Desire's Sirocco (19 page)

But there was an emptiness inside him that was not there when he had fallen asleep with his new bride at his side. A feeling of hopelessness and terrible loss was edging up his throat and he shouted for his assistant who was just outside the chamber door.

Manu was already on his feet at the scream of his master’s lady, his hand poised over the door latch. At the calling of his name, he rushed into the room, dagger in hand.

“Send men after my brother,” the Grand Master ordered. “I would alleviate my lady’s concerns.”

Bowing quickly, Manu left the room, shouting for others to join him.

Jameela was keening lowly, rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. She ignored her husband’s questing hand and barely responded as he pulled her down beside him, anchoring her cheek to his shoulder.

“I would feel it if he were in danger, milady,” he said though his voice was not as steady as he would have liked.

“I saw it,” Jameela whispered, her unblinking eyes staring into the shadows. “She was draining the blood from him.”

Hagan knew the legend of the Ordonese but like most everyone else discounted it as a boogeyman story passed down from grandfather to grandson to generate a healthy dislike of their border mates. At hearing Jameela’s words, he relaxed as much as his own unease would allow.

“Her?” he said. “Ah, Sweeting, that confirms for me it was but a dream. There are no female blood-drinkers among those heathens.”

“There is but one and she has our beloved in her vile clutches,” Jameela said.

Hagan tried to smile but his face felt as frozen as his useless legs. He stroked his wife’s hair and crooned to her, trying to erase the nightmare that had set her heart to thundering and her tears to falling down his naked shoulder.

Long into the sleepless night, both lay with eyes open; dread making them feel hollow inside. As dawn’s light crept through the slit in the silken drapes, the feeble rays fell on bloodshot eyes and pale, uneasy faces. When his assistant tapped lightly at the door, the Grand Master mumbled an order to enter.

Manu advanced only a short way into the room. His face was tight with concern for he had bad news to convey.

“My men?” Hagan asked quietly.

“I have tragic news to convey, Your Grace. We found none alive,” Manu reported. “Of Lord Dagan, there was no sign.”

“She took him with her,” Jameela said and swung her legs from the bed. Like an old woman, she retrieved her dressing gown, unaware and uncaring of her nakedness before her husband’s servant.

Looking at his master for explanation, Manu was alarmed to see the grief lurking in the Grand Master’s amber eyes.

“She fears for my brother’s immortal soul,” the Grand Master said and motioned Manu to lift him from the bed.

Hurrying to push the rolling chair forward, Manu quickly slid his strong arms under his master’s body and placed him in the chair. He covered the Grand Master’s nakedness with a blanket for it was Hagan Kiel’s habit to take a long, leisurely soak each morning so clothing would not be needed until after the bath. Today, however, was not to be as every day had been.

“Fetch my ceremonial robes and bring them to me immediately,” the Grand Master ordered. “Have Lord Qasim convene the Tribunal and tell him to make sure every Brother is there. Have Lord Alonso send word to our allies. We will need every warrior we can muster.”

“You mean to invade Ordo, Your Grace?” Manu questioned and winced as the realization of his effrontery hit him like a rock.

“I mean to get my brother back,” the Grand Master snarled.

“There will be no bringing him back from where he now dwells,” Jameela said from the far end of the room. She was standing at the window. “But I would have him here even though he is no longer amid the living.”

“Don’t say that!” the Grand Master shouted.

Jameela shrugged but made no comment. Her eyes were on the bright sunlight that was as much an enemy of the Ordonese as was the blade. She, too, had heard rumors of the evil practiced there but had considered them nothing more than fanciful tales. Her heart told her the tales had become reality.

“Tell Lord Alonso to assemble the warriors in the thousands; in the tens of thousands! We will need each and every one to combat this evil.”

Manu bowed in compliance and hurried from the room.

“You will need to have a special place built for him,” Jameela said, running her fingers along the bars that covered the windows. “A room in the heart of the keep where no sunlight can corrupt him.”

