WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever (22 page)

Catherine watched with confusion as Conar vaulted onto his steed's broad back and jerked heavily on the reins. "Conar?" she questioned, turning her own mount as her husband kicked his horse into movement. "Wait! I don't understand any of this!"

"You don't have to!" he shouted back to her as he drummed his heels into the beast's flanks.

He shot ahead of her, back toward Raphaella's keep.

Conar's wife kicked her mare into a fast gallop, wondering why she was suddenly terribly, terribly afraid.

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"He's what?" Catherine screeched at the top of her lungs. She shoved Sajin rudely aside and stomped to the stairs, gathering up her long skirts in a tight fist as she climbed the steps.

Sajin glanced around at Balizar and shrugged. "I'd like to be a fly on the wall when he lets her in his room."

Balizar Arbra shook his head. "Not me."

Azalon and Asher exchanged glances before hurrying out to the stables to do their overlord's bidding. Neither wanted to be in the keep when the hell that was brewing in Catherine McGregor's eyes broke free of its crucible.

"Conar!"

The door to his room burst open with a thud and Conar looked up from the valise he was packing. He had been expecting his wife and was not altogether surprised to see her hurrying into the room, her face a bold shade of seething red.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she shouted at him.

Raphaella, who had been sitting demurely on the settee in the Serenian's room, trying to talk sense into him, herself, calmly rose and headed for the open door. She cast a knowing look at the Outer Kingdom woman before quietly closing the door behind her.

"Answer me, McGregor!" Catherine demanded, grabbing her husband's arm and jerking him around so that he faced her.

"Lower your voice," Conar answered her. "The entire keep doesn't need to be privy to our business, Catherine."

"You're not going!" Catherine spat from between clenched teeth. "I won't allow it."

Conar gently pried her fingers from his forearm. "You know better than that, lady," he said without emotion. He reached for another shirt only to have Catherine push him away, grab the valise and fling it across the room where the contents spilled out upon the floor.

"No, Conar!" his wife snarled.

He drew in a long breath, mumbled something beneath his breath then calmly walked to the spot where his valise had landed. Bending over, he stuffed the clothing back into the tapestry bag, stood up, then went back to the bed to finish packing. "I'm not going to argue with you, Cat," he informed her as he crammed the last garment into the valise.

Catherine heard the resignation in his voice and knew further protests would fall on deaf ears and a mind already made up. She was breathing heavily, her breasts rising and falling with emotion as she stared at him. Her fingers itched to slap the bland look from his face and they twitched at her sides, finally burying themselves in the folds of her gown to keep from doing the man bodily harm.

"I am your wife," she said at last.

"I don't deny that, Catherine," he said.

"I won't give you a divorce, Conar."

He didn't look up as he buckled the clasp on the valise. "I doubt either your father or your church will give you much choice in the matter."

Catherine looked around for something to hit him with. Not seeing anything handy, she drove her nails into her thighs through the fabric of her gown.

"Our daughter needs a father."

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"She has one."

"A father who will be there when she needs him," Catherine snapped.

"If she needs me, you can send her to me."

Catherine hissed, a feline warning that made him turn to look at her. He could see her fury mounting and knew her words would be cruel.

They were.

"The only place you'll see her is in St. Steffensberg, McGregor, and you will either come there or never see her at all!"

Conar hefted the valise and reached for the leather jacket draped over the headboard of his bed. "Ben-Alkazar will take you back to St. Steffensberg for me." He flung the jacket over his left shoulder. "And keep you there until the divorce is final."

"There is not going to
be
a divorce, McGregor!" Catherine yelled at him.

"According to Serenian law, we were never married, anyway," he said, not unkindly.

"According to Outer Kingdom law, we will be joined until one of us is dead!" she flung back at him.

"Don't make this harder than it needs to be, Catherine," he pleaded with her.

"I'll not make it easy for you to cast me aside, McGregor!" she shot back.

He looked at her, memorizing the lush beauty of her face, admiring the fire gleaming in the glare she sent his way, aching for the sweetness of her soft arms around him. His body betrayed him as his mind refused to do and he quickly moved around her, careful not to touch her as he made his way to the door for fear he would give up his resolve to put this woman aside, to keep her safe.

"You will let me know when our daughter is born?" he asked, fumbling with the door handle. When there was no answer, he glanced around, found his wife staring at him as though she could not believe he really meant to leave her. He waited for her answer and when it did not come, a sad, regretful smile tugged at his mobile mouth. "Goodbye, Cat," he said.

"Go to hell, Serenian," she answered.

For a long moment he stood there, looking at her, wishing with all his heart that things could be different. But the time had come for him to leave her, to finish what he had started, and to get his life in order. With a slight shrug, he opened the door.

"I've been there, lady," he replied, his face pinched with pain. "Many times."

"Why don't you stay there this time?" she snarled.

He had a feeling he was going to as he opened the door and crossed the threshold. The door closed behind him with a finality that pierced him through with utter agony. He stumbled against the weight of his decision, almost flinging the door open again and running to her, but he knew that would be folly of the highest kind, a mistake only a fool would dare make. Conar pushed away from the door and hurried toward the stairs.

"You're a bloody coward, Conar McGregor!"

His footsteps faltered at the curse which was flung at him from behind the closed door, but he didn't stop, didn't turn back even as he heard the door open. His pace quickened and he descended the stairs at a near run.

"How can you think to protect an entire people if you can't protect your own wife?"

Sajin Ben-Alkazar's gaze shifted from the mute, guilty face of the Serenian as that man practically leapt from the last three steps to the enraged face of the woman who was bending over the balcony, glaring down at her husband.

"Conar!"

