The Pearl Savage (13 page)

Clara stared at the swollen cheek, a
lump of reddened flesh the size of one of her beloved tangerines,
buried beneath an angry welt. Her lips were twice the size of normal,
with a sore, open and bleeding on one side where it had been cut
open. A bruise formed, seemingly out of nowhere, underneath her left
eye, a shadow mark, making her turquoise eyes appear to float above
the marks the Prince had laid.

She looked at herself and every
abuse the Queen had ever made swam to the surface of her
consciousness and her soul could bear no more. A strangled cry rose
from deep in her throat and hot tears which scalded her wounds slid
down her face. Her crying, for once, was not silent. Her two friends
attended her as she cried tears of loss and grief.

Some for her people and many for
herself.

CHAPTER 14

If Charles had anything left in his
stomach it would be dispatched immediately. However, he did a fine
job of it in the Queen’s chamber. If the situation with Clara had not
been so grievous, he would have taken a certain grim satisfaction in
begriming her room so thoroughly. As it were, he could not.

Being helpless to protect Clara as
the Prince savaged her had been the very worst experience of Charles’
life. It left nary a doubt as to Prince Frederic’s intentions toward
her and their execution. He meant to deal with her as a possession he
had a right to abuse, neglect, then throw away when the time came for
such things.

It was enough to make one take one’s
chances Outside.

The idea rippled in his head like a
stone on the Great Lake:
he and Clara could make a fresh start
Outside
. Sarah had touched on the idea when she briefly visited
him in his cell. He was warming to it moment by moment.

The guards had provided his supper
(fit for a king; he knew it was Billy’s doing). One of the guards had
whispered in Charles’ ear that it was a very good thing to have
beaten on the Prince.

Charles agreed.

Not that he wished to be in the
cell. It was all for appearances as Ada was deep in her cup and the
Prince and King would avail her this last night before their
departure one day hence for the Kingdom of Kentucky. Charles was very
likely to get into deeper problems than his current situation. His
sincerest wish was not for Prince Frederic’s abuse,
but
his demise
.

Sarah’s idea mimicked his but it set
Clara’s escape squarely in another sphere. But they would
never
follow her Outside. They must set their eyes upon the Outside.
Another sphere was too close for the long reach of the Queen’s arms.
Charles brooded.

Finally, he laid down on his back
with his arms crossed beneath his head, thinking of Clara. It was
very good that Prince Frederic would be journeying to the Kingdom of
Kentucky after Charles was released. He knew that once he saw Clara’s
face, no force of nature would be enough to stop him from permanent
abuse of the Prince.

The hour late, Charles felt himself
fall into sleep, plotting escape and protection. Remorse for his
actions stealing itself amongst his dreams like a seed which
germinates.

****

Bracus watched the glowing pile of
embers at his feet as they burnt down to ash. His eyes burned with
the need to sleep but his mind wandered over and over again with
thoughts of the Princess. He could not shake the feeling something
was terribly wrong. He needed to satisfy his disquiet. He would
return to the spot in the forest where he could view her; make sure
that all was well. Bracus had not sat this long as captain of his
clan’s Band for nothing. He had learned through hard experience to
recognize and seize upon his intuition. Three weeks seemed an
interminable time to wait. He must be patient, anything else would
give away his feelings. Bracus was not one to show his emotions.
Philip was the only male he spoke to of that which weighed upon him.

He looked over at his brother, lying
prone, deep snores resonating from his chest and pushing his throat
slits wide. Bracus smiled.

Standing, he swung his foot out,
making hard contact with the sole of Philip’s foot. Philip sucked in
a huge wallop of air and kicked out with the same foot, slamming it
into Bracus’ shin. Bracus stumbled backward from the impact,
pinwheeling his arms for balance, regaining it, and finding a blade
at his throat. “What say you, brother?”

Bracus smiled, Philip,
asleep
but aware
,
a marvelous thing. “Testing you, my
brother. I wished to see if you were still warrior enough to notice
me.”

