though cotton lined his mouth. The odd metallic taste made him lick his dry lips and he saw Kaileel glance at them with a sneer. The look Kaileel gave him brought the nausea surging up Conar’s throat and he gagged.
"Legion!" Gerren called, "get your gods-be-damned brother to bed!"
"Aye, Your Grace," Legion said, taking Conar by the arm. "Up you go, little brother."
Conar tried to stand and found he couldn’t. He looked up at Legion who shook his head. He tried again, clutched at the table to keep from falling, and only managed to pull the tablecloth nearly off the side. He felt Legion’s arms going around him.
His head no longer ached; it spun with a viciousness that made him grab hold of Legion to keep from passing out. He blinked, shook his head to clear it, gagged again at the nausea, then swung his gaze t
o Legion’s amused face. "I didn’t drink that much," he whispered, "truly I didn’t."
"Just put your arm around my neck," Legion whispered, draping Conar’s arm over his shoulder.
"Truly I didn’t, Legion," Conar repeated. "The wine must have been…"
Legion caught his brother as he began to topple forward and swung him over his shoulder as he had so often done of late. Nervous laughter followed him up the stairs as he carried an unconscious Conar to his bed.
Teal ran ahead of him to open Conar’s door and turn back the covers. He shook his head as Legion dropped his brother on the bed and then began to unlace Conar’s shirt.
"Your Papa isn’t too happy."
"I don’t blame him." Legion tugged Conar’s shirt up and out of his breeches so his brother could rest better. "Get his boots for me, Teal."
Standing with his hands on his hips as Teal took off Conar’s boots and socks, Legion couldn’t help but laugh at the picture of innocence his brother made.
The long tawny lashes were closed and a stray lock of hair had fallen across his forehead to dip low over his right eye. He smiled as Conar turned in his sleep, drew up his knees, and gripped his pillow beneath his head.
"He looks like a child when he sleeps," Teal remarked.
"Aye, that he does." Legion tugged the coverlet over his brother’s legs. "Sleep well, brat," he said softly and motioned Teal ahead of him out of the room.
The footsteps of the two men had barely died away before the door to Conar’s room opened slowly and shadows drifted silently into the room. A keening wind howled, flared the fire in the grate, and shifted the drapes along the windows. Stealthily, the shadows emerged on Conar’s bed, two at the head, two at the foot, on each side of the big wood four-poster.
Once more the door opened, closed, and the barrel bolt was thrown, locking out those who might come to interfere.
A dark shadow glided across the thickly carpeted floor and came to stand beside Conar’s sleeping form. As the shadow moved over him, the young Prince moaned in his sleep and stirred, caught in the throes of a reoccurring nightmare.
"Turn over," a hissing voice commanded and the young Prince whimpered, shifting automatically to his back, one hand flung out on the bed, the fingers twitching.
A thin hand threw the coverlet off Conar’s legs. The figure nodded and the two shadows at the top of the bed reached out cold, impersonal hands and drew the young man to a sitting position, removing his silk shirt with ease. Conar’s head sagged to his chest as they held him erect and then fell back as they lowered him to the mattress.
Leaning over the bed, one of the shadows ran a calm hand over the hard muscles of the Prince’s chest, caressing the firm, manly breasts that rose and fell in agitation at the touch. The shadow’s left hand came down and unrelenting fingers closed around one taut pap, pinching, digging sharp nails into the dark coral-colored flesh, causing pain Conar could feel even in his drug-induced sleep.
"A taste, sweet child, of the pain to come," the voice murmured. The hand smoothed over the firm belly with its ridges of steel-like muscle and stroked the thick hair that nested above the waistband of the Prince’s cords.
Conar groaned, his head whipping back and forth as though denying what was happening.
"Lie still!" the demanding voice spoke, a strong hand digging into the smooth muscles of Conar’s belly, the long nails gripping the firm flesh in a taloned clasp.
Conar immediately stilled, his body going rigid, and his lungs gasping air through lips parted with terror.
As the long-nailed fingers unbuckled his belt and slid it from the loops, Conar let out a moan of protest, his lids flickering. The pale hands moved to the buttons of his breeches, unbuttoning the first three pearl studs, and the unconscious man began to whimper deep in his throat, his lips trembling.
Gleaming hawk-like eyes stared at the naked man lying before him, and two thin lips stretched wide in anticipation.
"Hold him."
Conar had no will of his own. He was perfectly aware of what was happening to him. He always knew while he was in the grip of his nightmare. It was when he awoke that he did not remember, that a veil was cast over his memories. Only the feel of cold, hard and unrelenting hands on his flesh would stay with him when he woke screaming, sweat coursing over his body in stinking waves.
He was as unable to do anything about the impaling evil atop him as he was to force his eyelids open to view the horror that rode him. He stilled as he was told to, but his soul twisted in agony as he felt the hands roaming his shrinking flesh.
