WindSeeker (4 page)

from the ravages of winter. Rose bushes and hydrangeas shrubs were denuded of their blooms, sitting

like widows at a dance. There was a smell of rotting leaves, dried earth, mildew, and snow about the high

walls surrounding the garden. A pathway spiraled down to the massive wrought-iron seagate that stitched

together the flagstones at the garden’s end. Snowdrifts, dry leaves, and an occasional fallen limb covered

the path.

Overhead, the moon sailed through a dark gray mist of snow and sweeping cloud. Very little light lit the

garden, but every now and then, a moonbeam, freed of its prison of ice crystals, would shine on the far

end of the garden where two benches faced one another.

Liza was sitting on one of the benches, her thick woolen cape wrapped protectively around her. She sat

so still, her face upturned to pay close attention to the voice that spoke from the darker confines under a

spreading oak. Conar heard Liza’s whisper and the gentle sigh of the other voice answering, then saw

Liza bury her face in her hands.

"Am I lost, then?" Liza sobbed.

Alarm racing along his soul, Conar eased himself around the vacant bushes, under a low-hanging sweep

of willow, and slipped silently to an oak nestled closest to the one from where the strange voice was

coming. Placing his hand on the rough bark, he cautiously peered around the trunk to see who the visitor

was.

The breath caught in his throat. He blinked. Blinked again and stared. He could not credit what he was

seeing. Though he heard his wife’s soft whimper of sadness, his full attention was on the woman who

stood before her.

He loved Liza and thought her the most beautiful woman in the world, but the woman who stood talking

to Liza was beyond compare. Her beauty outshone Liza’s by a full measure even, though she was

obviously older. A haze surrounded her, a wavering mist of ice blue light that shone on the snow at her

feet and lit her face in an eerie glow. Her face also shone with an inner light, breathtaking to behold. It

was her face that held Conar riveted for it was, by far, the most exquisite face he had ever seen.

The mystery woman’s eyes were dark. Brown, black, Conar couldn’t tell from his distance, but they

were slightly tilted and he thought of his Uncle Tran, the Emperor of Chrystallus, whose eyes were tilted

in a like fashion. Her swan-like neck was long and delicate. The shoulders above the neckline of the

lavender gown swirling about her in the blowing snow seemed to draw his gaze to her full bosom and slim

waist. One fragile-looking hand reached out in supplication to Liza; Conar followed the slender curve of

her arm as she let her hand rest on Liza’s shoulder. She shook her head in answer to Liza’s whispered

question and Conar could not stop staring at the lush beauty of her dark hair.

Black as midnight, parted in the middle, hanging down her waist to the bend of her knees, the woman’s

hair was shining and radiant in the hesitant glow of a moonbeam that seemed to momentarily float down

to her. As she moved, the silken tresses floated about her face, framing the soft oval shape and calling

Conar’s attention to her slightly upturned nose and delicate cheekbones.

Her lips were full and a deep scarlet red. They glistened as she wet them with the flick of a small pink

tongue and Conar found himself shivering.

When she spoke, her voice somewhat louder than before, he closed his eyes and listened, for her voice

was soft and sultry, low and inviting, and it made him tingle. When she spoke, he could hear waves

breaking on some alien seashore, the wind soughing in strange, oddly shaped trees. He grew oblivious to

everything else around him, even the lovely woman who was his wife.

It made him desperately want what he knew he should not. What he thought never to want again: the

conquest and subjugation of a strange woman’s body by his own. He ached from the need to possess

her.

"I love my husband dearly," Liza said. "He is my life. Without him, I am nothing. I would not want to

live."

"Nothing lasts forever, Daughter," the woman replied in a chiding voice. "That which we treasure more

than we should, we risk losing to the gods’ displeasure."

"But our Joining was sanctioned by the gods. Why would They wish to tear us apart?"

"Have I said that was Their wish?"

"But you said—"

"I have told you your love will be tested. His will be tested even more."