“Aye, I am,” Philip said,
pressing the point of the blade deeper into Bracus’ neck until a drop
of blood made its way down the blade.

Suddenly, Philip looked down to see
Bracus’ blade pressed against his vulnerable side.

They grinned at each other,
stalemate…again. They lowered their blades and sheathed them. The
other Band members were now fully awake after a night of heated
discussion of
sphere-dwellers
that had waned into exhaustion.

The guard looked at the brothers’
warily. His captain and his brother, Philip, even larger than Bracus.
They would bear watching. He ruminated about that which had engaged
them this night: acquisition of the female,
the
Princess
. They did not know his plan differed from theirs
so hugely. They would soon enough. The sphere, all the spheres,
needed to be broken open, their peoples mingling. He sat thinking.
The clans would be the obvious rulers of the people, clan and
sphere-dweller alike. It was most logical, considering the
sphere-dwellers’ inferior physical status and
obvious lack of
prowess, and abundance of females. Things would go as planned.

As
he
planned.

Bracus looked around him in
amusement, the entire Band had dozed by the fire, only Jack absent.
They all looked at him and Philip, eyes glittering in the light cast
by the fire. Bracus looked at the sky, a few hours before dawn. He
would stand first watch and Stephen second. Bracus announced the
watch status, having allowed some laziness beside the fire. However,
important developments straight from the president’s lips needed to
be conveyed and deliberated upon. Of that, Bracus felt sure.

Stephen rose, placing the flat of
his palm upon the small of his back, arching and stretching as a cat.

Matthew gave his taunt stomach a
glancing blow and Stephen crouched, at the ready. “See how you
tarry?”

Stephen jabbed him back in the
vulnerable solar-plexus.

“Guards!” Bracus hissed and they
looked at him. “Now is not the time to seek romance with each
other.” They glowered at him. No matter, there would be time enough
for sparring when the female was within the safety of the clan. Until
such time, he wished for the Band to be ever vigilant.

Stephen gave up and trudged to his
post, not easily seen by the fire. No matter, there was a fence made
from the towering trees which ran the length of the clan’s primary
compound and was not easily transgressed. Bracus, for one, enjoyed
running the perimeter. He told himself he liked the exercise to
remain in top shape for warring amongst other clans and the dreaded
fragment
. The truth was that he wished to secure the clan’s
perimeter each day. He never ran at the same time, wishing no one
mindful of his routines.

Bracus had changed his mind,
choosing to take second shift. This would allow him time to be at the
sphere when dawn saw the new day. He would then creep toward the
sphere, stealthily, and look once more at the female. He needed to
calm his skin which itched with the wrongness of something he could
not name.

He approached Stephen. “I will
run, then return one hour past dawn.” They looked at the sky,
judging the time. Stephen nodded. That struck Bracus as odd. Stephen
was one to be vocal, always. But he had been unusually subdued this
night. Bracus prided himself on being acutely aware of his Band’s
mental state. It was critical, their lives had depended on it…
would always depend on it
. He
realized he may be letting his disquiet permeate his thought process
too deeply. He shook it away, moving toward the perimeter, his throat
slits relaxing in preparation for exertion.

CHAPTER 15

Clara slowly opened her eyes, or
should she say
eye
. As it was, the bruising underneath her
eyeball, exacerbated by her tears had swollen up from the underneath,
distorting her vision. Clara swung her legs around until they hovered
over the floor, dropping down and immediately she steadied herself as
her vision swam before her, streamers of color running out in
different directions. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
Finally, when she was steadier, she shuffled over to her looking
glass and gasped at what she saw there. Although the primary damage
had settled down a bit, the swelling below the eye and her lip made
it apparent that she had been struck,
badly.

There would be no attending the
fields this day. She could not suffer the questions, sympathetic
glances,
and
cool the tempers of those that wished to avenge
her.

