Read WindLegends Saga 9: WindRetriever Online
Authors: Charlotte Boyett-Compo
"But will he love me?" Sybelle could not help but ask.
"What is love?" the Lady inquired with a delicate arch of her tawny brow. "Great affection is love. Caring for the comfort of another is a form of that emotion. Dependence is also love to Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 183
some degree." Her lovely lips pursed. "Knowing he has you to thank for restoring him to good health will be a mighty goad into altering his feelings toward you. It might not become love as foolish dreamers conceive it, Sybelle, but gratitude carries weight with this man. He will keep to his bargain and make you as happy as he can."
Sybelle frowned. "But will he be happy?"
"No," the Lady replied. "But it is not his happiness you seek, now, is it?" She took up her cup of tea. "You can not have it both ways, child. If you wish the man, you accept the limitations which come with him."
The Kensetti princess put aside her tea cup and swung her legs from the settee. Sitting forward, she reached out to lay a pleading hand on her mistress' arm. "Can I alter certain things about him while I am here?"
The Lady lifted her tea cup to her lips and looked over the rim at her guest. "Such as?" she asked before finishing the cooling brew.
Sybelle bit her lower lip for a moment and then rushed on with her request. "I want to change his appearance somewhat."
There was a long, satisfied sigh from the Lady. "You wish to do away with those wicked scars," she stated.
"Yes," Sybelle agreed. "On his cheek and back." Her hand tightened on the Lady's arm.
"And there are other war marks that I wish to erase."
"I will make it so," the Lady assured her. "I have never liked the disfigurement of his body.
I have always thought it marred an otherwise perfect male specimen."
Sybelle felt a wave of jealousy shudder through her being at the Lady's words and she hoped she had hid her feelings beneath the down sweep of her lids. "Thank you, Madame."
"Is there anything else?" the Lady inquired, "besides his good health and the restoration of his flesh?"
Glancing up, Sybelle shook her head. "I do not think so unless you have stipulations of your own." She held her breath awaiting the reply.
The Lady smiled. "There is one other thing."
Sybelle tensed. "Madame?" she asked, suddenly fearful of the answer.
The beautiful blond woman swung her long, tanned legs to the floor and stood up, her luscious body framed seductively against the light from the sun. She put her hands on her curving hips and stared down at her visitor.
"If I were you, Sybelle," she said in a husky voice, "I would not wipe all thoughts of his former loves from his mind as you intend to do."
A soft gasp came from Sybelle. She had thought to hide that particular bit of business from the Lady. She should have known better.
"But why not? Would it not make it easier for him to love me?" she asked, bewildered by the sudden wicked gleam in her mistress' eye.
"Perhaps," the Lady answered, "but you will be denying yourself the greatest source of control over Conar McGregor that you will ever have. Erase Elizabeth Wynth or Catherine Steffenovitch from his mind and you will have lost the perfect means of reminding him who controls him. By letting him know you are keeping him from that Outer Kingdom sow, keeping him from his homeland and those brats he holds so dear, keeping him from his kinsmen, you are constantly reminding him that it is you who wields the power, not him."
Sybelle's perfectly-arched eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. "But will he not think of them? Constantly compare me to them?" She bit her lip. "Will that not defeat my Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 184
purpose?"
The Lady laughed softly. "Let him think of them, child. He is a man who likes to brood and I believe he is not happy unless he is doing so. Show him unfailing kindness, support him, but be firm with him. Make it clear to him that
you
will be the only woman in his life from now on. It is your will that will be done, not his. When he finally accepts that, you will have gained a strong hold on his soul if not his heart." She stood up, signifying the meeting was over.
Sybelle eased herself up, as well. "Thank you, Madame," she said, taking the Lady's hand and bringing it to her lips. "For your advice and help."
"One final word of warning, Sybelle," the Lady said as she walked with the Kensetti princess to the door of the solar. "Do not let him try to manipulate you. He will attempt to do so for that is his nature. He is accustomed to having women fall all over themselves in an effort to gain his notice. As I have said: be firm and do not let him sway you. That is the only way to control Conar McGregor."
Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 185
He awoke with a start. The smell of jasmine was heavy in the air and he knew he was not alone. He cleared his throat, trying to rid himself of the dryness in his mouth before he spoke.
"Sybelle?" he croaked, his voice cracking.
"Yes."
Conar had no idea how long she had been there. Time no longer had meaning for him in his constant world of night. He dreaded asking her if she had gone to her world of magik and spells for fear she would tell him she had changed her mind, that she had decided she would not help him after all.
"We must talk, McGregor," she told him.
Here it comes, he thought with a sinking heart. She was going to tell him it had all been a monstrous joke. A taunt to hurt him more. She would tell him she had not the power to do away with his troubles or, if she did, that she would not uphold the bargain they had made between them.
"Water," he said, wanting to delay the inevitable hurt that he was sure was about to pierce his already broken heart.
Sybelle reached for the tumbler on the bedside table. She put her hand behind his head and brought the cool water to his parched lips. As he drank, she ran her gaze over his face and felt a stirring of intense desire shoot through her.
"You were thirsty," she said as she tipped the tumbler as he drained it. When the water was gone, she eased his head back to the pillow and smoothed away the fallen tawny locks which draped over his brow. Her palm rested on his flesh. "You have another fever, McGregor."
"Same one," he mumbled. The malaria was coming back and his head was aching.
"It doesn't matter." Sybelle put aside the empty tumbler. "Come morning, you will never be bothered with that illness again."
