WINDDREAMER

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  "You are my husband. I..."

  "But he is your husband according to Multitude law, isn't he? And bastard that he is, he'll eventually call you to him, regardless of what he swore to me."

  "You're letting jealousy drive you mad! Conar is an honorable man. He keeps his vows."

  "And do you?"

  "Aye, I do!"

  Legion looked at her belly. His eyes grew hard as stone. "You're starting to show."

  Instinct made Liza cover her stomach with her hands as though to protect the fragile life growing there. She knew she only imagined the flutter of movement inside her. It was too soon yet for Conar's child to quicken.

  "Just one more tie to bind you to him," Legion growled, letting go of her arm. "One more reason to take him over me."

  "Are you forgetting our own children?" she yelled, more angry at him than she could ever remember. "Are they not ties that bind us together?"

  "I thought they did." Legion's gaze swept down her slender frame. "But it seems you have no trouble breeding by whatever McGregor male comes your way!"

  Her fingers raked along his jaw line. She fought hard as he tried to ward off her slaps. Struggling against him, she felt him scooping her into his arms even as she continued to pummel his head with her fists.

  He flung her to a cot inside a cell, covering her protesting body with his own.

  "Damn it, get up!" she yelled, feeling his hands fumbling with the hem of her gown. "Legion, stop it!"

  She squirmed, turning her head side to side, denying the hot, fevered kisses he rained on her cheek, neck and chin. He pinned her hands to the cot by her head, and thrust one leg between her own to still her kicking.

  "Stop it!" She tried biting his lips, but he jerked away his head, pushing her face against the moldy mattress.

  Legion's lips slashed across her cheek and found her ear, nibbled on the soft flesh. Liza wedged her knee between his thighs and slammed it into his testicles. He flipped off the cot and crashed to the stone floor, doubling over and cupping his groin with his hands.

  Liza scampered from the cot and ran, sobbing hysterically.

  "If you go up those stairs," he called, "if you leave me here, I will never forgive you!"

  She stopped to look back at him. He had dragged himself up. He leaned against the wall, then bent over, retching.

  "I am no man's whore, Legion A'Lex! Not even yours!"

  He pushed himself from the wall and staggered out of the cell toward her. "You told me you had made a bargain with the Darkwind, Elizabeth. Is that not whoring?"

  "Nothing ever came of it! I would have found a way to deny him."

  "You might not have known who the Darkwind was, but you wanted him." Legion pulled himself along the wall. "You felt desire--"

  "I felt no such thing!"

  "You might not have known he was Conar, but your body did. Your body betrayed you." He stood staring at her. "Tell me you don't want him. Tell me you don't love him. Tell me you weren't disappointed it was me instead of Conar who came to you tonight."

  "You're letting rivalry, your jealousy of Conar, speak for you."

  "Maybe my jealousy sees what my heart has refused to."

  "And that is?" she asked, fling her question like a challenge.

  "That you're a faithless bitch who doesn't deserve my love and respect!" His lip lifted in scorn. "You two deserve what Tohre did to him!"

  A stab of intense pain went through Liza's heart. Like daggers, her husband's words drew the lifeblood from her vitals. She took a step backward, away from the ugly look on his face, away from the hateful words on his lips, then turned and fled up the stairs.

  "If you go to him, I'll kill him, Elizabeth!" Legion shouted. "I swear before the gods, I will!"

  Liza heard him cursing her. She darted past Grice as he stood beside a timber, relieving himself. Her brother called to her, but she blocked her mind to everything but the need to be as far away from Legion as possible. She skidded down the debris, then ran headlong into the bailey and out through the gaping maw of the watchtower to the dark forest beyond.

  ----

  Legion staggered to the top of the stairs and through the ruined doorway of the dungeon. He saw Grice. "Stop her, you fool! When I get my hands on her, I'll beat her senseless!"

  "But I--"

  As if in slow motion, Legion stumbled. His feet slid back down the first tread, his arms cartwheeled, his hands grabbed at the door jamb to keep himself from pitching backward down the stairs. The wood give way. In horror, Grice observed Legion bang hard against the wall and balustrade as he crashed downward.

