Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - WindTales 02 (26 page)

Rowena could feel a light sheen of sweat glistening on her upper lip and had to look away. “Do you

remember that evening on the island?” she asked.

He snorted. “I don't think any man would ever forget being set on by a bunch of female sex fiends,

Madame!"

“No one touched you but me,” she reminded him.

“Aye, but the rest of your demonesses held me down for you, didn't they?” he accused.

“And enjoyed it, too,” Rowena sighed. “Surely you are aware of the power you have over females,

Syn-Jern."

“Oh, aye!” he spat. “They flocked around me like flies in Virago!"

Rowena winced. “Since that time, Milord."

He laughed scornfully. “Must be the scars on my hide that attracts you bitches now, eh?"

“Do you remember that evening?” she countered, wanting to take his mind from the mutilation of his

flesh.

“Of course, I do!"

“Then you remember our conversation,” she said.

“I remember it all,” he answered bitterly.

* * * *

When Rowena had finished with him, the women holding him backed away, allowed him to get up, hide

from their view. He was mortally ashamed of what had happened; sick with the knowledge that he'd

been taken against his will. He felt unclean, used, soiled beyond redemption and his first thought had been

of Genny and how his wife would view what had happened.

“She need never know,” Rowena told him.

“I'll know!’ he spat at her. He glared at the woman who had raped him.

“It was not rape,” she said then.

“If not rape, then what would you call it?"

“A necessity,” Rowena named it.

“For whom?” He was enraged by her calm words.

“For us."

The answer further infuriated him. He swept the women with a defiant leer. “Am I to be taken by every

one of you sluts?” He looked pointedly at their spears and the daggers thrust into the belts of their short

gowns. “You'll have to kill me first for I'll damned sure do as much damage to as many of you as I can

before it's through!"

“I believe he would, Lady,” Olivia remarked.

“You better believe I will!” he roared. “I will—"

“What do you know of the Daughters of the Multitude, Milord Syn-Jern?” she asked, interrupting.

“That you're a bunch of whores,” he sneered.

There was a low mumble of resentment, but Rowena held up her hand for quiet. She turned the full

authority of her gaze on him. “Was your grandmother, Monique, a whore, then, Milord Syn-Jern?"

Syn-Jern swore at her.

“She was one of us,” Rowena told him. “Surely you heard tales of her powers when you were a boy."

“That's neither here nor there,” he hissed. “If Grandmere was one of your sect, she certainly never felt

the need to..."

“His name was Justin,” Rowena stated. “Justin McGregor, the first king of Serenia after the Holocaust.

King Doran's father."

If the fury in those midnight blue orbs could have snuffed the life from his tormentress, she would have

died in an explosion of light.

“That's a gods-be-damned lie!” he whispered.

“You no doubt heard the rumors of her affair with the Serenian prince, did you not?” Rowena

challenged. “We certainly heard about it as far away as Chale. Of course that was before my time, you

understand. Before I accepted the mantel of The Great Lady from Monique."

“They may have been lovers,” he threw at her, “but she certainly did not rape him!"

“She most certainly did!” Rowena shot back. “Here!” She pointed to the cave's floor. “Where you were

taken, Tristan Syn-Jern Sorn!"

“Every Consort has been taken in such a way since the Daughterhood was established,” another of the

women informed him.

“Whether he was willing or not,” Olivia put in.

“And you're proud of that?” he bellowed. “Well, I'll promise you this much: as soon as I am able, I

intend to warn sailors about that gods-be-damned little cave of yours. I—"

“Did you think you came to this place by chance, Milord Syn-Jern?” Rowena asked him. She stared into

his sullen face. “Do you think the storm came up all on its own?” She shook her head. “You were

brought here, my lover. You were ordered here by us!"

“For what purpose?” He came to his feet, oblivious to the spears.

“For the same reason Justin McGregor was brought here,” Rowena replied. “And Olan Hesar before

him. And before them, there were Jean-Claude Montyne; Severn Taborn; Liam Brell; Raine Wynth, and

Ruan Cree. One royal son after another; one country after another; one generation after another in the

hopes that we could find the one man destined to be our Champion!"

