SECRETS OF THE WIND (9 page)

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“She will not die, Your Grace,” the mystic said, throwing the runes once more at the insistence of his prince. “You were meant to be together, fated as King of Gaelach and his Lady-Wife.”

“Then why doesn’t she wake?” Ruan demanded as he plowed a hand through his already tousled hair. He paused in his pacing to look at the mystic. “It has been over a week and she is no better!”

“She is healing, Ruan,” his mother reminded him. “The dochtúirs have told you as much.”

Ruan covered his face with his fingers. “I can’t bear this!”

“She is resting quietly, lad,” King Declan told his son. “There is no fever and no infection in the wound.”

“Thanks be to the Goddess that the assassin used a Taibhsean sword,” Queen Annalyn remarked. “At least the wound was cauterized and she lost no blood.”

“And I am to be grateful that the bastard used a weapon of my Order against the woman I love?” Ruan barked.

The king and queen exchanged a look. It was the first mention of the word
love
their son had used. Though he had been at Chastain Neff’s bedside from morning ‘til night—even unrolling a pallet to place beside her bed and refusing to be cast from the room—he had not declared his affection for the unconscious woman.

“If the blade that struck her had been of ordinary steel, Ruan,” his father said, “she could have bled to death.”

Ruan slumped with his back against the wall. “I cannot bear the thought of losing her,” he said.

“You won’t, Your Grace,” the mystic assured him. “On my honor as a prime mystic, I swear to you that your lady will be at your side for many decades to come.”

Long into the night Ruan sat beside Chas’ bed and held her pale hand within his. He stroked her long, delicate fingers and brought the tips to his mouth to kiss them softly. He spoke to her in the Old Tongue, crooning in a very pleasant voice, singing to her the legends of his ancestral home. His clothing was disheveled for he had slept in them for two nights now. Only once in the week since he had brought Chas back to Sciath had he allowed his mother to bully him to take a bath. Even he could smell his own ripeness, else he would not have given in to the demand. Now, he could smell the sourness of his sweat and though it annoyed and embarrassed him, he was loath to leave the room where his lady lay so quietly and still.

He stretched out his long legs parallel to the bed and with his elbow on the mattress, his hand holding Chas’, he thought back to the man he had dispatched with such fierceness it frightened even him. He had been like one of the berserkers of old—slashing and thrusting with a steely purpose that carved limbs from his opponent in a frenzy of death-wielding that left body parts cluttering the floor.

Vaguely he remembered seeing the horror on the faces of Patrick Murphy and his fellow guards as Ruan carved Chas’ attacker into nothing more than sections of singed meat. Repeatedly he had sliced at the body, cleaving head from torso, leg from trunk, arm from chest then scattering the pieces like confetti at a wedding. So furious, so enraged had his attack been, it had taken Patrick and two of his men to subdue their maddened prince, bringing him down to the floor like a stag to ground. Though he bellowed his rage, threatened bodily harm and eternal imprisonment, they had managed to bring him back to some degree of sanity.

Rushing to the bed, finding Chas comatose and laboring for breath, Ruan had thrown back his head and bellowed like his ancestors of old. He had not even felt the hilt of Patrick’s sword crashing against his skull to render him unconscious.

Ruan had learned that Patrick had taken charge, sending for a dochtúir to treat Chas. It had been Patrick who had arranged the ship back to Sciath, taking a wild chance that the longer route would not be the death of the young woman. Patrick, it was, who had insisted the dochtúir administer a sleeping draught to the young prince to keep him out during the journey.

And it was Patrick, himself, who even now stood guard outside Chas’ door to make sure no harm befell the woman his prince had claimed as his own.

As day broke over Sciath on the ninth day of Chastain Neff’s convalescence, lightning flared in the distance and the ominous rumble of thunder shook the stone walls. A light mist of rain was already scratching at the windows, asking to be allowed in. It was the bright flash of a nearby lightning strike that woke Ruan.

He sat up in the chair, every muscle in his body aching from the cramped position in which he’d been reclining. He ran a hand over his whiskered chin and winced at his own body odor. He hated being unkempt—though he rather liked the scratchiness of the beard he’d never been allowed to grow. Turning his eyes to Chas, he saw that she was still sleeping and he sighed. Patting her hand, he drew in a long breath, exhaled slowly and then released her hand to stand. He put his hands to the small of his back and stretched backwards, feeling the muscles protest. He sighed again and walked to the window where lightning was now streaking across the heavens with increasing rapidity. Thunder boomed in answer to the loud crack of the lightning as he pushed aside the heavy drapes with the back of his hand.

The day was dreary and gray as befitted a wild storm—not untypical of Gaelach at this time of year. The fields—or so it was said—had forty shades of greenness because of these seasonal rains. Despite the fact that lethal storms roared along the coastline, the Gaelachuans loved their rain and reveled in the wild tempests that could turn so quickly to claim a life.

Reaching up to push the draperies back from the window so he could get a better view of the thunderstorm, Ruan cracked the window just enough to feel the delicious coolness of the rain against his face. He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of spent ozone and the dusty smell of rain-washed fertile land.

He hung his head, the flash of the turbulent storm lighting him in relief from mussed dark hair to the soiled shirt he wore hanging loose from his britches. His bare feet were turning cold for he was standing in a small puddle of rainwater that was dripping from the windowsill, but he didn’t care. There could be nothing colder than his heart as he strove not to think of losing Chastain.

She was meant to be his, he thought as rain fell on his hair and dripped from an errant lock that had fallen over his forehead. He braced his hands to either side of the window and barely acknowledged the moisture soaking him.

“In another life,” the mystic had told him, “you were gods to your people. Where you went, your lady followed, even into the Abyss of Hell, Itself, she tracked you. A child—your child—grew in her belly and she wished for you to see its birth.”

