WindDeceiver (28 page)

“Jaleel!” Rachel sobbed, tears running down her cheeks. “Don’t hurt him!”

Jaborn held up his hand as Rasheed grabbed a handful of McGregor’s hair and drew his head back, the sharp blade laid on the Outlander’s flesh. Getting up, the Hasdu Prince came down the dais steps and took Rachel out of Tjorn’s hold. Gripping the young woman’s upper arms, he shook her gently and forced her to look up at him.

“What are your feelings for this man, Rachel?” he asked.

“She has no feelings for me!” Conar hissed, his eyes watering from the vicious tugging on his scalp.

Jaleel didn’t look at the Serenian. His gaze was steady on Rachel’s tearful face. “I’ll ask you again, Rachel: what are your feelings for this man?”

Conar tried to jerk his head away but the grip on his hair only increased and he grunted with the sensation. He barely heard Rachel’s answer, but the words put instant terror in his heart.

“I love him,” Rachel whispered, lowering her eyes to the jaded look in Jaborn’s.

“She’s lying!” Conar shouted. “She doesn’t love me!”

Jaleel pulled Rachel to him, enfolding her in his arms. “I don’t like sharing my women with another man, Rachel. You know that.”

A horrible, stunning realization began to grow in Conar’s soul and he caught his breath on an agonizing hitch of air as Jaborn’s head lowered and he claimed Rachel’s mouth with his own.

“Oh, hell,” Conar muttered. He tried once more to free himself of Rasheed’s hold, but the warrior only laughed and tightened his hand in the thick golden mane.

Jaleel released Rachel’s lips and smiled at the fear in her face. “I’m not going to hurt him, Rachel,” he said, taking his right hand from her arms to stroke her cheek. “Nor will I allow anyone to hurt him, either.”

Rachel grabbed his hand and brought it to her lips. “Jaleel, please. Let him go. He--“

Jaborn shook his head. “I can’t do that, sweet one.”

She risked a glance at Conar’s bleak face, then turned her gaze to Jaleel. “Then, at least let his men go.” At Jaborn’s surprised look, she told him she had heard the guards talking about the Outlanders in the donjon. “Let them go, please. They have never done you harm.”

“I can’t do that, either, Rachel,” Jaleel answered, lifting her hands to his chest and holding them there. “They are the means to my end.”

“What end?” Conar snarled.

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Jaborn ignored him. He looked around and motioned Rasheed to his side. The warrior let go of Conar’s hair and came to his master. “Rasheed, take my lady into the receiving hall and see to her. I am not pleased she has granted her favors to another.”

Conar tensed, the Hasdu’s words sending a chill down his spine. He shifted his attention to Rachel and saw her face had drained of all color. “She hasn’t done anything!” he shouted at Jaborn. “She was only trying to keep me from being hurt.”

Jaleel turned and smiled at Conar. “Oh, I am sure there has been no illicit relations between the two of you, McGregor, but if Rachel tells you something, you can be assured it is the truth.

When she says she loves you, she means just that.”

“No!” Conar bellowed, shaking his head violently. “She doesn’t! She was only trying to help me, Jaborn!” He twisted, trying to get to his feet, but his guards pressed heavy hands on his shoulders to prevent him from doing so.

Rasheed took Rachel’s arm and began to pull her toward a wide copper door at the far end of the room. She was struggling with him, trying to break free, but the man’s brother took her other arm and they dragged, her kicking and screaming toward the door.

“Rachel!” Conar yelled, struggling against his captors. “Tell them you were lying!

Rachel!”

Guil was amused at the petrified look on the Serenian’s face. What did he think Jaleel would do to the woman? He cast a quick look to his friend and saw something dark and unsettling in the way Jaleel was staring at the Serenian, something cold and entirely without sympathy. He looked back at the woman and found her bucking and twisting in the grips of Rasheed and his brother, then turned worried eyes to Jaborn.

“Jaleel?” he questioned, coming slowly to his feet.

Jaborn folded his arms over his chest and grinned malevolently at Conar. “Don’t you think she looks enough like your precious Liza to be her twin, McGregor?”