  Grice raced across the rubble..."Legion!"

  ----

  Hearing the commotion, the others roused and ran to the stable door. Pushing through the debris, they called out to Grice, now disappearing down the stairs.

  "It's Legion! He's fallen!" Grice replied. "Get a blanket! And some brandy!"

  Earlier, lying on his straw pallet, Conar had "listened" to the conversation between Legion and Liza, hearing each word as distinctly as though he had been in the dungeon with them. With fists clenched, his jaw set, he forced himself to stay put, to not interfere. But at the last threat Legion made, Conar had leapt to his feet, furious with rage.

  "Damn you, no!" he growled. "You won't threaten her, A'Lex!" He took a step forward, feeling Liza's fear. "Stay away from her!"

  A second after that, Legion had fallen, pushed down the stairs by the rage of Conar's powerful thoughts. He hadn't meant to strike out at his brother, but his powers had gotten the better of him, had lashed out with a will of their own.

  Now, Conar pushed the others out of his way and rushed down the dungeon stairs. He stopped where Legion lay and drew in a harsh breath.

  "How badly is he hurt?"

  "A broken leg, possibly a dislocated shoulder." Grice touched the side of Legion's head. "Maybe a concussion. I don't know. He's bleeding at his temple and he's unconscious."

  Jah-Ma-El skirted the men gathering around Legion and knelt beside his brother. With his knowing hands, he assessed the damage, then glanced at Conar. "I'll need to set this leg before we can move him up the stairs."

  Conar put his hand under the unconscious man's back, lifted him, and braced Legion against his chest, enfolding him in his arms. His gaze fused with Jah-Ma-El's. "Do it before he wakes."

  Jah-Ma-El's hands roamed over Legion's leg, stopped, probed, hesitated, before moving to another area. When he had found the right place, he flexed his fingers along the calf muscle and shifted the leg. A thin, popping sound followed. Legion's eyes fluttered, although he didn't wake. Another movement of Jah-Ma-El's hands had the bones back in proper alignment. "Someone bring me a straight board and some bandages. I'll need to splinter this leg." Jah-Ma-El put his hands on Legion's shoulder and nodded. "It's dislocated. Hold him tightly, Conar. He may be waking."

  Legion groaned as Jah-Ma-El moved his shoulder into its socket with the practiced ease of a Healer. His loud grunt of pain and jerking body told everyone he had felt what Jah-Ma-El did.

  "Thom! Bent! Find something we can use to carry him up the stairs." Jah-Ma-El looked into Legion's pain-filled face. "Who am I?"

  Legion blinked several times, as if to focus the images before him. "My...brother..."

  "And who are you?" Jah-Ma-El stroked the blood-damp side of Legion's head.

  "Your brother..." Legion shifted his gaze toward Roget. "Who pushed me, du Mer?"

  Roget sighed. Looking at Jah-Ma-El, he grinned. "He'll be all right."

  "Who the hell pushed me?" Legion asked, trying to sit up and drawing in his breath. When Conar tightened his grip, Legion craned his head to look straight into Conar's gaze. The question died on his lips. "You did it," he accused, his stare boring into Conar. "You pushed me down the gods-be-damned stairs!"

  "Legion," Grice said, hunkering beside his friend. "Conar wasn't anywhere near you when--"

  "You didn't have to be, did you, Conar?" The anger in A'Lex's words sounded like
sizzling meat on a brazier.

  Conar looked at Roget. "Take him." He waited until Roget accepted the burden of Legion's body, then stood.

  "I'll never forgive you, Conar," Legion ground out. "You could have killed me!"

  "Aye, but I didn't."

  "You want her that badly? Badly enough to kill me to get her?"

  For a long moment, no one spoke, no one moved.

  The brothers stared at one another. Neither gave ground, neither looked away. A mute understanding passed from one man to the other, excluded those gathered.

  "You are no brother of mine," Legion said, stamping finality to the confrontation. "From this day forward, I do not claim you. You are nothing to me."

  "Careful what you say," Jah-Ma-El warned. "Conar has kept away from the lady, except for that one night when he didn't know what he was doing. You said you forgave him. Is your word of no consequence?"

