SECRETS OF THE WIND (3 page)

“I ain’t going back,” the prisoner snarled, and stabbed once more with the boning knife. He was hacking at the air, driving the blade downward with strokes meant to terrify his intended victim. “I’ve had enough prison life to last me.”

“You’ve got that half-right. You have had enough life, that’s for sure,” Chas told him. Although she disapproved of Command’s policy of giving a prisoner a chance to have his sentence put aside if he could take out a RG, she knew it wasn’t ever going to happen. No criminal alive was as well trained as a Riezell Guardian. The outcome was never in doubt.

One moment Chas was pressed to the rough wooden wall of a building and the next, she was staring wide-eyed at the headless corpse tumbling toward her. So quick had been the blade that had lopped the attacker’s head from his body, she had not seen it slice through flesh, tendon, cartilage and bone. No blood spurted from the deadly wound for the weapon that had taken the prisoner’s head had seared the arteries and veins upon contact.

The swords wielded by members of the Order of Taibhse are razor-thin. The blade of that weapon is so thin and so sharp it cannot be seen by the naked eye. Upon contact with living matter, an electrical current is generated and the edge of the blade will cauterize nerve endings and blood vessels instantly. We’re talking bloodless killing here,
one of her instructors at the Academy had lectured.

As the body collapsed at her feet, Chas moved aside.

“Are you all right?”

It was a deep, husky voice that asked and it was strong, powerful hands that closed around her upper arms. The charge from that contact went all the way down her arm and spiraled into her belly, eliciting an unexpected gasp as he dragged her toward him. She felt as though she were drowning, being dragged down into a lightless, limitless maelstrom and she tried to jerk out of his grip only to be pulled up against a chest as solid as granite.

“Did he hurt you, lass?” that deep voice demanded, and when Chas did not answer, those powerful hands shook her lightly. “Listen to me—are you hurt?”

Chas looked up into dark blue eyes that seemed to be delving into her very soul. The closeness of the man’s hard body, the uncanny electrical current passing from his palms to the nether regions of her body, an intoxicating smell of leather and cinnamon overpowered her and she sagged in his hands, unable to assimilate logically the sensations bombarding her.

Before she could protest, her would-be rescuer released his hold on her and swept her into his arms, holding her against him as though she were a child.

“Honestly, Your Grace!” The querulous inquiry was high-pitched and filled with annoyance. “Please do not run off like that. You know your mother…”

“Get the hell out of my way, Lincoln,” Ruan snarled and swung around so that Chas’ feet hit whoever had been speaking and knocked the speaker aside.

Chas had no choice but to put her arms around Prince Ruan’s neck. His long-legged stride was churning up distance as he carried her along. All she could see was the underside of his lean jaw and was surprised to see a white anger line tight against his tanned flesh.

“Your Grace, really!” Lincoln protested. “Must you be so rough?”

“You ain’t seen rough, yet, Lincoln,” Ruan muttered.

Hurrying alongside the man he had been ordered to stay as close to as the Prince would allow, Lincoln ducked his head and tried to get a look at the woman in the Prince’s arms. “Are you all right, milady?” he asked.

“I believe so,” Chas replied.

Ruan carried her out into the bright sunlight and yelled at a merchant to vacate the upholstered bench upon which he had perched his enormous butt. The merchant struggled to his feet—helped by two of Ruan’s personal guards—and stood fanning himself excitedly with a palm-frond fan.

Laid gently upon the thickly padded horsehair bench, Chas felt anew all the aches and pains she had developed from her last assignment. Unconsciously, she moaned as the strong arms were withdrawn from under her knees and shoulders.

“You are hurt,” Ruan said, and before she could deny the statement, he was examining her arms.

“No, Your Grace. I’m just sore, that’s all,” she assured him.

He had hold of her hand and that strange tingling sensation was traveling up her arm and into her breasts, the peaks of which were straining against the fabric of her velvet gown.

“Why was he trying to kill you, lass?” Ruan asked, his sapphire-blue eyes locked on hers.