Conar stilled, gaping up at the man’s silky words, hearing a meaning he had been meant to hear. His heart thudded hard in his chest and he swallowed, terror leaping up to his throat to choke him.

“That was originally why I took her as my mistress, you know.” Jaleel sighed. “I wanted to know what it was you felt when you lay with Liza.”

The copper door at the end of the room was thrown open and the trio crossed the threshold with a scuffle. Rachel’s scream of fear drove a shaft of agony straight through Conar’s heart and he could barely breathe for the air was entering his lungs in ragged, rapid gasps.

“I cut your daughter’s throat because she was a product of your seed. Did you know that, McGregor?”

“Don’t,” Conar whispered, his voice breaking.

“I hate to kill Rachel because she is--“

“Don’t!” the Serenian begged. “She was lying to you, Jaborn. She doesn’t love me. She was--“

An unearthly scream of pain rent the room and Guil flinched, bringing his hands up to cover his ears. His mouth dropped open and he stared at Jaleel’s calm face. McGregor had collapsed on the floor, tears streaming down his cheeks. The Serenian was pounding the floor with his manacled fist, crying the woman’s name over and over again. Jaborn turned his head and looked at Guil, smiling, and Guil knew there had been no murder, no harm done to the woman. He sighed with relief, lowering his hands to drag them down his face.

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“Take him to his new home, gentlemen,” Jaleel ordered as he put out his boot to nudge Conar’s shoulder. “I think he wants to be alone for awhile.”

They dragged him up, supporting him, until he had gained his feet. They thought him grief-struck, unable to struggle, but the guards were not prepared for the violence with which this man reacted.

Guil cried out, jumping back as the Outlander lunged at Jaborn. There was an irrational frenzy of hatred; violent, psychopathic blind rage that drove him forward and onto Jaleel.

McGregor’s hands closed around Jaborn’s throat and began to squeeze. The guards rushed forward, jerking on the Serenian’s arms, pummeling him, desperately trying to bring his grip on their master. Jaleel’s face was turning a dark blue color and his eyes were beginning to bulge out of their sockets. He was raking at the Outlander’s bare arms, striving to pry the powerful fingers from his throat.

“Do something!” Guil yelled, adding his hands to the guards to break the fierce clutch the Serenian had on Jaleel’s throat. “He’s killing him!”

Rasheed, having heard the commotion, rushed through the double doors and used every bit of his forward momentum, strength and savagery to jab a hard, brutal fist into the Serenian’s back, jamming it into his kidney. The blow broke McGregor’s hold and the Outlander went down on one knee, gasping with pain and bending forward over the agony. His body lurched sideways as Rasheed’s boot caught him in the belly and flipped him over.

“No!” Jaleel gasped, clawing at his bruised throat. “Don’t hurt him!” He was being supported by the guards as he struggled to draw air into his depleted lungs. “Rasheed, I said no!”

Lying on the floor, gagging with the brutality of the jab in his kidney, Conar was gasping for breath himself. He was holding his stomach, the kick having caused almost as much damage to his abdomen as the jab had to his kidney.

“Get him up,” Jaleel croaked, “and take him to his cell.” He bent over, retching, seeing a red haze before him. Vaguely he saw the Serenian being lifted, heard the man’s moan of pain as he was manhandled out of the throne room.

“Jaleel?” Guil whispered, putting a comforting hand on his friend’s back. “Shall I call the surgeon?”

Jaborn shook his head. He was crouched over, his hands on his knees as he drew great gulps of air into his body. “I’ll be all right,” he managed to say.

“When I thought you had had the woman killed--“ Guil said, shuddering.

“McGregor thought so,” Jaleel grated out, “and that is what matters.”

“But why? Surely there was nothing between them,” Guil protested.

Jaleel straightened up, let his head fall back as he closed his eyes to the pain in his larynx.

He tried to swallow, grimaced, then lowered his head and looked at Guil, still panting for breath as he tried to speak.

“Guilt, my friend,” Jaborn ground out. “Guilt.”

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“They’ve taken him to Abbadon,” Asher told the others.

“And Rachel?” Rupine inquired, watching the grief flood Asher’s worried face.

“She’s there, as well,” Asher acknowledged.

“He won’t let her go this time,” Rupine sighed.

