Krakoll meant to ransom Lady DeLorion for cinnagin but he needed a Verdantian as his operative in Sylvan Mintoth. Only life-forms native to Verdantia could pass through the energy wall. Contradina is tailor-made for his plans. She loathes the Tetriarch. But the Oshtesh lived outside the shield wall. Krakoll must have leapt for joy and scraped the gutters of the entire galaxy for any creature willing to fight when he learned Sh’r Un Kree sheltered Doral DeLorion’s sister.
Krakoll picked up a hissing and scratching Allegra by the scruff of her neck and flung her out the tent flap. Striding after her, he cut off her screams of outrage. “Silence, creature! You have one last chance. Take the Fell wolves and my private guard and find her.”
Ramsey, forgotten, moved past them both and mounted his horse. Krakoll scanned upward and focused on him and his men. “Verdantian dogs! Heel to your mistress,” he sneered. Grabbing the captain of his private guard, Krakoll drew him aside. DeKieran couldn’t hear their conversation, but from the frequent glances his way and the evil smile distorting the guard captain’s face, he would bet every hope of passage into heaven it concerned their imminent death.
Once again, the Verdantians ran the gauntlet of covetous, inhuman eyes as the company rode out of Amboy Crater. This time, however, Fell wolves snarled at their heels, controlled by the twenty or so lizard-men who rode with them. Damnable, foul and unnatural creatures—the wolves and the soldiers. By the seven hells, Ram—what have you gotten into? He kept his eyes focused forward but his back crawled with unease. His sharp command of “Silence!” had halted his men’s mutterings of complaint but he shared their revulsion.
The lizard captain rode up to Allegra when they had cleared the encampment. “I need something that has the DeLorion woman’s scent.”
“Give him the blanket, Captain,” Allegra hissed, throwing a foul stare at Ramsey.
Turning in his saddle, Ramsey untied the strings holding the rolled blanket to his cantle and held it out to the Haarb captain. Jerking the blanket from his hands with a sneer, the lizard captain rode back to the wolves.
Ram refused to turn around to watch and barely restrained his shudder as “Loose the wolves!” echoed against the rock before his face. He clenched his jaw tighter and sat rigidly upright as the wolves’ soul-stealing howls trailed away. The lizard captain rode by and threw a contemptuous, “Stay with them, you Verdantian scum,” over his shoulder.
Ramsey’s fingers crept toward the handgrip on his sword before he caught himself. You’re a very dead reptile. You just don’t know it. But now was not the time to enlighten him.
“With me,” he yelled back toward his men as he spurred his horse after the wolves.
Chapter Twelve
Two weeks earlier:
Eric floated in the black, star-filled night, unfeeling, bodiless. She was there with him.
“My son.”
I’m dead. Why was the Senzienza intruding into his death?
“The Power of the Two must survive.”
He had failed to protect Sophi. Sophi, my love, I’m sorry.
“Survive and serve me, child.”
As awareness pricked at him, the vision before his eyes overwhelmed his senses. Again, he floated in velvet blackness. Brilliant stars spiking tongues of flame spread out around him in a vast, infinite splendor. His own body radiated a glory of blazing light. Gossamer strands of pulsing luminosity linked him to another brilliant sphere. The tethering web of threads bound them together. As he watched in wonder, the shining threads shortened, drawing him together with the other fiercely radiant orb. He felt no fear, just a vast sense of awe. As his celestial body merged with the immensely radiant star to which he was connected, surges of indescribable power coursed through his awareness. Energy built in intensity, surging and swirling in the vessel of his body. He became a radiating, scorching, violent sun. His silent scream of agony at the apex of his transformation shot an inferno of furious, roaring power spearing into the black void. Engulfed, obliterated, his rational mind fled before the searing firestorm of energy infiltrating his consciousness and he lost awareness.
* * *
The soft patter of rain on his face roused him. The warm, rich earth beneath him pulsed with power. Green vines wrapped his length, binding him, immobile, to the ground. What? I’m not dead?
My son.
Mother Verdantia?
The Power of the Two will serve me. Survive.
