Return to Eden (17 page)

“
Open the gates! Open the
gates!” the man in the lead bellowed as he came into
view.

“
Run!” the man behind him
yelled when he spotted the group gaping at them.

Both screamed orders, Noel discovered,
came from the delegation barreling toward them at the best speed
they could manage—the delegation that had left days ago to hike
over to the nearest village to try to negotiate a treaty with the
natives.

And directly on their heels was an army
of Amazons, who abruptly began screaming like banshees the moment
they spotted the group, Noel’s group, just beyond the safety of the
colony!

The screams released some from their
indecisive paralysis.

It had the opposite effect on
Noel.

For a space of critical heartbeats,
Noel merely stared wide-eyed with mouth agape at the barbarian
horde heading straight for them from the path through the forest
that edged the plain where they’d built their colony.

Monica, who’d already whirled to charge
toward the gate and safety, spotted Noel and changed directions
abruptly. Charging toward her, she slammed into Noel in her efforts
to grab her. Their feet tangled, and both of them sprawled
out.

Monica hit the dirt like she was spring
loaded. Completely unfazed from her collision with the ground, she
grabbed Noel’s arm on her rebound and yanked her to her
feet.

It was enough to throw off Noel’s shock
and jog her sense of self-preservation. She ran. She ran so fast
she outran Monica and began dragging her.

She ran so fast she didn’t know what
the hell happened when she was abruptly slammed against the ground.
She thought for several moments that Monica had tripped and fallen
on her.

Until she was hauled up and tossed over
a broad shoulder that knocked the breath out of her and made her
black out.

Chapter Two

“
Can you
believe
those stupid
bastards
led
the
damned Amazons back to the colony and got
us
captured?” Monica burst out
angrily.

Noel still had a headache—from being
carried with her head hanging down, she thought. “Did I get hit on
the head?”

Monica’s anger subsided abruptly and
she moved toward Noel, examining her head carefully. “I don’t see
anything. Whiplash probably,” she diagnosed, “from being body
slammed on the ground by that bitch.”

* * * *

Drak stared out at the drifts of snow
that were gradually growing higher, his expression a cross between
disgust and plain out anger. But it had very little to do with the
weather conditions outside that were more miserable than usual. He
had hated this time of year since he’d been a boy. And the fact
that a forced peace lay over the lands due to conditions that no
sane man would tackle for glory or riches had little to do with it,
directly, at any rate. It reminded him of his losses, filled him
with fresh pain that he had hoped every year would not visit him
with his memories.

The distance of time didn’t seem to
have helped a great deal.

He considered that for a
moment. How many
anums
had passed?

He had been four
anums
when his sister
had been born. He recalled the birth. He would not have recalled
the age he had been—didn’t—but he did recall that his mother had
said that he was four
anums
older and that he was certainly old enough to be
his young sister’s protector.

Except he hadn’t been competent enough
to protect her and no amount of practice or skills acquired since
that time could make up for the lack he had had when it had been
needed.

That
was what tormented him, he realized, far more than the
losses.

It had been his fault—all the way
around.

His father, Drak the Dark,
had broken centuries of tradition when he had decided to keep his
woman until she delivered his son—his heir. He had ignored his
advisors when they had pointed out that it was always possible to
determine his seed from the others—a Flaxen
always
knew his get by scent—knew
the scent of the woman they’d impregnated. Even if it transpired
that the child favored his mother rather than his father—a rare
thing!—he would know the off-spring by scent!

There were reasons for the traditions!
And refusing to honor age old traditions was just asking for
trouble!

The advisors hadn’t lost their heads
for pointing that out to their prince, but it had been a near
thing.

He, of everyone, even his closest
friends, knew why his father had ignored tradition and kept his
woman.

In the beginning it had
been because, despite the myths to the contrary, a man did
not
always know his
child—sometimes, yes, but there was no absolute certainty except
when the child looked like a copy of the father. It rarely
mattered, however, and that was why most men were content to adhere
to the centuries old tradition. Unless a man had valuable
possessions or property that he wanted to ensure passed to his son,
there was no reason to be concerned.

His father was not actually the son of
Drak the Red, however, as he was first believed to be and he had
suffered for his father’s ‘mistake’. Until the day he died, Drak
the Red had searched for his ‘true’ son, determined to usurp the
changling that was his name sake and replace him with the true
heir. Drak the Dark refused to take a chance that he might repeat
that mistake and bring another man’s son to his throne.

So he had taken the woman and she had
born a son for him—and then a daughter—and still he would not
return her to her people because he had become enthralled with her
long before she had born his first child. It hadn’t been until she
had become pregnant a third time that Drak the Dark had begun to
feel some concern that his son and heir might be weakened by the
presence and influence of a female.

And that anxiety had been
compounded by the worry that his woman might produce a second heir
who could create a split in the realm if the younger son should
decide
not
to
accept his elder brother as high prince.

That decision had pitched all of them
into a nightmare. For although he had hated his father ever after
for his decision that had cost him his beloved mother and sister,
he hadn’t been so blinded by his hate that he wasn’t aware that it
had created a hellish existence for his father for his final years,
as well.

Occasionally, he wondered what his life
would have been like if his father hadn’t thumbed his nose at
tradition, but he didn’t like to travel that road because he was
fairly certain his mother would still be alive if his father hadn’t
kept her, hadn’t become obsessed with her.

