As mind boggling as the entire incident was, as difficult as it was to register all that had been happening, she’d still noted the two bodies lying in the sand, dying or dead already. Damien and the remaining man beast were locked in battle now. One would win. She was fairly certain she wanted nothing to do with whoever won and she was running out of time and options.
Closing her mind to the growls, roars and meaty thuds as they pounded at each other, she searched frantically along the dune for the tunnel she had never actually seen. She had felt it though and she reasoned that she should be able to feel it again if she found it.
She came up empty. Glancing around a little desperately to get her bearings, she noticed two things almost simultaneously. The creature that Damien had become had vanquished his foe … and she was standing, as nearly as she could tell, where she’d landed when she’d found herself in the desert. As the great beast rose and looked around for her, she stumbled to her feet, gathered herself and, clutching the amulet as she had before, she dove.
She felt certain she plowed up three feet of sand when she touched down like an airplane coming in for a landing--minus landing gear. The air being pounded from her lungs on impact was all that kept the cloud of dust she dug up from saturating her throat and lungs. Even so, she was coughing when an arm snaked around her waist and jerked her to her feet.
“You cannot return to the other world.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” Khalia lied when she managed to catch her breath, batting the sand from her eyes with her lashes and finally peering up at him.
He was--he looked--human once more, but she knew better now and she didn’t feel any less threatened.
One dark brow arched skeptically, but he said nothing for several moments, lifting his head to scan the skies above them. “I should have realized at once that you were in season and the danger far worse than I’d anticipated.”
Despite her fear of the creature, Khalia felt indignation rise once more. “That is a vile, disgusting thing to say! If I wasn’t a lady, I’d slap your face!”
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing, but in a moment the corners of his mouth twitched, a smile threatening. He curbed the urge when she glared at him, though his eyes still gleamed with amusement and something else she rather preferred not to interpret. “Your pardon, princess. It was merely a statement of fact and not intended to insult you.”
His audacity bereft her of speech for perhaps two heartbeats. “It is NOT a fact,” she snapped. “I am a woman … human. We do not go into he--We do not come in sea--”
Both dark brows lifted that time. Instead of releasing her, however, he moved his hands to her upper arms. Grasping them firmly, he hauled her closer, dipping his head until they were almost nose to nose. It wasn’t until that moment that Khalia realized that he wasn’t gasping from exertion so much as the effort to control his urges. His eyes were dark with hunger and as he dragged in a deep breath, his features hardened. A tremor traveled through the hands that gripped her.
As before, and despite all logic to the contrary, her body instantly responded to the desire she sensed in him. It moved over and through her like a wave of electricity, making her skin prickle with hypersensitivity. Abruptly, she was aware of her own body in a way she never had been before and him as she had never been aware of another man. The heat of his body, his scent, his sheer male magnificence rolled over her, annihilating the last shreds of her common sense.
“Your scent is as delicate as a lotan blossom and as fiery as acid in my blood. If I were not disciplined to ignore my primal urges because of my position in caring for the royal family, I would have taken you myself. Not one male within a twenty mile radius can resist your allure at this moment. I must take you some place safe until your time has passed … or you will have no choice in your mate, for the strongest will take you.”
He might have been speaking gibberish for all Khalia understood. His husky voice slid along her nerve endings like the caress of a hand, sending warming, pleasurable, knee weakening vibrations throughout her body. She sighed, unconsciously lifting her lips a little closer in silent supplication.
She wasn’t certain when he ceased speaking and his gaze focused on her mouth, but the rush of his breath, as if a giant hand had suddenly squeezed the air from his lungs, escalated want to need and she leaned infinitesimally closer.
“Olgin’s balls!” he growled, setting her away from him abruptly. “You tempt me to your peril, princess. I am a soldier first. But I am still a man.”
Khalia blinked in surprise, but it was several moments before the obvious crudity/curse filtered through her heated brain and several more before the implications of his last comment made a connection. She gaped at him in outrage then, revolted by the very notion that she was so lost to all sense of propriety as to encourage any man, let alone a … savage to think that she was eager for his lovemaking, making no attempt to hide either her outrage or her revulsion. “I tempt … I!” she stammered. “Your … primal urges have fried your brain, you … you … whatever sort of creature you are!”
His features hardened with anger. He caught her wrists this time, slowly and deliberately forcing them behind her back until she was forced to arch her back to relieve the pressure. Manacling both her wrists with one hand, he just as deliberately flicked the tatters of her jacket aside and cupped one of her breasts, pinching the erect bud at the end. Something very like a jolt of electricity went through her, but she wasn’t certain, at first, if it was purely from shock at his familiarity or something else entirely. When he lowered his head and replaced his fingers with his mouth, lathing the sensitive tip with his tongue and then covering it with his mouth and suckling, she lost all awareness of anything beyond the mindless pleasure that enveloped her, weakening her knees, constricting the air in her lungs until she found herself struggling to breathe.
“I am dragon … just as you are, princess,” he growled when he lifted his head at last.