And once again he floated in black nothingness.
* * *
Heat permeated his body. Too hot. He gasped into full awareness. The ground beneath him vibrated with energy and heat, burning him through his leathers. He tried to sit up. Strings of withered organic matter entwining his body snapped as he rose.
The heat became unendurable. He was burning alive! With a cry, he strained against the unseen strands until they snapped and he rolled to the side. He stared up at the green canopy of living leaves overhead. The coolness of soft earth bled the excessive heat from his body. Goddess, thank you.
“I should be dead,” he muttered. His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. “I distinctly remember dying.” His hands trembled as they opened his leather vest and raised his shirt. Smooth, unmarred, golden skin decorated his pectorals, sternum and abdomen. What? Where are the wounds? For that matter, where are my old scars? Cautiously, he sat up.
“I fell off my horse, exactly there.” His eyes scrutinized the area immediately beside him. “Huh. Crossbow quarrels.”
He picked up a bolt and examined it. A piece of withered vine still clung to it, coiling the length of the bolt.
An indentation in the rich black earth outlined where his body had lain. Shattered crumbled strands of blackened vine crisscrossed the outline. Several other quarrels lay about, similar to the one he had examined, even to the coiling vine. He lay back down, shaken.
“She saved me.”
His disordered mind had not produced a hallucinatory illusion. Mother Verdantia had intervened. She had not allowed him to die. He lay on his back on the cool earth for long moments, trying to make sense of the impossible. Hells’ breath. I have not a fucking clue. Sophi. I must find Sophi.
He pushed himself upright, got to his knees, then to his feet and straightened cautiously. The forest reeled in dizzy circles.
Okay. Slow. Take this slow. You were dead, for fuck’s sake.
Clinging to a tree trunk for support, Eric endured until the landscape consented to be still. He stumbled his way back along the small trail they had followed and tripped over a body of a man now enveloped by living leafy twigs—one of the Silver Grove guards. It didn’t take him long to find the other three guards…all dead, all overgrown with foliage. How long did I lie here?
He wanted answers to a number of questions. Coming out of the forest onto the road, he set off in the direction of the village. He’d been walking, or rather staggering, for at least an hour when he heard hoof beats. Unarmed and on foot, Eric stepped off the road and concealed himself in the thickets lining that stretch of the road. As two horsemen rode by, intent eyes scanning the road, Eric recognized Headman Stumpf and the blacksmith from the village.
“Stumpf!” he called, rising from the undergrowth and stepping out onto the road.
“Sir! Magister DeStroia! Ye be a welcome sight, Sir!” The village headman clambered down from his horse. “We been lookin’ for ye and the Magistra since your horses wandered riderless back into Mr. Turner’s yard. What happen, Sir?”
“Ambush. Armed men took Lady DeLorion, killed our guards and I was...injured and knocked unconscious. For some time, I would guess—how long has it been? You say my horse wandered back to the inn?”
“Yes, Sir. Get up behind me and we’ll get you back there.”
Headman Stumpf’s broad figure provided welcomed support as they thundered back down the road to the village. When they pulled up in the courtyard of Mr. Turner’s inn, Eric swayed unsteadily as he slid down the side of Stumpf’s horse and kept right on going until the
ground hit his buttocks. He sat breathless, blinking in surprise. Both men scrambled off their horses and hastened to help him up. The blacksmith’s burly arms jerked him to his feet as if he were a child’s puppet.
“Thank you,” Eric gasped. “A little unsteady, I guess.”
“You been outta it a couple a days, Sir. It’s to be expected,” the brawny smith replied as he slowly released his grip on Eric’s collar.
Yes. I’ve been fucking dead. “I suppose the blow to my head did more damage than I thought.” Eric smiled. “Sorry to lean so heavily on you.”
“Magister DeStroia!” Mistress Turner scurried out of the inn and across the courtyard. “Thank the Goddess! You’re alive!”
As Eric started to answer, the headman cut him off. “Mistress Turner. He’s been hurt. Send down to the village for Medica Stipo.”