She stared up into a face she had long heard was the most handsome in the galaxy and added her own vote to that assessment. The man bent over her had the face of a god. A thick mane of midnight-black hair framed a swarthy complexion, the color of which set off a truly remarkable blue gaze.

“Enlil?” she asked and winced, wondering where the hell that had come from.

“Who?” Ruan queried.

Chas shook her head. “Black Gaelachuan,” she whispered and could have kicked herself if she hadn’t been lying flat on her back, her hand possessively held in his.

The right side of Ruan Cosaint’s mouth lifted slightly. “Aye, that I am, lass. You are from Bhreatain?”

“Meiriceánach,” she corrected, and watched his left eyebrow crook apparently with surprise.

“Meiriceánach? I like that answer better than Bhreatain,” he quipped. “What are you doing at Gaillimh Bay?”

“I am to be Lord Hurlburt’s new secretary. I stopped by the market to purchase my lunch and that is when that man…” She trailed off, turning her head away. “He said he was going to…”

Ruan tightened his hold on her hand and reached out to grip her chin and turn her face toward him. He wanted to groan when he saw the tears in her striking green eyes. “Try not to think about it, lass. Just put it behind you. You’re safe now.”

“Ruan! Whatever are you doing with that wench?”

Chas watched the handsome face hovering above her turn dark with anger. The finely chiseled lips hardened into a thin, uncompromising straight line and the warm blue eyes became as bright and brittle as shards of ice. When he turned to face the woman who had spoken, she could see a muscle working in his lean jaw.

“Have you finished your shopping, Maeve?”

Chas saw the woman stiffen and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the affronted expression on the dark-haired woman’s pretty face.

“My name is Siobhan,” she said, her chin going in the air.

“Whatever,” Ruan said. “If you’ve finished, Lincoln will take you back to the keep.”

Lady Siobhan Prentice-Hall’s eyes widened. “You will not be taking me back to Sciath yourself?” she questioned in a disbelieving tone.

“No, I won’t be,” Ruan replied.

“Well, I never!” Siobhan stated and spun on her heel to flounce away.

Alistair Lincoln sighed deeply and hurried after the woman. “Stay right with him!” he told the guards. “Watch him every moment!”

Chas watched the Gaelachuan prince drop his head and shake it. His grip on her hand tightened almost to the point of being uncomfortable then he lifted his head and looked at the tallest of the four guards surrounding him. “Put a few yards distance between us, O’Malley,” he ordered.

“Your Grace…” the man began, but his prince narrowed his eyes and the guard obeyed instantly, shooing the other men back.

“I think the lady is upset with you, milord,” Chas said.

“She can go scratch her mad place,” Ruan said with a snort. He helped her to sit up, frowning as she winced. “Are you sure you are all right? Should I fetch a dochtúir?”

She smiled. “I don’t need a healer, but thank you for offering.”

He moved back as she swung her legs from the bench, but kept possession of her hand as she stood because she wavered a little with the blood rushing to her head. He quickly put his arm around her shoulders.

The electrical current from that light embrace traveled all the way down her spine, fanned out like phantom fingers to delve through the crisp hairs at the apex of her thighs to touch her love-bud.

“Oh, my Goddess!” she heard herself gasp and her legs threatened to buckle beneath her.

“That’s it!” he said, once more sweeping her into his brawny arms. “I’m taking you to a dochtúir!”

She could not seem to find her voice as he set off with her held protectively against him. She heard him speaking to the men flanking him in High Gaelachuan but only knew a smattering of the complicated language. She believed he had ordered one to run ahead and find a healer, telling him to make sure the place was clean.

All around them, people were moving out of the way, bowing to the prince as he passed. He nodded to a few who greeted him but kept glancing down at her, his dark blue gaze roaming over her as though he expected bloody stains to appear upon her person.

“This way, Your Grace! Here!”