Old legends
, Ruan thought as he opened his eyes and lifted his head. The mystic had spun images of legends so ancient they had become all but lost except in the mist-filled minds of the Ancients. He had regaled his prince with tales spun from strange fabric, from lands with Araibis names that rolled from the tongue like clattering pebbles down a mountainside.

“She will always be yours and you will always be hers. Your lives will always be intertwined and from one generation to the next, she will guard you as diligently as you will love her.”

Ruan felt a hand upon his shoulder and his heart soared. There was no need for him to look around to know it was his lady’s light touch that had asked for his attention. He reached his right hand across his chest to lay it atop hers and squeezed gently.

“How is your wrist, milord?” she asked, and he could hear the weakness in her sweet voice.

“It throbs a bit with this rain but otherwise it is fine,” he replied, reveling in being able to speak to her again and knowing everything would be fine from then on. “My tailbone is sore, though.”

He turned to her, his eyes traveling over her pale features, skipping past the pain in her pretty green eyes for he was the cause of that and it hurt him deeply. There were light splashes of color to her cheeks but that was good, he thought. No fever brightened her pretty flesh. He put the back of his fingers against her face.

“How do
you
feel, milady?” he asked quietly.

“Sore but well enough, milord,” she replied, turning her face so she could kiss his hand.

Gently—and with infinite care—he put his arms around her and brought her to him. His heart was thundering in his chest to match the cadence of the turbulent storm outside.

“Had I lost you…” he began only to feel tears closing his throat.

“I am here, beloved,” she replied. “Where I was meant to be.”

He dipped his knees and swung her up into his arms to carry her to the bed. Putting a knee to the mattress, he lay her down gently atop the covers then stretched out beside her.

Outside the storm grew louder and rain lashed against the windows. The room had grown hot and stuffy so he sat up just long enough to peel the shirt over his head and toss it to the floor. He lay back down and for a long time he simply held her, feeling her fragile body pressed close to his. There was iron strength in this woman, but she was his to protect—to keep safe, warm and content. To rock their bantlings in her slender arms.

“Ruan?” Chas asked softly.

“Aye.”

“I feel I am in need of a good fucking.”

The prince lifted his head and stared down at his lady. He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you didn’t like that word.”

Chas shrugged. “I don’t,” she said, “but sometimes it’s what a woman needs.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Are you well enough for such cavorting, milady?”

“I am.” She ran her finger from his bare hairy chest down to his navel, circled the deep indention with a fingertip and then slipped her hand under the waistband of his britches to thread her fingers through the crisp, wiry curls above his shaft.

Ruan shuddered as her fingers wrapped around him.

“Fucking, eh?” he queried, and glanced down to where his soldier was moving from parade rest to attention.

“A good fucking is what I believe I said,” Chas stressed. “In the manner of a corsair of old.”

Ruan’s left eyebrow shot up. “A corsair?”

“Aye,” Chas answered with a sigh. “A bold and brazen corsair who has captured me and taken me aboard his ship. There to be ravished and ravaged and masterfully satiated.”

“I’m not so sure ravishing and ravaging are such a good idea, wench,” he said.

“Well, if you don’t feel up to the challenge…”

He reared up and pushed her flat on her back, trapping her hand over his rising staff. “Be careful with your taunts, lass,” he warned.

Chas pretended to shudder. “Oh, please, Captain!” she gasped. “I am but an untried maiden. I have never known a man. Please, I am saving myself for my betrothed, Lord Rufus.”

“Rufus?” Ruan asked with a snort. “Some lover that fool would make.”

Chas pushed weakly at the broad chest above her with one hand while the other closed around the prince’s hard cock. “Please do not rape me, Captain. Please!”

Ruan’s lips twitched. “Ah, but there is rape and then there is rape, wench,” he said in a gruff voice. “Before all is said and done, I will have you begging for quarter!”

Reaching down to drag her hand from between their bodies, Ruan spread her arms wide, pinning them down to either side of her head. He swooped down and claimed her lips roughly, thrusting his tongue deep inside the sweet cavern of her mouth.

Chas wriggled beneath him, making sure her thigh rubbed against his rock-hard erection. When his lips slid from her to shower hot kisses down her throat, she turned her head away.

“Woe is me!” she cried. “Oh, woe is me! I am being violated!”

Ruan threw back his head and gave an eerie rendition of a villain’s evil laugh before sliding his body down hers until he could press his mouth over the peak of one dusky nipple hidden behind the soft lawn of her nightgown. Sucking on the erect nubbin through the fabric, he gently closed his teeth around the protrusion.

Chas bucked beneath him, pressing her breast closer to his mouth. The sensation of wet fabric and the pressure of his teeth were sending shivers through her body. As his tongue flicked out to stab at the tender peak, she could not keep the groan of delight from escaping.

Ruan let go of her arms and sat up, straddling her. He put his hands to the bodice of her gown and ripped the fabric from neckline to waist, freeing her lush breasts.

“Oh!” Chas cried out and put her hands to his broad shoulders in an attempt to push him away. “Unhand me, you monster!”

Ruan moved off her just long enough to rend the gown all the way to the hem then jerked it out from beneath her.

Chas lay there with her eyes hot and filled with hunger as her lover tore the gown into strips. She put out her tongue to wet her lips, and as she did, she heard Ruan’s low growl, for his gaze was locked on her mouth.

First, the right wrist was looped with a strip of torn gown. Stretching his lady’s arm to the top of the bed, he tied the strip to the headboard.

“No, no!” Chas protested, weakly hitting him on his right biceps with her balled fist, but he captured her hand and before she could utter another denial had tied her left wrist to the headboard.

Feebly she kicked out at him as he made quick work of her ankles. She thrashed her head back and forth on the pillow, moaning and pretending to sob.