Conar drew in his breath. What kind of game was she playing with him, now? He wished is could see her, look into her eyes. If he could, he would be able to tell her intent. He could gather nothing from her soft, unemotional voice.
Sybelle let her scrutiny wander down his rigid body and understanding lit her delicate face.
She smiled. "Did you think I would not keep to our agreement, McGregor?" she asked.
He could feel her gaze on him and it made him acutely uncomfortable. But if she held to the bargain, he would suffer more than her gaze on him, he thought with hopeless irony.
"The thought had crossed my mind," he answered her. "What better way to torment me, Sybelle?"
Her laugh was girlish. "The torments I have in store for you, my warrior, are of the flesh.
Not of the mind."
He did not doubt that. He could almost feel her nails raking down his back and he wondered if her power was not as she had hinted to him that it was.
"Come morning," Sybelle said, sensing his confusion, "you will be as you were before you ever set foot off Serenian soil to come to the Midworld continent." Her hand caressed his bare chest. "Strong and healthy and as vibrantly alive as you have ever been." Her palm trailed down his side and smoothed over the thick pelt of hair haloing his deeply-inset navel. "A sensual being to delight any woman's fancy." Her fingers slid beneath the sheet and wrapped themselves around the flaccid flesh that lay against Conar's thigh. She knew he could not feel her touch and the Charlotte Boyett-Compo WINDRETRIEVER 186
thought both saddened and thrilled her.
"Why wait until morning?" he asked. "If you are going to make good on your purpose, why not do so now?"
Reluctantly she let go of his manhood and withdrew her hand from beneath the sheet. "You must be unconscious for the ritual to be performed, McGregor." she told him, tugging the sheet up over his bare chest and tucking it under his arms. "Otherwise, the transition would be too painful for you to bear."
Conar smiled grimly. "I would think you would enjoy watching me writhe in pain, Sybelle," he replied.
"With sexual pain, perhaps," she said bluntly, grinning as his smile slipped, then disappeared. She almost laughed aloud as she watched his jaw clench and realized he was grinding his teeth together in impotent rage and embarrassment at her words. She patted his shoulder then stood up. "Don't worry, McGregor," she assured him. "You will enjoy the pain I inflict on you."
"I sincerely doubt it," he growled from between his teeth.
Sybelle put her fingers on his mouth and pried his lips apart. His inability to turn away from her touch was an asset to what she had to do. "Open you mouth," she ordered him, but wasn't surprised when his lips grew taut.
He was about to answer her, to tell her to go to hell, but he choked on the words as something bitter was spread over his lips and trickled into his mouth. The taste was awful, the worst thing he had ever had invade his taste buds. He tried to spit it out but found himself unable to do so for she had clamped her hand over his mouth.
"It's to make you sleep deeply, McGregor," she told him. "Don't fight it. When you wake, you will be whole again."
If he woke, he thought with panic as the acrid taste slid down his throat, burning as it sped down his gullet and spread into his stomach. He had never felt anything so insidious attacking his system before. He felt as though he were drowning on whatever she had forced into his mouth. He gasped, striving to draw breath into his burning lungs.
"It is not a pleasant taste ...," she began but his coughing, choking words cut her off.
"I can't breathe!" His chest was on fire. His belly was sizzling. The pain was so intense he could feel himself being cooked alive.
"You aren't dying," Sybelle said in a dry voice. "Although I am told the brew does cause intense discomfort, it is not lethal. If you will not fight it, it will lull you ...."
"Sybelle!" he shouted. His world was dropping away from beneath him.
"Don't fight the potion, McGregor," she warned him. "Let it claim you."
And it did. With a vengeance that leapt out of the darkness and grabbed him with implacable claws that tore him from this world and dragged him into another from which he never expected to return.
she could look down into his still face as he came fully awake.
It was the light that registered first. Bright, insistent light that made his head ache with the intensity. Even before he tried to open his eyes beneath the covering of the silken scarf, he was aware of that light. It was invading the world of darkness in which he had spent so much time, trying to push back the demons that had held him captive in that lightless world for so long. He wasn't even aware that his hand had lifted, that his intent had been to drag the cloth from his face so that he could see that light before his arm was gripped lightly in a restraining hold.
"Not yet," he heard Sybelle warn him.
His second impression was that he could feel her hand on his arm, not that he had lifted that arm without problem or without weakness or trembling. He almost sighed aloud with pleasure that he could feel her touch. As the realization set in that he had been able to move, he sucked in his breath and held it, suddenly afraid that, although he could move his right arm, and his left as he discovered when he lifted that arm so that he could cover her hand with his own, he could not move his legs.
"Try," he heard her whisper to him.
He concentrated on wiggling his toes and was nearly leveled by emotion as he did so with no effort at all. He flexed his foot, still holding his breath, then slowly drew his knee up.
"Everything works, McGregor," Sybelle tittered as she squeezed his arm. "I told you it would and it does."
He could feel the smoothness of the sheet beneath the sole of his foot, his rump, his back.
He drew his other leg up and exhaled slowly, understanding that when he tried, he would be able to walk, as well. He reached for the blindfold again.
"No," Sybelle said firmly. "Not yet."
He knew he could see. His eyes were open and he had an impression of light and shadow beneath the silk scarf. He wanted nothing more than to yank the blindfold from him so that he could view the world around him once more.
Sybelle flung the covers back from him and smiled at his gasp of shock. The cool morning air drifting down from the mountains to the north of the keep was wafting in through the opened window and flitting across his nakedness.