WindBeliever (23 page)

“May I give you one word of caution, my friend?” Yuri inquired.

“Could I stop you?”

Yuri smiled. “You may not want to make Prince Sajin your friend, but I beg you not make an enemy of him. You were correct in your evaluation of him. He can be utterly ruthless when he goes after something he wants. Unlike you, he lets nothing stand in his way of getting it. Not a mighty Windwarrior or a recalcitrant female well past her time to be laid.”

Conar’s answer was angry, insulted. “I don’t want the bastard as a friend.”

Yuri watched his companion’s face very carefully. “Why? Because if the two of you were to become friends it would make it harder when he takes Cat away from you?”

The Serenian Prince flinched, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he moved away from the doorway into the drawing room where he and Yuri had been standing and walked purposefully over to place where Sajin Ben-Alkazar was heading--Catherine Steffenovitch’s side.

WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 105

WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 106

Conar sighed, turned over in the bed, sighed again, flipped angrily to his back and stared blindly up at the canopy above him. He sighed again, a heartfelt explosion of annoyance that made his lips purse tightly together in vexation.

“Kensetti gigolo,” he spat, his teeth clenched. He folded his arms over his naked chest and let out another long rush of breath.

He felt like getting up and finding the room, which the Steffenburg’s had allotted the nomad bastard, and beating his fist against it until the man opened it. What he wanted to do next made no sense to Conar at all, but the mere thought of it brought a slow, evil smile to his full lips.

“Put my fist right through your face, you cocky bastard,” he mumbled. His legs jerked beneath the silk covers and he was aware of a tightness in his gut that usually signaled an oncoming bout with typical McGregor male arrogance. He ignored it.

Lying there, his insides boiling with rage, he mentally chastised himself for having felt any kind of sympathy for the man from what he’d learned of the Kensetti’s childhood. So what if the bastard had been abused much as he, himself, had? Did it mean he had to like the man? Hell, no, it didn’t! Did it mean he had to forge a friendship with the bastard? When hell freezes over, he thought with a snort. Did it mean he even had to be nice to the poggy twerp? It certainly did not!

If anything, the man’s behavior after the meal warranted a firm set down and a broken jaw!

“Will you walk with me in the gardens, milady Cat?” Conar mimicked, his voice sugary and sneering in imitation of the way he heard the bastard ask Catherine to accompany him outside.

A snort of disgust shot from Conar’s rigid lips and he flipped over in the bed to lie on his side, glaring into the darkness of the room.

“It would be my honor, my most gracious milord,” the chit simpered, her eyelids fluttering up at the black-haired demon who claimed her slim fingers and brought them to his lips in a suave move that caused Conar to utter a rather vulgar expletive he wished he hadn’t.

The Kensetti Prince turned to look at him.

“Do you have a problem with me escorting Catherine into the gardens, Prince Conar?” the surly bastard asked in a voice thick with feigned innocence.

“You can take her to hell with you for all I care!” Conar found himself answering.

Despite the fact that he could have bitten his tongue off for the rude, childish answer and ignoring the fact that his face was flaming with embarrassment, Conar stood his ground, staring belligerently at the other man, until Prince Sajin had smiled slowly with complete understanding.

“So you wouldn’t mind me taking her back with me to my homeland, then, would you?” He turned and looked down at Catherine with a slow, gently smile. “Mayhaps as my bride?”

Conar hadn’t missed the quickly in drawn breath that rushed into Catherine’s lungs or the flutter of her free hand at her breast. Nor had he missed the coy little smile she bestowed upon the man beside her.

“If the bitch wants you warming her bed,” Conar found himself saying, unable to stop the hate from showing on his face or the fire from snapping in his eyes, “you’ll have to ask her. It’s nothing to me!”

Peter Steffensberg groaned. His brother, Mikel, simply chuckled. Thankfully, no others from Catherine’s family were close enough to the two men to have heard Conar’s caustic reply. There had been no one else to see the glare of dislike and warning flash through Sajin Ben-Alkazar’s sin-dark eyes.

“I would be very careful how you malign the lady’s name, Prince Conar.”

WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 107

“If you want to take exception to ...,” Conar began, more than willing to dowse the fire in those black orbs, but the Inner Kingdom bastard stepped away from Catherine and came nose to nose with him. The Kensetti Prince lowered his voice, so only the man to whom he spoke heard his next words.

“This is certainly no way to win her heart if that is your intent, McGregor.” He put a strong, warning finger in the middle of Conar’s chest. “I wanted it to be a fair fight between the two of us, but if you keep insisting on making a jackass of yourself, there won’t be any kind of a contest, now, will there?”

Conar’s eyes flared with indignation and he stared so hard at the man in front of him, the nomad should have dropped dead from sheer cutting rage.

“Why you ....”

“Careful, milord Conar,” the man chuckled. “I wouldn’t want to ruin the evening by having to whip your ass in front of Cat.”

He’d gone for him, Conar remembered now with self-disgust. Gone after the man with a balled fist and a curse of such vicious volume, Peter and Mikel instantly reacted by flinging themselves on Conar with all the strength in their slim bodies.

Despite his struggling, the two Steffensberg princes proved stronger than they looked and twice as nasty.

“You stop it!” Peter snarled, twisting Conar’s arm behind his back. “Father will have you expelled from the palace!”

“Let go of me!” He nearly wrenched his arm of out of its socket as he’d strained to get to the Kensetti, who was regarding him with a slightly pitying look. “Let go!”

“Sometimes I don’t think you’re quite sane!” he heard Catherine hiss at him. “Your temper is outrageous and your manners are deplorable.”

With all the unmitigated gall of a thieving gypsy, the nomad warrior extended his arm to Catherine and asked if she was ready for their stroll.

“I don’t think you need to hear any more, Catherine,” Sajin Ben-Alkazar said in a gentle voice. But Conar wasn’t finished yet and as his loud, strident voice shook the chandelier overhead, the nomad glanced around with anger.

“That’s right, Catherine!” Conar said, ignoring the look he was receiving from the woman’s companion. “I’m an Outlander with boorish manners and a hot-as-hell temper. And I’m warning you that one of these days, little girl, you’re going to feel the full extent of that temper, too!”

Conar could still hear himself shouting at the girl who looked back at him with astonishment as he struggled free of her brother’s hold and took a step toward her.

“I’d be very careful if I were you,” the nomad Prince himself warned, stepping between Conar and his objective.

“Well, you aren’t me!” Conar yelled in the man’s face.

“Thank God for that!” Catherine shouted. “The world isn’t ready for any more men the likes of you!”

“What the hell do you know about men?” Conar cringed at her callous remark.

“She knows a fool when she sees one,” the Kensetti quipped.

Sitting up in the bed, Conar flung the covers back and swung his feet over the side of the bed.

He was aching inside to go to the man’s room and start what was already being planned for the morning. Enduring the rest of the night’s timeless anticipation of what was to come was going to be a different kind of hell.

“You want a piece of me, Ben-Alkazar?” Conar heard his own shout again.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

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“Any time,” the nomad agreed in a calm, rational voice. “Any place.” He dragged his gaze down Conar with contempt. “Any body part.”

The Serenian saw pure scarlet rage cloud his vision. His furious challenge was hot and loaded with deadly intent. “Tomorrow morning. You name the weapon!”

“Now, wait a minute ...,” Peter interrupted. His face was creased with worry. “There’s no need to ....”

“Let them settle it,” the younger Steffensberg brother said quietly. “They want to, let them.”

Peter turned, horrified, to his brother. “Father will have our hides if we let them kill one another, Mikelovitch!”

“They can settle it with their fists as well as with a lethal weapon of some kind,” Mikel commented. “Can’t you, Sajin?”

The Kensetti silently nodded, his gaze fused with the angry sapphire gleam which cut between him and the Serenian Prince. “Fists will do nicely,” he’d agreed in a soft voice.

A slow smile stretched Conar’s lips and he could still feel that feral grin as he glared back at the nomad. “No holds barred?” His question been asked with a thick tawny brow lifted in defiance.

“No holds barred,” Sajin Ben-Alkazar conceded.

“This is ridiculous.” Catherine’s voice was shaky, a touch on the concerned side. “They could hurt one another.”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it, Conar?” Sajin asked. He hadn’t expected a reply from the Serenian and he didn’t receive one.

