Warrior Blind

by Calle J. Brookes

  Warrior Blind

  Book Twelve in the Dardanos, Co. Series

  Calle J. Brookes

  Other Titles

  By

  Calle J. Brookes

  Paranormal

  Dardanos, Co.

  The Blood King

  Awakening the Demon’s Queen

  The Healer’s Heart

  Once Wolf Bitten

  Live or Die

  The Seer’s Strength

  The Warrior’s Woman

  The Wolf’s Redemption

  A Warrior’s Quest

  The Wolf God & His Mate

  Out of the Darkness

  Warrior Blind

  Dardanos, Co: The Adrastos

  The Outcast

  Romantic Suspense

  Watching

  Wanting

  Second Chances

  Hunting

  Running

  Redeeming

  Coming Soon

  Revealing (PAVAD)

  Calle Jaye Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. In her day job she is a fiction content editor for an epublisher that opened in 2011. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle Jaye loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please return to Smashwords and purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your chosen retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, or locations, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Copyright © 2014 Calle J. Brookes

  All rights reserved.

  Warrior Blind

  A

  DARDANOS, CO. NOVEL

  Book Twelve

  Chapter 1

  WOULD she always have the nightmares? She dreamed of the warrior every night. Remembered the look on his face, the total apathy, when he’d shoved her at Ramorakin, the keeper of his slaves.

  That expression on his face was one of the last clear images she had, and would ever have. How was she to deal with that? Her own mate, the one destined for her by her goddess, had thought so little of her that he’d thrown her to a monster.

  And then he had just walked away.

  It was by the grace of the goddess that Bronwen Sebastos still lived.

  She pulled the thick blankets around her body in a useless attempt to ward off the night’s chill. The demon realm was colder at night than her home in Colorado, but it wasn’t the night temperature that froze her soul.

  She didn’t know how many hours she sat in her bed, unable to see even if she had flicked on a lamp, but she sensed when true morning came. She could feel the heat of the sun filtering through the window. Bronwen contemplated just staying in her bed, remaining there at least for the day—if not the rest of her life.

  Why not? It wasn’t as if she had much use now, stumbling around pitifully, using the walls to guide her through this place that was more her prison than her home. She missed her home so much.

  But returning to Colorado was not an option now. Not with the wars of these realms inching ever so closer to Gaia, to Colorado, to Relaklonos where she now sat. War was coming, one that was predicted to be the worst one in any realm’s history, and she was a healer.

  A useless one. A burden to those who loved her.

  Those who loved her were probably waiting on her for breakfast.

  A forceful knock sounded and Bron knew who it most likely was. He came by her room every morning to plague her; she never answered. What was she to say to Koios?

  Thank you for making me into something to be pitied, dependent on those around me for care?

  He was supposed to protect her, to love and cherish her from the moment they met.

  Instead, he’d nearly killed her.

  Had she not possessed the soul of a healer, she would have died already. Dardaptoan healers were unique. There were a limited number of them, and each had a tiny piece of the original healer’s soul lodged within their hearts. That healer—now immortalized, though unnamed—would never truly die. Which meant that it took far longer for healers to die when injured.

  Whatever the slave keeper had done to her, she had yet to die from it. And she probably wouldn’t. No matter how much she wished it.

  She wasn’t like her foster mother Aureliana. The older woman had cared for her frequently as an infant and child when her brothers Thadd and Theo hadn’t been able to. Aureliana had chosen to deny herself her Rajni for nearly ten months after meeting him. She’d thought she was protecting the big warrior Ren from her inevitable death at the hands of a Beansidhe.

  But Auri and Ren had figured things out between them almost three months ago, and now they were happy together. The way Rajnis were supposed to be.

  Auri had chosen to avoid her mate. Bronwen had had that choice made for her through his actions. His disdain.

  But now he wanted something from her, and was proving relentless. He’d been trying for weeks to get to her, for whatever it was that he wanted.

  She was starting to face the fact—she could not avoid the confrontation with him forever.

  ***

  Koios waited. He knew the girl healer would have to come out of her chamber eventually. And he was prepared. He could wait no longer to make things right between them. His time had run out, and he had to return to his own kingdom. Lothicano could ill afford his absence and his brother’s. Sinrik had a mate and child to think of. Until his twin convinced that mate to return with him, Sinrik’s need to remain in this damned place was far more pressing.

  Sinrik had a family; Koios wasn’t sure what the healer girl was to him. Or even why he persisted with her so strongly.