Khalia struggled to lift her eyelids and focus on what he was saying. “I am no such thing. My parents were human beings … not … not.”
“Dragons?” he supplied, his eyes narrowed now, his breath as ragged as her own. “Your sire was human. Your mother, Princess Rheaia, was as I am--Dragon. But do not despair, sheashona. I will not hold it against you that you are only a half breed.”
Read an excerpt from Goldie McBride’s upcoming medieval romance:
Fallen Warrior
By
Goldie McBride
Chapter One
There was no reward for virtue in the life fate had handed her, Roslyn reflected bitterly.
Her fellow troubadours had been outraged when they had finally stopped running long enough to discover why they’d been chased from the dubious comfort of Castle Kilkane. The lord of the castle had thought to bestow his favor upon her and she had had the temerity to scorn him? Who did she think she was? A bleedin’ lady?
The question of whether or not they would even allow her to remain with the troupe had been up for debate for many miles. It was only Gilly’s reminder that she’d landed them the gig in the first place that had finally decided the matter in her favor, but she had been forewarned. If the next lord of the manor decided to favor her, she had best grit her teeth and let him toss her skirts over her head, otherwise she need not think she would be traveling with them anymore.
A ragged shout of excitement went up from her fellow travelers. With an effort, Roslyn lifted her head and peered through the sleet toward the keep they were approaching, resisting the urge to blow on her freezing fingers to warm them lest it remind those around her that she was the reason they were all freezing, weary unto death, and starving.
A dark, hulking shape rose up from the crag overlooking the moor.
It was Montrose, the lair of the dark lord, Roland Montague.
Roslyn shivered, but it was more than the cold seeping through her ragged clothing. The villagers in the little town they had left behind had not mer
ely been bursting with the news that nobles from half the kingdom were gathering at Castle Montrose for a wedding celebration. They had been eager to impart the dark rumors that surrounded the lord himself, Roland Montague, brother of the groom.
Bloodshed had gained him his holdings, but it was said that he had been cursed for the evil he had brought upon the land with his army, his manhood withered in the flower of his youth and that malady had only made him more cruel.
The young bride he had taken shortly after he had become lord had met an untimely and mysterious death.
A wave of nausea rolled over Roslyn with that thought.
She was more than passingly familiar with the ways a cruel man could invent to rid himself of an unwanted bride. She would not have been where she was now except for similar circumstances, and the fact that her own husband had been no great hand at subtlety. Thrice, he’d beaten her nigh to death and three times she had lost the seed he had sown in her, and yet neither the beatings nor the miscarriages had achieved his ends.
She had her kinsman to thank for the poison, for when they had warned him point blank that they would not tolerate the murder of their kinswoman, Rolphe had simply decided that subtlety was needed. He might have succeeded save for the fact that her nurse was well versed in poisons and he had been too impatient to administer the poison slowly, so that she appeared to be sickening.
She had fled then, knowing her life was forfeit if she stayed, fearing it would be forfeit anyway, for she had no notion of how to fend for herself in the world. Fortune had favored her when she had stumbled upon the troupe and they had taken her in, but the fear was never far from her that they would cross paths at some noble’s keep.
He might not recognize the girl he had once called his wife, in any event. Nearly eighteen now and no longer in the first blush of youth, she had grown nigh three inches in the two years since she had fled. Between the late spurt of growth and the scarcity of food, she had lost the plumpness that had once been hers and gained the lithe body of the dancer she had become. Her hair, once a pale, faded brown, had been lightened to a bright auburn with the lye she applied to it regularly.
She had had cause to regret that bit of cleverness for it had drawn unwelcome attention more than once, but it was not something that could be easily undone once done. In any case, she wasn’t entirely easy in her mind that her disguise was proof against detection as it was should she encounter the man she had lived with for more than two years and it seemed more prudent to err on the side of caution.
The lord of Kilkane had been the first who’d sought her out and tried force when persuasion had failed. Before, she’d managed to evade the amorous attentions of those whose eye she’d caught.
Perhaps, she thought, lifting her head to study the castle looming above them like a great, hulking beast of prey, Lord Roland’s infirmity would be enough protection.
They saw long before they reached it that the main gate had already been locked tight against the approaching night and the party moved off the road and made their way around the castle through the deepening gloom to the postern gate. There they were ordered to wait while the steward was sent for. No one spoke as they huddled together for warmth, too weary with cold and footsore to feel like bolstering their flagging spirits with conversation.
It was full dark and by Roslyn’s reckoning, an hour had passed before the steward finally arrived, peering down at them from the wall above. Braun, the leader of their little troupe, stepped forward at once and sketched a courteous bow. “We were told in the village that there is to be a wedding celebration at Montrose Castle and have come to offer our services as entertainment.”
The steward took a torch and leaned out, peering down at the huddled group. “How many of you are there and what can you offer?”
“Seven—three are musicians, two dancers, two tumblers and jugglers.”
The steward mulled that over for several moments. “No singers?”
