WindBeliever (24 page)

He lay back on the bed, his legs crooked over the edge and put the heels of his hands over his eyes.

Was it the loneliness that was causing him to act like a teenage boy rutting after his first wench?

He didn’t think so. In his youth he’d been a randy fellow, but he’d never chased a woman who appeared unwilling. There were too many more than willing to tumble with him in the WINDBELIEVER

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nearest hay mound.

He bent his knees and brought his legs up on the bed, putting his feet flat on the silken coverlet.

Was it because Catherine was giving him a run for his money that he was so intrigued with her? No woman had ever done that before, not even Liza. Oh, she’d run away from him now and again, but she always came back. She never treated him as Catherine did, as though he didn’t exist.

Was that why he was so enamored of her?

“Not enamored, Conar,” that wicked inner voice whispered to him. “You’re in love with Catherine Steffenovitch.”

He let his hands fall to either side of his head and stared up at the canopy.

Was he really? Did he truly love the woman?

How could he? It hadn’t been that long ago that Liza was with him. It would be wrong to fall in love again so quickly. If ever.

“Liza’s dead, Conar.” The reminder was like a quarrel burying itself in his heart. “But you’re alive.”

“Am I?” he asked out loud, his voice unsure. “Am I really in love with you, Cat?”

The truth was not so easy for him to accept. He had loved Liza, still loved her, with such a mindless devotion, it was hard to imagine ever falling that hard for someone else ever again, that kind of love came along only once in a lifetime.

“Bury it, Conar,” the voice advised him. “Bury that great love alongside Liza and get on with your life.”

He didn’t know if he could, didn’t know if he wanted to.

He turned over to his side, his knees drawn up close to his chest and pulled one of the pillows to him. He clutched his arms around the softness of the pillow and laid his cheek against its silky coolness.

“Would Liza want you to grieve for her for the rest of your life?” he asked himself.

He pressed his face into the softness of the pillow. His voice was muffled.

“I love her,” he said. “Alel, help me, but I love the fat cow.”

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Prince Sajin Ben-Alkazar shook his head at the elder Steffensberg brother.

“The Raven, Peter? You brought me here to challenge the Raven?”

Peter glanced at his brother and then looked back at Sajin. There was a tight grimace of shame on the young man’s face.

“You’re the only one I knew who might be able to beat him in a fair fight.”

Sajin snorted. “No holds barred does not constitute ‘fair’, my friend.”

“Ah,” Mikel put in, drawing Sajin’s attention. “CAN you take him?”

Sajin shrugged. “I don’t know. That depends.”

Peter glanced at Mikel. “On what?”

“On just how bad he wants to win.”

The two Outer Kingdom brothers watched as the Kensetti Prince plopped down on his bed and hung his head. They looked uneasily at one another then back to Ben-Alkazar.

“How much do you two know about this man?” he asked them. When they young men didn’t answer, Sajin lifted his head and stared at them. “Not much, huh?”

Peter blushed. “Father has told us he was in prison for a crime he did not commit.”

“That he led a victorious rebellion in his homeland to rid his people of the Domination,”

Mikel answered.

Sajin sighed. “What of his wife?”

Both young men winced, but it was Mikel’s whisper that told Sajin the two knew precious little about the man they were trying to wed their sister to.

“He’s

married?”

Sajin shook his head. “No, not anymore. The lady’s dead.”

There was an audible sigh of relief from both Steffensberg males.

“But she was the love of his life,” Sajin explained. “It is said he nearly died to keep her safe from the Tribunal’s greedy hands. When he came back from the Labyrinth ....”

“That was the prison he was interned in?”

Sajin nodded. “When he came back, he found his wife married to another man. The Tribunal had annulled McGregor’s marriage to punish him.” The Kensetti Prince looked away from his companions. “I am told that nearly destroyed him, for the one she had been joined to was his own brother.”

Mikel whistled. “That must have put a chasm between the two men.”

“It did and it has only been recently that there has been a bridge built over that chasm.” He turned to look at the young men. “McGregor is not known for forgiving his enemies. He is a hard man to make do what you want if he isn’t of a mind to do it.”