“No!” The last thing he wanted was to try explaining his condition to the medica. He wouldn’t have believed what had happened to him, if he hadn’t been through the experience himself. Eric softened his voice. “Ah...no. Thank you. I don’t require the medica. Just a meal, something to drink and my horse. I cannot let any more time escape before going after the men who took Lady DeLorion.”
“Of course, Sir, of course.”
An hour later, he sat his horse in the inn’s courtyard, eaten alive with impatience to be gone. Out of appreciation for all the villagers had done, Eric made sure that impatience didn’t show.
“Thank you for your help, Mister Stumpf.”
“I wish you would let us do more, Magister. Let us send some men with you at least.” The village headman looked at him with worry. “Doesn’t seem near enough, sending you off alone like this, after what you and the lady returned to us.”
“Sending the riders to Sylvan Mintoth with news of Lady DeLorion’s capture is more than enough,” Eric reassured him. “I am afraid more men would simply slow me down. I predict in several days’ time the army of the Tetriarch will come thundering down that road. Meanwhile, I must find Lady DeLorion. Every hour that goes by…” Eric shook his head and couldn’t finish. Wheeling his horse out of the courtyard, he called over his shoulder. “I’ll leave word of my direction at Silver Grove garrison.”
His spurs sunk deep into the flanks of his horse.
* * *
The golden limestone sprawl of the royal palace rose majestically in the center of the bustling capital of Verdantia. Her Majesty, Queen Fleur Constante, Defender of the Faith, Ruler of the Verdantian Commonwealth and beloved of Conte Aristos DeTano and Visconte Doral DeLorion, listened to a boring recounting from her ministers of public works, concerning their latest reconstruction project. A knock sounded on the heavy, carved door to the royal apartments.
“Your Majesty, I have a…” The muffled voice of her guardsman paused. “…strange message for Visconte DeLorion.”
“Enter,” she called.
The tall guard stopped just inside the entrance.
“Edmond,” Fleur acknowledged him with a smile and a nod. “Strange, how?”
His eyes flickered at the other occupants in the room and he looked toward Fleur with a lift of one eyebrow. She sank back on the chaise and addressed her ministers of buildings and roads. “Gentlemen, if you will please excuse me.” The rustle of papers and the scraping of chairs could be heard in the small anteroom as her advisors gathered their papers. With curious glances toward the guardsman, they left her chamber.
When the door closed behind the last of them, Fleur nodded. “Strange, how, Edmond?”
“Your Majesty, it was wrapped around a rock and thrown through the window of Captain Stephania Rickard’s quarters. One of her Blue Daggers brought it to a royal guardsman. Your name is scrawled on the outside, but the message is written to Visconte DeLorion.”
Fleur stretched out her hand. “Let me see it.” She eyed the broken seal, then scanned the missive.
“Get Doral.” While soft and low in volume, her voice carried the weight of command.
“Ma’am.” He nodded and left.
* * *
“Kitten?” Doral, her angelically blond and lethally skilled partner moved into their chambers with liquid ease. He walks like a great cat, fluid, graceful. An equally handsome, dark-headed male with the arrogant bearing of a warrior accompanied him. Fleur smiled at her other consort and husband, Ari, as Doral leaned over to give her a kiss.
“What’s this about a message?”
Fleur handed Doral the rolled missive.
Ari peered over Doral’s shoulder, reading it aloud.
Lady S. DeLorion in great danger. Meet tonight. Central watchtower. Ten of the clock.
S. Contradina.
The three members of Verdantia’s ruling Tetriarch looked at each other with concern.
“House Contradina. Again.” Loathing filled Ari’s voice.
Fleur’s gentle tones asked, “Who is ‘S’ Contradina? I thought we had disposed of all that horrible family.”
Doral stroked her hair and she leaned into his caress as if truly the kitten he called her. “‘S’ Contradina is Sylvester Contradina. He is Hugo’s illegitimate son. I met him briefly while Hugo was married to my mother. He is in his late twenties now, I think.”
She turned a worried gaze on her husband. “Ari, is there any chance Allegra is back?”
Ari frowned and his hazel eyes found his blond lover. “Doral, has Commander DeStroia communicated with you since he left?”