“They only come out at night,” the Grand Master muttered to himself. “They have power only then.”

Jameela nodded absently. “So the legends say but are you willing to accept that as fact, milord?”

Hagan Kiel frowned. “Why would it not be true?”

“Because they fight only at night does not mean they are incapable of walking in the light. Perhaps their power is greater at the rising of the moon but then again, perhaps that is a lie they tell to lull the unsuspecting.”

The Grand Master wheeled himself over to where she stood. “I remember hearing they can change shapes,” he said. “Do you think that could be true?”

Jameela put a hand to an ache throbbing at her right temple. “Anything could be true, milord. Once, when I was a child, I heard my father telling my brothers a wolf had been gutted outside Yrand. He said that when the farmer who gutted the wolf went to throw the carcass on the fire, the wolf changed into a man. The man jumped up and ran away.”

The Grand Master lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “Do you believe there is truth to the rumor that their victims will have such inhuman powers when they are reborn? And how are they reborn? What evil magic brings them back to life? What vile ceremony is performed?” He ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I would not like to think Dagan could…that he would…”

“Have a special place built for him,” Jameela said again. “I will take to that special place with him.”

Hagan Kiel stared up at her. “You would become one of the undead to be with my brother?”

“To be with the man I love more than my own life? Aye, I would,” she answered and turned away. She went into the bathing chamber and closed the door behind her.

Chapter Thirteen

Dagan was adrift on a blistering hot wind that skirled loudly in his ears. The stench of death filled his nostrils. Restlessly, his limbs moved of their own accord, his body a mass of itching from scalp to sole of foot. His throat was parched, his head throbbing with a violent pain that caused streaks of lightning to pulse behind his closed eyelids.

“Here,” Neith snapped to a waiting slave. “Bring more iced water and clean sheets.” She handed a bowl and cloth to the slave. “And prepare a goblet from the vessel I filled this morn. He will awake soon. His thirst will be great.”

Scurrying to do his mistress’ bidding, the slave cast a fearful glance to the man bound ankle and wrist to the iron bed upon which he lay and shuddered.

“He can not harm you, Adamnan,” Neith said with a snort. “At least not for awhile yet.”

“Jameela!” Dagan cried out in his semiconscious state. He tugged on his bonds, his head whipping from side to side.

Neith frowned sharply as she took a seat on the damp sheets becoming soaked with the warrior’s sweat. She narrowed her eyes, anger filling her cold heart. “Soon, it will be my name you call, Dagan Kiel,” she promised.

Adamnan rushed in, a chilled bowl of water in one hand and a tall golden goblet in the other. He bowed deeply and with his head lowered, offered what he carried to his mistress.

“Put the goblet on the table and leave us,” Neith commanded. She took the bowl, set in on the bed and took out the soft fleece cloth floating in the cold water. Wringing out the cloth, she bent forward to wipe the sweat from Dagan’s brow.

A groan of pleasure rattled from the warrior’s throat and he licked his lips.

“Soon, my beloved,” Neith promised, patting the parched lips of her captive. “Soon.”

She bathed his face and shoulders, ran the cloth over his chest and sides, re-wetting it in the water after each pass for Dagan Kiel was hot to the touch and his flesh an infused shade of red.

Dagan’s eyes fluttered open and he stared above him but Neith knew he was unaware of his surroundings, incapable of understanding anything other than the vast pain slowly building within him and the irritating rash that made him writhe.

“When you are stronger,” she said softly, dragging the cool cloth down his lower abdomen and over his naked thighs. “Khnum will insert the parasite into your back. The procedure is unlike any pain you will ever experience and to do so when you are weak as you are now, would not be good.”

Her gaze slid to the flesh between his thighs and she reached out to touch him, to hold the lifeless weight of his manhood in the palm of her hand. Using all her concentration, she made the staff stiffen and rise. Her eyebrows lifted as the warrior’s fleshy weapon thickened to a length and breadth that pleased her immensely.