Dawn bore its champagne light
through the sphere, the slightly obscure nature of it burnishing the
room softly so it glowed. Clara turned away from her pathetic
reflection and wandered again to the window that was actually the
sphere wall and pressed her body against it, her nightgown flowing
around her legs. She could just make out the stand of trees and had a
sudden wish that she could see the
savage
. Not the one that
looked like he wished her harm but the
other.

Sighing,
she looked at the Forest Outside and he appeared
.
Just as she remembered and her heart sped, the pulse fairly leaping
the prison of her throat. But she was unafraid. He gazed at her from
the stand of trees, then looking around him, he carefully set aside
his bow, arrow and quiver…he was disarming.

Bracus lay his weapons aside, as to
not intimidate the Princess. If he were attacked, in the open, at
dawn, his daggers would do very well.

His throat slits opened wide, taking
in the extra oxygen he needed as he sprinted the short distance
toward the sphere. He arrived and stopped before the Princess, her
face he could see as through dark water, shimmering and slightly
obscure, the material of the dome a milky cloak.

Clara stood stock still, her pulse
hammered and her hands grew damp, a fine tremor taking up residence
as she watched that muscular form and long legs eat up the distance
between them. He was a thing of beauty to watch in motion.

As before he stopped and she saw his
face change in expression from fierceness to rage and she stepped
away from the window, her hand to her throat, what had angered him so
mightily? She had done nothing.

What Bracus saw caused his heart to
stutter in his chest. She had been beaten. A black rage, the likes of
which he had never known washed over him, making the blood rush
through his body and roar in his ears, he tipped his head back and
shouted to the heavens, his concern over circumspection forgotten in
the face of her injuries. Who could have dared touch her in this way?

He would kill them he vowed, as sure
as he stood before her.

Clara jumped when Bracus shouted his
rage.

He approached again, his face edged
with hard anger and beckoned for her to come closer. She shook her
head.

Bracus could taste her fear, it
wafted out to him on the wind. He looked more closely at the one eye
he could see, the other almost completely shut from the blow she had
suffered. Her beautiful lips, full and ripe when he’d last laid eyes
on her, now were distended and bloodied. He felt his hands curl into
fists. But he restrained his expression. He knew that this trauma she
had suffered would make her uneasy with his show of emotion. Instead,
he indicated he had no weapons then pointed to the area of her face
that was injured, throwing his hands wide he gave the universal
gesture for,
who
? Then
he leaned forward, his face almost pressed to the sphere and mouthed,
“who did this to you?”

Clara would have been a fool to not
understand that he wished to know what had happened. Her fear began
to slide away. He was not the enemy her People thought them to be.
For all his fierceness and huge stature, he was not intrinsically
evil. Clara opened her mouth to speak and Charles walked in the room.

Bracus’ head snapped to attention as
a young male entered the Princess’s room, and he growled low in his
throat. Was this the male that had hurt her?

Charles
came into Clara’s chamber and immediately spied the
savage
outside her window. What in the bloody hell? He ran to her.

Clara
felt herself being lifted from behind and shrieked, the memories of
the night before fresh. She bucked and fought, fighting for all she
was
worth, the
savage’s
roar of rage ringing in
her ears. She could feel herself hyperventilating. Please, dear
Guardian, I do not wish to be beaten, Clara all but sobbed.

“It is I Clara! It is Charles, be
still, it is I!” Charles shouted.

But it was no use, Clara was a still
bundle in his arms.

She had fainted.

Bracus looked at the scene before
him, the male held the Princess with tenderness, belying how she had
fought him. The male looked up at Bracus and he looked back with dark
intent, he would kill the one that had done this.

Bracus had seen how the poor female
tried to fight him off. And now she lay still and vulnerable in his
arms. Every protective instinct he harbored screamed to be released,
his hands as evil hammers of abuse at his side. There would be
another day that he would exact his revenge. Three weeks hence was
too long to wait for acquisition, the need to rescue her was now.