He carried her beneath a wide awning and had to duck his head as he passed beneath a low doorway and into a cool, dark room that smelled pleasantly of roses.

“Lay her down here, Your Grace,” someone said.

“Truly, Your Grace, I am…” she began but Ruan cut her off.

“Let him take a look at you.” He slipped his arms from beneath her then reached out to gently cup her cheek. “I won’t be far away.”

The next person who entered her line of vision was an elderly man with a shock of wild white hair that haloed his wrinkled face like fluff from a dandelion stalk. He was smiling gently, and she recognized him as one of the healers from the Riezell Guardian HQ. She opened her mouth to greet him but he placed a finger to his lips and shook his head slightly.

“What are you doing here, Kaspar?” she hissed in a low voice.

“The general set it up,” the Healer replied. “I am to do this.”

It wasn’t much of a cut but it stung just enough for Chas to draw in her breath and hand at the same time with every intention of hitting the elderly man for all she was worth. But her arm fell uselessly to the pillow and her eyes glazed as some potent drug took immediate effect.

“Don’t worry, Major,” Kaspar whispered. “It is only pairilis, one of the few Gaelachuan drugs they ever perfected. You’ll sleep for about four hours then awake refreshed but in the safe arms of your target.” The old man laughed. “And what a pair of arms to awake in, eh?”

“W…wha…?” was all Chas could manage before her world began to dim and shut down.

“Sweet dreams, beautiful Guardian,” Kaspar said, patting her arm.

As darkness fell over Chas’ eyes, she felt the healer’s hands upon her clothing and would have protested had night not put out its leg to trip her.

Outside the healer’s medical hut, Ruan shot up from the chair upon which he had been perched and rushed toward the healer as soon as he opened the door. “How is she?”

“Know you of a drug called pairilis, Your Grace?” Kaspar asked.

“Aye,” Ruan snarled, his eyes burning like blue coal. “If you gave her that shit…”

“No, Your Grace, but apparently the man who stabbed her had coated his blade with it. No doubt it was meant to disable her so he could be about his perfidy.”

The color drained from the Gaelachuan prince’s face. “Stabbed? Where? I saw no blood!”

“Come,” the healer coaxed and stepped back inside the medical hut. He led Ruan to the bed upon which Chas lay unconscious. “You could not see the blood for all the fabric surrounding her hips but he cut her here.” He pulled the covers from his patient.

Ruan swallowed like an untried youth seeing his first naked woman. He barely noticed the shallow cut the healer showed him for his excited gaze was too busy crawling over the beauty that lay bare from the neck to hip, the blanket precariously covering the triangle between her legs.

“Lovely, isn’t she?” the healer asked quietly.

“Magnificent,” Ruan replied and felt sweat breaking out on his upper lip and under his arms. His palms itched to touch that flawless skin revealed to him. His manhood stirred, striving to raise its head to get a look as well. He had waited all his life for a woman who could cause such strong emotions in him, and this one was not only setting his juices to flowing but giving a tug to his heart, as well.

“Such a woman should be cosseted—do you not think so, Your Grace?” Kaspar inquired.

“Aye,” Ruan whispered.

“Damn me if I would allow her to be out and about working for a man like Lord Hulbert. Why, the man is nothing but a lecherous libertine who would soon have this lovely maiden groveling in the street for a few coppers.”

Ruan wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch the silky sheen of pale blonde hair that spread out over the pillow. He wanted to feel its soft texture between his fingers, to lift the strands to his face and experience the intoxicating scent he had only caught a fleeting whiff of when he had been carrying her.

“No real damage was done but it was a good thing you happened by else that miscreant would have brutalized her then, my guess, cut her throat to keep her from identifying him or else sold her to a brothel.”

With passion-glazed eyes, Ruan looked over at the healer. The repercussion of what would have happened had he not come to her rescue did not bear thought.

“I am sure I can find her a much better position here at Gaillimh Bay, Your Grace. If you could see your way to giving her a few coppers to tide her over until then, I am sure she would be very appreciative.”