Unable to resist the temptation, Neith flung the cloth away and stood. Her hands went to the soft shift covering her body and rent the fabric down the middle, laying bare her curvaceous body. Sweeping aside the bowl of water, she climbed on the bed and straddled the warrior’s hips.

“Lie still!” she ordered and Dagan Kiel ceased to thrash about though he continued to moan.

Arching her hips over the upraised member, Neith impaled herself upon the rigid length; her head thrown back, her eyes closed as the warrior’s weapon completely filled her sheath. A groan of satisfaction pushed from her throat as she felt the thick flesh pressing against the entrance to her womb. The pleasure-pain brought a spasm of delight and she leaned forward, her hands placed on Dagan’s cheeks.

Lost in an abyss of misery, Dagan did not feel the sorceress’ lips upon his mouth. He was not aware of her invading tongue dueling with his own. He had no way of knowing he was being ridden like a stallion, his flesh used. In that dark, brutal place that held him captive in its fiery claws, he was roasting like a pig in a pit. His face felt as though it were pressed close to a raging inferno and his body was a torment of prickling agony.

Neith was lost in a dark place of her own as she rocked her body upon his staff. The fire was building inside her, the lust spiraling higher than it ever had before. Such pleasure was invading her womanhood that she felt tears cascading down her cheeks. Her rhythmic motion became more frenzied, the grip of her vaginal muscles pulsing against the firm, unbending flesh impaling her. She ground against the warrior, twisting her body this way and that in an effort to relieve her own brand of itching. Her long hair whipped about her naked shoulders. Sweat ran between the upthrust peaks of her heavy breasts and formed a light film on her upper lip. She was lost in the moment, completely in thrall to the manly sword that had cleaved her nether lips.

“Dagan!” she shouted as the first wave of ripples seized her. She jammed her body down upon his staff and held herself there, her thighs pressed against his, feeling the pleasurable pain as it intensified the contractions that gripped, relaxed, gripped harder, relaxed, then gripped one final time with such force she threw back her head and screamed with the enjoyment of it.

Dagan grunted, as something slammed against his body, unaware it was the limp body of a beautiful woman who had gone where no female had before. So immersed in agony, feeling nothing but the pain and torment that riddled his fever-encased body, the weight pressing on him only added to his misery.

Neith laid atop her captive, warmed by his hot body, her nostrils quivering with his manly sweat, her lower half still connected to his.

“Relax, warrior,” she said though her command was only for that portion of Dagan Kiel’s body that was still as inflexible as an iron rod. She smiled and sighed contentedly when she felt his flesh soften and shrink within her.

It would be another day, perhaps two, she thought as she nuzzled her cheek against his slick shoulder, before he would be well enough to take to Khnum’s operatory. First, he must gain back the strength she had drawn from him and the only way to do that was to feed him.

She ran her fingers along the underside of his bound arm, reveling in the hard muscles that encased his arm. Sliding her hand beneath his limb, she plucked lightly at the wiry hairs on his forearm. Such an intimate thing soothed her and she cupped his arm and held it. Soon she was asleep, her body blanketing his, one raised knee pressed familiarly upon the juncture of his thighs.

* * * * *

Prince Sekhem paced the confines of his elegant chamber, grinding his teeth harder with each circuit. He was chaffing at the news that one of his spies had brought to him earlier and his fury had been vent upon both the spy as well as Sekhem’s surroundings. Such was the Ordeon warrior’s anger that half his chamber lay in ruins while the other half had been cast from its normal placement. Glass had been shattered, rich fabric torn to shreds, priceless paintings and artifacts many centuries old now ere nothing more than so much rubble upon which he mindlessly trod. The spy’s mutilated, drained body lay curled in the corner of the room, his broken neck twisted so savagely, the dead man—had he been able to see—would be looking upon his own back.

Cowering in the far corner by the open door, Lord Sepat stood trembling. He did not take his eyes from his prince and stood ready to flee the royal chambers if the need arose.