“They wouldn't do your bidding, eh?” he scoffed.

“None had the Power. That self-same Power with which you were born,” Olivia explained.

“Power?” he questioned, incredulously. “That power I neither want nor can control? Is that what you

desire? You want a killing machine to champion you?"

“We want a warrior who can help us crush the Domination and its hold over our peoples!” Olivia

shouted. “You wield such power, Milord Syn-Jern, whether you wish to or not!"

“The Domination?” Syn-Jern shuddered violently. “No man would be stupid enough to go up against

that filthy bunch."

“Who do you think controls the Tribunals of Virago and Serenia, Syn-Jern?” Rowena challenged. “Of

Chale and Ionary? Necroman and Oceania?” She spat on the cave floor. “The Brotherhood of the

Domination, that's who!"

“They were behind the theft of your land, Duke Sorn,” Olivia said. “Behind the death of Trevor Saur."

“They are like cockroaches,” Rowena hissed. “Step on one and another crawls out of the woodwork.”

She jabbed him in the chest with a rigid finger. “We need an exterminator, Milord Syn-Jern. A man who

can stand up to them and crush them.” She jabbed him again. “A champion who, with the very use of his

mind, can completely devastate their ranks!” She jabbed again. “Are you that man?"

“Poke your finger at me one more time and I'll break it,” he warned her, batting her hand away.

“Legends say one day there will come a warrior to crush the Domination. When, we do not know; but

he will come.” Rowena fused her stare with his. “It may be you; it may not. But with every male child

born on the night of the winter's Solstice, we make our search."

“That's it?” he asked, his jaw dropping open with disbelief. “You chose me because I happened to have

had the misfortune of being born on the 21st of December?"

“Don't be ridiculous!” Rowena snarled. “There were other considerations, as well."

“Such as?"

“Where the child was born. How. To whom. How he was forced to grow up. What interest the

Domination shows in him."

“And they showed great interest in you, Milord Syn-Jern,” Olivia told him.

“Who says so?” he demanded.

“Demonicus,” Rowena answered.

Syn-Jern could not argue that point. The priest had shown far too much interest in him since he had been

old enough to know there were men like Demonicus Voire.

“Fight for us, Syn-Jern,” Rowena begged, watching as he vacillated between believing her and rebelling.

“Be our champion. You have been in ages past. Be so, now!"

“I...” He plowed his fingers through his hair. “Why didn't you just ask?” he growled. “Was what you did

necessary? Was it supposed to bind me to you, Rowena?"

“Do not let your male pride get in the way of what you know must be done,” Olivia cautioned him. “You

will return to Virago to fight for what was taken from you. Why not simply go a step further and seek out

the root of the evil instead of merely lopping off the branches?"

“Branches that will grow back and strengthen. Branches that will drop seed to breed more evil!”

Rowena added.

Syn-Jern was not a stupid man and he understood their concerns. Everyone knew the Multitude fought

the Domination, had for hundreds of years. Since the Holocaust. The Multitude was powerful, perhaps

even more so than the Domination, and even though he'd never had dealings with the Daughters, he had

always respected their fight with the evil the women had vowed to terminate. To hear that his beloved

grandmother was one of them made him less inclined to argue.

“Join us, Milord Syn-Jern,” Rowena begged. “We need you."

Something happened then that Syn-Jern Sorn would remember to the day he died and beyond. His

Grandmother came to him, stood right before him in a halo of light; and what she had said, what she had

told him, what she had made him promise, had brought the darkness, the moodiness, and silences that so

worried his wife and friends.

“Syn-Jern?” Rowena asked, bringing him back to the present.

He looked at her, really looked at her, and perfect understanding hit him like a ton of rock. “You're

pregnant,” he breathed.

Rowena started. “Why do you say that?"

His gaze moved down her, held at her belly. “You wanted a child and you took it from me. That was

what it was all about. It had nothing to do with the other part, nothing at all to do with that. You raped

me to get with child.” Even as she was shaking her head in denial, he nodded. “Aye, you did. Akito could

not give you a babe so you—” He stopped, the Emperor's words coming back to him. “Twins?” he

asked in a husky whisper. “You are carrying twins?"