  He’d abandoned the idea of making her a slave, a servila. But he owed her his protection and some sort of restitution for what had happened to her while technically in his keeping. That he had not been present for most of those two weeks mattered little. He had taken her from the ones who protected her and she had been damaged. That made him responsible.

  But the girl was proving extremely stubborn in allowing him to care for her, in allowing him to regain his honor. He had plans to set her up in his castle, provide her with attendants and anything else that she needed. He had a vague idea of allowing her to remain as companion to his twin’s mate, with whom he knew she was particularly close. He would allow her to live a life of complete luxury, doing anything that she pleased. Her new blindness prevented her from doing much else, didn’t it?

  Her door opened and he kept himself as still as his warrior training would allow. She would not realize he was there, not until he was ready to make that fact known. He would grab the girl and flash her to his castle in Lothicano. It was the only option he had left. It would be up to his brother to make Koios’ apologies to the girl’s family and caregivers.

  Koios had made his decision several days ago, and nothing would deter him.

  She felt her way along the wall and took tiny steps that barely moved her forward at all. He was two inches past seven feet in her world’s measurements. He estimated she was two
feet smaller, or thereabouts. Warrior youths hit that size around their tenth birth year. What had he been thinking? A servila this female would never have made.

  Her hair was brown. Nothing remarkable about it, just earth brown and worn straight and long down her back. Her eyes were covered by dark glasses, but he remembered the unusual yellow color well. She had strangely feline eyes, typical of her Kind. And she had the delicate beauty of features that could lure an unsuspecting male victim to the bloodsucking Kind’s side.

  It did not work on Koios. The female was too small, too weak, too not of his Kind for his attention to stray in that direction.

  It was not unheard of in his realm for oddities from other worlds to be kept and coddled. And though the high queen of this world was of her Kind, this little Dardaptoan female was very unusual.

  Koios forced those thoughts away. Similar thoughts were what had gotten him into this predicament to begin with. He’d seen her when she’d first stumbled upon him—literally—and had wanted her.

  He had yet to be able to explain it, even more than a year later. But it was the truth. He’d wanted her in his home, so he’d taken her.

  He’d justified it with the fact that Healers of her Kind were immensely prized for their abilities. They were taken by just about any other Kind in any other realm. He could have sold her for three hundred times her weight in his world’s most precious currency.

  Something his kingdom could have used a year ago.

  She was within his arm’s reach now; she was so vulnerable, wasn’t she? She did not even know he was there.

  That made what he was about to do even more despicable.

  Koios reached out.

  Chapter 2

  ONE moment she was feeling her way down the hall, and the next the world around her changed. Bronwen didn’t even have a moment to scream.

  Hard arms were tight around her; one hand covered her mouth, and the other was tangled in her hair. She was yanked against a hard male chest and her cheek slammed into something metallic. Like a medallion or amulet. Then it felt like her body was being pulled in a thousand different directions.

  It was only a few moments before the hands holding her loosened enough for her to breathe again.

  “We are here.”

  Him. Again. Of course.

  “Where?” All she could do was whisper. She wanted to cling to him. He was all she knew in that moment. Damn him. What had he done? “Why did you do this?”

  “We are in my home, pet. Where a king belongs. I can ill afford to remain with the High King. And with Sinrik staying at his mate’s side, I could wait to return no longer.”

  “Danae is not his mate. She doesn’t want him.” Any more than Bron wanted this creature anywhere near her.

  “Be that so, she has birthed the heir to this kingdom. Until that heir reaches the age of majority the child’s mother is bound by Lothicano law to remain near the father.”

  “But is that the High King’s law?”

  “He will honor it, or risk a war. There is too much at stake for him now.”

  Bronwen understood what he was saying. Rathan was busy preparing for the war, and with relocating Dardaptoan refugees from not one but two realms. How could Rath split his attention between that and something as trivial as one missing woman from his house?

  “Come. I have been long gone from my home. I have things I must do and soon.”

  “What is to happen to me? Please…don’t send me back to Ramorakin. I’ll do anything…” She did not know what the slave keeper had had against her, or Danae, but he had seemed to hate them far more than he had any of the other females in his keeping.

  He had struck Bronwen multiple times. Danae far less, being that she was a princess who would most likely be ransomed back quickly. But Bronwen…she had drawn his ire almost hourly in the time she’d been kept in the prison wing of the Lothicano castle.

  She would do anything to avoid being near that monster again—even beg.

  ***

  Her fear tore at him, filling his soul with his guilt. What had Ramorakin done to her? The slave keeper had been in Koios’ employee for nearly six hundred years, and they had never had a single problem from him. Of course, most of that time the slaves in Ramorakin’s keeping had been political in nature, destined for ransoming back to their families. As such they were to be treated well, and they had been.