Tested how? Conar thought. In what way?

"And his strength will be gauged by the gods, Themselves," the woman prophesied. "His eagerness in

wishing to possess you, to protect you, to keep you at his side, will be challenged."

"I will not let anyone, god or otherwise, take Conar McGregor away from me!" Liza shouted, her fists

clenched at her sides. "He is mine!"

"You are his keeper, Daughter, not his owner."

"Aye, and as such, no one but me has the right to him!"

"It has been written that the Prince of the Wind will belong only to the woman who will prove herself to

be the most worthy of him. That may be you or it may be a woman he has yet to meet. You, Anya

Elizabeth, may not be Serenia’s pride, after all!"

"I will slit the throat of any woman who tries to take my man away from me!" Liza vowed, angrily

swiping at the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I will gut her then feed her rotting carcass to the

werebeasts who prowl the hills of Diabolusia!"

Conar shuddered, knowing his wife fully capable of doing precisely what she threatened. Her hand on a

crossbow rivaled his own. She might even be as good with the deadly weapon as Chase Montyne of

Ionary, the best archer in the Seven Kingdoms, if not the world.

Suddenly feeling the cold intensely on his bare flesh, between his toes, and along his naked shoulders, he

turned to go back inside, but the sweet, electric voice of his wife’s companion cut through him like a

red-hot dagger and riveted him where he stood.

"Then heed what I tell you, my Daughter. Pay close attention, for I may say it only once: Time will tick

away the hours ’ere this thing is done. Hearts will break and hearts will mend, ’ere love again will come.

The answers you seek to find this night are hidden all too well; for before you journey once more through

light, you must first make journeys through hell. The loyalty will never be fully taken, of that I can promise

you true; but ’twill not be ever yours, I fear. Beware the Spinner’s brew!"

Conar heard Liza’s muffled gasp of sorrow and it tore his attention from the gorgeous woman who had

captured his sexual desire. Liza’s head was bent; her sagging shoulders so painful for him to see. He

would have gone to her, but her words stopped him.

"Will I lose him, then?" she asked, her face stricken with agony. "Will she take Conar from me?"

"Not in the way you mean, but he will not be yours forever."

Conar’s heart skipped a beat. He would be Liza’s until the day he died, and, if there was indeed a

heaven, even after his dying breath. He opened his mouth to protest, but Liza stood and ran down the

flagstone path and through the double doors, her muffled sobs boring into his soul. He turned, crouched

under one branch, and meant to follow, but he heard the woman’s sighing voice and he stopped, turning

to find her only an arm’s length away.

"I will speak with you, Conar McGregor," she whispered, her gaze going down his body in a full sweep

of dark, thick lashes. A slight smile touched her sensuous lips. She flicked out her tongue to moisten her

lips and a trill of laughter came from her beautiful mouth when she heard him suck in his breath at her

open invitation.

"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

"You," she stated, her eyes flaring. "And I will have you."

Conar gaped at her. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You are all I knew you would be, McGregor. A man worthy of my affections."

Conar felt a tightening in his breeches and backed away from her. Never had he felt such a strong urge

to throw himself on a woman and ravish her. Never had he known the intense desire to rend and tear and

hurt. To conquer. It was a feeling he didn’t like and one he wasn’t sure he could control. He took

another step back, away from the threat she posed and the growing urge within him to mate with her on

the cold, frigid ground.

"Who are you?" he whispered with fear in his voice.

She looked at him with eyes as ancient as evil itself. Her body moved slowly, gently, to the keening

moan of winter wind. He felt his pulse quicken, his breath catch in his throat, as she smiled. Her smile

was predatory, an invitation to things dark and unnatural, to barbaric practices that had long ago been

outlawed, to pain and pleasure all rolled into one. Her smile was like nothing he had ever seen, and it tore

him apart inside, for it was—alive with a soul—dark as it probably was.

"Who are you?" repeated, his voice low and fearful. "What do you want?"

