“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.

  “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, 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.

  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 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.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  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 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.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  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.

 

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