  Until this girl and the Relaklonos princess.

  And with both females refusing to speak of what they had endured, no punishment could be appropriately rendered.

  Koios did not understand it; if they had been so abused by the slave keeper, why did they not speak it so? Did they not understand that he and Sinrik would see they were treated honorably, and avenged if needed?

  He pulled her glasses from her face; he did not like it when she hid from him. Any part of her. He pocketed the glasses, then tilted her chin up toward him. Could she not see him at all, then? That was what the people of Malickus’s castle had said months ago. But had he ever checked for himself? Her eyes, once the dark yellow of the Lothicano rose, were now far too pale. The pupils were almost non-existent. He waved a hand in front of her face, and there was no reaction from her eyes to the changing light. None at all.

  She pulled away. “Don’t do that. I’m not a freak show for your amusement.”

  So she had some spirit. That surprised him; she had been just a timid little waif each time he had been with her. “I do not think you are a freak, in any manner. But there will be truth between us from now on. Tell me, how much do you see?”

  She pushed at him, her tiny hands near the medallion his mother had placed around his neck hours after his birth to denote his royal heritage. He barely felt it, so small and weak was she. “I see nothing. And I never will again.”

  “I am sorry. That is unfortunate.”

  “You think? I can’t even see to tell you which way I should walk. I could fall down the stairs, or run into the walls, or fall out a window. I can even cut myself eating my own dinner. So tell me, how unfortunate that is? Do you even care? It is your fault I am like this in the first place.”

  That he could not deny. Had he just left the girl alone months ago, had his arrogance and thirst for a small amount of vengeance against the High King not gotten the best of him, this girl would be safe and secure in her former life. Instead she was dependent upon him for everything now. He was a monster at times, wasn’t he?

  His honor demanded he make his restitution to her directly, the one whom he had most wronged. “Come. We shall get you to your new suite. You can settle in.”

  “Why bother? My brothers will be coming for me. And Auri. She won’t rest until she has me back.” Of that Bronwen was certain. And Auri was now one of the most powerful creatures in any of the realms. “Do you really want to battle against a Laquazzeana? She can strike you dead with just a thought!”

  “And she will not dare. To do so would bring her brother-in-law’s kingdom into certain war with mine. And my allies. Which are not inconsiderable. Do you think that is something he would wish? Something this Auri of yours would? Many lives would be lost in exchange for returning you to that drafty wreck of a castle.” Politics and diplomacy irritated him at times, but he understood the necessity for both. And had been trained by his father to use them when needed to achieve his goals.

  “You are despicable.” The vitriol in her voice surprised him. Weren’t healers of her Kind supposed to be compassionate and loving in manner, even to their enemies?

  That had him frowning. Was that what he was to her, an enemy? He did not wish that, not at all. He tangled one hand in her hair. It was softer than he’d expected. One of the softest things his sword-roughened hand had touched, in his recent memory. He tilted her head back, then ran a finger from his free hand down her thin neck. She shivered and her face showed real surprise. He did it again; her shivering increased.

  “Stop.”

  He thought about it for a moment. It was just a si
mple touch. Why had she reacted in such a manner? Koios surprised himself by leaning down and nipping the same small bit of skin. Her breath rushed out.

  He felt his lower body harden in a distinctive sexual reaction. It was the first he’d ever reacted to her that way, wasn’t it?

  He didn’t see her as a sexual being. How could he? She was too small, too weak and defenseless, too dependent on him for everything for there to be a sexual attraction to her. He far preferred strong warrior females of his own Kind. He’d never been with a creature of another Kind. The entire idea was almost abhorrent for a Beskre warrior such as himself, wasn’t it?

  But then again…what had he and Sinrik been told nearly fifteen months ago by a prognosticating Druidic when she had visited their castle in her travels?

  That they would have to seek out females of other. Witches and healers and peoples not yet named if they wished to preserve their dying Kind.

  Healers and witches.

  Why had he not remembered that?

  It was why Sinrik had kept captive the first witch to visit their kingdom after that day. Malickus’s young sister had arrived within weeks after that prediction. It hadn’t been much longer before Koios had taken this young healer, as well. Had she been a part of that Druidic foretelling? Why had he not realized?

  Because he had not believed that foretelling, that was why.

  Beskre warriors were trained early on that their Kind was to be preserved through pure mating.

  That was the way of their peoples. The Druidic prediction had directly countered his lifelong teachings, so he had discounted it.

  Even though his brother hadn’t, and had impregnated the first witch female to come within range.