  Legion kept his eyes on Conar. "Words of honor spoken to a man of his ilk are meaningless. Forgiveness for something he intended to do all along will not come from me!" He struggled to raise himself to a sitting position. "Father was right in disowning you. You are no longer a member of this family!"

  Conar turned his back on Legion and began to climb the stairs.

  "If you want her that badly," Legion called, "then you can have her! I'll not lower myself any longer to accept your leavings!"

  Turning, fixing Legion with a look of anguish, Conar tried to keep the catch out of his voice. "She is your wife. Don't speak of her like that."

  "She is nothing to me, like you are nothing to me! You wanted her so badly you were willing to kill me. Then take her, Conar. I want nothing to do with either of you!"

  An angry line formed along Conar's lips. He came down the stairs and crept toward his brother. "Are you sure that is what you want?"

  The hateful smirk on Legion's bearded face gave him the answer.

  "All right! So be it!" Spinning around, Conar took the stairs two at a time, his heavy footsteps causing the treads to tremble in protest.

  His sixth sense drove him toward the forest. Opening his psyche to the finely tuned connection between him and Liza, he could sense her pain, her worry calling to him in the night. He had heard her gasp of horror and knew she was aware of Legion's fall.

  A tremor ran along his nerve endings. His breathing slowed, almost stopped, as he concentrated on the vibrations. He willed his heart to stop its frantic tempo. He listened, not to the night sounds, but for the strumming of his and her life forces as they erratically throbbed. He pictured her in his mind, heard her heart beating in unison with his. He listened closer, cocking his head to one side.

  A faint sound, a mobile humming, played just beyond his conscious hearing. He concentrated harder than he had ever done in his life.

  There! Over there. He heard it!

  For only a fraction of a second, he heard the hum of her life force, pulsing like the middle string on a guitar. It moved in opposition to his own lower-pitched hum. With an effort, he omitted the throb of his own rhythm and heard hers clearly. Far away, but he heard it just the same.

  He headed for the sound.

  For the next ten minutes, he clawed and twisted through the forest, the light of the skipping moon lighting his way to a potter's shed, miraculously still standing, despite the fierce storms. He opened the door and entered.

  "I needed you," she whispered.

  "I'm here now," he said, closing the door behind him.

  Conar followed the sweet scent of her body to find her. He gathered her forbidden curves against him, and placed her head against his chest. His arms cradled her with a possessive force he could no longer deny. His lips found her hair, and he kissed the silkiness, his cheek pressed along the side of her head.

  "I knew you'd come," she said, her voice quivering.

  "I always will." Feeling tears sliding down her cheeks, he held her as though nothing in this world or beyond could sever them. "It will always be me, Liza. I will always be there for you."

  A torrent of sobs ripped through her trembling body. She gripped him with the arms of a drowning woman, hugging him fiercely. "I want you so much."

  His face creased into a mask of pain. "Oh Liza, the gods know I have tried to stay away from you, to do the right thing, to be loyal to Legion. I wanted no fight with him. I didn't mean to push him..."

  Her fingertips came up to silence him. "I know, beloved," she murmured, letting her fingers trail down his throat. "I understand."

  He shivered. "Legion wanted this thing between us. I didn't. But I won't back down to him. I won't. He will never lay a hand on you again. Not after tonight. If you stay with me, Elizabeth, I can never again allow you to be with another man!" Stern yet cautious, he drew back to look into her face, now visible in moonlight spilling through a small window. "I will have you sure of this."

  "I have never been surer of anything in my life. I want to be with you. Only you."

  He crushed her to him, feverishly pressing her body to his own. His hands went up her back of their own volition and entangled themselves in the rich, radiant abundance of her raven tresses. He dragged back her head so his lips could taste the pulsing hollow at the base of her throat.

  A low groan of mindless arousal escaped his questing lips, and his mouth traveled over her chin to claim hers in a bruising kiss. His tongue violently stabbed into her sweet mouth, penetrating her, claiming her, branding her. Bending down, he put his hands under her legs and lifted her off the floor.