“What you’re telling us is that Conar McGregor is a vindictive man,” Peter clarified.

“I think so,” Sajin answered. “He fights to the finish all he does.”

“He’s good on the tourney field,” Mikel told the Kensetti. “He boasts he can take on four men at a time and win.”

“He’s a legend in his own mind,” Sajin quipped. At the other men’s laughter he held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong. The man is good. He’s sharp, I’ll give him that. I’ve heard true tales of his exploits that would curl your hair.”

“Knowing what you do of him, do you think he would make our sister a good husband?”

“He has a reputation for being violent,” Mikel said uneasily.

“Reputations are usually earned, my young friend,” Sajin acknowledged. “He’s a dangerous WINDBELIEVER

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man, or didn’t you know that?”

“But would he be good to Catherine?” Peter pressed again.

Sajin let out a long breath. “Yes.” He thought about it for a moment. “Yes, he’d do everything in his power to make her happy.”

“How do you know that?” Mikel asked.

“You saw how he was tonight,” Sajin answered. “Did he look like a man who was immune to her?”

Peter laughed. “He looked like a man consumed by jealousy to me.”

Sajin looked hard at the young man. “And he’s afraid.”

Mikel stared at him. “Afraid? Afraid of what?”

“Afraid that I’ll take your sister away from him.”

“He doesn’t have her, yet,” Peter reminded his friend.

The Kensetti laughed. “You’d be hard pressed to convince HIM that he doesn’t!”

“Will you do it, Sajin?” Peter asked. “Will you fight for her?”

“Answer me this, Peter. What if I court your sister and she decides she’d rather have me than him? What then?”

“Then I would be just as pleased to see you as the keeper of her heart as I would to see Conar have that privilege.”

“Maybe even more,” Mikel announced.

The Kensetti Prince turned his head and looked at the Outer Kingdom youth. “I’ve never liked arrogance. And I’m not all that terribly fond of men who think all they need do is reach out to get what they want, expecting it to be laid in their hands.”

“Then you’ll fight for our sister?” Peter asked.

“Yes, I believe I will.”

“To put Conar in his place?” Mikel laughed.

Sajin laughed. “He’s been put there many times, my young friend, but he doesn’t remain for long.” He shrugged. “If I am to win, I will have to defeat him at his own game and the physical side will not be the true contest between him and me.”

“But can you take him?” Mikel asked again.

“Possibly, but it won’t be easy and it won’t be pretty.”

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Mikel whistled even as his brother, Peter winced. Catherine stared with open mouth wonder and flinched as a meaty fist jabbed home and split the flesh over a taut cheekbone.

What the three Steffensberg siblings was seeing was something none of them thought could go on much longer, which had, in fact, gone on longer than any of them would have thought possible.

“Holy God!” Peter breathed as a spinning kick connected with an already-bloody jaw.

Mikel’s mouth dropped open. “How the hell can he keep standing after a hit like that?”

Catherine put her hand up to her mouth to keep the groan of dismay from erupting. She’d seen fights before, most between her two brothers, but never, never had she seen anything to equal the battle being waged between the two foreign Princes.

The fist came right at Conar’s nose, but he sidestepped, ducking away to come under Sajin’s reach to jab a hard right into the nomad’s midsection.

Sajin Ben-Alkazar felt as though he’d been kicked by a mule as the air rushed out of his bruised and battered lungs. He staggered under the mighty blow, but managed to grip his hands together and bring them down on the back of his opponent’s neck.

Conar’s teeth clicked together in his bloody mouth and he went to one knee on the training ground as the Kensetti warrior’s hands slammed into his neck. He lashed out, his fist driving into the other man’s groin. The grunt of surprise and pain brought a vengeful smile to the Serenian’s torn lips.

Sajin went down, arching over his battered manhood, gagging as the godawful pain in his nether regions reached up to spread through his gut.

“How can they stand this?” Catherine whispered. Her own face pale as she viewed the carnage.

Conar had one black eye. Sajin had two.

Conar’s cheekbone below his left eye was open and streaming blood. Sajin’s right brow was broken open and dripping blood.