That
was the danger of keeping a woman! A man could lose his head
over a woman. It would warp his judgment and distract him and that
would make him dangerous on the battlefield.

Uneasiness slithered through him at the
last thought, but he dismissed it.

He would not make the same mistake his
father had!

The approach of his second in command
distracted him from his dark thoughts. He straightened, studying
the older man as he moved briskly across the great hall. Kulle
bowed respectfully when he reached him. “Lord, the ship is
prepared.”

Drak felt his belly tighten. It was
much the same reaction he had to imminent battle—the thrill of the
fight, the fear of defeat and death—anticipation and dread rolled
together in an unidentifiable rock in his belly.

There was more fear and dread in this,
however, than anticipation. “And Moden—is he confident that that
rusting contraption will make another voyage and back
again?”

Kulle released a snort that was part
amusement and part disgust. “Likely your order would have worked
with anyone else, Lord. But that one became witless the moment I
suggested he would be sailing with us if he was so confident in it.
He has not had a woman before.”

Drak rolled his eyes. “A
miscalculation, that! Well, we will all know before long if it will
make the journey there and back.”

Kulle frowned, glanced around uneasily,
and moved a little closer to where Drak stood in the window
embrasure. “I am not concerned that it will hold together for the
voyage,” he muttered in a growling whisper. “It is the speed—or
lack of it—that concerns me. If it will not make the trip there and
back swiftly, it will not make it at all and then you would be
trapped in that dread, dark sea forever! For you would not catch
our world or its sister before you ran out of supplies.”

Drak shrugged. “There is
always that risk. There has always
been
that risk. But they will not
come to us and if we do not go while the two worlds are closest
there is no chance of catching our prey.”

They had always been inclined, in point
of fact, to consider that the gods favored their voyage/endeavor.
For the one time of year that the sister worlds were closest was in
the dead of winter when the weather was far too foul for hunting or
warring, making it the perfect time to turn their attentions to
mating. And the second closest approach was just before spring
thaw. This circumstance made it just possible to take them back to
the more benign of the two sisters for their delicate term of
gestation and return in time to prepare for war.

Not that there was always
a war to return to. Historically speaking, war was actually fairly
rare. There
was
likely to be a skirmish or two between rival clans over some
dispute, however—which made it absolutely necessary to make and
repair weapons and polish their fighting skills—but they had not
had all out war with another clan since he’d been a boy.

That war had broken out when his mother
had tried to escape with him and his sister to prevent his father,
Drak the Dark, from separating her from her son.

He had made treaty with their enemies
after the death of his father in battle. It had not been a popular
decision since their enemies had killed the ruling prince in
battle—earning him the sobriquet of Drak the Fair—but he had
considered his father as responsible for his mother’s death as he
had the man who’d captured her—or more. After ten years of war and
the death of all parties initially involved in the dispute, he had
figured it was time to make peace between their two
clans.

“
Well, I am too old for
such things, Lord. I am happy enough to wait here by the fire,”
Kulle commented with a touch of amusement, “while you strapping
young lads pursue the vixens.”

Drak uttered a derisive
snort. “You do not have enough
anums
on me to consider yourself
old,” he retorted. “And I am beyond the thrill of capture myself,
if it comes to that. I would not be going if it was not my duty to
the men and to the realm.”

Kulle’s amusement waned. “Will you be
taking young Prince Terl on this raid?”

Drak’s own humor vanished.
“I have said that I will not,” he responded tightly. “When he is
old enough to
lead
a raid he may do so with my blessing. Until then, he is my
heir and will do his duty to the realm and stay here.”

Kulle nodded quickly and backed away.
“I will tell the men to prepare themselves quickly for the voyage.
You will be leaving at first light?”

“
Aye. Make certain my sons
are there to bid me farewell.”

Also coming in 2014 from New Concepts
Publishing and Kaitlyn O’Connor:

The Watchers:

LOST WORLD

By

Kaitlyn O’Connor

Chapter One

Claire wasn’t certain what woke her.
She might have heard or felt something that filtered through her
sleeping mind and roused the conscious side of her brain. It may
have been the tiny animal portion of her brain, still primitive and
ready to react instantaneously to threat, that brought her swimming
upward swiftly toward full awareness.

Whatever it was, the alarms failed her
at the most critical juncture of her life, the one time she needed
her instincts to survive, because she didn’t actually have time to
react. She was so sluggish even when she reached complete
consciousness, she couldn’t process what she’d detected and
determine what the threat was or how to react to it.

Then again, none of her instincts might
have been triggered.

She’d gone to bed late and, as tired as
she was from almost a week of breaking down the old nest, sorting
and packing belongings, and then moving and unpacking and sorting,
she’d been too wired to fall asleep.

No doubt the strangeness of her new
apartment had played a role in the problem. She never slept well in
strange places and she hadn’t even had time to settle into her new
apartment. Most of her belongings were still scattered around the
place in boxes—sorted only by the room they belonged in. Her mind
was also active, refusing to be quieted so that she could rest,
going back over and over a mental check list to make sure
everything had been done that needed to be done. But she was to
start her new job the following morning and the nervous
anticipation threading her veins was mostly to blame for the hours
she’d lain awake and restless, she was sure.