He felt tears falling down his cheeks and he turned his mind from what he was feeling, calling out to the love he had lost, to save him.
Chapter 29
* * *
Hern softly closed Conar’s door and leaned against the portal. It was nearing dawn and he had been with the young Prince for most of the night.
His own room was just across the hall from Conar’s, between Teal’s and Legion’s. He had moved into the keep not long after Conar had completed his training with the WindWarriors as a lad of seventeen and he had stayed on at Conar’s request even as the young Prince reached his coming of age. It made it much easier when the young man awoke with his chilling cries and fevered nightmares if Hern was close by.
"Is he awake?" King Gerren asked as he came down the hall toward Hern.
Hern glanced up, pulled from his memories of a night filled with holding the boy, crooning to him, telling him he had only been dreaming the horror that had engulfed him. He shook his head. "He’s sleeping."
The King’s chambers were on the floor above Conar’s where dozens of Kings had slept for hundreds of years. From the comfort of those vast rooms that took up an entire floor, Gerren could not hear the nightly screams of terror that tore at his son. His knowledge of those nightmares that plagued his child came from Hern Arbra.
Not that the King knew the root of the trouble that brought such vile dreams to his son. Hern did not seem to know either. The tired look about the Master-at-Arms this morning brought immediate alarm to King Gerren and alerted him that the nightmare had ridden his son once more. "Was it bad?"
"Worse than usual, Gerren," Hern answered and ran a weary hand over his face. "I think he’ll not be feeling so well this morn." He turned to the window at the far end of the hall and squinted at the glow from the rising sun. "He must have had more than his share of the brew last eve, for he puked all over the floor."
"He seems to be doing quite a bit of that of late," King Gerren snorted.
"Will you be going in to sit with him?" Hern needed sleep, and although the dreams seemed to disappear whenever he hurried to comfort Conar, he still did not like leaving the boy alone.
"Aye. Go rest, my friend." Gerren slapped Hern’s back and sent him off. He turned toward Conar’s door and frowned.
His son needed a lecture on the moderate use of alcohol.
* * *
"Oh, god!" Conar moaned. His head was twice as bad as it had been the day before and ringing with the gongs of millions of iron bells. His stomach heaved as he tried to lift his gigantic head from the pillow, but that brought another quiet invocation to the gods from his swollen lips. Bringing an unsteady hand to his face, he ran it over his aching eyes that seemed to be glued together.
"I’ve gone blind," he mumbled, unable to get them open.
It was just as well, he reasoned, for if he had been able to see, he knew the faintest light in his room would blind him if it didn’t kill him first.
His mouth that had felt cotton-encased the night before, now had grown a full coat of moldy slime, as well. Even his teeth felt covered with fur. He ran his tongue over them and wished with all his heart he hadn’t, for the motion brought along with it a sour belch and the awareness of nostrils burning with the residue of vomitus.
Once more he tried to lift his head, but the banging gongs turned to piercing shrieks of scraping metal and he gave up with another quiet plea to whatever god wasn�
��t pissed at him, and who might take pity on a dying man. Clutching the bed covers on which he was sprawled, his naked hips covered only by a draping of sheet, he tried valiantly to still the rocking, heaving bed.
"You’ll live," a voice thundered out of the depths the room, making him grab his ears.
In actuality, his father had spoken softly, but the laughter that followed was hardy and loud. It brought tears of agony to Conar.
"Papa, have pity on me," he gasped.
Gerren got up from his chair and poured a tumbler of fresh water for his son, then walked to Conar’s bed. "Pity is reserved for fools and handicapped folk, Conar." Gerren chuckled. "Which are you?"
"Both," his son moaned. "I deserve twice the pity." He managed to wedge one eye open and look at his father, who was holding a tumbler. "What’s that?" Conar asked suspiciously.
"Water," Gerren said and laughed as Conar grimaced. "I want you to drink it. Your lady-wife has sent some elixir to cure you of this hangover, but you need to get something in your belly first." He put his free hand gently under his son’s neck and lifted the tousled blond head. "Come on, now. Drink." He grinned in wonder at the awful agony stamped on Conar’s face as he tried to sip the water. It ran down his chin and over his chest, running through the golden chest hairs to pool in the indention of the boy’s navel.
Conar gasped, feeling the water running over him like the run off from a snow-laden mountain. "I’m dying here, Papa, and you’re trying to drown me!" he croaked as his father laid his head down. He turned his face into the pillow as his mouth flooded with the godawful taste. He kept his fingers closed on his nostrils.
King Gerren laughed as he set the glass on Conar’s bedside table. "No matter how old you get, Conar, there is still some of the little boy left in you."
"If I’ve been poisoned, you’ll not be laughing so, Papa."
"I doubt you’ve been poisoned, Conar."
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