Asher looked away. His sister’s feelings for Prince Jaleel Jaborn were a mystery to him.

He didn’t think it was love she bore the bastard, but it was something closely akin to it. What made matters worse was that he feared Jaborn had feelings for Rachel, too.

“How do we get him back?” Yuri asked, looking about at the bleak faces of the men around the campfire.

“We may not,” Sajin admitted and when the Outer Kingdom warrior turned a furious, outraged face to him, Sajin held up his hand. “Abbadon is a fortress the like of which you have never experienced, Yuri. In a thousand years it has not been taken and I fear it will never be.”

“Getting in is nigh to impossible if they don’t want you in there,” Azalon remarked. “I’ve been permitted maybe twice in thirty years to enter those hellish gates and then it was never farther than the slave quarters on the ground level.”

“Where would they be keeping him?” Chase asked.

“In the donjons,” Kharis answered. “In one of the three sublevels below the ground.”

“The fortress is built over solid rock,” Asher informed the others. “The sublevels were blasted out with explosives and the structure itself was built atop. There are no windows big enough to get through, no access from the roof even if you could scale those slick walls and only the two double doors in front through which to gain entrance.”

“How do the inhabitants come and go?” Yuri asked.

“They don’t,” Rupine answered.

“How the hell do they survive in there, then?” Chase demanded.

“Once a week, a caravan goes there to deliver goods. The doors can open only three feet or less. Guards inside wait in the antechamber then take the provisions in like a bucket brigade into the fortress while fifty or more stand outside the gates to watch the delivery men.”

“The only people allowed to leave are the Prince and that jackal he calls his friend and the Warriors of the Abyss,” Rupine added.

Chase turned to look at the physician. “The what?”

“The Warriors of the Abyss,” Kharis echoed. “They are Jaborn’s elite fighters. There are about thirty of them, all deadly men with no consciences and no remorse. They would as soon kill you as look at you.”

“What about the water supply?” the Shadow-warrior wanted to know.

“There is an underground stream that feeds the fortress,” Asher answered.

“Then, perhaps we can swim--“ Yuri began only to find Asher shaking his head. “Why not?”

“No one knows where the source of the water comes from, Andreanova. Don’t you think others have tried to find it in order to gain access to the fortress?” He shrugged. “There are those who believe the water is hell-sent.”

“Don’t start with that shit!” Rupine warned.

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“It is one of the Gateways,” Sabrina, who up until then had not spoken, reminded the men.

“I know this. The one and only time I was allowed inside that evil place, I felt unclean just smelling the air.”

“Would he know?” Chase asked her.

“Conar?” Sabrina inquired. “He might sense it, but it is unlikely he would realize what that feeling was.”

“And even so,” Yuri snarled, “not be able to do anything about it.”

Chase stood up and stretched his back. He looked bleakly out across the camp sight. “We have to get him back.”

“You sent word to Shalu and Balizar,” Yuri reminded him. “Maybe they will be able to help.” He glanced at his fellow countrymen who had come with Kharis’ nephew. “Serge will return with help, as well.”

“The entire might of the Outer Kingdom!” Alexi Romanovitch growled.

“Once Shalu gets here, we’ll start planning. He’s a good strategist,” Chase told them. “The man’s a veritable encyclopedia of warfare.”

“You’d better start planning before then,” Rupine warned. “Khamsin’s life may depend on it!”

Meggie Ruck lifted her head and stared at the man. “They’d better not hurt my bonny boy!” she snarled. “We’ll bring that goddamned fortress down around their ears if they do!”

Chase smiled, glanced at Sabrina who was once more watching Meggie with a strange expression on her face. He wondered what the women had discussed when they had gone off by themselves upon arriving at Conar’s camp. They had been gone a good long time and when they had joined the men at the fire, there had been something evil in their gazes.

“Meggie thinks of him as a son,” Chase had whispered to Sabrina and had found his mistress looking back at him with amusement.

“I think it goes a bit deeper than that, Montyne,” she had answered.

“You think she’s in love with him?” Chase had gasped, never even considering such a possibility before.

But Sabrina had not answered. She had turned to look across the leaping flames, her gaze meeting Meggie’s, and both women had been silent, listening to the men speak.