Conar’s lips were torn and bleeding. Sajin’s were split and puffed up to twice their normal size.

Both men had deep purple bruises on their jaws and cuts all over their faces. Discolorations marked Sajin’s bare chest and belly. Conar’s shirt was torn at one shoulder and splattered with both his blood and the nomad’s. His and Sajin’s knuckles were scraped raw. Both of them were spitting blood, gagging on it, and there was dirt and grime and straw and only-God-knew-what-else plastered to their torsos and caked in their sweat-dampened hair.

“I think they’re done for,” Peter said.

Mikel shook his head. “I don’t know.” He would have bet money that last flying, spinning kick Sajin bestowed up side Conar’s head would have knocked the Outlander out cold, but all it seemed to do was make the man more intent on maiming the Kensetti warrior.

“Can’t you stop them, Peter?” Catherine asked, watching as the two weary men came weaving to their feet.

Peter stared as Conar balled his fist, drew it back and swung it blindly toward his enemy’s face. The roundhouse swing dropped the Serenian to the ground where he landed with a grunt of surprise.

Sajin stood there, weaving, his eyes clouded with the blood pouring down his forehead. He couldn’t see his opponent, but he knew the man was close by. He swung his head from side to WINDBELIEVER

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side looking for him, but he couldn’t see him. Finally, his vision doubling on him, he looked down and saw the Serenian on the ground.

“Schtandup,” he ordered. It came out in one word, slurred from between a throbbing jaw, aching teeth and swollen tongue.

“Go t’hell,” came the equally garbled reply.

Sajin nodded, wishing he hadn’t, and bent toward his enemy, intent on picking the man up and forcing him to go on with the fight. But when he leaned over, his eyes rolled up in his head and he sank forward with a thud to land nearly atop his opponent.

“Sonuffabish,” Conar yelped, his severely bruised ribs crying in protest at the heavy weight which glanced off them before the Kensetti rolled over to his back in the dirt. “Geddup,” he jabbed his hand toward the other man.

Sajin tried to swat the pestering hand away and groaned as his throbbing fingers encountered the back of Conar’s hand. He jerked his own hand back with a curse of agony. “‘Sbroken,” he grumbled, cradling his injured fingers.

“Good.”

Peter walked warily toward the two men, eying them as they lay in the dirt, their torn and bleeding faces, swollen eyes and multi-colored jaws evidence of the amount of damage that each had bestowed on the other. He winced at the massive destruction on their faces.

“Can you walk?” he asked as he leaned over them.

Conar opened his good eye and glared up at the young man. If there was something he didn’t think he’d ever be able to do again, it was to walk.

Sajin could feel the grating whish in his chest that foretold at least one broken rib aching to be bandaged. He didn’t think he could sit up, much less stand to walk.

Catherine came cautiously over to the two weary warriors and looked down at them with worry. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

“Shitno,” came Conar’s disgusted snort. “Luklikweare?”

Mikel grinned, amazed at the equality of the two abilities shown that morning. Fighting was his favorite pastime and men who could fight as well as these two, and
like
these two had fought, instilled in him a great respect and an awe that was breathtaking.

“Do you need stretchers?” he asked.

Sajin spat, his anger at the question giving him enough stamina to force himself over to his side so he could painfully push himself up to a semi-sitting position. He could feel, even if he couldn’t see, his opponent doing the same thing. Once in an upright condition, he gingerly turned his head and looked unseeingly toward the Serenian.

“Notbad,” he remarked.

“Yunether.” Conar craned his head back and looked up at Peter then slowly lifted his hand.

“Help.”

With a great deal of respect in his face, Peter took the proffered hand and gently helped the Serenian to a wobbly stand as his brother helped the Kensetti to his feet.

“If they go back to the palace looking like this, Father will have a cow,” Catherine prophesied.

“Haswun’nyou,” the Serenian chuckled, then stopped, gagging at the pain the laughter caused him.

Peter looked at his brother. “The training huts?”

Mikel nodded. “Without a doubt.” He carefully looped Sajin’s arm over his wide shoulder and braced the man against him. “Ready?”

WINDBELIEVER