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He didn't look back as he flung the front portal open and strode from Raphaella Chastayne's infernal keep. His horse stood waiting, Balizar holding the steed's reins. Flinging the valise to Azalon, McGregor leapt into the saddle and jerked the reins from Balizar. "Let's go," he said through clenched teeth.

The Kensetti prince was framed in the doorway, his attention riveted on Conar. "Ride with the Wind, my friend," Sajin called out.

Conar's mount turned, prancing against the tight hold its owner had on him. The gray's tail swished against the hitching post as the steed backed up, making it necessary for its rider to turn in the saddle to look at the nomad.

"Keep her safe, Ben-Alkazar," Conar asked.

"With my life," the nomad pledged. He felt vicious hands on his back, shoving him, but refused to budge, to unblock the doorway as Catherine tried to move him aside.

The last sight Conar had of his wife's angry face was through the protective circle of Sajin's arms as he pushed her back into the keep and shut the door behind them.

The last sound he heard as he kicked his horse into motion was Catherine's desperate wail of heartbreaking sorrow.

"Conar!"

Raine turned away from the window, feeling somehow lost and abandoned as he had

watched his father ride away from the keep. The little boy sat down on the floor in a wavering beam of sunlight and watched the dust motes flying in the light. "Be careful, Father," the child whispered.

Turning to watch her son, Raphaella could see the sadness on the boy's small face.

Accustomed to his melancholy nature, she was not, however, use to seeing such blatant emotion flitting through his sapphire gaze. The sight unnerved her for she had never considered Raine capable of feeling anything other than calm detachment.

"What did you and your father talk about when you went to see him, Raine?" she asked, coming to squat down beside her son.

The child glanced up. "We spoke of many things."

"Such as?" his mother pressed.

Raine shrugged, a miniature replication of his father's annoyed reaction to questions he didn't care to answer. "I asked him about my brothers."

Partial guilt settled on the sorceress' shoulders. "Would you like to meet them one day?"

"Not especially," the boy answered. He looked back down at the sunlight pooling on the carpet. "But I am most anxious to meet Brianna."

A crease of confusion marred the perfection of Raphaella's forehead. "Who is Brianna?"

The little boy smiled, the first real smile of his young life, and he looked up at his mother with wonder on his small face. "The girl child who will be born this eve."

Coal black eyebrows shot up. "Catherine will have her babe this eve?" his mother asked in shock.

"Aye," Raine answered. He saw worry on his mother's face and frowned. "What concerns you, Mother?"

"It's too early," Raphaella answered, standing up. She stared down at the boy's calm face.

"Will she survive?"

"Brianna will be one of the ...," Raine began but his mother interrupted him, demanding to know of Catherine's health. "Oh," he began, "she'll be well enough, but such will be the birth that there will be no more children for her."

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Raphaella chewed on her lip. "Are you sure of this? I have had no glimpses of the birthing taking place this soon."

Raine shrugged again, this time with an expression on his young face that said his mother didn't know everything. He crossed his legs and hunched forward, his chin in his hand, dismissing his dam's worries.

"She'll blame Father for it, though," Raine remarked. "And she'll never forgive him for leaving her."

The boy's mother nodded in agreement for she had had at least that much insight into the way things would be from that day between her ex-son-in-law and his new wife.

"We must say a rune for the babe, Raine," Raphaella said. "And for her father's safe return."

Raine looked up. "Oh, he'll never come back to the Outer Kingdom, Mother. Not in this lifetime."

Raphaella gaped at him. "He won't come back for Catherine?" At the boy's shake of the head, she felt a shiver go down her spine. "Are you sure?"

"Aye, I'm sure," the boy said in a petulant voice. "Do you doubt it?"

"What have you seen?" she demanded, kneeling down beside her son, grabbing his arm and shaking him. "Have you seen harm befall him?"

Raine looked into his mother's eyes and nodded slowly.

"How?" Raphaella gasped. "Can it be prevented?"

"There is nothing neither you nor I can do for him," Raine replied. "He is in the hands of Alel, now."

Ice-cold fear ran through Raphaella's veins at those words. "But he has forsaken his god!"

she cried.

"And has been forsaken by Him, as well," the child answered. "And for that, Father will have to atone."

Raphaella's face turned white and she let go of her son's arm and stood up, unaware that she was trembling from head to toe. "He won't die, will he?" she asked in a breathless gasp of primal terror.

Raine shook his head. "No, but he will wish he had."

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The raid had gone well and forty-three slaves were sitting under the canopy of a hastily-rigged tent, eating the first hot meal they had had in weeks. Dirty fingers scooped up food, shoveling it into equally dirty mouths, as grateful eyes followed the tall blond man dressed in the flowing black robes as he walked among the men who had rode at his side.

"They call him Khamsin," one of the slaves whispered to another. "He killed Prince Jaborn at Abbadon."

"Was a prisoner there, himself, I heard," another slave mumbled as he licked his fingers of the juices running down them. "Now, it's his headquarters."

Asher Stone handed a dipper of water to the Outlander and smiled. "That beard makes you look fierce, Khamsin," he chuckled.

"Makes him look dangerous as hell," Balizar agreed. He studied the thick gold growth covering the Serenian's face. "And more like a nomad than he'd care to admit, I would imagine."

Conar snorted as he let the cold well water flow down his throat, then over the road grime on his face. He handed the dipper back to Asher then hunkered down beside Azalon. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe.

"Did we lose any men?" he asked as he settled back against the wagon.

"Kamir got a cut on his arm," Rupine replied. "Other than that, we fared better than last time." The physician thought of the three men they had buried the week before.

"I don't want there to be any mistakes like Rhiad, men," Conar reminded them. "Mistakes like that can get all of us hanged."

"That particular mistake is rotting under Rysalian sand at this moment," Balizar grunted. "I don't think Mahmed's men will be so anxious to infiltrate the Samiel next time."