  Liza wrapped her legs around his hips as he strode to the wall and pinned her against the rough wood. His right hand pushed aside her skirt, ripped away her stockings from the warm juncture of her thighs. He shifted her higher up the wall until he could tear at the buttons of his breeches. His manhood sprang forward with purposeful intent.

  "Liza," he groaned deep in his throat, his husky grunt of passion loud in the stillness of the potting shed.

  His hands slid under her, tightly cupping her buttocks. Lifting her to his hardness, he entered her with a quick lunge, going deep. When he completely filled her moistness, he stilled, allowing her to feel the throbbing length of his penis buried within her.

  "Feel it! Feel me inside you! Feel my love inside you, Elizabeth!"

  His hands dug into her rump and he pulled out of her, the wetness of his sword leaving a moist trail on the lips of her womanhood.

  Liza gasped, groaning at his withdrawal. Her nails dug into his shoulders. "Conar, please...please don't tease me..."

  Smiling triumphantly, he settled her higher against the wall and thrust into her again, forcing himself as deep as he could go. He heard her short gasp of pleasured pain when she ground herself against him, as if needing the hard strength of him impaling her. He withdrew and heard her softly sighed "no," then eased back into her, driving deep and full.

  The urgency of his lust pounded in his ears, the heat of her sheathing him making him wild with passion. But he controlled the need to fill her with his seed. The thought of her, the smell of her drove him mad, yet he concentrated on making her come before him. His manhood leapt inside her, throbbing with so much intensity he bit his lip to keep from climaxing. She became an ache in the very core of him.

  "Shall I pay homage to you, my Queen?" he whispered in her ear. His tongue flicked inside the spiral of pink flesh.

  Liza breathed hard. "Aye! Fill me, my dark warlord. My darling Prince of the Wind. Fill me with your love!"

  He felt her tightening around him and knew he wouldn't be able to stop the flood of semen threatening to erupt. "Then have me, Beloved...have all of me!"

  He pulled out of her, then drove upward, into her quivering flesh. A blinding surge of hot fluid spilled into her waiting womanhood; a burst of flame erupted over both of them as his seed surged deep within her soft flesh. When he heard her scream his name, felt her hips jerking against his pelvis, he threw back his head and howled to the heavens--

  "Mine!"

  Chapter 1
1

  * * *

  The Ravenwind had a difficult time maneuvering along the coastline of Serenia during the heavy rains that lasted for nearly a month. For most of that time, the black ship had ridden at anchor just beyond the jut of land known as Widow's Point, about twenty miles south of Boreas Keep. Her crew, captained by Gilbert Tarnes, arrived at the turn of the new year with a precious cargo destined for Ivor Keep. When they finally lowered a jolly boat into the subsiding waves, Tarnes and the second mate, Albert Lichter, set out immediately for the keep. By the time the bone-tired men, unaccustomed to horseback, arrived at the ruined keep, they stood outside the destruction with looks of intense worry on their weather-worn faces.

  "You reckon there's people buried in that rubble?" Albert asked, his voice low and fearful. "You reckon the captain and the lad are under that mess?"

  Gilbert Tarnes spat a long, thick stream of tobacco juice from his toothless mouth and gaped up at the only thing standing at the keep--the air shaft leading to the dungeon.

  "He's alive and so's Paegan." He looked back to the third man with them. "Ain't that so, Milord?"

  "Indeed they are, Mr. Tarnes." The man swung a long leg from his mount and quieted the horse when the beast sidestepped his hand. "Easy," he said in an oddly accented voice. "There's no death here."

  "Hello!"

  They spied a young man walking toward them from the midst of the ruins. He raised his hand and waved.

  "It's Paegan," Tarnes snorted, spitting another stream of dark brown juice.

  Paegan's face paled when he saw the tall, impressive man standing beside the sailors. His smile faltered and he stumbled, his mouth coming open in surprise.

  The man laughed, handing his reins to Albert. "Don't look so worried, Paegan. You have done nothing wrong."

  Paegan grinned sickly. "I hope not, sir."

  Skirting the fallen timbers, the tall man walked to Paegan and held out his hand. Grasping the slim wrist in his own, he took a firm grip and cocked a thick black brow. "Has something happened that has you worried?"

  "Ah, like what?"