Her lilting laugh was evil, filled with promise and threat and challenge. She turned her head to one side

and her lips formed a petulant pout.

"Who do you wish for me to be, Conar McGregor?" she asked in her throaty whisper. "What would you

have me want from you? I can be whatever you desire, Sweeting."

He backed still further away and shook his head. "I don’t know you and I don’t want to."

Her lips stretched wide and again she laughed. "How can you be sure?"

"How did you get in here?" he asked, his heart thundering in his chest. He looked around, more for a

route of escape than anything else. There was a need inside him to get away from this woman, if, indeed,

that was what she was. By the look of her, by the looks she was giving him, he wasn’t sure the exquisite

being before him was human.

"I was called. I came."

Her answer riveted him to where he stood on the frozen flagstones. "By whom?"

"By the one you call
love
." The mysterious stranger lifted her hand and slowly clenched her fist, smiling

evilly at him the whole time.

"God!" Conar gasped as his groin tightened to a painful throb. He could actually feel her fingers on him,

although she was a good ten feet away. His eyes opened wide. "What
are
you?" He groaned, feeling that

alien hand caressing him as intimately as his wife had done only a few hours before.

A laugh as gentle as the tinkle of crystal bells chimed over the garden. She looked hard at his full lips.

Again, her tongue licked her lips and she smiled as his attention locked on the wet flesh of her mouth. "I

have told you. Whatever you want me to be."

"I want nothing from you!" He sucked in his breath as spectral nails raked gently over his testicles. He

stumbled as he took another step back, his hands going down to protect himself from her supernatural

touch.

Her lips puckered in a pout. "Oh, but you do, sweet one." She put up her hand and traced the outline of

her lips with one finger, circling the red flesh.

He felt soft flesh encompassing his rigid manhood, a sweet, velvet tongue circling the swollen head.

"Leave me alone!" he gasped, edging away from her. "Please!"

"And leave you to suffer, Milord? I would never do that." Her laugh was taunting.

She wet her lips with her tongue once again, lowered her scrutiny to his crotch, and then lifted her gaze

to his lips before she slipped her pink tongue inside her mouth. "You seem worried, Conar. Do you

doubt your loyalty to your woman?"

He felt the ghostly mouth release him and he staggered, both relieved and disappointed. He shook his

head, moving away. He stumbled against a tree root protruding from the frozen ground and almost fell.

He put up a hand to keep her at bay. "I want you to leave. Now." His voice was thick with some fierce

emotion he could not understand. "Keep away from me."

"You want no such thing, Conar. You would like nothing better than to have me stay."

"I want you gone." He could feel his groin throbbing with desire and he whimpered, not understanding

what was happening. How could he feel this way? What was she doing to him?

The woman’s lips stretched into the most seductive invitation he had ever seen. The dark eyes blazed

with an inner fire that seemed to melt the snow around them and he felt sweat forming on his face. "What

you want, I can give you. Let me give you what you want, McGregor." She ran her hands down the sleek

sides of her gown, brought them up to cup the ripe fullness of her breasts. Her hands swirled over the

bodice, lifting, separating, and squeezing together the firm mounds. "Would you not like to touch me,

Conar?"

"No!" His expression of denial was loud and fearful, but he also knew passion, unholy and relentless,

blazed over his sweating face.

"Oh, but you would. I can see the need in you, sweet Prince. I can smell the need seeping from you."

Conar groaned, feeling his manhood leap at her words, his juices oozing from the swollen tip. What

manner of woman was she that even her mere words, spoken in such a way, could make him hot with a

need he dare not quench? A need he wanted more than anything this side of paradise to resist? A need

darker than any he had ever experienced?

"Touch me, Conar," she commanded. "Put your hands on my flesh." She took a few steps closer,

encouraged when he did not move away. "Put your hands on flesh that is warm and firm. Run your

fingers over my nipples; dip them into the very essence of me."