“I don’t want either of you hurt,” Catherine whispered, her hands twisting at her skirt.

The Kensetti had been watching his new enemy’s face very closely. “We’re not strangers to pain, are we, Conar?”

The answer was a burst of hate. “No.”

A thick black brow crooked toward Conar. “Sunrise? On the training field? Just the two of us?”

“Now, wait just a minute!” Peter tried to inject reason into the thing, but both men turned on him, their faces set and their mouths tight with irritation. It had been Conar who ended the conversation.

“This is between Ben-Alkazar and me. We’ll settle it between us without an audience.”

“Or anyone to stop the two of you from killing each other!” Catherine snapped. “Unless Peter and Mikel are there, I’ll see to it Father stops this whole thing from happening.”

“No, you won’t,” Sajin told her.

“And you won’t be there,” Conar put in.

“The devil I won’t!” Catherine pushed Sajin aside to come toe to toe with her Serenian nemesis. “My brother’s and I will be there to make sure the fight does not end up with one of you men being hanged for murder!”

He’d bent toward her, his nose almost against her own. He’d looked down into her pretty face, locking his gaze with hers.

“I would have thought seeing me hang would please you, Cat,” he growled at her, his voice thick and full of emotion. He’d been surprised when she’d violently shaken her head in denial.

“I don’t want to see either of you hurt or in the dock for this male stupidity.” She’d looked hard at him. “Despite what you think, Prince Conar, not every woman swoons at having men fight over her!”

Pushing himself up from the bed, Conar walked to the window and drew back the drape, WINDBELIEVER

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stared unblinkingly out into the moonlit night. In his mind, he could still see the look of hurt and then rage on Catherine’s lovely face when he’s spat back his answer at her.

“Who the hell said we were fighting over you? This is a man thing and it has nothing whatsoever to do with you!”

“Speak for yourself,” came the Kensetti’s quiet reply. “It has everything in the world to do with Cat where I’m concerned.”

The truth is often a hard pill to swallow and there in the darkness, his hand clenched into a fist on the drapery, Conar admitted that Sajin’s reason for fighting and his own were identical. It wasn’t so much the animosity the two men might feel toward one another, and truth be told, Conar hadn’t really felt any such emotion coming toward him from the nomad, it was the territorial rights which the two males would be fighting to gain.

The Kensetti made it as clear as he could that he had every intention of going after Catherine.

The fight between them wouldn’t change that and neither of them was about to back down from their positions. Whichever one of them won on the morrow would have a better chance at gaining the lady’s hand, the loser either her sympathy or her disgust.

“What have you done, Conar?” he sighed as he let go of the drape and walked back to his bed to slump down on the mattress. He hung his head. “The woman doesn’t even like you.”

And maybe that was the trouble, he thought with self-pity. The more she professed to dislike him, the more he strove to prove to her that she didn’t. The more insults she flung at him, the more he was determined to make her eat her words.

“But you’ve gone about gaining her in the wrong way!” he heard that stupid little inner voice chiding him.

His shoulders slumped. Yes, he thought grimly, he had gone about it in the wrong way.

Unkind remarks and insults were poor substitutes for words of love.

Love?

His head snapped up. Where the hell did that notion come from? Lifting a trembling hand, he plowed his fingers through his already-tousled hair.

Was it really love, he wondered, staring out across the room. Or was it just his loneliness that called out to him to soothe it? Was it just having been separated from the greatest love mankind had ever known that had forced him into thinking he needed someone to love him again?

He shook his head, pulled tightly on the golden hair in his fist.

He’d had such a hard time allowing himself to love, he remembered. There had been so many women in his life before Liza had come wandering into it. He’d lain down with more women than he could even remember, now. But he hadn’t loved any of them. Not even those who bore his children.

There had always been that nagging worry in the back of his mind, that whispering evil, that he would be hurt, rejected, betrayed by the woman. He hadn’t wanted the pain of having loved unwisely to break his heart. It had taken all of Liza’s unbelievable powers to break through the barrier he had erected around his heart. Without her unconditional love, he doubted if he would have ever known what it was to love so completely that he could lose himself in the loving.