The beautiful man with the reputation as a silent killer straightened and shot Ari an enigmatic look. “I received word eight weeks ago that he crossed into the Oshtesh wastelands through the Silver Grove gate.” Doral tapped his fist with the rolled message. “Eric would have sent word if he had encountered trouble. If he could.” He paused, looked down at Fleur, then raised his ice-blue gaze to Ari. “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t wondered about how he fares with my sister.”
Fleur slipped her hand into Doral’s and brought it to her mouth for a kiss. “She has not been absent from our thoughts, either, my love.” Blue eyes found blue eyes. “Eric rode out with thirty-two of our finest. He will keep her safe.”
Ari folded his arms across his chest. “We will meet with Sylvester Contradina and hear him out. There is no point in conjecture until we understand the threat.” Ari held Doral’s eyes steadily. “I will not tolerate any menace to Sophi, you know that.”
Doral’s face softened for a moment and Fleur saw a silent exchange of love and trust flow between the two men. Doral nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’ll meet my cousin tonight. No sense in both of us going.”
Ari’s stern face remained turned to Doral. “Take a Blue Dagger or two with you.”
Fleur covered her mouth to hide her smile at the irritation that crossed Doral’s face at Ari’s suggestion. Even though his duties now stretched to governing all Verdantia, a part of him would always be a predator who stalked the night alone, a solitary, adept assassin.
“Do it for me—please,” Ari snapped.
Their stares dueled silently until Doral rolled his eyes in acquiescence.
“Glad you agree,” Ari said with a sardonic smile. His gaze strayed over the two of them and then into the empty bedroom. Fleur could almost see when his thoughts changed from “defend and protect” to “plunder and pillage.”
“We have several uninterrupted hours before ten. We are all in one place—a rarity these days. Sari has the children, and look in there—huzzah! An unoccupied bed.” He crossed to their apartment door and slid the bolt home.
“Edmond, disturb us and you die,” Ari called out.
A muffled but amused, “Understood, Sir,” was audible through the door.
Turning, Ari unbuckled his sword belt. It fell to the floor with a clang. He yanked at the lacings on his breeches, then pulled his shirt over his head as the loosened breeches slid to the ground. His shirt floated to the floor in a voluminous white cloud, covering his sword belt and blade.
Stirrings of erotic
sensation began warming Fleur’s groin. Her nipples pebbled against her gown. The heavy muscles in his back rippled as Ari strode up to Doral and grabbed a handful of his heavy blond hair. He pulled Doral in for a searching, punishing kiss. Ari growled in Doral’s face. “Your disregard for your safety would try the patience of a saint, Visconte. As you know, I’m not a saint. Don’t push me on this.” He bent in again for another passionate kiss. Pulling apart long moments later, his breath coming in heavy gasps, Ari tossed over his shoulder, “Strip, madam, and get on that bed. You have two lovers who wait impatiently.”
She gave a most un-queenly gurgle of pleasure and scampered into the bedroom, pulling her clothes off, helter-skelter, as she went. She launched herself at the wide expanse of their bed, landing in the middle with a “poof” of soft bedding. Her screams of laughter were muffled by the silk comforter as two heavy male bodies landed on top of her. She didn’t spare a moment’s thought for what Edmond was certain to hear. He was the soul of discretion.
* * *
Fleur felt Doral’s body roll away from her and she moaned in protest at the loss of his heat. A few minutes later, his soft lips pressed a kiss on her bare shoulder. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. When he regains consciousness, tell our nursemaid that I took a Dagger.”
“Be safe, Doral,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, m’Lady—and I will.”
* * *
Ari read aloud to his queen the note that Edmond had delivered in spite of Ari’s threat of immediate death.
Krakoll returned Allegra to Verdantia to infiltrate the shield wall. They plot the capture and ransom of Sophi and the occupation of Sh’r Un Kree. Allegra knows of DeStroia’s mission to escort Sophi back to Sylvan Mintoth, of his route and his numbers. She left Sylvan Mintoth with a mercenary band over seven days ago to intercept Sophi.
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