Rowena opened her mouth to lie, but she could not. Instead, she lifted one shoulder in acceptance of his

accusation. “With my powers combined with yours, I knew a male child would be almost invincible. If

you could not or would not aid us, I would bring him up to do so.” She smiled. “I did not, however,

count on there being a girl child, as well. You are most potent, Milord Syn-Jern."

His hand trembled as he raked his fingers through his hair, a habit that endeared him to her. “If I can't

control the damned thing—"

“We will teach you,” she said quickly, reaching out to take his hand. “Pretorius and I. Even Akito. He

has some limited magik, himself, he can teach."

Syn-Jern shook his head. “I don't know..."

“You made a promise to Monique,” she reminded him.

“Aye,” he sighed. And so he had.

[Back to Table of Contents]

“What did that woman want with you?” Genny demanded later that morning.

Syn-Jern drew in a long breath. “We have to talk, Genevieve."

“Aye,” his wife agreed. “That we do, Syn-Jern!” She came to his bed and stood there, angrily tapping

her foot. “Who was that woman?"

He bit his lip. “The Empress Rowena."

Genny's eyebrow shot up. “Really?” she asked in a droll voice. “And just what did she want with you?"

There was guilt on her husband's face and he fidgeted with the covers. “Genny...” he began, but she cut

him off.

“You look like a small boy caught with his hand in the candy jar, Milord. Do you know that ugly

redhead?"

Surprise lifted Syn-Jern's brows. “Ugly? Rowena?” At his wife's narrowed gaze and constricted lips, he

grinned. “You're jealous!"

“I am not!” she protested with a snort.

He looked at her closely. She was angry; her body was rigid; her eyes flashing; his grin widened. “You

are jealous!"

“If it pleases you to think so, then fantasize all you will about my so-called jealousy, Syn-Jern, but if you

do not tell me what that woman was doing in here, I will seek her out myself!"

The grin on Syn-Jern's face wavered. “I'm not sure that would be such a wise idea, Genny."

“Oh, you don't, do you?"

“No, not at all.” He took his wife's hand. “Besides, she means nothing to me."

“Is that so?” she inquired in a voice that was too sweet by far. She sat beside him. “You know, Milord, I

have often heard it said that in order for a woman not to mean something to a man, he must first have had

dealings with her on a personal level."

The grin slipped from his face. “Now, Genny—"

“And in order for him to have had dealings with her on a personal level, he had to first know her."

“Well..."

Genny took his chin in a bruising grip. “Do you know that bitch, Syn-Jern?"

“We had met..."

“Where?"

“Genny...” He yelped as she jerked viciously on his chin. “Damn it, woman; that hurts!” he grumbled,

pulling away.

“Syn-Jern!” she warned in a tone that brooked no further delay in his explanation.

He flexed his aching jaw. “All right!” he mumbled. “I've been trying to think of a way to tell you..."

“Thinking up lies to tell me?” she countered.

“No!” he snapped. “I don't want there to be lies or secrets between us, Genevieve, but this was not

something easily told or confessed."

Genny drew back. “Confessed?” she pounced on the word. “Confession constitutes transgression,

Milord Syn-Jern."

“I did nothing wrong!” he defended.

“You knew that woman.” It was an accusation. “Before Chrystallus."

Syn-Jern's forehead creased. “Aye. I had encountered her."

“Encountered,” she said flatly. “In what way, Milord?"

“Will you make me a promise?” he asked worriedly.

“No."

“Genny, please,” he pleaded. “If you want to hear this, then let me tell it without you jumping on every

word I say.” His voice turned irritable. “It's hard enough to tell you this without having you sitting there

waiting to slap the hell out of me if I say something you don't like!"

His wife folded her arms and stared at him, one brow lifted. “All right. I'll hold my tongue, and my hand,

until you've finished."

He wasn't so sure she would; he wanted the ground rules understood. “You won't interrupt until I'm