“Two of our members can sing.”
“How is it that you find yourselves without a patron in the middle of the winter?” the steward asked sharply.
Roslyn shifted uncomfortably.
“Our place was usurped by a troop with a dancing bear,” Braun lied promptly.
The steward seemed satisfied with that. After haggling with Braun for some moments over the pay, he gestured that they might enter and everyone surged forward as they heard the groan as the gate began to slowly open. “The castle is full to bursting at the seams now and barely half the guests have arrived,” the steward told them as he led them through the nether regions of the castle. “You will be fortune indeed if you can find space on the floor to bed down and do not have to sleep on your feet. You’ll have to hurry if you expect to be fed.”
Thus adjured, they ignored their half frozen limbs and hurried to keep up as the steward led them at last to the great hall where the diners were finishing their meal. Almost as they entered the great hall, the din of hundreds of voices petered to a halt as someone—Roslyn thought it must be Lord Roland—rose from his seat at the high table and bellowed a command for silence. His first words confirmed it. “After a great deal of consideration, I have come at last to a decision regarding my estate. Unless fortune should chose to smile upon me—which I have grave doubts at this point that it will—upon the first anniversary of the birth of his first son, I will officially appoint my brother, Phillip, as my heir.”
Intrigued more by the timber of the voice itself than the announcement, Roslyn tried to peer toward the speaker as they were herded toward the back of the great hall, but many had jumped to their feet at the announcement and she could see little beyond the fact that the man who’d spoken was broad, exceptionally tall and very dark. The man seated beside him was also dark. She assumed it must be the brother he’d spoken of, but from the glimpse she caught of his face he did not seem particularly pleased by the announcement. She wondered if it was because of the reservations Lord Roland had expressed or if there was some less obvious reason for his displeasure. Whatever the case, his smile was obviously a little forced as he, too, got to his feet. “In that case, I need only wait a matter of eighteen months or so to have my brother’s honor bestowed upon me!” he announced, winking at a woman Roslyn assumed must be his blushing bride.
There were a few guffaws of laughter, but the crowd seemed strangely solemn for such an occasion, and their cheers at their lord’s announcement halfhearted at best.
It puzzled Roslyn, particularly in light of the rumors surrounding Lord Roland. The only conclusion she could draw from it was that Lord Phillip was even less favored than his brother.
There was no place to sit they discovered with little surprise, even at the lowest tables, but they managed to grab a few scraps from a passing servant and found a place near the back wall to wolf it down. Roslyn glanced longingly toward the enormous hearth on the wall near the high tables, but she knew very well that there was no chance any of them would be allowed near it to warm themselves and the heat from the great, roaring fire did not even begin to penetrate so far back in the hall. The heat from hundreds of bodies made the hall far warmer than it might have been otherwise, however, and between that and the food in her belly Roslyn began to thaw.
The steward had not specified when they might be called upon, but as soon as they’d eaten they began to prepare themselves. The four men in the group formed a semi-circle around Roslyn and Gilly so that they could shimmy into their dance costumes. They’d become adept at pulling the costumes on beneath their clothing since there was rarely any privacy for changing. Roslyn had been horrified both by the costume and the dance when Bruan had first suggested it. Both had originated in the east, which Braun had never visited, but since very few folk had ever done so there was no one to dispute his claims that both the dance and the costumes were completely authentic.
Roslyn entertained a good bit of doubt, but she could not deny that the dance and the costume together were a strong draw—not really surpris
ing since the cloth the costumes were made of was so sheer it was like dancing in veils—which was what Braun called it ‘the dance of the veils’--and the dance itself was indecently evocative, which made it all the worse, she supposed, that she had not only mastered it, but so thoroughly enjoyed it that she lost herself in the music and dance once she had begun.
It was just as well, for she wasn’t at all certain that she would ever have been able to perform in front of such crowds if she could not escape into herself while she danced.
Of course, she could not flatter herself unduly that she was exceptionally accomplished. Truth to tell, she doubted any of the men ever noticed much beyond the sheer costume itself.
When they’d finished adjusting the costumes, they removed their rough gowns and pulled robes over the costumes that could be easily discarded once they were called upon to dance.
Roslyn’s belly clenched as she saw the steward approaching the high table. She could see little of the men seated there, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was the lord of the castle the steward approached and spoke to. After a moment, the lord signaled dismissal of the troubadour who’d been singing a ballad. Almost in the same moment, a servant pushed his way through the group and informed Braun that they were summoned.
Fastening her veil across the lower half of her face, Roslyn pulled her hood up to cover her bright hair and followed Gilly.
She would almost have preferred to go first than to stand and watch the others perform, waiting her turn and becoming more and more nervous as her own turn approached, but Braun had decreed that the dance of the veils was to be their finale, and Gilly never argued with Braun over such matters, bowing completely to his judgment. Since Gilly was Braun’s woman and she held little sway over his decisions, at least in matters regarding their performance, Roslyn had never even considered arguing with him.
A Lamentation of Swans Page 19